Last Rites td-100

by Warren Murphy

  The four ex-Miss Ghanas hurried to unbutton their blouses, uniforms and step out of their panty hose. "Not that," said Remo. "I'm going to sit with my chaperon."

  "Homo," they hooted after him. "Girlie boy." After he took the seat beside the Master of Sinanju and a frosty silence hung in the air, Remo said, "I met Master Lu."

  "Goody for you."

  "He hinted that I was Korean."

  "You are not good enough, brave enough or wise enough to be Korean," Chiun sniffed.

  "These dreams I'm having are just that. Dreams."

  Chiun made a snorting sound of derision.

  "A person can't meet himself. It's impossible," Remo continued.

  "You are impossible."

  "You should talk."

  The frosty silence returned.

  "You know, Lu looked kinda familiar. Around the eyes."

  "You have seen Lu's eyes before?" Chiun asked.

  "Yeah," admitted Remo. "But I can't place them."

  "Look in the mirror."

  "I am not Korean."

  "Then do not look in the mirror if you fear the truth."

  "Don't worry. I won't."

  "Coward," sniffed Chiun.

  "Sticks and stones break mirrors, but not my resolve to avoid looking into the mirror," Remo said firmly. A little while later, Remo pretended he had to use the men's room.

  When he returned to his seat, Chiun asked, "Well?"

  "Well what?"

  "Do not take me for an idiot. You looked in the bathroom mirror. What did you see?"

  "Coincidence."

  "You will never grow up," Chiun said unhappily.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You will never achieve Reigning Master status. I should have known better than to train a white. I have been burdened with shepherding a pupil longer than any Master since Yung. I long for the peace and joy of retirement."

  "Since when?"

  "Since I have been burdened by your insufferable whiteness," Chiun said, turning his face to the window and the marching stratocumulus clouds beyond.

  "You ache for retirement the way I yearn for roast duckling. Not at all."

  "I have trained a pupil who spurns duckling, the most sublime of fowl," Chiun lamented, shaking his head until the cloudy wisps over each ear shook with sorrow.

  Angrily Remo changed seats again.

  As soon as he did, the four stewardesses drew straws. The winner approached him.

  "Leave me alone," Remo snapped. "I'm going to take a nap."

  "Before I go, would you like something warm to cover you?"

  "Fine," said Remo.

  And the stewardess draped her lush, dark body across Remo WiIliams's lean, vaguely bluish one.

  Remo was so beat he just went to sleep with the contentedly purring stewardess atop him. It beat being laid out flat under a polar bear.

  EVERYWHERE WAS BLACKNESS. Without form or shape or size. The ground was as black as the sky. There was no horizon and no light. All was ink.

  "You are not worthy," a disembodied voice said coldly.

  Standing in the breathable ink, Remo said nothing. "I am Ko," the voice rang out.

  Remo tried to fix the voice. It seemed to be everywhere. And since everywhere was blackness, it might as well be nowhere.

  "And this is my sword!" the voice of Ko boomed. As if covered in black silk that had slipped off, the point of a sword appeared in the darkness surrounding Remo.

  He recognized the wide, flaring point. It was the Sword of Sinanju, forged centuries ago by Master Ko as a headman's sword. It had been lost to the Chinese until he and Chiun had recovered it years ago in Beijing.

  "I find you guilty of the crime of unworthiness and sentence you to lose your head," the voice behind the sword said.

  Remo said nothing. The sword lifted high and drew back. When the blade started for him, it might as well have been delivered by a Federal Express carrier.

  Remo dodged it easily. On the back swing, he moved in for the Master wielding it.

  Somehow he miscalculated and went flying past. Dropping to a defensive crouch, Remo felt a lock of his hair fly away as the double-edged blade swept back and forth like a great scythe.

  Slithering away and up again, Remo assumed a defensive position. One foot tucked against his calf, hands floating before his breastbone.

  Masters of Sinanju in the days of Ko were pre-Wang, he knew. They hadn't known of the sun source. They were good, but their techniques were those the ninja later copied.

  Ko was wearing black silk, Remo understood, and the sword suddenly vanished beneath what was probably a cloak.

  "I don't kill that easy," Remo said. Stepping around in the dark, he knew the blade-which, uncloaked, exceeded seven feet in length-could slip out of the silk cape and seek his vitals from any unexpected angle.

  "You will die before you become the head of the House,"

  "Bigot!" Remo taunted.

  "Ghost-face."

  "Chicken."

  "What is wrong with chicken?" the disembodied voice wanted to know.

  "Chickens are frightened by any low thunder," Remo countered.

  "I am a rooster, not a hen, ghost-face."

  And seeing a glint of steel in the darkness, Remo kicked up and high.

  His foot connected and the Sword of Sinanju jumped high, cartwheeled in slow motion, and Remo faded back to get out of its way.

  A slickness brushed the back of Remo's hand, and instinctively he snared it, yanking hard.

  The blade pinned the black cloak against the blacker ground, and Master Ko slipped out of his concealing garment.

  Remo got a momentary glimpse of him then. He wore black and a black hood. He shucked this off and, looking at Remo with a grudging respect, bowed in his direction.

  Then he snapped up his cloak, and it swallowed him utterly and forever.

  Exhausted, Remo slept on.

  Chapter 11

  Mahout Feroze Anin, Supreme Warlord of lower Stomique on the Horn of Africa, plugged one ear with a thin brown finger and pressed the satellite cell-phone receiver more closely to his other ear to keep out the steady thoom of mortars and the insistent rattle of small-arms fire.

  "I challenge all of America to a fight," he raged.

  "Over what?" asked the American ambassador.

  "Over..." Anin made a face. His lean face, so open beneath his high, shining forehead, dripped sweat. It was the face that had graced the covers of Time, Newsweek, People and other great international magazines so often only a few years ago, but now was scarcely to be found in the newspapers of the surviving Stomique capital, Nogongog.

  It was called the surviving capital because of all the cities in Stomique, both upper and lower, it was the only one not yet in abject ruins.

  This was not how Anin had expected things to turn out when the UN peacekeeping force first stormed ashore in their effort to restore democracy to Stomique. Back then Anin had known exactly what to do. He hastily purchased a Western suit and tie, sought out a CNN microphone and welcomed the Americans with open arms and a beaming smile that soon radiated from news magazines all over the globe. He was certain that this magnificent PR gesture would put him in the good graces of Washington, and after a suitable period, they would install him as the new president of Stomique, his warlord days forever behind him.

  But they had not. Instead, they had insisted that he surrender his cached weapons.

  "But I am pro-American!" Mahout Feroze Anin had complained to the American ambassador in those early days of the UN occupation.

  "Excellent. Have your weapons fieldstripped and hand them over to the chief UN observer."

  But Anin hadn't done that. Instead, he'd gone underground. And the UN had come after him. So naturally he'd fought back. When his technicals had ambushed a Belgian UN peacekeeping unit, Mahout Feroze Anin's smiling pro-American face was plastered on Wanted posters all over Nogongog, and the U.S. Rangers were sent in. Mahout Feroze Anin had been forced to take up the s
word and the gun and send his followers after the treacherous Rangers, who obviously didn't know an ally when one offered his empty hand.

  It had proved to be a smart move. In the short run. The Rangers had been chased out of Nogongog, and Mahout Feroze Anin had elevated himself to Supreme Warlord of lower Stomique, victorious over the world's last superpower.

  The trouble was, after the short run came the long run.

  Stomique fell back into internecine feuding. No sooner had Anin liquidated his most deadly rival warlords than others sprang up to take their place. Instead of two enemies, he had four. And when he had the four butchered, there were suddenly eight. All weaker than those who had come before, but just as vexing. Eventually, the UN relief supplies ceased to flow into Stomique. And when that happened, there was no more food for Anin to seize, some to feed his followers, the rest to be converted into gold bullion.

  As Stomique fell more and more into ruin, Anin was forced to pay his followers in shiny ingots until his gold stocks began to dwindle.

  Now, three years after the Americans had left, Mahout Feroze Anin realized there was no percentage in being Supreme Warlord over a smaller and smaller corner of lower Stomique if in the end there was no country left and, in consequence, no place to hide.

  So it was time to play his last card.

  "Why are you calling, General Anin?" the American ambassador asked in a cool voice.

  "Our fight has not yet been decided."

  "You won."

  "I do not agree. Tell your President I am prepared to give him the rematch he secretly covets."

  "The U.S.," the ambassador said patiently, "has no interest in a rematch."

  "Cowards! You run away at the merest casualties."

  "We entered to feed your people, disarm all warring factions and restore peace, and your particular faction turned it into a shooting gallery. Fine. Now it's your private shooting gallery. Best of luck with it."

  "I will not be trifled with in this unseemly manner. It is an insult."

  Anin cringed from the sudden thoom and crump that came through the French colonial windows of his office.

  "Is that mortar fire I hear in the background?" the ambassador asked pointedly.

  "Firecrackers. We are celebrating our glorious triumph over the cowardly US."

  "Three years later?"

  "It is a victory that will reverberate down the ages," Anin said in a grandiose voice from the well of his bulletproof steel desk. "Unless you move swiftly to reengage on the field of honor."

  "What do you know about honor? You called yourself a patriot of Stomique while you pillaged the relief food that poured in to feed your own people."

  "My people do not need food. For their bellies are full of victory. Hah. How do your citizens feel?"

  "Stomique is last year's news. They're already onto something else."

  Mahout Feroze Anin made his voice wheedling. "Do you not desire to occupy your luxurious ambassadorial residence once again?"

  "Absolutely. When there's a stable country surrounding it. In the meanwhile, Washington will do just fine."

  Anin pounded the floor in anger. "There will never be stability while I am Supreme Warlord. You must know this. You will have to dislodge me if you wish to enjoy stability again."

  "Do I detect you angling for something?"

  Anin took a deep breath and threw down his cards. "I will agree to surrender to the despised US. in return for guaranteed safe passage to an exile country of my choosing-provided, of course, a lifetime stipend comes with it."

  "Sorry. We have no vital interests in Stomique."

  "Did I mention my nuclear reacting? I will soon be in possession of many kilograms of enriched helium. Weapons grade, of course."

  "Nice try," said the US. ambassador just before the line went click in Mahout Feroze Anin's ear.

  "Idiot!" said Warlord Anin, throwing the receiver against his official presidential portrait, puncturing the black velvet.

  The tapping of shod feet came from outside the heavy mahogany double doors of the presidential office. They were not the heavy clump of boots, so it couldn't be his personal guard or the rebels. Since almost no one else owned shoes in post-UN-occupied Stomique, Anin knew it had to be a relative.

  "Father! Father! The enemy approaches!" came a husky voice.

  Anin looked up from under the desk. It was his eldest daughter, Persephone, her dark face a sheen of sweat.

  "How did you get past my personal guards?" Anin demanded.

  Persephone looked perplexed. "What guards? There is no one here."

  Anin leaped for the door and looked out. The corridor was bereft of guards.

  "Who guards my gold?" he demanded hotly, wiping his high balding forehead.

  "Eurydice and Omphale."

  Anin nodded. "Excellent. If a man cannot trust his daughters, who can he trust?"

  Persephone took hold of his chest, which rattled from clusters of medals he had awarded himself for every engagement in his military career from shooting rival foes in the back to surviving a six-year drought. "Father, we must flee. The rebels have secured their hold on the main roads and are now advancing on your palace."

  "I will not leave my gold behind."

  "But who will carry it?"

  "You and your wonderful and loyal sisters, Persephone. Of course."

  "We are not strong enough. The gold will slow us down."

  Anin ripped his daughter's hands from him and turned away in disgust. "Bah! I curse the day I had daughters instead of strapping warrior sons. Sons would never fail me as you three have."

  Persephone sank to her knees, taking Warlord Anin's legs in her tapered brown fingers and pressing her strong cheeks to his knees. "I do not want to die, father. You must save me."

  "Your sisters, they have good weapons?"

  "Oh, the best. Soviet-made Kalashnikovs. Not those shoddy Chinese ones."

  "And the basement vault door, it will withstand mortar and grenade attacks?"

  "Just as you decreed it should."

  "Then go to the basement vault and shut yourself in until I come for you and the gold."

  "How long will that be, Father?"

  "Until I have vanquished the rebels."

  "You cannot fight them single-handed."

  Anin shook a defiant fist like mahogany. "And I will not. The Americans will fight them for us." Persephone stood up. "But the Americans are our enemies."

  "In the past, yes. In the future, absolutely. But for this crisis, I will inveigle them into siding with me. For they are fools who are easily hoodwinked. Now, go shut yourself in. Be certain you have food and water to sustain you, for it may be two or three days."

  "You expect to defeat the rebels in so short a time?"

  "Yes," said Mahout Feroze Anin, guiding his flesh and blood into the secret trapdoor in the downstairs kitchen and into the underground vault room.

  Pushing the ponderous door shut, he waved farewell to his smiling and tearful daughters, who blew him kisses and swore undying love.

  With the door closed, Anin activated the time lock, after first setting it for the year 1999.

  By that time, he reasoned, the revolution should have settled down. The heat would be off, and Mahout Feroze Anin could reclaim his gold unchallenged.

  And bury his long-dead and useless daughters, as well. He cursed their mothers, all of whom had promised him a male heir and every one of which were ceremoniously beheaded when they failed so simple a task.

  Throwing a lever that caused a thick wall of rough boards to drop into place before the great stainless-steel door, Anin went to the trapdoor in the floor-which he had kept secret even from his trustworthy offspring-and slipped down into his cool, roomy burrow.

  From here it was a simple matter to walk the three or four miles to the secret boat house on the water, from which he would escape to a safe haven.

  What safe haven, he didn't know, but Africa was full of safe havens for brave and cunning men like Mahout Feroz
e Anin. Perhaps there would be a place for him in Rwanda, he thought as he walked along. There was always someone to be slain or relief food to be pilfered.

  As he moved through the insect-ridden tunnel, he wondered if Rwanda was accessible by boat. He had no idea. During his brief regime, Anin had the official Stomique map of Africa redrawn so that it appeared to occupy eighty-six percent of the continent.

  It seemed only fitting that the unconquered and unconquerable defier of the United States of America should govern a nation as vast as his ego.

  THE LANDING at Nogongog Inter-African Airport was smooth, considering the cratered condition of the single runway.

  The plane didn't come to a full stop. Engines spooling down, it trundled past the terminal and the door was flung open by stewardesses in flak jackets.

  A speeding truck with a set of bullet-pocked air-stairs scooted out from a hangar and ran parallel to the open door.

  "I demand this craft halt and I be allowed to leave it with the dignity befitting my station," Chiun told the stewardess in charge.

  "It would be suicide to stop," the stewardess said.

  "Come on, little Father," said Remo, hanging in the door frame. "Shake a leg."

  The stewardess tried to pull Remo back in with her gold-painted nails. "No, please do not go. It would be suicide."

  "Why are you okay with him getting off and not me?" Remo wondered, indicating the Master of Sinanju.

  "He is old and will die soon. You are full of youth and brimming with sperm."

  "Sperm?"

  "Your sperm is important to us,"

  "Check with me on the ride back," said Remo, jumping off and onto the rattly top step of the speeding air-stairs.

  The Master of Sinanju floated off and joined him. There were no other passengers.

  The truck careered toward the terminal and came to a brief stop at the gaping hole where the jetway ramp used to be before a mortar barrage had taken it out. It still smoked a little in the brassy midday sun.

  Remo and Chiun stepped across the gap and entered the refugee-choked terminal. On the tarmac the jet screamed back into the sky with tracers chasing it.

  There were no taxicabs waiting outside, but there was a line of scarred and bullet-pocked camels.

  Chiun walked up to the man who seemed to be in charge of the camels and began conversing with him in fluent Swahili.