In spite of himself and his position in the world, Anwar Anwar-Sadat felt a cool hush descend over his soul. "Allow me to gaze upon you," he asked.
The voice was coming from the mirrored area between the two statues. It was at once evident that these were mirrored doors. He was being studied. Assuming a rakish pose, he allowed this.
"Anwar Anwar-Sadat, are you brave enough to enter into the domain of Kali?"
"I am," he said in a voice that cracked with anticipation.
"Very well. Steel yourself."
"I am steeled."
"For those who enter into my terrible presence are forevermore changed."
For a dark moment Anwar Anwar-Sadat quailed inwardly. He did not wish to be changed. He only wished to meet this creature who had so bewitched him sight unseen, voice unheard, until this pregnant hour.
He swallowed. And then the doors parted.
Mistress Kali was all that he had imagined, Anwar Anwar-Sadat saw at once.
She was tall and statuesque and as blond as sunlight on pure gold. Her features were classic, ethereal yet chiseled. The domino mask of golden silk framing her Nile green eyes added a touch of mystery that was perfection itself.
Her body was a black flame, and as she shifted her weight from one generous hip to the other, it shimmered. Leather. She wore leather. He had not expected leather.
His eyes followed the shimmer to pick out the enchanting details. The silver chains, the vampiric black nails and ivory skull set in her navel like a barbaric ornament.
She held a whip in one hand. The other clutched a dog's leash.
Anwar-Sadat's eyes followed the leash to the floor and his heart jumped quick and hot in his chest.
On the floor at her side crouched a man on all fours. He was naked except for a spiky dog collar banding his throat. He clutched a scarlet rose between his teeth like an obedient dog holding a bone. It dripped crimson droplets on the floor.
His eyes were on the floor. Mistress Kali gave the leash a sharp tug, and he raised his head.
"Allow me to present the minister of fisheries and oceans, Gilbert Houghton," said Mistress Kali in a voice that mocked the two dignitaries.
"Er, pleased," gulped Anwar Anwar-Sadat.
Through the clenched rose, the Canadian official growled low in his throat.
This was not going as expected ....
Chapter 33
At Folcroft, Harold Smith was watching the global conflict unfold.
"This is unbelievable," he said to himself. "It is as if the entire seafaring community has descended into a feeding frenzy."
In the North Atlantic the renegade U.S. fishing fleet had retreated to a closed fishery called the Flemish Cap, where they were taking Canadian cod and yellowtail in a feeding frenzy that defied fishing regulations of both nations. Coast Guard cutters were moving to rendezvous with them in an effort to persuade them to abandon Canadian fishing waters.
In the Pacific the U.S. destroyer Arkham was prowling the waters between Alaska and Washington in search of the Canadian submarine Yellow-knife/Couteaujaune before it could surface in the midst of American salmon-fishing craft.
Meanwhile Canadian coastal-defense vessels were trying to collect transit taxes and taking small-arms fire from disgruntled U.S. salmon fishermen.
From Ottawa there was silence both official and unofficial. But from Quebec emanated semiofficial rumors that in the U.S.-Canadian fishing war, Quebec intended to side with Washington.
And so Harold Smith saw the first seeds of Canadian civil war. The choosing of sides.
Already in the U.S. media, old memories were being dredged up. The depredations of one French and Indian war. The Deerfield raids. Louisbourg. How during the War of 1812, Canadian and British forces had burned the White House to the ground.
In Oregon a paramilitary force called the Unconstituted Oregon Militia had slipped across the Fortyfifth Parallel and hung three Mounties from fir trees and called for the repeal of the treaty that had given much of the original Oregon territory to Canada.
Along the Vermont-Canadian border, tensions were running extremely high. It appeared there was a library that straddled the border in a town that existed half in Canada and half in the U.S. Hotheads on both sides of the border had begun to lay concertina wire straight down the middle of the humanities reference aisle, and the library was being hotly contested, chiefly with thrown encyclopedias. It was only a matter of time before the first shot was fired.
In Lake Champlain a long-simmering controversy over the spread of a thumbnail-sized mollusk, the zebra mussel, from U.S. waters into Canadian territory was flaring up again.
Tiger-striped Canadian air-force F-16s were patrolling the Alcan Highway, which had been sealed off at Alaska's border with Canada. All U.S. traffic was being turned back. Alaska had been cut off from the continental U.S. except by air.
From Parliament Hill came threats of withdrawal from NORAD and other mutually beneficial treaties.
On Capitol Hill the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, were examined for loopholes and unfinished business.
In the meantime the President of the United States and his advisers were making the Sunday-morning talk-show circuit trying to placate all sides and cool the growing war fever.
Smith knew that open warfare was but hours away. If it erupted and Quebec sided with Washington, a rift deeper than any would develop. And U.S.Canadian relations would be poisoned for a century to come.
And all because Man needed more and more fish to live.
Chapter 34
Remo rang the bell. His supersensitive fingers sensed the electric current so he knew it was wired up.
There was no answering buzzer.
Remo rang it again.
"You know," he said to Chiun while they waited, "in the old days a red light like this meant a house of ill repute."
"All houses are of ill repute. Besides our own," Chiun intoned.
"You have a point there," said Remo, leaning on the bell. It was an old push bell, a small black nub in a rusty brass bell.
Whoever was inside refused to buzz them in.
"Guess we do this the hard way. Wanna split up or go in together?"
"We will go in together, for what danger would a house of such ill repute have for two fish-eating Masters of Sinanju such as we?"