"No," Dirk growled, "but we ain't got any more clue where that treasure's at than he does. We got nothing to lose. Saddle up."
They trailed after Shane Billiken in a ragged line, dropping into defensive crouches every time Billiken tripped over a rock or ground root, their eyes sharp and their weapons pointed out in all directions.
After the third time, Dirk Edwards snatched the Ray-Bans off Shane's face and threw them away.
"Hey!" Shane protested. "Those are my trademark."
"They'll mark your gravestone if you fuck up one more time." Shane received an ungentle shove. "Now, get going!" Shane pressed on. He seemed to do better now that he could see. He tripped only once more, and that was because his Adidas sneakers were coming off his feet like bad tires.
"Damn!" he said as he pulled himself to his feet. The others had dropped into a defensive circle, their hearts in their mouths and blood in their eyes.
"Lemme shoot him, Dirk," Gus moaned. "Please." They were on level ground, near a hidden path they had discovered.
"What's wrong now?" Dirk called out. "Besides your usual clumsiness?"
"I fell and broke the rod."
"What a tragedy."
"You don't understand. I was close. I could feel the odyllic vibrations." Shane reached down to recover the willow pieces, which had fallen under a lightning-scorched tree. He leaned into the tree to steady himself and it cracked like a burnt twig. He fell across a wide flat and was surprised to feel his right foot sink down into something clammy and wet.
"Oh, God," he moaned. "I'm wounded. My foot's all wet."
"Maybe he pissed himself," someone said dryly.
Dirk Edwards came to his side. He examined Shane's foot. It disappeared into the top of a wide stump. He pulled it free.
"Is there much blood?" Shane moaned, looking away.
"None," said Dirk. He wasn't even looking at Shane's foot anymore. He was looking into the stump, where silver glints rippled under disturbed water. He turned to his men. "I want you all to get a grip on yourselves, understand? No shouting. No hooting. No bullshit. I don't know how, but this idiot found the treasure for us."
"I did?" Shane asked blankly.
He climbed to his feet and joined the group clustering around the stump to drink in the sight of stack upon stack of round silvery coins. The moonlight made them shimmer.
"I did!" Shane exulted. Everyone piled on him. They wrestled him to the ground, a dozen hands clamping on his mouth and throat.
When they finally let go, Shane Billiken's eyes were feverish. "I did. I did. I did," he whispered over and over again. "Didn't I? I made a positive affirmation and it worked. Finally."
"Everybody grab as much as they can carry," Dirk ordered. "We'll take this stuff back to the boat in rotating groups of threes. The first group stays with the ship to guard that end. The main force will remain here with the treasure. If we hustle our butts, we can have all this stuff on the boat before dawn."
"Then we sail home, right?" Shane said.
"No. There's natives on this island. I've been at sea without a woman for more than a week. I feel like having me some island girls. When we're done loading, we'll see what we can rustle up in the way of enforced R-and-R. Everybody with me on that?"
Everybody was. Except Shane Billiken. He volunteered to stay with the treasure. His offer was accepted.
The Master of Sinanju sat in the courtyard of the High Moo's palace. He faced the east, his eyes closed. The rising sun warmed his parchment countenance. Sea breezes toyed with the wisps of hair that decorated his wise face. He was transcending with the sun, an old Sinanju custom.
When he had finished meditating, he laid his hands upon his knees and arose like a straightening sunflower. Remo sauntered up from the jungle. He carried something black and shiny in one hand.
"I have decided," Chiun said gravely. "We will leave Moo today. My heart is heavy, but my mind is clear."
"Don't say your good-byes just yet," Remo said evenly. "We have problems."
"I absolve us of any problems associated with the House of Moo. It has sunk into evil ways."
"Not them. I was out for a walk and I found these." Remo held up a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. "Elvis is on this island," he said.
"Nonsense," Chiun snapped. "Elvis is dead. Or living in Minnesota. Reports vary."
"Not Elvis Presley. Our old pal Shane Billiken."
"Oh, him," Chiun said, waving disrnissively. "A mere annoyance."
"Maybe, but there's a ship outside the lagoon and it's crawling with jungle fatigues. And they're armed to the gills. "
"Our ship is safe?" Chiun demanded.
"So far. But the news gets worse. I happened to walk by the ol' treasure stump. It's been emptied."
"My coins!" Chiun squeaked.
Remo nodded grimly. "Everybody's coins. And I tracked bootprints leading down to the lagoon. The coins must be on that boat."
"They will rue this day," Chiun cried, shaking a tiny fist.
"Why should they be any different than us?" Remo asked rhetorically.
Together the Master of Sinanju and his pupil descended from the lofty summit of Moo. Chiun was a driving storm cloud in an azure kimono. His chin jutted forward. He scorned the treacherous path to the shore and instead took the direct approach. Branches and mangrove thickets were crushed from his path.
"Where are the peasants?" Chiun asked at one point. "I do not see them at their toil."
"While you were transcending with the sun, I had a little talk with them about labor-management relations."
"Be good enough to speak English, not American."
"They're on a sit-down strike on the back part of the island. They won't stand up until the High Moo makes certain concessions. I've been appointed strike leader."
"You are poisoning their minds with foolish notions, Remo," Chiun scolded. "These people need their High Moo. "
"The High Moo needs them, you mean. Uh-uh. After today, things are going to be different. Hold it," Remo said suddenly.
Remo and Chiun froze. Down below, white men were running in and out of the mines, trailing lengths of wire. Others hunkered down in the mangroves, confident they were invisible in their fatigues.
"I count five on land," Remo said. "Yes, five. Let us cut their number."
"Hold on," Remo said. "'They're up to something in the mines."
"Not for very long," Chiun vowed.
Dirk Edwards waited until the last man was out of the mines.
"Okay, everybody get down," he said as he lifted his clenched fist to signal the men with the detonators to be ready.
"Remember," he said, "when they blow, it will bring the natives out where we can pick them off. Just shoot the males. We can handle the women easy. Maybe we'll get lucky and dislodge same of whatever they're mining, too."
And then he brought his fist down and twisted the handle of his own detonator.
The ground lifted under Remo and Chiun's feet. They reacted instantly, leaping into the treetops with the graceful alacrity of gazelles. The palms shook like dust mops in angry hands. They began toppling. The ground beneath collapsed like the sand at the top of an hourglass pouring down.
"The whole slope is crumbling!" Remo shouted.
"Higher ground," Chiun called. He leapt into the next tree, Remo following. They swung from tree to tree as the whole slope seemed to cave to behind them. Remo paused long enough to look back. The sheer western face of Moo, which was riddled with mines and tunnels, was falling like an avalanche. Instead of cascading snows, it was a nightmare of soil and foliage and palms sliding into the sea. The roar of moving earth was like a freight train.
Dirk Edwards saw that he had miscalculated. He called retreat.
"Every fucker for himself!"
They broke for the beach. They splashed into the surf ahead of a tidal wave of soil and stones. Some abandoned their weapons as they swam for the ship.
Belowdeck on the New Age Hope, Shane Billiken was happi
ly counting coins.
"Seventy-seven ... seventy-eight ... seventy-"
The concussion sent the kerosene lamps gyrating in their gimbals. Shane plunged up the companionway. The two men on watch, Gus and Miles, were at the rail pointing toward Moo, their mouths hanging open in stupefaction.
It looked as if the entire island was coming down. Birds flew into the air. Shane saw a scampering monkey buried alive. A faint dust cloud lifted and kept on rising, and Shane realized it was the insects of Moo, fleeing the collapse of land.
"Where are they? Can you see them?" Miles shouted hoarsely.
"No. Wait! There in the water. They're swimming for it. "
Shane saw Dirk Edwards stroking like mad, the others not far behind. One slow swimmer was caught by the sliding wall of soil. He went under a bubbling mixture of newly created mud.
Shane's mind crystallized instantly. The treasure was below. The others were in the water. And he was alone on deck with only two men.
He looked around and spotted an assault rifle leaning beside the mainmast. He tiptoed back and took it in his sweaty hands. His thumb squeezed off the safety and he crept forward.
He shot Gus first. He shot him point-blank in the back of the head, scattering his face across the water. Miles whirled and Shane riddled his chest. Miles staggered back. His mouth gulped like a beached fish's.
While Miles teetered against the rail. Shane sent a foot into his caved-in chest. He went overboard, Shane then hoisted Gus's carcass over the side.
Within what seemed like only seconds, the water was full of churning sharks. They attacked like hungry dogs, turning the water pinkish-white.
Shane called down encouragement to the sharks. "Hey, do what you love!" He started to raise anchor and then took the wheel. He kicked both engines to life. The schooner dug in and raced away.
Shane Billiken was very pleased with himself. He didn't feel like vomiting in the least. In fact, he felt hungry. He decided that once he had cleared the island, he would go below for a good fistful of Limburger, and maybe finish counting his coins.
Chapter 38
The roaring, rumbling, snapping, and splintering sounds began to subside at last.
Remo and Chiun dropped from the shivering trees to the ground on the summit of Moo. They ran to the Royal Palace. Moovians were milling about the palace, their voices high and plaintive.
"So much for my strike," Remo muttered. He gazed back to the lagoon. "Looks like Elvis is taking a powder." The ship was heading for open water. But down in the lagoon, whose deep blue water was turning slowly milk chocolate, tiny figures floundered. They were swimming away from a spot of water that churned white and pink.
"Sharks," Chiun said. "Those men must return to land."
"We better clean them out before they get organized. They'll be after the junk next."
"Yes." Chiun turned to the milling Moovians. "Never fear," he cried. "We will deal ruthlessly with these interlopers. Inform the High Moo that the Master of Sinanju will not let this atrocity go unpunished."
"I thought you'd gotten over your High Moo worship," Remo said bitterly as they raced down the loosened and tangled western slope.
"We have not taken our leave yet."
There was no white beach there anymore. Just a soaking apron of mud. The moisture was creeping upward. The soil, made heavy by seawater, fell in occasional mudslides.
Dirk Edwards and his men crawled onto this mud, carrying their weapons. They were met by two resolute figures. Remo and Chiun.
Dirk took one look and growled out a low order. "Waste them."
The order was easier given than carried out. Dirk raised his AK-47 and got off a short snarling burst at the white man. He peered past the thinning gunsmoke and the white man was running toward him, dead-on. He pulled the tape-doubled clip out and inserted the other end. He tried single shots, but the white man zig-zagged between the shots somehow. Dirk plucked out a hand grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth, and let fly.
The white guy stopped, looked up at the descending object. Dirk's wolfish grin wreathed his muddy features. It died when the white man casually caught the grenade like a pop fly ball and tossed it back in Dirk's shocked face.
Dirk had no place to run. He burrowed into the mud like a clam. He stuck his fingers in his ears to ward off concussion damage. The explosion was muffled. When it subsided, Dirk stuck his head out. Smearing the mud from his eyes, he looked around.
His men were deploying frantically. They fired every which way; like amateurs. What the hell was wrong with them?
Then he saw. The old guy. The gook. He was systematically taking them out with what looked like kung-fu moves, but were not. The old man vented no heart-freezing cries. His punches and kicks were not swift and flamboyant. They were more graceful. There was an economy of movement that Dirk Edwards have never seen before. It was too pure for kung-fu, he told himself. And the thought surprised him. He had great respect for kung-fu.
The white guy was moving in and out of the tangles of uprooted palms. Dirk had trouble spotting him even though his bare white chest should have been a dead giveaway. He was like a ghost.
One of his men slunk past a clump of bushes and suddenly the white guy was behind him. He came out of nowhere, chopped once at the back of the neck, and Dirk didn't have to hear the ugly crunching noise to know he had lost another man. The weird angle of his neck as he fell told him that.
The white guy moved on.
Dirk scrambled out of the mud. He went from body to body, collecting plastic explosive charges. He still had a detonator strapped to his belt. He felt his pockets. Yeah, a few blasting caps too. He circled away from the fighting-it was more like a massacre than a fight-until he came to open beach. He clambered up the hilly island. There were other mines here too. He found one as close to the damaged western slope as he dared go and crawled in.
In a matter of moments he had planted a charge. He fixed the rest in other strategic places, trailing wire back to the shelter of a coral outcropping. He hooked the wires to the detonator.
"So long, suckers!" he shouted, and twisted the plunger. Gouts of fiery soil jumped into the air. The ground shuddered. Dirk grinned. He waited for the shuddering to subside. Strangely, it kept on going. Like an echo chamber. Puzzled, Dirk peered over the outcropping.
What he saw made his blood run cold. The island was coming down like a sandpile. Not just the part he had blasted. All of it. Water came pouring out of the mines. High above, on the summit, the stone building was sinking as if into quicksand.
A wail rose from the summit. Screams. Terrible screams of terror. But Dirk Edwards didn't hear the screams. His own were too loud.
A wave of loose earth was coming at him and he plunged for the blue water.
Chiun realized it first.
"Moo is falling into the sea."
"Can't be," Remo said hotly. He clutched a mercenary in his hands. He waved his long fingernails before the man's face and suddenly it looked like the pink side of a watermelon rind.
"These nails are good for something, at least," Remo said, dropping the body.
"Lo!" Chiun pointed upward.
"Christ," Remo said anxiously. "What do we do?"
"The junk. Come."
Remo hesitated. The ground under his feet was separating like cornmeal. "We can't abandon everyone," he shouted.
"And we will not. We will bring the junk closer to land. It is their only hope. And ours."
"I'm with you," Remo said quickly.
Together they plunged into the brown water. They struck out for the junk, taking care to swim wide of the feeding frenzy of hammerheads.
Remo spotted another swimmer angling across their bearing. He was also making for the junk.
"He's mine," Remo called, pointing him out.
"I will ready the ship," Chiun said.
Remo slipped under the surface. He found himself once again in a fantasy world of multihued coral. Old Moo. He homed in on Dirk Edwards' kicking fe
et. Remo darted for them like a dolphin.
Remo came up from below. He pulled Dirk Edwards down by the ankles. Then he grabbed his throat, holding him underwater. Remo gave Dirk just enough time to see the wrath on his face before he shattered his shoulder joints.
Dirk Edward's face registered surprise when he found that his arms would not move. They hung limp. Stupid arms. He needed them to swim with. He kicked, but suddenly there was pain in his hips.
He looked down and saw that he no longer had hips. His pelvis felt mushy, no longer solid. And his legs hung straight down like cooked noodles.
Then he was sinking, down, down into a beautiful world of coral reefs. He looked to see where he would land, and there was a gap in the reef below. He slipping down through it and all became black.
At first Dirk couldn't tell if he was dead or in some kind of dark hollow place. He decided he was dead, and further decided it didn't feel so bad after all. Then his eyes became accustomed to the dim light and he saw that he was surrounded by shelf upon shelf of dead people, all in big jars like bugs in specimen bottles.
The shelves shook, causing the jugs to wobble and topple. They broke, unleashing their contents in a dark red cloud like blood. Dead eyes stared at him accusingly and Dirk suddenly wondered if they were really dead. Some of them seemed to be pointed at him.
Dirk screamed then. His lungs emptied and the breathing reflex that could not be denied demanded that he inhale. He swallowed the water into his mouth and stomach and lungs. Odd, it tasted like wine.
He was dead when he floated down to solid ground, settling on a tiled floor like a discarded marionette.
Remo clambered up the Jonah Ark's hull and over the rail. Chiun had the foresail down. The wind filled it. "Take the tiller," the Master of Sinanju snapped.
Remo leaned into the tiller, and the junk came about slowly. He cursed its slow response time. The bow lined up on the shrinking island of Moo.
It was an incredible sight. Like a sand castle drying in the sun, Moo simply crumbled. The Royal Palace was sinking as the supporting ground disintegrated.
All around Moo, the water was turning to brownishblack mud.
"Can't we move faster?" Remo cried.
"The wind is not with us," Cliiun returned. He stood on the bow, his feet apart, his back stiff.
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