"I didn't expect to move this soon, but here we are."
"Ah can't go to Ah-ran. You know what they'll do to me if Ah'm taken prisoner."
"Don't get taken prisoner," Victoria Hoar said.
Reverend-General Eldon Sluggard turned red. "You been playin' me right along, ain't you? Like an old fiddle. "
"More like a saxophone. And you hit every note. Now, let me suggest you start practicing for when you hit the beach."
"When mah Cross Crusaders hit the beach, you mean."
"When they hit the beach under your charge. I didn't want to tell you before this, but remember when I said I'd figured out what had gone wrong the first time? That last Crusade didn't have a truly inspiring leader. This time, it will. You."
"No damn way."
"I'd put that silver-tongued voice of yours to work," Victoria Hoar went on, indifferent to Reverend-General Sluggard's rantings. "Because you're going to be the first to hit the beach, like it or not. And you'd better have a well-motivated force backing you up, or you're going to be out there all alone."
The thought settled onto Reverend-General Sluggard's beefy face.
"If Ah could swim . . ." he said gratingly.
"But you can't," returned Victoria Hoar, turning on her heel and stalking off.
"Bitch," called Reverend-General Eldon Sluggard. And this time he did not say it under his breath.
A mocking laugh floated back to him.
Chapter 23
General Adnan Mefki entered the Grand Ayatollah's private garden, his face set.
The Grand Ayatollah looked up from his raisin-sweetened tea and signed for the general to speak. The soft winds coming down off the Elburz Mountains sent the baskets of red roses rippling, filling the air with their perfumy sweetness.
"I have word that a delegation from the House of Sinanju desires an audience with your holiness."
"I know of no such place," the Grand Ayatollah said distantly.
"Sinanju is a village in North Korea, Imam, the seat of a powerful sect of assassins. They serviced the former shahs and before them, the caliphs of old Persia. I have known of this house all my life. Many believed them extinct."
"I will not treat with any emissary who consorted with the infidel shahs. Do not allow them to enter this country. "
"I am afraid it is too late. They are in Tehran. I do not know how. The ways of Sinanju are most mysterious. But they have sent word that they will be here within the hour and they expect an audience."
"And who are they to make demands of us?" asked the Grand Ayatollah.
The general paused, his expression dumbfounded. Although no Master of Sinanju had set foot in Iran in generations, some years ago the latest Master of Sinanju had done a kindness for the last shah. Sinanju could not be denied.
"They," the general said at last, as if it explained everything, "are Sinanju."
And in the distance, the melting ice of the Elburz Mountains cracked like a thunderclap.
The Master of Sinanju strolled down the center of Lalehzar Street. His carriage was straight. His face lifted proudly.
"See how the crowds part for us here?" Chiun said loftily. "The past service rendered by my ancestors has not been forgotten. "
"No offense, Little father," Remo said, "but I think it was those two Revolutionary Guards you dismembered back there that did the trick."
"Hoodlums," said Chiun. "Ruffians. Obviously uneducated, for they did not recognize me by sight."
"The border guards were the same way. Every checkpoint from here to Pakistan was full of them. Between the two of us, they're going to have to start a new recruitment drive to replenish the ranks. If you ask me, no one bothered to tell them about Sinanju's contributions to Persian culture."
"The rulers will be different. They will greet us with flowers and songs from the old days. Then we will lay Smith's cause before them and this matter will be swiftly settled. Perhaps we will offer as an added incentive to rid this worthy land of these uneducated ruffians."
"I think you'll have to depopulate Iran if you want to do that," said Remo, looking around warily. "And I don't see anything very worthy here. Look at all these destroyed buildings."
"No doubt the new leader is ridding his capital of these unsightly cereal-box buildings. I understand the new leader believes in the old ways."
"Yeah, in stagnation and economic ruin. This place is a dump. And from the looks of things, I'd say Iraq had more to do with the urban renewal than Iran."
"Iraq, too, was once a worthy place. Perhaps we shall visit it next. Ah," cooed Chiun. noticing a sidewalk vendor. "A melon seller. Come, come, Remo, I have waited all my life to break a good Persian melon with you."
"Should we?"
"We have plenty of time before the Sluggard's ship arrives, and our business with the Persian rulers will be swiftly completed."
Chiun floated over to the melon seller's stall. The rough-skinned melons were piled in old crates on the sidewalk. Chiun examined several of them critically, sometimes shaking them close to his ear.
"Find a good one?" Remo asked patiently.
"These are not ripe. It may be earlier in the season than I thought. Ah, here is a choice one. Pay the man, Remo."
Remo forked over an American twenty-dollar bill. He was not given change.
The Master of Sinanju grasped the melon in both hands. His long-nailed thumbs sank into the skin like hypodermics.
"Better not drop it," Remo cautioned. "That's a twenty-dollar melon."
Chiun separated his hands. With a soft splitting sound, the melon fell into exact halves into his hands. He offered Remo one.
Remo looked at the exposed yellow meat.
"It's all mushy inside," he complained.
"Spoiled." Chiun looked. And saw that it was so. Angrily he took the melon back to the proprietor. Remo watched as a heated exchange in Farsi ensued. It ended with Chiun going through all the melons, splitting them in half, and dropping them in the gutter, where they splashed in their overripeness. The melon seller was screaming and tearing at his hair.
When Chiun returned to Remo's side, he said, "Recover your money. He has no good melons."