"I contacted several parties last night who I thought might be interested in purchasing the old devil," Aruch said, waving at the President. "Libya and Iran agreed to bid on him. But that beast in human form Khaddafi has decided to kill him without paying!"
Aruch again shook a fist at the empty sky. As if in response, another rocket soared in out of nowhere, this one exploding in the dense greenery behind Aruch's tent. The PIO leader threw himself to the ground once more. Dust and rock pelted his back.
When he got to his feet, he found his tent had collapsed. Fire tore across the dry fabric. A few feet away, Babcock had crawled fearfully behind a shattered tree trunk.
With rage-twisted fingers, Aruch grabbed for the President.
"Looks like you should be trading up for a better class of friend," the old man commented, his weather-hardened face curled into the suggestion of a smile.
"Shut up!" Aruch snapped. "We will be safe in my bunker. I will get a fair bounty for you one way or another, old one." He dragged the President to his feet.
They had not taken a single step before an amused glint appeared in the eyes of the former chief executive. He was looking away from the burning tent. Toward the edge of the oasis.
"It's about time you fellas showed up," he said softly.
The voice that responded to the former President was new. And most terrifying of all, the words spoken were in unaccented English.
"Don't you remember? We always time these things for optimum dramatic effect."
Aruch whirled.
Two strangers had entered the oasis. A young white and an old Asian. As they slipped silently forward, Aruch stepped back, grabbing hold of the exPresident.
"He's mine!" the PIO leader screamed. As backdrop to his frantic shout, a new sound exploded in the sky above them.
A squadron of eight F-5s appeared out of the east. As they tore overhead, Aruch recognized the green, white and red flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
A demonic look of glee appeared in the eyes of Nossur Aruch. Allies. Fellow Arabs to help him battle these two men and the treacherous Libyan planes.
"They are here for him!" Aruch cried victoriously. Grabbing the rope that bound the President's hands, he tugged the old man's wrists in the air.
"I will get my pay! I will not be denied my rightful throne as ruler of all the Middle East!"
Far above, the Iranian planes began to fire on the Libyan craft, chasing the first arrivals away. The moment the Mirage jets broke formation and tore away across the desert, the F-5s turned their attention back on the oasis.
Nossur Aruch felt exaltation right up until the point the first plane fired Maverick air-to-surface missiles into the cluster of flaming trees and brush.
Shocked, Aruch cowered from the blast. When he straightened up, he saw that Remo was walking toward him. The PIO leader reacted with surprising speed.
A hand dropped to his belt, ripping his familiar automatic free of its leather holster. In an instant, the gun was pressed up against the President's temple.
"Do not move!" Aruch ordered.
In spite of the danger to the man who at one time had been the most powerful leader on Earth, the younger intruder did something that surprised the PIO head.
Remo smiled.
"Sorry, pal," he said, still walking. "You lose." The leader of the Palestine Independence Organization had not expected his bluff would be called. But in a moment of shocking realization, he understood why this man hadn't stopped. His gun wouldn't work. It would have been rendered ineffective by the magnetizing wave of the neutrino bomb.
Desperate, Arach flung his gun away, grabbing at the knife in his waist scabbard.
He had only brushed the hilt when he felt a sharp stab of pain in his gut. The wind instantly whooshed from his lungs. When he doubled over, a knee crashed into his forehead. As he fell to the sand, Nossur Aruch saw the former President of the United States staggering over to the young white stranger.
Reaching out, Remo snapped the President's bonds.
"I think you might have picked the wrong line of work, Mr. President," he said, nodding approval.
"Which time?" the former President replied with a fatigued, boyish grin.
Nossur Aruch struggled to his feet. "You will not take him!" he shouted. "He is mine! I need him for arms! "
All at once, the PIO leader felt a gentle displacement of air. The old Asian was suddenly beside him. Aruch had not even seen him move.
"But you already have arms, foolish one," the Master of Sinanju explained in a squeaky singsong. Nossur Aruch felt a sudden wrenching sensation in his right shoulder. It was the worst pain the PIO leader had ever experienced in his life, as if a white-hot poker had been stabbed into the joint. And even as his shocked nervous system attempted to reconcile the horrid sensation with anything he had ever before experienced, the old terrorist's pain-flooded eyes detected something in front of his face.
It took a moment for Nossur Aruch to recognize his own right arm.
"You see?" Chiun said, waving the appendage before Aruch's horrified face. "And you are not only blessed with one, but two."
More pain. This time on the left.
Chiun held Aruch's other arm aloft. The white bone of the humerus jutted from the flesh. Muscle and tendons hung in ragged strips from the bloody end.
It was all too unreal. Reeling drunkenly, Aruch watched as the old Korean raised the inert arms high in the air.
With a violent snap, Chiun flipped the arms, now animated extensions of his own hands, toward each other. They swung around in two sweeping arcs, flat, lifeless palms eventually clapping with a terrific crack. However, in order for them to make such a sound, they had to first pass through the skull of Nossur Aruch.
The PIO leader's head exploded like a stompedon water balloon. Brains and blood burst out in squishy red lumps across his ancestral land.
When he was finished with the limbs, Chiun dropped them atop the PIO leader's twitching body. By now, there were more jets rending the sky above the oasis. Several more Libyan planes had joined the fray, replacing those that had fled. The rat-a-tat of autofire ripped across the warming sky. "We should make haste," Chiun suggested.
Remo nodded. "Get the President out of here. I'll be with you in a minute."
As Chiun hurried the old chief executive to their frightened horses, Remo strode across the clearing. He had spied the familiar figure cowering behind a pulpy white tree trunk. He stopped before the shaking man.
"You're Bryce Babcock, right?" Remo's tone was cold.
Eyes screwed tightly shut, the interior secretary had remained stock-still since Remo and Chiun's appearance, hoping that he would not be noticed. He jumped at the closeness of Remo's voice.
"Maybe," the secretary replied weakly.
"'This is all your fault," Remo said. It was not an accusation, but a statement of fact.
His accuser's gaze was too unforgiving. At Remo's harsh stare, Babcock broke down whimpering.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he wept. "It was supposed to bring peace. Peace to a region of the world that's never even known what real peace is. And if people here could finally get along, the rest of the world would have seen the light."