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was the sheik, and he ran everything. A year ago, . the brother went to the trouble of executing all of his male relatives to make sure nobody would try to take over the throne—all but Poopsie here, that is. Nobody thought this drooling fool could take over anything."
"Except you." .
She shrugged. "I can't take all the credit. Actually, it was my daddy's idea to have the sheik assassinated and put Poopsie in charge. But he was going to do things the American way, with American advisors and all. It would have given the United States an ally in the Middle East.
"Daddy was going to present his idea to the president, but fortunately he told me about it first. Once I showed him what we could do on our own, Daddy masterminded the rest of the plan. He was the one who picked up on Artemis and found out he was a killer. Daddy figured that a preacher who got off on murdering strangers could do a lot to set up an army, especially if that army had the complete approval of the American people."
"That's what the press conference was for," Remo said. "Artemis brainwashed the recruits at the four army bases for you, then you had them revolt and come to Vadassar."
"That's right," Randy giggled. "Now all those newsmen are telling millions of people that Fort Vadassar is a haven for poor, mistreated soldiers."
"Soldiers for Quat."
"They don't know that yet, of course. Vadassar is on file at the Pentagon as a regulation army base, even though the land belonged to me and Poopsie's money paid for the buildings. It was just a matter of changing records. By the time people find out that
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the soldiers at Vadassar aren't working for the American government, it'll be too late to do anything about it. My reports say that a thousand recruits a day are deserting their bases and joining the Vadassar forces. Even civilians are enlisting. By next month I'll have a hundred thousand soldiers ready to leap at my command."
"How does Daddy fit in?" Remo asked, sliding imperceptibly away from her.
"Daddy will see to it that Ouat gets more financial aid from America than India does. That, or we let loose the Vadassar army on the Texas countryside." She cackled with glee. "Can you see the implications of this!" she said breathlessly. "Never before has a foreign power occupied territory on the continental United States. Quat is going to become a world power. With American funds, we can even build our own atomic arsenal. We'll have Uncle Sam by both balls."
She tapped the brass staff on the palm of her hand. "Now you know." She walked closer to him, her steps deliberate. "This is the end, Remo. What a shame. You were so good in bed."
At her signal, a handfuj of uniformed guards burst in and rushed toward Remo. Through his blurred vision, they looked like a hundred, stampeding toward him with monkey faces and thousands of arms. They lifted him like a wave.
The poison was working at its peak. Remo's body felt like rubber, his senses chaotic. He was drifting through corridors and stairwells as though he were flying in slow motion, floating past the walls of stone and wood, the footfalls of the men who carried him as loud as thunder.
After what seemed like an eternity of aimless
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drifting, Remo's head banged against a cold, hard surface. The movement jarred the numbness from his brain and set it on fire. But he would accept the pain, because to feel pain was to know he was alive. Chiun had taught him that.
Chiun. Through his kaleidoscopic vision, Remo saw him, lying like a statue on the stone floor. He reached out his hand to touch him. The old man was cold.
"Chiun," Remo whispered unbelievingly. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be.
The anger that rose in him turned to hatred, and the hatred brought him to his feet. The hatred electrified his useless shoulder and forced his arm back and ahead, into the throat of one of the guards, as his left hand exploded into the skull of another. There was no pain, because the hatred was stronger than the pain. He kicked a third guard in the groin, sending him flying in a screaming heap. He held another by the hair as he bashed the guard's head into the stone floon.
Then Remo saw the brass staff swinging prettily through the air an inch from his face, and it was too late. Randy Nooner's face was twisted into an ugly mask, her teeth bared, as she brought the staff down. Remo ducked his head. It was all he could do.
And he thought sadly, as the pain of the blow registered and the blackness began to envelop him, that he had failed. He would never see Chiun again.
i
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Fourteen
He was flying.
It was all so familiar somehow—the rarified air, the tether . . . the tether. Ahead of him, a beast of gigantic dimensions glided gracefully on the wind.
He was back in his dream, the Dream of Death, and the dragon of the dream was carrying him away into eternal blackness.
A monumental force from the West will seek to destroy Shiva, the voice in the dream had told him. But now another voice spoke, high and reedy and absolute in its authority. Chiun's voice.
And it said, You are that force, Remo.
Remo stirred in his delerium. "Father," he said.
Silence. He called again. "Father. Father!" he shouted. "Come to me."
/ am with you now, the voice said gently. I am in your mind, where I may help you.
"How?"
Understand you this. You are Shiva, and only Shiva may destroy Shiva. No harm may come to you but by the wavering of your own will.
"We are poisoned, Father."
Your body can withstand the poison. But it can-
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not heal itself without your will. Go into your body and expel the poison from it. Deep within. I will help you, my son.
And Remo felt locking into his mind another force, very strong, very sure. It took him into the depths of his living, physical self, past his weakened muscles, through his organs, diseased by the poison in them. It carried him along the roadway of his bloodstream, cluttered with moving cells and on into the volatile neurons of his nervous system.
This was where the poison had come to rest, among the powerful nerve cells that spurred Remo's senses and reflexes to action. They lay numb and dormant now, their potent electrical charges reduced to fizzling, unconnected sparks. This was where the force brought Remo, and where the voice commanded him to heal himself.
Go within the poison. Eliminate it by your will.
Remo's body shuddered as the strength of Chiun's concentration flowed into his damaged nervous system. He focused on the source of Chiun's thoughts and joined it, and together their combined wills took on an awesome power. Inside the delicate system, translucent ooze seeped out of the sluggish cells into Remo's bloodstream. He gasped as it coursed through his veins, burning like acid. His muscles twitched in spasm from the shock.
The poison entered his heart, and Remo cried aloud with the pain, his unseeing eyes flying open, his fingers clutching empty air.
Father, the pain.
Ahead, the dragon soared to the chilly heights of the stratosphere with Remo following helplessly behind, jerking in agony from the pain.
He was cold. The sky became darker. He was