And there he was, attired as if a genie out of the Arabian Nights, extinguishing the Tyrant of Irait before all the world. It was good. The crisis had passed. The Americans had, for once, done the correct thing. They had sent the greatest assassin in all the world to work their will.
Yet in the aftermath, the U.S. President had immediately ordered his forward troops to mobilize for a bloody liberation drive into occupied Kuran, against all reason. Did he not understand that this was no longer necessary?
It was fortunate that his adopted son, the prince general, had had the foresight to revoke this command. It had bought them time.
Allah, as always, had provided. First with the immediate release of the hostages, and then with the mysterious secret offensive plans of the Iraiti invader.
The winds of war were being blown away like the sands of the desert. Soon there would be peace.
Then further word had come from Washington, in the form of a private communication from the President himself. It had been hand-delivered by the U.S. ambassador. The text was brief.
"The one known to you as Chiun requests an audience. He will arrive shortly."
Upon reading these words, Sheik Fareem looked up, his wizened old face screwing into a dry pucker of confusion.
"What madness is this?" he muttered, stroking his beard. "Master Chiun is dead."
He ruminated upon this, drinking watered yogurt and fingering ivory worry beads, and decided the only answer was an unfortunate one. He was in league with the deranged. First they wanted war. Then they did not. Now they claimed to be sending him a dead man.
The sheik made a phone call. He was told that the personal aircraft carrier commissioned for his adopted son was still three years away from completion.
"I will pay triple if you deliver by Wednesday," the sheik implored.
"Impossible," said the shipyard supervisor. "You don't crank out an aircraft carrier like a stock car."
"Quadruple."
"Your highness, if I could I would."
"All right," the sheik said testily. "Quintuple! But no higher, you bandit!"
"I'd love to take your money," the man said sincerely, "but it's impossible. We just can't deliver an aircraft carrier on such short notice."
"Somewhere," growled Sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem just before he hung up the phone, "there is someone who can." He knew the white was lying. But he would not pay two billion dollars for a mere aircraft carrier. The prince general would have to wait. And the House of Hamid would have to find a way to solve this matter through the Americans.
When, hours later, the Master of Sinanju was announced, Sheik Fareem awoke with a start.
"Show him in," said the sheik, gathering his red-and-brown-striped thobe about his body, for he trembled in anticipation.
And upon beholding the sight of a short, wrinkled visage he had thought never again to see again in life, the sheik wept tears of joy and cried, "Master of Sinanju! Boundless is my joy on this day. For only you can assist me. I am beset my madmen."
"Salaam Aleikim," intoned the Master of Sinanju gravely. "I have come to deal with the madman known as Maddas Hinsein. For he has cost me my only son."
The sheik started.
He said, "Maddas is dead. Which I believed you to be, as well. As for your son, I know only that he was the perpetrator of that glorious deed."
Chiun shook his age-racked head.
"No. The evil one lives. As for my son, he is beyond salvation. For he has fulfilled his ultimate destiny at last. As for me, I have come back from the very Void to deal with these things."
Sheik Fareem compressed his lips into a thin line. His ancestors had come to power with Dar al-Sinanju-the House of Sinanju-by their side. They had waxed powerful under their guidance. Their enemies had fallen like the sugar dates from the palms when the Masters of Sinanju of old had willed it.
Before him stood a man who looked a thousand years older than when last they met less than a decade ago.
The man he had believed dead. Now he resembled a mummy come back to life. There was no spark in his eyes. No vibrancy in his low, squeaky voice.
It was as if all the juices of life had been squeezed from the old Korean, leaving only a steely purpose and no hope, no joy at all.
"What is your desire, friend of my forefathers?" Sheik Fareem asked at last.
"It may be a war is to be fought. You will need a general."
"I have a general, my adopted son. He is-"
"For what is coming," Chiun said, "you will need a general like none to be found in your kingdom. Warriors such as have not trodden these deserts in many generations."
"Name these great ones."
"I," said the Master of Sinanju steadily, "am the general of Hamidi Arabia's salvation. As for the warriors, their name is so dreadful even I dare not speak it to you,"
The sheik touched his chest, chin, and forehead in the traditional salute.
"It shall be as you wish, ally of my forefathers."
Chapter 12
Wang Weilin was the first one to hear the sound.
It began as a distant hum. It was in his ears for many minutes before the eternal thunder-in the years to come, he would refer to the phenomenon in exactly those words-intruded upon his brain.
He was a peasant, was Wang Weilin. He squatted by the side of the road where his Flying Pigeon bicycle had struck the sharp rock that fattened his front tire.
He had no spare and the road was ill-traveled, so Wang had squatted by the roadside to smoke patiently as he awaited a passerby who might assist him.
When the eternal thunder first penetrated his morose thoughts, Wang stood up, casting his narrow darting eyes in all directions.
He saw nothing at first. Then, north, somewhere beyond the Tianshan Mountains, there was dust. Just dust.
"Karaburan," he murmured. But it was not the Black Hurricane of the desert, he realized a moment later.
The thunder swelled. It did not rumble or gobble, or change tone or pitch in any way. It was steady. It drummed. Gods drumming on great iron rice bowls might have produced this thunder.
It disturbed Wang Weilin for some reason. Its very inexplicability was disheartening.
The dust continued to lift. Whatever phenomenon was producing it, it was many miles away. Yet the wind carried some of the dust to his nostrils, and with it an unpleasant odor. It was not an odor Wang would naturally associate with the gods. It was animallike, distasteful. Tigers on the prowl might smell so. Or perhaps, he thought-his superstitious nature asserting itself-so might dragons.
Whatever it was-gods, demons, or dragons-it was following the old Silk Road that Marco Polo had once plied. And it was grinding westward.
And as it passed due north of Wang Weilin, another sound lifted over the thunder.
It was eerie, melodic. Unlike the thunder, this was not a constant sound. It undulated. And could only have been produced by a living throat.
But what throat? Wang Weilin thought, his heart skipping a beat. For the sound was huge, gargantuan, and in spite of its haunting beauty, threatening.
Thinking again of dragons, Wang Weilin threw away his Blue Swallow cigarette and grabbed up his Flying Pigeon bicycle by the handles.
He would push the balky thing all the way back to the village of Anxi, he vowed.
Even though Anxi was due east, in the opposite direction from which he had been traveling.
For if the singing dragon was bound west, Wang Weilin was going east. He did not wish to feed that melodious full-throated song with his mortal bones.
Chapter 13
General Winfield Scott Hornworks was adamant.
"I do not take orders from sheiks; prince generals or . . ." He groped for a polite word. None came. "Whatever the heck you are."
"I am the Master of Sinanju," said the tiny little Asian guy who looked like death warmed over. He wore a kimono of raw silk. It was the color of a shroud. He stood with his sleeves joined together, his hands tucked inside.
"I especially do not take orders from Masters of Sinanju, whatever that may be," Hornworks added.
The old Asian cocked his head to one side. "You are a soldier?"
"Ninth generation. A Hornworks fought with General Washington at Valley Forge."
"A Master of Sinanju stood at the throne of Pharaoh Tutankamen, with Cyrus the Great, Lord Genghis Khan, and others of equal stature."
General Winfield Scott Hornworks' blocky jaw dropped. He shut it. The sand fleas loved open mouths.
"You got me outflanked and outranked ancestrywise," he gulped. He doffed his campaign hat in sincere salute.
They were standing outside Central Command Headquarters in the Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base. Patriot missile batteries ringed the perimeter, to protect against incoming Iraiti rocketry.
The sheik had had a tent erected beside a Patriot radar array for this meeting. They were outside the tent now. Prince General Bazzaz looked lost and unhappy standing beside his adoptive father.
"O long-lived one," he began, "I agree with the infidel general. I do not see the reason why-"
"Silence," said the sheik, chopping off the sentence with a swipe of his hand. "I command obedience." He turned to the American general. "As for you, your President, my ally, has commanded that you defer to the Master of Sinanju."
General Hornworks squared his star-bedizened epaulets. "I gotta hear that from the President himself."
The sheik snapped his fingers. A cellular telephone was slapped into his upraised hand. He worked it briefly, spoke, and then handed it to General Hornworks.
The general no sooner said, "Howdy," than he snapped to attention. "Yes, sir," he barked. "No, sir," he added. "Of course, sir," he concluded. "You got it. In spades."
Hitting the disconnect button, he returned the phone to the sheik. His broad features were sheepish. He swallowed uncomfortably.
"Are we in agreement'?" asked the sheik in an age-cracked voice.
"Absolutely," said General Winfield Scott Hornworks, who knew exactly on which side his bread was buttered. Especially after his commander in chief had reminded him in a testy voice.
"Summon your lackeys," said the one called Chiun.
Hornworks assumed a blank expression. "My which?"
"Your lackeys," repeated the sheik, who wondered if the infidel general was hard of hearing.
Hornworks gulped. "Sir?"
"Your officers," the prince general put in, recognizing that the infidel general was somehow under the impression he was not a mere paid mercenary.
"Oh. Officers. Why didn't you say so?"
No one offered an answer. They could see the American was suffering delusions of equality-a very common Western mental affliction for which there was no known cure.
They convened around the war room deep in the basement of the UN Central Command Building. The sheik sat silently, toying with his worry beads.
As they settled on the rug, forming a semicircle around the Master of Sinanju, the prince general went among them, handing out crisp white sheets of paper to each.
"What's this?" General Hornworks growled, turning the sheet this way and that.
"We will come to that later," said the Master of Sinanju. "First, I must know several things. Your forces. They have been placed according to the tortoise's prediction?"
General Hornworks' eyes went wide. "Prediction! That was you?"
The Master of Sinanju nodded.
"We did it. Yeah. It was crazy, but the deployment was brilliant. What I don't quite get is why you scratched it on the back of a dead turtle."
"I did not," snapped Chiun. "Your forces will remain in place. There will be no advance unless attacked, no retreat under any circumstances."
"Nobody's going anywhere," General Hornworks vowed.
Chiun nodded. "Tell me of the dangers you face."
"Well," said General Hornworks, counting off on his fingers, "there's about, oh, fifty thousand dug-in Iraitis camped out in Kuran. Most of them's cannon fodder, you understand. They got their best units-"
"Legions. You will use correct military terms."
"We say 'units.' "
"You will say 'legions' as long as I am general," said Chiun stiffly.
Interest flickered in General Hornworks' blocky face. "Who died and made you general? I don't see any stars on your dang shoulders."
The old Korean narrowed his eyes. "You wish stars?"
"I'd like to see a few, yeah."
The Master of Sinanju obliged with a quick strike at the general's exposed forehead that sent Hornworks rocking back on his broad posterior.
Sure enough, he saw stars. He thought he heard birds too. Just like in a cartoon. They sounded like canaries.
"Are those stars sufficient to satisfy you?" asked the Master of Sinanju.
"Plenty," Hornworks croaked, holding his head. In fact, he was obviously outranked three to one. He hadn't even seen the old guy move.
"Continue your accounting of forces," Chiun commanded.
"Irait's got about five tank divisions in Kuran. And I'd say half that in Irait itself. But that ain't the biggest problem we got."
"What is?"
"Them damn Scud missiles of his. He's got maybe three hundred of them. Each one of them with enough range to hit us, Israel, or any other damn place in this sandbox of a region. No offense, Prince General."
"The opinions of pork-eaters cannot offend me," Prince General Bazzaz said with studied equanimity.
"Spoken like a true ally of America," Hornworks remarked.
"These Crud missiles," continued Chiun. "How best to render them harmless?"
Hornworks considered. "We could take 'em out by air strikes. But they're mobile. No way we can hit them all in one sortie raid. Some of them are bound to launch. And that would be one hellacious rain."
The Master of Sinanju stroked his wispy beard in thought, saying, "No, this must be done quietly."
"There's nothing quiet about war," General Hornworks pointed out, "once it gets cooking."
"That is the problem with you Westerners. You think sound and fury are the measurements of success. The greatest victories are silent ones. The Trojans knew this. Others did too."
"If you're looking for wooden horses," Hornworks said dryly, "we'd have to requisition a few."
"It has been done," said Chiun dismissively. "Are there other ways to destroy these missiles before they can be fired at us?"
"Sure. Hell, you can take out a Scud missile and launcher with a twenty-two rifle. Just shoot at the liquid-propellant stage. She'll blow right up and take the launcher with her. If there was a way to hit every missile at once, that little problem would be solved."
The hazel eyes of the Master of Sinanju narrowed.
"Where do the Kurds stand in this matter?" he asked thoughtfully.
"The Kurds-they're just a bunch of ragtag-"
Chiun held up a silencing hand. "Answer my question."
"Last I heard, they were forming irregular units-I mean legions. But my guess is that if conflict breaks out, the Kurds'll turn on the Iraitis durn quick."
Chiun nodded. "Then all that remains is to become acquainted with the mind of your enemy."
"We don't even know who's in charge up there, now that of Mad Ass is out of the picture."
"That villain is not dead. He lives. And it is his personality you must understand if you are to be triumphant over him. Now, you will study the papers I have provided you."
"What is this thing anyway?" General Hornworks wanted to know.
"It is your enemy's horoscope." said Chiun gravely. "I have cast it in Korean."
"That explains why I can't make it out," General Hornworks said dryly.
"I will teach you."
"Astrology?" General Hornworks asked in surprise.
"No. Korean."
General Winfield Scott Hornworks searched the wrinkled features of the old Oriental for signs of humor. Finding none, he drew in a deep breath and tho
ught: Well, there goes the war.
Chapter 14
President Razzik Azziz, AKA al-Ze'em, was growing desperate.
In power less than a day, he could feel his hold in his Revolting Command Council slipping with each passing hour. He wore a fresh uniform, and his upper lip was raw from its first encounter with a shaving blade in many years.
"What news?" he demanded, barging into the council room, where his subordinates sat around the table touching the unfamiliar nakedness under their noses.
"There is no answer from the Americans," reported the information minister. "Even the ambassador has abandoned the embassy."
He turned to the defense minister, his eyes pleading for good news.
"The American demons have taken their battle to the western outskirts of the city," the man reported.
"They are going away?" he asked, hope brightening his voice.
"It is impossible to say. But they have destroyed the entire western antimissile missile battery. Abominadad is now defenseless against an air attack."
"There is still our air force," the chief air-force general put in.
"Which will be decimated within two hours of a U.S. first strike," said the Iraiti secretary of the navy, which was only slightly larger than the Irish navy.
No one disputed that. They all watched CNN, which had predicted this was inevitable, so they knew it was true.
Through the windows came an extended tortured crackling sound, like a thousand logs going through a car-crushing machine.
"What is that?" the president gasped, clutching the table edge.
The information minister went to a window.
"It is the royal Kurani roller coaster," he said. "It is being torn apart. They have climbed atop it and are battling furiously."
Taking up a pair of field glasses, the president went to the window.
He saw them clearly this time. Both the American who wore the purple and red of an Aladdin, and the nude blond American woman with more arms than were wholesome.
They were tearing off sections of track and using them as bludgeons. Each time a blow fell, the entire rickety roller coaster trembled like a precarious house of wooden matchsticks.
"Who is winning?" asked the foreign minister.
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