"Hail Vadassar."
"Vadassar will be your master and your servant."
"Hail Vadassar."
Father McConnell looked up, puzzled, at Artemis's fiery eyes. What on earth was Vadassar?
"One day, my children, I will be gone from this world, but Vadassar shall remain to carry on my work through eternity. When I die, Vadassar will provide for you." Artemis held the cup before him at arm's length. "Therefore, this do in remembrance of me," he said, his eyes ceilingward. "With this Cup will you find Vadassar and serve it welL"
42
I
"This is madness," Father McConnell said, crossing himself. A soldier slapped his hands down.
The men formed a single une to approach Artemis and his chalice of murky liquid. One by one, they drank from it, and as they did, their eyes took on a vacant stare, their jaws sagged open, and they wandered aimlessly around the tent, not speaking, not focusing, mindlessly walking into one another like bumper cars.
"Behold the devil priest!" Artemis roared, pointing to the trembling Father McConnell at his feet.
The men formed a circle around him. "Out, demon, out," they chanted. Their voices were low. They inched forward menacingly. "Out, demon, out."
"This is the United States of America," McCon-nell pleaded. "You can't do this."
"Out, demon, out." The circle tightened.
"Come to your senses!"
"Out, demon, out." The white-robed woman with Artemis f ell to her knees. "Out, demon, out," she moaned, tearing her gossamer gown to her waist, exposing her fleshy breasts. Her nipples were pink and hard. She writhed on the floor at Artemis's feet, beside McConnell.
"She's picked up his spirit," Artemis yelled. "We have a true demon in our midst, spreading his evil filth to the prophetess Samantha."
Screams of outrage filled the night as the men closed in, zombielike, and the prophetess Samantha stripped, wriggling, to the buff. "Out, demon, out," she called breathlessly as she bucked and thrashed on the floor.
"As we do to you, priest, so shall we do to all who serve the oppressors of men," Artemis shrieked.
43
. Father McConnell closed his eyes and repeated the Pater-Noster for the last time.
With a heave, Artemis lifted the prophetess Sa-mantha out of the way as the recruits fell in a wave on the trembling form of Father Malcolm McConnell. When they were done, the priest was little more than a smear on the dirt floor of the tent.
"And whosoever here shall betray himself or others shall die," Artemis concluded in final warning against anyone present who might still be entertaining the notion of discussing the evening's activities with someone outside the holy order.
"Praise Artemis," the prophetess Samantha chanted weakly as the remanís of Father McConnell were being covered with sawdust.
"Praise Artemis!" the troops cheered, tossing paper money at their new god while Samantha, naked as a jaybird, blew them kisses.
"Wow, that was a hot one," Samantha murmured under the roar of the crowd.
"Shit," Artemis said. "I missed out on the action, as usual."
44
Four
"Oklahoma," the fatigued, lemony voice on the telephone said. "The chaplain from Wheeler was reported missing this morning. It must have happened last night."
Remo and Chiun were stopped at the gate by two sentries who looked as if they were experiencing the final stage of narcotics poisoning. "Where you going, man?" one of them asked, scratching his crotch.
"How about straight ahead?" Remo took out his wallet and rummaged inside for appropriate identification. The Department of Agriculture card would have sufficed, but the guard held out a shaky hand. "Wait, mister. You from the devil-worshipping socio-industrial-corporate oppressors?"
"What?"
"You from the—"
"Never mind," Remo said. "Whatever you said, we're not from there. My friend here's a student nurse. We've come to pick up a few pointers on ptomaine poisoning from the mess halL"
"Enter," the guard said.
45
Remo looked over his shoulder at the guards as he trotted inside. One was nodding off, his forehead resting against the barrel of his rifle. The other was staring fixedly at the sun. "Say, can either of you tell us the way to the administration building?"
The nodder snapped to with a lazy jerk of his head. "Uh," he said, trying vainly to retract his tongue into his face, "I think it's a white building. Mostess administration buildings be white. Always a white building when I go to get my food stamps or the welfare. Once, when they was gonna make me an administrator in the CETA program, they sent me to an administration building, and that one was white too. And when the judge tell me I gots join the army or gets twenty years, that be in a white building too. Yup, you just find yourself a white building. That be the administration building."
Remo glanced around.
"All the buildings are white," he said.
The guard roused himself enough to look around. A small furrow appeared between his eyes. "Lookie, lookie," he said, astonished. "Every last one of them. Hey, Wardell." He prodded his associate, who continued to gaze, unblinking, at the white Oklahoma sun. "Wardell, lookie here. All these buildings be white. Hey, Wardell." Wardell stared on.
"Thanks a lot," Remo said, as he and Chiun walked away toward the mass of white buildings clustered ahead.
"These are the fighting men Emperor Smith employs to defend your country?" Chiun asked.
"Yeah," Remo said.
"No wonder you lost against even the Vietnamese. The first recorded war victory in the long, lamentable history of those duck-romancers."
46
"Uh huh," Remo said. "Our army didn't lose Vietnam. The rest of the country gave up. Not the army. But that was the old army. This is the new army. These are all volunteers."
"This, then, is their chosen work?" Chiun asked.
" 'Fraid so, Chiun."