The Last Dragon td-92

by Warren Murphy

"I will be as soon as the largest toe is removed and given to me."

  "Are we back to that?"

  "I have never left," snapped Chiun.

  Outside the craft, a great roar went up. At first, it sounded like a cheer. But the sound went on and on and grew angry. Nancy didn't understand a word of it. But anger, she understood.

  "I'd better see what that is," she said.

  "It is the king, appearing before his subjects," said Chiun.

  "You understand what they're saying?"

  "No, I understand the sound that is made by subjects of a strong king."

  "Sounds more like a lynching in progress, if you ask me," Remo said.

  "That's why I'm looking into this," said Nancy. "Will you two watch Old Jack?"

  "Fear not," said Chiun in a loud voice. "No harm will befall this noble animal while the Master of Sinanju is his protector."

  "And I'll stick around in case Chiun gets carried away playing 'this little piggy,' " said Remo.

  "Pah!" said Chiun.

  Nancy rushed for the forward exit hatch.

  Chapter 14

  Skip King sat in the VIP row behind the podium at which the president of the Republic of Gondwanaland was shaking his thick-fingered fist at the growing crowd.

  The crowd was shaking its fists back. Both sides looked angry, but who could tell? This was the Third World, where shaking fists might be the local equivalent of a Hitler salute, or merely wild applause. King had taken dozens of corporate seminars, where he was taught that in Great Britain tabling a proposal meant the opposite of what it did in the U.S., that the deeper you bowed to a Japanese counterpart the more respect you showed-and lost-and that when an Arab sheikh took your hand while walking, it didn't mean he had fallen in love with you. Necessarily.

  King had taken a crash course in Gondwanalandian customs, but his mind had been so overloaded with the visions of what this project would do to his career he could hardly pay attention, never mind take actual notes. He knew he'd spend most of his time in the jungle, anyway. Who cared which side of the road people drove on?

  So he sat listening to the back-and-forth shouting in an incomprehensible language and hoped against hope this was an example of enthusiastic support and not the first stages of rioting.

  Placards and signs were going up now. King sat up in his wooden folding chair, between the sweating war minister and the sweltering cultural minister, both of whom looked like they had been submerged in a fryo-lator until brown, and craned to see them.

  Some of the placards were in Swahili, but most were in crude, semiliterate English.

  King saw one that read, KEEP AFRICAN BRONTOSAUR IN AFRICA.

  Another proclaimed, ENDANGERED AFRICAN SPECIES ARE AFRICAN-NOT AMERICAN!

  "Oh-oh, this could get real ugly real fast," said King, looking around. "Where the hell is that bossy blonde? Maybe a good look at her knockers will settle these clowns down."

  At that point, President Oburu switched to English for the benefit of the Burger Triumph archival camera crew.

  "In recognition of the hospitality of our poor nation to the people from the Burger Triumph company," the president was saying, "the Americans have agreed to set up Burger Triumph franchises in both our major cities. These wonderful franchises will be available through my first cousin, the minister of commerce."

  King smiled. Maybe that would do it. People who ate monkey meat should be damn grateful for a taste of good old Americana microwaved and slapped between halves of a bleached-flour bun.

  Instead, the crowd turned uglier.

  "We do not want the white man's cheap meats!" they shouted.

  "We want our Brontosaurus! It will bring Gondwanaland many tourist dollars!"

  "Yes. We want our Brontosaur!"

  The crowd took up the chant. The placards began to lift and dip in time with the angry refrain.

  "We want our Brontosaur! We want our Brontosaur! Keep Brontosaurus in Gondwanaland!"

  President Oburu turned away from the microphone and looked to King with the expression of a bulldog faced with an unclimbable fence.

  "You wish to try?" he mouthed.

  King got up. Straightening his tie, he strode purposefully up to the President of Gondwanaland and, keeping his distance from the microphone, made a show of shaking the president's big fat-with-gold-rings hand in both of his.

  "I got it covered," King said confidently.

  The president turned away, palming a sweaty wellfolded envelope crammed with U.S. dollars, and took his seat.

  King addressed the microphone. He had taken endless Burger Triumph seminars in public speaking. He knew all the tricks. He raised both arms and waited for the shouting to die down. His arms got very tired and his face hurt from smiling.

  But he wore them down. The dull roar soon settled into an angry muttering. And King lowered his arms and began speaking.

  "People, don't think of this as a dead loss. Think of it as a net gain."

  The angry mutter swelled.

  "I mean, you're not losing a lumbering slow-witted dinosaur. You're gaining a fast-growing slice of the American dream. Burger Triumph fries are the best on the planet. Our nondairy shakes come in six different flavors. And we only use the finest Hungarian steer beef in our Bongo Burgers. Shipped directly to Port Chuma from Warsaw-or whatever the capital of Hungary is these days."

  He was booed. A thousand fists shook at him.

  Through it all, Skip King kept his corporate smile fixed as the bars on a prison door. He raised his arms for silence. This time, the crowd won.

  "Keep Brontosaur in Africa! Keep Brontosaur African!"

  Then Nancy Derringer slipped to the empty chair at the end of the VIP row.

  "Wait a minute," King shouted. "Here's somebody you have to hear." The roar continued unabated. King found the volume control, set it to max, and said, "May I present the foremost authority on dinosaurs in the universe, the lovely Nancy Derringer!"

  While the crowd was covering its ears, he waved Nancy over.

  "Come on, baby," he hissed. "Save the corporation's bacon here."

  Nancy stepped up to the microphone as if walking on glass.

  "What do I say?" she asked, eyes uncertain.

  King kept his hand on the mike. "Anything. Quiet them down. We gotta get out of here before they stampede." He took his hand off the mike and said, "And here she is, as talented as she is built: Nancy Derringer!" Then King beat a hasty retreat to his seat.

  Blushing, Nancy addressed the mob.

  "I know how you must feel . . ." she began.

  The crowd booed.

  "But in the interest of science, this is the best way."

  They hissed.

  "We have facilities in America to humanely house the animal."

  They hooted.

  "And it's my hope that the Apatosaur will be returned to the wild after a suitable interval of study."

  At that, the crowd laughed in derision.

  Someone took off their sneaker and threw it. It bounced off the podium. Nancy kept it from toppling with both hands.

  "Really, you must try to understand. This is for the animal's welfare."

  "Boo!" someone shouted. "You are going to slaughter it and feed rich Americans the meat."

  "Oh, be serious. Who told you that?"

  "I have read this in the International Enquirer."

  "Oh, come on."

  A rock sailed up and landed on the tiny bald spot at the top of Skip King's head.

  "Oww!" he cried, jumping up with both hands covering his head.

  The skies rained hard objects.

  King turned to President Oburu. "Do something!"

  The president turned to his nephew, the minister of the interior, and spoke rapidly. The minister of the interior leaned over to his son, the deputy minister, who then consulted briefly with his half brother, the chief of the secret police, who stood up and lifted a silver whistle hanging from a gold chain about his thick neck and blew into it.

 
The Gondwanaland authorities had obviously prepared for this eventuality. On signal, pepper gas grenades popped and fell into the crowd. Military vehicles rumbled into view and water cannon began knocking down the audience closest to the stage. People began running, but the ground was a river. They slipped and slid and all was bedlam.

  In the confusion, King shouted to his camera crew, "Cut film! Don't record this! Everybody understand that?"

  Then he was at Nancy Derringer's side saying, "Don't sweat it, Nance. I'll protect you."

  "You! This is all your fault!" She raised her hand to slap him in the face, but King covered his face in time.

  "Now, now, you're just hysterical with fear. Come on!"

  The sound of tear gas shells brought Remo to the side door of the ekranoplane. He threw it open and immediately the sting of pepper gas drove him back.

  "Remo, what is it?" Chiun asked.

  Remo coughed his lungs clear. "Trouble."

  "I am charged with guarding this fine animal," Chiun said imperiously. "You may quell the troubles if you wish."

  "I counted every toe," Remo warned. "Twenty. There better be twenty when I get back, too."

  "Tattletale!"

  Remo charged his lungs and plunged out of the Orlyonok. A wave of Gondwanalanders pounded toward him, holding handkerchiefs or sleeves and other bits of clothing in front of their mouths and noses. Their eyes were red and teary. And they were in no mood to give way.

  Remo, blowing a slow but steady stream of carbon dioxide through both nostrils to keep the pepper gas from entering his lungs, ran directly at them.

  He veered, looking for an opening. He found one, zipped through, and immediately changed direction. It was like running against a tide that was also running. Remo sensed the flow of bodies around him, drew their motion into his own, and avoided every stumbling form and groping, outstretched hand.

  But there came a point where there was no more space in the crush of bodies. He changed tactics in midrun, leaping suddenly into the air. One foot came down on the head of a man. The man felt only a slight scuff that disturbed his springy peppercorn hair, and the foot was gone. Remo's other foot touched another head and impelled him along.

  He ran over the ground, so fast that people brushed at their hair and looked over their shoulders in time to see a white man seemingly running on air.

  Technically, Remo was running on hair, but no one understood that. They were too busy fleeing to imagined safety.

  He reached the stage, where the speakers were crouched down, trying not to breathe the noxious onion-flavored fumes.

  Remo found Nancy struggling with Skip King to get off the podium.

  "Time to go," Remo called.

  "How?" Nancy coughed back. "Everything is blocked. We're trapped."

  "Leave that to me. Let's go."

  Remo offered Nancy his hand. Immediately, King pulled her away.

  "Butt out! This is my rescue. Stick with me, Nancy."

  "Remo, I would appreciate any help that separates me from this toady," Nancy said tightly.

  "You got it," Remo said. He reached out and took King by the throat, squeezed, and King came to his feet with his teeth clenched and an obedient expression in his sharp face. Even his eyes looked clenched.

  "Whatever you want me to do," he croaked. "I'll do it."

  "That's a smart attitude, because your spine feels unusually brittle today."

  "I thought so, too," King said unhappily.

  "Just stay with me," Remo said, guiding them along.

  "My camera crew!" King said, stopping. "We can't leave them!"

  "Since when did he become a humanitarian?" Remo asked Nancy.

  "Since he entrusted the videotapes of the expedition to the camera people."

  "Oh," said Remo.

  "This way! This way!" King yelled, waving his arms to get the crew's attention.

  The video team was dispersed about the stage and below. They pushed their way to King's side.

  "Everybody all right?" Nancy asked.

  "Never mind that!" King snapped. "Are the packages safe?"

  "Yes, Skip," said the chief of PR.

  "Call me Mr. King when the cameras are off! Got that?"

  Remo led them to the side of the stage, through a loosely packed part of the crowd. The tear gas was beginning to thin, but the water cannon were hosing everything in sight. The ground was wet and muddy. The security police were laughing and knocking down anyone still on their feet, the high-pressure streams pushing them into shacks and other immovable objects.

  Remo brought them to one of the giant cranes. He climbed it and took the edge of his hand to the base of the framework. Metal snapped and parted. Slowly, the crane began to lean drunkenly.

  As if looking through a surveyor's transit, Remo sighted through the skeletal framework. He gauged where the derrick might fall, pounded in the lattice at one side, and took another sighting.

  Satisfied, he gave a hard, two-handed push.

  With a squeaking screech, the derrick began to fall.

  Remo yelled, "Timber!"

  But it was the sound of the derrick's tortured framework that made everyone in its shadow look up and break in all directions like ants in an earthquake.

  The derrick crushed two water trucks that happened to be in the way, forming a bridge to the waiting wingship.

  Remo helped Nancy up onto girderwork. King scrambled up, on his own. The video crew took up the rear.

  They worked their way along and dropped off at the end. That put them within sprinting distance of the pontoon bridge to the wingship. The crowd, chased by security police, were busy fleeing in both directions along the waterfront, leaving the area clear.

  "How's that for service!" Remo asked.

  "Wonderful," Nancy said. She turned. King had managed to ingest a mouthful of pepper gas. He was coughing uncontrollably and squinting blindly through his pain.

  "Here, let me help you," she said sympathetically.

  "Are you crazy! What if there are government cameras running! How will it look-Skip King being helped by a girl?"

  "Stumble along on your own, then," Nancy snapped, stepping onto the pontoon bridge.

  They reached the side hatch and King ducked into the rest room. The strenuous sound of his retching and heaving came for several noisy minutes.

  Captain Relish took command.

  "Everyone to their assigned seats," he announced. "The pilot is getting ready to launch this bird."

  "I'm staying with Old Jack," Nancy said.

  "Not a good idea," Captain Relish said.

  "Maybe not, but it's my idea." She started aft.

  "I'll help you count toes," Remo said.

  Captain Relish got in Remo's way. "Sorry, sir. You're not part of the team. I can't let you aboard without authorization."

  "Think again. I just saved everyone's butt."

  "Mr. King will have to authorize this." The sound of running water abruptly stopped in the rest room. "Throw him off the plane!" King shouted. Then heaved some more.

  "Try and make me," Remo told Captain Relish.

  At that moment, the Master of Sinanju appeared in the doorway through which Nancy was heading.

  "Remo, I am not staying on this vehicle, which cannot possibly fly," he said coldly.

  "Damn."

  "Nor will I continue to consort with these ingrates."

  "You win this round," Remo told Captain Relish.

  Nancy looked to Remo. "Look me up in the States?"

  "Maybe," said Remo.

  The engines started to whine. The Master of Sinanju slipped from the wingship. Remo ducked out after him, his face a storm cloud. The pontoon bridge was cast off and the hatch was slammed unceremoniously shut.

  Remo and Chiun stood on the beach to watch.

  The great dorsal cargo doors were settling into place. At the tail, the two props began turning, each in the opposite direction. They built up speed and the craft inched forward.

  Remo turned to Chiu
n.

  "What's the idea? We could have hitched a ride home."

  "Hush. I must watch. It is possible the craft will sink and an entire thigh bone will be mine for the taking."

  Remo folded his arms. The prop backwash was beating the remaining pepper gas away from the patch of sand where they stood.

  The Orlyonok was moving now. The two props pulled it into the harbor. Fishing boats got out of the way.

  There were two giant turbofan exhausts set on either side of the nose. They began roaring and blowing, angling forced air under the wingroots.

  The wingship leaped ahead and was suddenly floating above the waves. It skimmed out to sea at a steady speed.

  "Guess it works after all," Remo muttered, watching it. "And you can kiss that thigh bone sayonara."

  Chiun narrowed his hazel eyes at the departing tail.

  "Come, Remo." And the Master of Sinanju leapt toward the water.

  He lifted his skirts and soon was splashing into the surf. Then, as if finding submerged steps, he was racing across the waves, employing the same technique Remo had used to run atop human heads without breaking human necks.

  Remo plunged after him. His feet found the water's natural buoyancy and he used this to propel himself forward.

  The ekranoplane was still building up air speed. They overhauled it after a five-minute run, and first Chiun, then Remo caught up with the starboard wingroot and leapt onto its shiny surface.

  There they lay flat, adhering like stubborn starfish as the slipstream buffeted them.

  The Orlyonok skimmed out into the Atlantic.

  No one noticed that it carried two extra passengers. Until Skip King happened to look out a starboard window hours later and imagined he saw the aged Korean calmly sitting on the trailing edge of the wing, his back to the slipstream, which pressed his clothing so flat king could almost count the bumps along his spine.

  King blinked. Imagination. It had to be. Without telling anyone, he took a seat on the opposite side of the wingship.

  There, he thought he saw the other one-Remo stretched out on the wing, sunning himself as if on a huge aluminum lawn chair.

  Some sixth sense caused Remo to become aware of King's eyes on him. Abruptly, Remo sat up and gave a little wave. King lifted his hand to wave back, then had a sudden change in priority.

  The sound of his heaving and wretching floated out of the washroom for the next hour. Intermittently.