Keeping the gas pedal flat to the floor, Remo drove like mad for the Israel border. He prayed Nossur Aruch wasn't taking the scenic route to the Jewish State.
At speeds in excess of ninety miles per hour, they reached the border in less than fifteen minutes. The soldiers on the Lebanon side wished to detain them. Two foreign nationals driving in what was likely a stolen Lebanese truck cried out for arrest. Remo convinced them to look the other way by breaking all their noses. Faces gushing blood, they waved the two men through.
"Has Nossur Aruch been through here?" Remo asked on the other side as the young Israeli border guard checked his and Chiun's phony passports. The guard was all of eighteen years old.
"He passed through a few minutes ago," the soldier replied.
"Did you search his car?" Remo asked, shocked. He hoped Aruch hadn't ditched the neutrino bomb somewhere.
The soldier looked up, his face bland. "There were four vehicles in his motorcade. We let them all go without inspection."
"Are you nuts?" Remo asked. "The guy's a terrorist."
"We have standing orders from the new government. We are not to create an incident with him."
"What if I told you he plans to blow up your country?" Remo snapped.
"He would have to get in line," the soldier said, not even looking up. He handed back Remo's and Chiun's passports. "You may proceed."
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Remo muttered. As the soldier headed back to his shack, Remo stuck his head out the window. "You at least have any idea where he might have gone?" he called.
The soldier shrugged as he walked. "He has an office in Hebron. In the West Bank."
"You know where that is, Little Father?" Remo asked the Master of Sinanju.
"Yes," Chiun replied, bored.
Remo gunned the engine. As they sped past the guard shack, he yelled, "And if you see a mushroom cloud, I'd suggest you duck and cover."
They raced down the road into Israel.
BRYCE BABCOCK FELT like one of the precious crocodiles his department had released in a downtown Kansas City park back in '97. They'd been shot at, too.
Bullets zinged all around.
The Israeli soldiers fired relentlessly, unleashing efficient, controlled bursts from their Uzis. The PIO's return fire was sloppy and impassioned.
Bullets whizzed crazily in every direction above the interior secretary's head.
Babcock and Aruch had taken cover behind a pear-shaped boulder. Endless ricochets sang off the rock. Chunks of stone and clouds of pebbly dust pelted their heads and backs.
The PIO leader had deliberately not unholstered his side arm. If push came to shove and his side lost, he intended to claim that his men had gone trigger-happy at the sight of the Israeli soldiers. He could probably make it stick. The current government in Jerusalem had already signaled great willingness to accept every cock-and-bull story Aruch pitched at them.
Beside the PIO chairman, Bryce Babcock was shaking visibly.
"We can't stay this close to the bomb!" Babcock screamed over the gunfire, his fingers stuffed in his ears.
Uninterested, the Arab brushed dust from his kaffiyeh.
"Your colleague said it had a short range. This will be over soon. We are safe."
"No, we're not!" Babcock cried. "There could be a radiation-leakage problem before the bomb even goes off! It has a plutonium charge. If the shell gets pierced by a bullet while we're still in range, we could all end up with radiation poisoning!"
"I had not thought of that." Aruch frowned. "I suppose we could attempt escape."
To Bryce Babcock, sweeter words had never been spoken.
"How?" the interior secretary pleaded.
Aruch considered. "My car," he said finally. "It is closer than the trucks."
With saucering eyes, Babcock peeked around the side of the boulder. When he dropped back down beside Aruch, he was shaking his head violently.
"That's got to be a city block away," he said.
"An eighth of a mile. Perhaps a little less," Aruch said, reluctantly unholstering his handgun. As he was rising to a squat, Babcock grabbed his arm.
"We'll both be killed," the secretary whined.
Aruch's smile was thin. "Do you know how to drive?" he asked, cocking his automatic with calm assurance.
"Yes," Babcock admitted, momentarily confused.
"In that case, do not talk. Run."
With that, Nossur Aruch ran out from behind the rock. Keeping low, he raced for his big bulletproof car. Bullets screamed all around him.
Babcock gasped. He had no desire to follow, but he was more terrified of dying alone. Shaking in fear, he made an instant, albeit reluctant decision. Jumping out from behind the rock, he followed the terrorist at a gallop through the deadly cross fire.
REMO ASKED the first Arab they passed if he had seen Nossur Aruch. The scowl that appeared on the old man's face told Remo that he had.
"The traitor took the road to Nablus," the man snarled, spitting on the ground. It seemed to be a common Arab reaction to Aruch's name. "He thinks we do not know him in his bulletproof car."
The man was leading a rag-covered donkey down the lonely road. From his stolen truck, Remo observed silently that his style of dress and the beast of burden trailing behind him were a passport to another time. The man could have been transported to the same road two thousand years before and not attracted one second's worth of attention.
"Nablus. You know where that is?" Remo asked Chiun.
"Am I now a walking atlas?" the old Korean complained.
"Please, Chiun," Remo pressed.
The Master of Sinanju frowned. "Yes, I do," he admitted. "But I am getting you a globe for your next birthday."
"Beats pasting Stan Ronaldman's ratty wig in my scrapbook," Remo said. "And you're assuming any of us is having another birthday."
Tires spun, spitting clouds of dirt around the Arab and his donkey. With a desperate lurch, Remo launched the truck down the road.