A faint light made the tigers jump out from the shimmery ebon background.
"What?"
Remo turned, the kimono dropping from his surprised fingers.
Feeling his mouth go dry, he gasped.
"Little Father?"
For there, less than six feet away, stood the Master of Sinanju, shining with a faint radiance. He wore the royal purple kimono that he had last worn in life. His hands were concealed in the joined sleeves. His eyes were closed, the sweet wrinkles of his face in repose, his head tilted back slightly.
Remo swallowed. Except for a bluish cast, Chiun looked as he had in life. There was no corny opalescent glow like in a Hollywood ghost. No saintlike nimbus. None of that ghostly stuff.
Still, Remo could see, dimly, the shadowy bulk of the big-screen TV behind the Master of Sinanju's lifelike image.
"Little Father?" Remo repeated. "Chiun?"
The bald head lowered, and dim hazel eyes eased open as if coming out of a long sleep. They grew harsh when they came into contact with Remo's own.
The sleeves parted, revealing birdlike claws tipped with impossibly long curved nails.
One trembling hand pointed to Remo.
"What are you saying?" Remo asked. "If it's about my going through your trunks"
Then it pointed down, to the Master of Sinanju's sandaled feet.
"You did this last time," Remo said. "And the time before that. You're telling me that I walk in your sandals now, right?"
The eyes flashed anew. The hand pointed down, the elbow working back and forth emphatically, driving the point home again and again.
"I'm going back. Really. I have something to clear up first."
The elbow jerked.
"I was on my way but Kali came back. I don't know what to do."
With the other hand the spirit of Chiun indicated the floor.
"You can't hear me, can you?"
Remo put his hands in his pockets. He shook his head negatively.
The Master of Sinanju dropped silently to both knees. He rested tiny futile fists against the hardwood floor and began pounding. His hands went through the floor each time. But their violence was emphatic.
"Look," Remo protested, "I don't know what you're trying to tell me. And you're starting to drive me crazy with all this pantomime stuff. Can't you just leave a note or something?"
Chiun sat up. He formed strange shapes with his hands and fingers.
Remo blinked. He peered through the half-light.
"What is this?" he muttered. "Charades?"
Chiun's crooked fingers twisted this way and that, forming Remo knew not what. He thought he recognized the letter G formed of a circled thumb and forefinger bisected by another index finger, but the rest was a meaningless jumble of pantomime.
"Look, I'm not following this," Remo shouted in exasperation. "Why are you doing this to me? You're dead, for Christ's sake. Why can't you just leave me alone!"
And with that, the Master of Sinanju came to his feet like ascending purple incense.
He approached, his hands lifting to Remo's face.
Remo shrank back. But the hands plunged too quickly to evade.
"Noooo!" Remo cried as the whirl of images overtook his mind. He smelled coldness, visualized blackness, and tasted brackish water-all in one overwhelming concussion of sensory attack. His lungs caught in mid-breath-from fear or what, he didn't know. It felt like the oxygen had been sucked from them.
He sank to his feet, eyes pinched shut, breathing in jerky gasps.
"Okay, okay, you win!" he panted. "I'll go! I'll go to Sinanju. I promise. Just stop haunting me, okay?"
The images swallowed themselves like water swirling down a drain.
"What?"
Remo opened his eyes. The faint radiance was gone. In the half-light he thought he caught a momentary retinal impression of Chiun's dwindling afterimage. The Master of Sinanju had thrown his face to the heavens. Remo could almost hear his wail of despair.
Now Remo knew. The Master of Sinanju had gone to the Void-the cold place on the other side of the universe where, according to Sinanju belief, those who had dropped their mortal shells were ultimately cast.
It was true! There was a Void. And Chiun was there. Remo swallowed his fear several times before he found his feet. Now he understood. No wonder Chiun kept coming back. The Void was a terrible place. And it was the place Remo would one day go too. Remo shivered at the thought.
Perhaps he was better off a slave of Kali. He did not know. Remo reached into the open trunk and took up a shimmery bolt of fabric.
Then he left, sealing the front door by compressing the protesting hinges with the heel of his hand. They would have to be unscrewed before the door would ever open again.
Remo did not expect to see that done. Ever.
Chapter 22
President Maddas Hinsein, Scimitar of the Arabs, left the presidential palace in his staff car. He was feeling very Arabian today, so he wore a blue-and-white burnoose whose headdress was held in place by a coiling black agal.
It was also excellent protection against the scourge of the Arab leader-the would-be assassin. For no one knew what Father Maddas, as his worshipful countrymen called him with childlike affection, would wear on a given day. A paramilitary jumpsuit, a Western-style business suit, or traditional bedouin garb. It was one of the many survival tricks he had learned in a lifetime of surviving the snakepit that was modern Irait.
The decree that all males of puberty age and above wear Maddas Hinsein mustaches was another. If all Iraiti men looked alike, Maddas reasoned, an assassin would have to consider well before shooting, lest he fire upon a relative. In that fractional hesitation sometimes lay the difference between glorious victory and ignominious death.
The staff car whirled him through the broad multilane highways and the sparse traffic, through Renaissance Square, where two huge forearms-cast from life molds of Maddas' own and expanded to the girth of a genie's arm-clutched curved scimitars to form an arch. On every building, on the traffic islands, and in the centers of rotaries, magnificent portraits of Maddas alternately smiled and glowered in testimony to the sweeping depth of his magnificent wardrobe. How could a man who so inspired his people, Maddas thought with deep pride, fail to unite the Arabs?
Presently the car brought him to Maddas International Airport, where a Tupolev-16 bomber sat on the tarmac.
Under armed escort, Maddas Hinsein entered the airport.
His defense minister, General Razzik Azziz, rushed forward to meet him.
General Azziz did not look well. Maddas preferred his generals to look unwell. If there was fear in their bellies, he was a safer president. They exchanged salutes.
"Salaam aleikim, Precious Leader," said General Azziz. "The plane has just arrived."
Maddas nodded. "And this United States deserter, where is she?"
"For security purposes, we have not allowed anyone to deplane. The crew awaits you."
"Take me."
Members of his elite blue-bereted Renaissance Guard formed a protective circle around Maddas Hinsein as he strode in his familiar rolling gait onto the tarmac. A wheeled staircase was brought up to the aircraft, which had flown in from occupied Kuran carrying the deserter. She had presented herself to an astonished patrol.
Two airport security guards climbed the aluminum stairs and knocked on the hatch. They waited. Nothing happened. They pounded this time, shouting insults and curses in voluble Arabic.
This produced no result. They hastily clambered down the staircase and moved it in front of the cockpit. They climbed up and looked in the window.
Their manner became excited. They shouted. Other soldiers came running. From the top of the stairs they opened up on the occupied windows with AK-47's. Glass flew. Blood splashed, spattering them all.