The President took a step around the corner... ... and plowed directly into Nossur Aruch. Colliding with the rushing figure, the PIO leader was forced to take an awkward step back. He was slammed from behind by Bryce Babcock.
When he saw whom he had bumped into, the whites of Aruch's eyes became visible above his dark sunglasses.
"What is this!" the terrorist demanded, fumbling a curving dagger from a scabbard at his waist. He pressed the knife to the belly of the ex-President.
The President was too out of breath to reply. Wheezing, he allowed the veil-which he had not fully reattached-to drop from his hand. It swung down to his shoulder.
"No. Put it on," Aruch commanded.
Nodding weakly, the elderly man did as he was told. Once his face was hidden, the PIO leader nodded.
"I do not know how you got here, but you are coming with me, ancient one," Nossur Aruch growled. With a shove, he propelled his captive forward. All the while, he held the knife menacingly close to the older man's side.
The former President was too weak to resist. He allowed the PIO leader to guide him at knifepoint. Bryce Babcock fell in behind the others.
Together, the unlikely trio hustled off through the growing chaos of Hebron.
Chapter 32
The Master of Sinanju rode into the ancient city of Hebron like a conquering hero, perched carefully atop his magnificent galloping desert-brown camel.
Remo's camel was struggling to keep up. The animal spit and hissed and made a general nuisance of itself as it clomped on broad-toed, furry feet into the chaotic streets. It would have stopped running altogether if not for the judicious coaxing Remo occasionally applied.
"Why is my camel so winded?" Remo complained as they waded into the surly crowds of Arabs.
"You are too fat," Chiun called back. "See how my beast accepts its precious feathery cargo with speed and grace."
"It's as graceful as a frigging camel, Little Father," Remo said. "We would have been better off saddling two pigs." His own mount wheezed suddenly. Remo grimaced at the sickly sound. "I think mine has asthma."
"Stop complaining. Camels all make similar noises."
"Wanna trade?"
"Why would I want your sick camel?" They rode deeper into the city.
Packs of men with mischief as their purpose prowled the streets. Apartment windows had already been smashed on most buildings. Cars whose engines had been frozen by the neutrino wave sat abandoned in the middle of roadways. Molotov cocktails had been tossed into some of the vehicles. From the open car windows, orange flames licked up into plumes of thick black smoke.
Remo was nearly shocked by the speed at which the inhabitants of the town had descended into feral behavior, but then he realized that-at least according to the regular images on the nightly news-they hadn't been too far away from it to begin with.
Riding down a particularly ravaged street, a group of men took evil interest in Remo and Chiun. One Arab with a board in his hand separated from the rest. He ran over to the Master of Sinanju, screaming a torrent of unintelligible Arabic while waving the chunk of wood menacingly.
With a toe-kick to the nose, Chiun sent the man sailing backward onto the hood of a stalled car. After that, the crowd cut them a wide swath.
In the next three city blocks, they passed seven rock fights, five knife imbroglios, three immolations by fire, an impalement, six savage chain beatings and two stonings.
"It's nice these people haven't forgotten their roots." Remo commented aridly as they rode past a group of Arabs who were pounding one another over the head with particularly thick copies of the Koran.
"Man has raised hand against his fellow man since the beginning of time." Chiun nodded. "Be thankful it is so, for if it was not, we would be out of work." The old Korean's eyes narrowed. "There," he announced abruptly.
He aimed a tapered finger down the road to where the street curved away between tightly packed buildings. A group of five Arabs was working near a jeep. "What about them?" Remo asked.
"They are of the Aruch clan," Chiun replied.
"How can you tell?"
"Do you not recognize the kaffiyeh?"
Remo looked over at the black-and-white-checkered headdresses some of the men wore. He shrugged. "One dirty dishrag's the same as the next to me," he said.
Chiun fixed him with a hooded stare. "Observe, O educated one," he said dryly.
Using his ankles, the Master of Sinanju gently pinched his camel's furry hump. The beast lowered obediently to the ground. Chiun had no sooner slid off the animal than he was marching over to the Arabs.
Remo's camel wasn't at all obliging. Even though he copied Chiun's technique exactly, the animal only spit and snorted. It even twisted its head around, trying to bite him. He finally gave up altogether and hopped to the ground. He trotted up beside the Master of Sinanju.
"I miss having a car," Remo complained as they walked.
"Cars are filthy inventions," Chiun replied.
"Camels are filthier," Remo said. "And I never had a Chrysler try to bite me on the leg."
The Arabs heard them talking. The men had been fussing about, attempting to figure out why the jeep would no longer run. But at Remo and Chiun's approach, they grew instantly alert.
AK-47s had been abandoned to the hood of the car. They grabbed them now, brandishing the weapons like clubs.
"Banu al-Asfar!" one of them screeched, at the same time swinging his gun toward Chiun's head. There was a satisfying crunch of bone as gun butt met cranium. Unfortunately for the Arab, the rifle failed utterly to make contact with the intended skull.
The man watched in horrified wonder down the length of his gun as the side of one of his comrade's heads collapsed into a visible V-shape. Somehow the man had moved into the spot previously occupied by the ancient intruder.
As the first dead Palestinian fell to the ground, the man became aware of similar noises all around him. Horrid crunches of bones being irreparably broken. When the Arab wheeled, he thought he saw flashes of movement. Never in the same spot, and never resolving into human form. When the last of his companions fell to the ground at the front of the jeep, the Arab looked up, his eyes sick.
The old one was back in his original position. The young white stood nearby, ankle deep in bodies. "We need a tour guide." Remo smiled. "You're it."
The Arab looked down at his dead companions. He looked back up. He gulped.
"I will lead you to the very portal of hell and beyond," the Arab enthused.
"PIO headquarters'll do," Remo said.
"Anything you wish," the Arab replied with a frantic nod.
Chiun's face was impassive. "Remo, lash this dog to the reins of your camel that he might precede us to the evil one's lair."
Nodding, Remo grabbed hold of the Arab and began to drag him back down the street. He took only two steps before he noticed that his camel was nowhere to be seen. Only Chiun's animal remained.
Remo stopped dead. "Hey, my camel is gone," he griped.
"Tether the Arab to your neck for all I care," Chiun said, breezing past him. "Just do not let him get away."
Leaving Remo to deal with their guide, the Master of Sinanju marched quickly down the street, lest Remo get any designs for his own mount.
THE DOORKNOB HAD FUSED to a solid mass on the front of the Palestine Independence Organization building. Luckily, a few of Aruch's men were loitering outside the building. They managed to pop the door open with a minimum of effort.
"Get out of my way!" Aruch commanded the instant the door sprang into the foyer.
He bulled his way through the mass of men and into the main hallway. The others followed him inside, propelling Bryce Babcock and the former President before them.
Aruch led the parade to his office.
"The day has arrived at long last!" Aruch sang merrily as he stomped across the room.
Passing his cluttered desk, he breezed onto the veranda. Outside, Nossur Aruch didn't seek the help of his men. T
his was a special moment. One he wished to keep for himself.
Like a selfish child with a birthday gift, he tore at the netting surrounding his precious rocket.
It was difficult at first. Much of the camouflage remained stubbornly attached to the uppermost portion of the long rocket. A final mighty tug brought the entire plastic covering tumbling to the balcony.
The missile was a slender white tube with two sets of wings-one halfway down the length of the assembly, the other, smaller pair near the tail. A stabilizing dorsal fin extended from the rear.
Two sustainable ramjets were fixed to the dorsal and ventral sides of the missile. In addition to these, four jettisonable rocket boosters were attached in a fan arrangement around the housing.
The menacing black nose of the Bloodhound pointed to the northwest.
At the base of the missile, Nossur Aruch glanced at his guests, tears of joy in his eyes,
"She is beautiful, is she not?" the PIO leader said, sniffling. He ran a hand lovingly along one of the slender boosters.
The former President of the United States remained silent. He stared at Aruch, a grim expression on his weathered features.
"That's a rocket," Bryce Babcock said, shocked.
"A Bloodhound Mk2. British long-range. It will strike Jerusalem minutes after launch."
"It won't work," Babcock blurted.
"Do not attempt to talk me out of it," Aruch warned. "I have waited years for this glorious day."
"That's not what I meant," the interior secretary said. "The rocket won't work. It's metal on metal. The neutrino wave would have neutralized its working components."
Aruch glanced in horror at Babcock. "You lie!" Babcock shook his head.
"Please, Nossur. You saw the evidence out in the street. With your own car. If you try to launch that thing, it will not go up. Worse, if some of its components survived the neutrino wave, it could detonate right here on the pad."
"It could have survived?" Aruch ventured hopefully.
"No," Babcock insisted. "It will never launch like it's supposed to. That's the whole point of the peace bomb. But some of the inner workings could have survived. Lead could have shielded some of the smaller metal parts. Silicon or plastic might have made it through. Enough might work in there to detonate whatever explosives are inside."
Nossur Aruch listened carefully to what was being explained to him. He made an instant decision. "You," he announced, pointing to one of his men. "Fire this missile in precisely two minutes." While the PIO soldier stepped dutifully onto the balcony, Nossur Aruch hightailed it back inside. Running through the halls of the headquarters, he led his entourage--which still included Bryce Babcock and the former President-into the courtyard on the far side of the building.
They had barely gotten outside when the ground was rocked by an explosion.
Leaves shook and fell from carefully tended trees. Birds took flight. The blast shook the three-story building behind them to its very foundation. The rear wall teetered for a long moment before finally crumbling inward. When it fell, it revealed a pile of rubble beyond it. The rest of the building had already collapsed in on itself.
Choking dust filled the courtyard. Thick black smoke poured up from the ruins.
Nossur Aruch took in the devastation with a look of dull incomprehension. That expression slowly melted into one of pure, unadulterated horror. With a shuffling deliberateness he turned, panting, to face the interior secretary of the United States. His insane eyes were as wide as saucers.
"You blew up my headquarters!" Nossur Aruch yelled at Bryce Babcock.
"I warned you," Babcock whimpered, shrugging fearfully. He cringed as if waiting to be hit.
Aruch turned back to the smoking remains of what had for years been the home of his beloved PIO.
"You blew up my headquarters!" he screamed again.
"Sorry," Babcock offered weakly.
"Even the accursed Jews never did that!" Aruch screamed.
Babcock said nothing more, fearful that he might inspire more anger in the PIO leader.
Head shaking in disbelief, Aruch stared at the ruins of his headquarters. Only the back steps remained. He kicked at a piece of shattered brick.
"What made this happen?" Aruch demanded.
"The peace bomb lets off a powerful magnetic force," Babcock said. "It would have fused the missile to the platform. I explained all this to you before."
"Yes, yes, yes." Aruch waved impatiently. Although he had heard the words, he had found them foolish and, consequently, had disregarded much of what was said. But now...
"What is the effective range of your bomb?"
"No one's really sure," Babcock admitted. "Could be a couple of hundred miles."
"This would be the same in all that area?" he asked, flapping an arm to the destroyed building.
"Yes," Babcock said, relieved that Aruch seemed to finally be getting the whole point of the peace bomb.
"So whoever gets weapons into this region of the world first will rule it," Nossur Aruch said. A wicked smile began to form within the graying stubble on his wrinkled face.
"Um-" Babcock began warily.
Aruch cut him off, a smile appearing in full bloom. "We need guns, bullets, explosives. And a radio. One that will have survived your peace bomb."
"None of them would have," Babcock insisted.
Aruch's response to this was a knowing smile. "I will need money," the PIO leader continued. He walked around Babcock to stand toe-to-toe with the President. "What do you think, old one? I am certain Iran would be interested in having you as a prize. Libya would also pay a handsome price. For that matter, a dozen countries in this region. Many more around the world. You will make me the last great monarch of all the Mideast."
He spoke it as a challenge.
The former President looked down at Nossur Aruch. His sun-creased face held an expression of bland contempt.
"Why is it that little fellas like you always have such big mouths?" he said in his soft-spoken, awshucks twang.
The PTO leader's smile vanished into his whiskers, replaced by a scowl. Wheeling to his men, he snapped a thumb to the President.
"Take him," he barked, at the same time marching for the gate at the rear of the courtyard. "His worthless hide is as good as gold. We ride this hour to my ancestral land. And to glory."
"I PAID GOOD MONEY for that camel," Remo groused.
"You should have watched it better."
"I think that bedouin ripped me off. Is there such a thing as a homing camel?"
Remo was trudging morosely beside the Master of Sinanju, who was seated grandly on the hump of his camel. Up ahead, leading the two of them through the streets of Hebron, was their captured PIO soldier.
"Do not complain to me because you cannot be trusted to care for pets," Chiun said. "You should have started with something smaller. Perhaps a hamster."
"Yuk it up," Remo muttered. "I'm glad one of us is having a good time."
Truth be told, despite the long walk beneath the hot sun and his own complaints to the contrary, Remo found that his mood, like Chiun's, was lighter than it had been of late.
After a miserable, self-indulgent three months, the Master of Sinanju seemed to finally be putting his movie deal behind him. This little jaunt around the world had turned the Korean back into his old self again, and in spite of all the kvetching and insults, Remo was happy to have him back. Of course, he kept his own mood masked, lest Chiun, sensing complacency in his pupil, revert to being the pain in the neck he'd been since last spring.
"I just hope the President is with Aruch after all this," Remo commented.
From the distance, they felt a sudden rumbling. It was a much smaller explosion, nowhere near as powerful as that from the neutrino bomb.
"What was that?" Remo asked as the aftershocks rolled away beneath their feet.
As if in reply, a thin finger of black smoke began to rise in the pale blue sky above the distant rooftops
"Wha
tever it is," the Master of Sinanju intoned, "it comes from the direction in which we are headed."
It took another fifteen minutes to wend their way through the maze of streets to the spot where the explosion had originated. When they got there, they found the pile of smoking debris that was all that remained of the West Bank offices of the PIO. "This was the headquarters?" Remo asked their Arab companion.
"It is the home of the Palestine Independence Organization," the guide replied.
"You think Aruch was inside?" Remo asked Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju had dismounted from his camel and was walking around the brick and mortar rubble with his pupil. He paused in the rear courtyard.
"No," Chiun said. He pointed at some footprints, recently made in the dusty earth. "Several men escaped injury. And look," he added, "the former occupant of the Eagle Throne was with them."
"The President?" Remo asked. "Are you sure?" Chiun gave him a baleful glare.
"Okay, so he went with him." Remo nodded reasonably. "Now we've got to figure out where they went."
"There is no figuring necessary," Chiun explained. "Aruchs are born of the desert. That is where he will return."
"How can you be so sure?"
Chiun folded his arms matter-of-factly. "A dog never tires of smelling the same mound of excrement," he replied.
"Since I'm lousy with pets, I'll have to take your word on that," Remo said. Surveying the damage, he exhaled in annoyance. "Well, if we're going into the desert, I'm not hoofing it."
"There is a stable nearby," the PIO guide offered hopefully.
This sounded good enough to Remo.
"Scrounge us up four horses and I'll consider letting you live," he said to the soldier.
Face brightening, the man spun, hurrying from the rubble-strewn courtyard.
"Let's hope the President can keep his mouth shut a little longer," Remo said to Chiun as they followed the man out to the street. "If he spills the beans this late in the game, Smitty'll have a stroke."
Chapter 33
A few hours of untroubled sleep at his desk had faded into a waking nightmare for Harold W. Smith. Remo and Chiun had failed to halt the detonation of the neutrino bomb. That much was painfully obvious.
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