"Do not be silent on this historical occasion," he complained as they struggled to keep the hammocklike carrying sheet steady. "Say something immortal."
"How about Bismillahi Rrahmani Rrahim?" Walid offered.
"Yes. Yes. Good. Shout it."
"Bismillahi Rrahmani Rrahim!" Walid and Jalid shouted in unison.
"Stop!" Abu Ali-Kalbin said suddenly, his face going slack.
"What?" They looked at their leader in horror, fearing the worst.
Abu Al-Kalbin said nothing. He hurried back into the shattered tail of Air Force One, and Walid and Jalid hastily lowered their burden so they could hold their kaffiyehs closer to their nostrils as the unmistakable sounds of their leader in intestinal distress floated out.
When Abu Al-Kalbin finally rejoined them, he had only one thing to say.
"What is good for this miserable curse?"
"Rice," said Walid.
"Yes. Eat much rice," added Jalid.
"I hate rice," Abu Al-Kalbin said morosely.
Chapter 4
In the Peruvian hotel he had nicknamed "La Cucaracha Grande," Remo Williams sat stone-faced on a striped sofa, his dark eyes on the telephone as if willing it to ring.
"Tended water boils slowly," the Master of Sinanju called from his reed mat in front of the television set.
"And a watched pot never boils," Remo said morosely.
"That is an impossibility," Chiun squeaked.
"It's the American version."
"Americans are impossible. And why do you not call Emperor Smith again if you cannot wait?"
"Because I can't get through this frigging antiquated phone system," Remo said peevishly. "Smith should get my telegram any second now. He can get through to me. It's better than ending up on the line with Tibet, which is what happened last time. How the hell can these operators get Tibet when they can't connect to America?"
"Perhaps they are watching the famous American pot that never boils," Chiun sniffed.
Remo frowned. But his eyes were sunken with worry. He had been sent to Peru to head off a plot on the President's life. If Chiun had gotten Smith's message correctly-not a sure thing-then they had blown it. Or Smith had blown it. The President was dead. Remo wondered what Smith would say. No President had ever died on Smith's watch-not while he had Remo and Chiun working for him. Remo worried that Smith had suffered a heart attack. It was the only thing that could keep him from getting back to him.
Remo's eyes narrowed. He was actually concerned about Smith. He was barely speaking to the old SOB these days, the result of a complicated situation in which Remo had been "retired" to death row and nearly executed all over again as a result of a CURE operation that was triggered when Smith fell gravely ill.
It had been Smith who originally selected Remo, then a young Newark patrolman, to become the enforcement arm of CURE. Framed and sent to the electric chair for a murder he never committed, Remo had been revived with a new face and identity. A dead man. CURE's dead man. Placed in the hands of Chiun, the last Master of Sinanju-a legendary Korean house of assassins- Remo had developed into what he was now. A finely tuned human killing machine.
Remo had long ago gotten over Smith's manipulation of his destiny. But the recent near-brush with the electric chair had reopened old wounds.
Remo shook off the bad memories. He wondered what he would do with his life if Smith truly did die. He didn't know. He put the thought out of his mind. If the President had been assassinated, it would be up to him to assassinate the assassins.
It was an irony not lost to Remo Williams. CURE had originally been created by a young President who had later been assassinated after only one thousand days in office. Remo hadn't been part of CURE then. And Chiun, heir to the five-thousand-year-old tradition of Sinanju, sun source of the martial arts, then dwelt forgotten in North Korea. So much had changed since then. Remo was now an assassin-America's secret assassin-and he had grown proud of it.
The phone rang. Remo bounced out of the sofa as if a spring had burst through the colorful threadbare fabric.
He scooped up the receiver.
"Smitty?"
"Remo?" Dr. Harold W. Smith's lemony voice asked. "I received your telegram. I was just about to call you again."
"How bad is it?"
"Bad. Air Force One went down over the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains. A National Air Transport Safety go-team is en route by helicopter, along with Secret Service and FBI forensic teams." Smith paused. "We do not expect survivors."
Remo's voice was hoarse when he found it. "What do you want Chiun and me to do?"
"What have you learned down there?"
"The Maoist crazies claim they were approached by the Colombians, but the deal didn't go through. I wasted them anyway. I didn't agree with their voting habits. "
"Then the Colombians are our prime suspects," Smith said. "I am booking you on an Aero-Peru flight to Lima. Call me when you get there. I should have specific instructions for you by then."
"Right. What's happening in Washington?"
"Controlled chaos. The news is being suppressed until we have confirmation of fatalities. The Vice-President doesn't even know."
"The Vice-President," Remo said suddenly. "Oh, my God, I forgot all about him. What are they going to do? I hear he can't find a lit bulb in a dark room."
"Press exaggerations," Smith said flatly-but the worry in his voice was unmistakable.
"I read that he thinks there are canals on Mars, filled with water."
"Apocryphal. "
"His wife can't even spell."
"A slip of the pen."
"He collects anatomically explicit dolls."
"A souvenir ."
"He has the IQ of a geranium."
"He may also be our next President," Smith said flatly.