"Yes, yes, yes." Aruch waved impatiently. Although he had heard the words, he had found them foolish and, consequently, had disregarded much of what was said. But now...
"What is the effective range of your bomb?"
"No one's really sure," Babcock admitted. "Could be a couple of hundred miles."
"This would be the same in all that area?" he asked, flapping an arm to the destroyed building.
"Yes," Babcock said, relieved that Aruch seemed to finally be getting the whole point of the peace bomb.
"So whoever gets weapons into this region of the world first will rule it," Nossur Aruch said. A wicked smile began to form within the graying stubble on his wrinkled face.
"Um-" Babcock began warily.
Aruch cut him off, a smile appearing in full bloom. "We need guns, bullets, explosives. And a radio. One that will have survived your peace bomb."
"None of them would have," Babcock insisted.
Aruch's response to this was a knowing smile. "I will need money," the PIO leader continued. He walked around Babcock to stand toe-to-toe with the President. "What do you think, old one? I am certain Iran would be interested in having you as a prize. Libya would also pay a handsome price. For that matter, a dozen countries in this region. Many more around the world. You will make me the last great monarch of all the Mideast."
He spoke it as a challenge.
The former President looked down at Nossur Aruch. His sun-creased face held an expression of bland contempt.
"Why is it that little fellas like you always have such big mouths?" he said in his soft-spoken, awshucks twang.
The PTO leader's smile vanished into his whiskers, replaced by a scowl. Wheeling to his men, he snapped a thumb to the President.
"Take him," he barked, at the same time marching for the gate at the rear of the courtyard. "His worthless hide is as good as gold. We ride this hour to my ancestral land. And to glory."
"I PAID GOOD MONEY for that camel," Remo groused.
"You should have watched it better."
"I think that bedouin ripped me off. Is there such a thing as a homing camel?"
Remo was trudging morosely beside the Master of Sinanju, who was seated grandly on the hump of his camel. Up ahead, leading the two of them through the streets of Hebron, was their captured PIO soldier.
"Do not complain to me because you cannot be trusted to care for pets," Chiun said. "You should have started with something smaller. Perhaps a hamster."
"Yuk it up," Remo muttered. "I'm glad one of us is having a good time."
Truth be told, despite the long walk beneath the hot sun and his own complaints to the contrary, Remo found that his mood, like Chiun's, was lighter than it had been of late.
After a miserable, self-indulgent three months, the Master of Sinanju seemed to finally be putting his movie deal behind him. This little jaunt around the world had turned the Korean back into his old self again, and in spite of all the kvetching and insults, Remo was happy to have him back. Of course, he kept his own mood masked, lest Chiun, sensing complacency in his pupil, revert to being the pain in the neck he'd been since last spring.
"I just hope the President is with Aruch after all this," Remo commented.
From the distance, they felt a sudden rumbling. It was a much smaller explosion, nowhere near as powerful as that from the neutrino bomb.
"What was that?" Remo asked as the aftershocks rolled away beneath their feet.
As if in reply, a thin finger of black smoke began to rise in the pale blue sky above the distant rooftops
"Whatever it is," the Master of Sinanju intoned, "it comes from the direction in which we are headed."
It took another fifteen minutes to wend their way through the maze of streets to the spot where the explosion had originated. When they got there, they found the pile of smoking debris that was all that remained of the West Bank offices of the PIO. "This was the headquarters?" Remo asked their Arab companion.
"It is the home of the Palestine Independence Organization," the guide replied.
"You think Aruch was inside?" Remo asked Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju had dismounted from his camel and was walking around the brick and mortar rubble with his pupil. He paused in the rear courtyard.
"No," Chiun said. He pointed at some footprints, recently made in the dusty earth. "Several men escaped injury. And look," he added, "the former occupant of the Eagle Throne was with them."
"The President?" Remo asked. "Are you sure?" Chiun gave him a baleful glare.
"Okay, so he went with him." Remo nodded reasonably. "Now we've got to figure out where they went."
"There is no figuring necessary," Chiun explained. "Aruchs are born of the desert. That is where he will return."
"How can you be so sure?"
Chiun folded his arms matter-of-factly. "A dog never tires of smelling the same mound of excrement," he replied.
"Since I'm lousy with pets, I'll have to take your word on that," Remo said. Surveying the damage, he exhaled in annoyance. "Well, if we're going into the desert, I'm not hoofing it."
"There is a stable nearby," the PIO guide offered hopefully.
This sounded good enough to Remo.
"Scrounge us up four horses and I'll consider letting you live," he said to the soldier.
Face brightening, the man spun, hurrying from the rubble-strewn courtyard.
"Let's hope the President can keep his mouth shut a little longer," Remo said to Chiun as they followed the man out to the street. "If he spills the beans this late in the game, Smitty'll have a stroke."
Chapter 33
A few hours of untroubled sleep at his desk had faded into a waking nightmare for Harold W. Smith. Remo and Chiun had failed to halt the detonation of the neutrino bomb. That much was painfully obvious.
The world had been turned on its ear following the events in the Middle East.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound came from Smith's computer. More raw data.