His whole face wrinkling now, the Master of Sinanju floated up to the animal's rear right leg. He bent to examine tire fleshy pad. Nancy noticed this and asked, "Looking for thorns, by chance?"
"I am seeking a toe."
"Why?"
"To see if this monstrosity has one."
"Well, it does. Several of them. Happy now?"
The Master of Sinanju straightened. He looked into Nancy's faintly humorous eyes.
"I will be as soon as the largest toe is removed and given to me."
"Are we back to that?"
"I have never left," snapped Chiun.
Outside the craft, a great roar went up. At first, it sounded like a cheer. But the sound went on and on and grew angry. Nancy didn't understand a word of it. But anger, she understood.
"I'd better see what that is," she said.
"It is the king, appearing before his subjects," said Chiun.
"You understand what they're saying?"
"No, I understand the sound that is made by subjects of a strong king."
"Sounds more like a lynching in progress, if you ask me," Remo said.
"That's why I'm looking into this," said Nancy. "Will you two watch Old Jack?"
"Fear not," said Chiun in a loud voice. "No harm will befall this noble animal while the Master of Sinanju is his protector."
"And I'll stick around in case Chiun gets carried away playing 'this little piggy,' " said Remo.
"Pah!" said Chiun.
Nancy rushed for the forward exit hatch.
Chapter 14
Skip King sat in the VIP row behind the podium at which the president of the Republic of Gondwanaland was shaking his thick-fingered fist at the growing crowd.
The crowd was shaking its fists back. Both sides looked angry, but who could tell? This was the Third World, where shaking fists might be the local equivalent of a Hitler salute, or merely wild applause. King had taken dozens of corporate seminars, where he was taught that in Great Britain tabling a proposal meant the opposite of what it did in the U.S., that the deeper you bowed to a Japanese counterpart the more respect you showed-and lost-and that when an Arab sheikh took your hand while walking, it didn't mean he had fallen in love with you. Necessarily.
King had taken a crash course in Gondwanalandian customs, but his mind had been so overloaded with the visions of what this project would do to his career he could hardly pay attention, never mind take actual notes. He knew he'd spend most of his time in the jungle, anyway. Who cared which side of the road people drove on?
So he sat listening to the back-and-forth shouting in an incomprehensible language and hoped against hope this was an example of enthusiastic support and not the first stages of rioting.
Placards and signs were going up now. King sat up in his wooden folding chair, between the sweating war minister and the sweltering cultural minister, both of whom looked like they had been submerged in a fryo-lator until brown, and craned to see them.
Some of the placards were in Swahili, but most were in crude, semiliterate English.
King saw one that read, KEEP AFRICAN BRONTOSAUR IN AFRICA.
Another proclaimed, ENDANGERED AFRICAN SPECIES ARE AFRICAN-NOT AMERICAN!
"Oh-oh, this could get real ugly real fast," said King, looking around. "Where the hell is that bossy blonde? Maybe a good look at her knockers will settle these clowns down."
At that point, President Oburu switched to English for the benefit of the Burger Triumph archival camera crew.
"In recognition of the hospitality of our poor nation to the people from the Burger Triumph company," the president was saying, "the Americans have agreed to set up Burger Triumph franchises in both our major cities. These wonderful franchises will be available through my first cousin, the minister of commerce."
King smiled. Maybe that would do it. People who ate monkey meat should be damn grateful for a taste of good old Americana microwaved and slapped between halves of a bleached-flour bun.
Instead, the crowd turned uglier.
"We do not want the white man's cheap meats!" they shouted.
"We want our Brontosaurus! It will bring Gondwanaland many tourist dollars!"
"Yes. We want our Brontosaur!"
The crowd took up the chant. The placards began to lift and dip in time with the angry refrain.
"We want our Brontosaur! We want our Brontosaur! Keep Brontosaurus in Gondwanaland!"
President Oburu turned away from the microphone and looked to King with the expression of a bulldog faced with an unclimbable fence.
"You wish to try?" he mouthed.
King got up. Straightening his tie, he strode purposefully up to the President of Gondwanaland and, keeping his distance from the microphone, made a show of shaking the president's big fat-with-gold-rings hand in both of his.
"I got it covered," King said confidently.
The president turned away, palming a sweaty wellfolded envelope crammed with U.S. dollars, and took his seat.
King addressed the microphone. He had taken endless Burger Triumph seminars in public speaking. He knew all the tricks. He raised both arms and waited for the shouting to die down. His arms got very tired and his face hurt from smiling.
But he wore them down. The dull roar soon settled into an angry muttering. And King lowered his arms and began speaking.
"People, don't think of this as a dead loss. Think of it as a net gain."
The angry mutter swelled.
"I mean, you're not losing a lumbering slow-witted dinosaur. You're gaining a fast-growing slice of the American dream. Burger Triumph fries are the best on the planet. Our nondairy shakes come in six different flavors. And we only use the finest Hungarian steer beef in our Bongo Burgers. Shipped directly to Port Chuma from Warsaw-or whatever the capital of Hungary is these days."