"What forces? Beyond the neutral zone, there's nothing but unfriendlies."
"Yes. But the question is, who is unfriendly to whom?"
Praetor Hornworks took off his service cap and scratched his bristled skull.
"Listen, I can't let you go into Kuran. You're the best blasted field officer in this man's legion."
"I must. For my son is in that cruel land."
"Didn't you hear? All the hostages are out."
"Not all," Chiun said firmly. "And I am going. You are a soldier. Obey your imperator."
Praetor Hornworks struggled to his feet. He was getting too old for all this squatting and kneeling, but if it brought results, it was better than being up on the line.
"I'm on it," he said. He started for the phone, then turned, his eyebrows lifting quizzically.
"You say this new person is a gal?" he asked Chiun.
"So the stars foretell."
"What kind of gal could help out of Maddas?"
"The wrong kind."
"Good point. You know, even if this highfalutin plan of yours comes off, this fracas ain't gonna be over until someone up and nails that son of a camel."
Chiun's eyes glinted with a sudden cold light.
"Someone will," he said.
"We generals got another saying: In times of crisis, a leader's assassin is already at his side, but neither man knows it."
"The one who will dispatch the Mad Arab is not yet at his side," the Master of Sinanju intoned. "But soon, soon . . . ."
Chapter 27
When the last Air Irait jet returned from the outside world, the pilot and copilot emerged from the cockpit to face a pair of scarlet-bereted Renaissance Guard troopers.
"You have been sentenced to death in absentia," announced the first guard. "The stated crime is releasing Western hostages without permission."
"Allah! But we were acting upon direct instructions of al-Ze'em," the pilot protested.
"Al-Ze'em is no more;" the other trooper explained. "Our Precious Leader has resumed supremacy over proud Irait. "
The two pilots turned green as they were marched out onto the deserted concourse, stood up before a ticket counter, and shot down in cold blood. There they turned white as the blood flowed from their bodies, replenishing the drying patch of rusty fluid left by their late colleagues.
An Air Irait maintenance worker later went about the task of cleaning up the bodies. He wondered who would fly the commercial airplanes now that virtually every civilian pilot had ended up in a common grave. He hoped it would be him. Although he could barely drive a car, it was possible. In Irait, where summary execution was the commonest instigator of career advancement, the Peter Principle had been raised to high art.
He was contemplating the next stage of his career as he was cleaning out the late pilot's aircraft.
From the women's room came a dull pounding and a high voice speaking excited English.
"Let me out!" it said. It was a woman's voice. He went to unlock the door.
Out stumbled, not a woman, but a slip of a girl wearing a black-and-white optical-print dress that made him think of old Laugh-In reruns.
"Who are you?" he asked in thick English.
"I'm Sky Bluel," said the girl in a breathless American accent. She wore her hair long and straight, a yellow ribbon holding it in place. Behind rose-tinted granny glasses her eyes were wide and innocent to the point of vacuousness.
"You are pink, not blue."
"Think of me as the Jane Fonda of the nineties," Sky Bluel added. "Now, quick, take me to your leader. I have a secret plan to end the war!"
"But . . . there is no war."
"That's my secret plan. It's outta sight!"
Chapter 28
Kaitmast was an Afghani.
Kaitmast had been a simple goatherd when the brutal Russians had invaded his peaceful land. After his village was obliterated by a rocket attack, he joined the Hezbi-Islami faction of the Afghan Mujahideen. Over the course of the 1980's Kaitmast had sent many a Russian soldier back to his motherland in the "Black Tulip"-the evacuation helicopter that bore the enemy dead from the field of battle.
With U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles, Kaitmast-whose name meant "Tough" in his native Afghani-had shot down a few Black Tulips too. Not to mention assorted MiGs.
Now the Russians had slunk back to their godless land, and the only foes left for Kaitmast to fight were the traitorous Afghan collaborators of the hated Soviet-backed regime.
Now that victory lay near, he felt almost sad. Kaitmast had grown quite fond of combat. He did not look forward to returning to the goats at all. Such was his mood after a decade of conflict.
It was a moonless night when Kaitmast heard the dull sounds rolling out of Pakistan.
He snapped out of his sleep, thinking that it was the rumble of T-72 tanks. A fighting grin came over his battle-hardened features. Perhaps it was the Shouroui-the Soviets-he thought, returning for more sport. Could their soldiers have grown bored with peace as well?
His Kalashnikov cradled across his crooked elbows, Kaitmast crawled along the high barren crags of the Khyber Pass. Reaching a point of vantage, he peered down into Pakistan, his squint eyes eager.
What he saw made him blink in wonderment.
But what he heard froze his blood.
It was a high eerie keening. The winds through the eternal Khyber might have produced such beauteous sounds. It filled the clear night air like a dark wine of song.
"Allah!" Kaitmast muttered, not immediately comprehending. And because he feared what he did not understand, he lifted his AK-47 and, setting it to fire single shots, began to snipe into the great dark shape that moved inexorably toward the Khyber Pass.
Strangely, there was no return fire, no faltering of the ground-shaking thunder or the unearthly song that was like an intoxicating wine.
Kaitmast emptied his clip without result. Inserting another, he emptied that too. But it was like shooting at the wind. He began to grow afraid.
The song and the thunder did not abandon the Khyber Pass until long after the sun had risen the next morning.
When it did, it illuminated the cold cadaver of Kaitmast, the Afghan freedom fighter. Or at least such pieces of Kaitmast as had landed where the sun's rays shone. Those ragtag Mujahideen who found him later that day thought to themselves that a human being could be rendered into such ruin only by being drawn and quartered by wild horses and then the separate pieces chewed by ravenous wolves.
And when they went to see what had done this to their brave comrade, they discovered spoor like a great winding serpent track that was dotted with ill-smelling lumps of excrement.
It led deep into the heart of Afghanistan.
Over hot tea flavored with sour yak butter, they conferred over how best to deal with this incursion. After long argument, the freedom fighters were split, and they went their separate ways, each group to act upon its best judgment.
Those who elected to follow it were never heard from again.
Those whose curiosity was less keen lived.
Neither forgot to the end of their days the song they were privileged to hear.
Chapter 29
The decurion brought the Master of Sinanju a butyl rubber gasproof environment suit and matching gas mask.
Laying these before Chiun's feet, the decurion said, "Specially tailored to your size, sir. Since we're about the same height and build, I tried it on to be sure. It fits me."
The Master of Sinanju poked at the ugly slick material of the suit disapprovingly. He had seen its like before, months ago, in the doomed town in Missouri that had been decimated by deadly gases. It had been the start of the assignment that had brought him to a near-death in the cold water of a peaceless eternity.
Inwardly the Master of Sinanju shuddered at the thought. These last few months had been an ordeal. First the death that was not, and then the loss of Remo. He had seen the television transmission from cursed Abominadad, showing Remo and the girl who was Kali, their skins black in death. All was lost. All was over. One last mission and his work would be done. He would return to his humble village to live out the remaining days of his difficult life, childless and bitter.