"All you've got to do is stay on the beam and you'll get an eight," the girl said.
"Yeah?" snarled Remo to the television set. "Watch this."
Smith shook his head. Both Remo and Chum had been acting strangely since they returned last night from Moscow. He leaned over on his couch seat to look over Remo's shoulder at the television set. He saw an Indian girl with her hair tied up in a bun apply rosin to her hands, then move to the balance beam, put her hands on it, and lift herself up to the narrow plank of wood. Then her hands seemed to slip, and she fell to the matting surrounding the beam.
"Way to go, Josie," shouted Remo.
The girl leaped back up to the beam, but her foot slipped and she landed heavily on her backside. She grabbed the beam desperately to stop herself from falling off.
"Swell, sweetheart," Remo said.
Finally she raised herself to a standing position on the beam. She took a step forward, planted her right foot, tried to do a forward walkover, but her left foot slipped and she fell off the beam onto the mat.
"She's blowing it," the young woman commentator said. "Wow, folks, Josie had it all in her hands and she's blowing it."
"I guess she's blowing it," said the male announcer, not to be outdone in technical analysis.
Josie Littlefeather got up quickly and made one last attempt to mount the beam, but as her feet hit it, they slid out from under her and she fell to her backside, then rolled off onto the mat, then got up and ran off the floor, out of the arena. She was rubbing her back.
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"Yaaaaay," yelled Remo. He stood up and kicked off the television with his toe. He turned to Smith. "You were saying?"
"Why were you cheering that poor girl's disaster?" Smith asked.
"Just collecting a due bill," Remo said. "What about the Russians?"
"They are not going to complain that our country sent some agents into the games without their permission."
"That's big of them," Remo said. "They got all the bombs out?"
"Yes. They were in the ventilation shafts in each of the building's wings. It would have been a disaster."
"Good," Remo said. "And who were the terrorists?"
Smith dug in his attache case and brought out a photo, which he handed to Remo. "I think it was him."
Remo looked at him. "I thought Idi Amin had been disposed of."
"That's not Idi Amin. That's Jimbobwu Mkombu."
"Who's he?"
"He leads one of the terrorist armies that have been trying to overthrow the governments of South Africa and Rhodesia."
Remo nodded. "I got it. Make it look like the South African whites were trying to upset the Olympics and kill American athletes. Get the world ticked off at them, and then move in and take over."
"That's about it," Smith said.
"What's going to happen to him?"
"Nothing," said Smith. "In the first place, we can't be 100 percent sure that he sent this Lieutenant Mul-lin and the other four men to disrupt the games."
"He sent them," Remo said.
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"I think so too, because Mullin had been working for him for three years. But we can't prove it."
"What about the Russians?" asked Remo.
"Well, they've been supporting Mkombu's revolution. They're not about to announce that one of their own tried to mess up their games. That's why they're not announcing the identity of the terrorists."
"So Mkombu's going to get away with it," Remo said.
Smith shrugged. "Apparently. He might even get some good out of it for himself. Without any contradiction, much of the world is still going to believe it was the whites in Southern Africa who tried to blow up the games. That might strengthen Mkombu's hand."
"That's not fair," Remo said.
"Hah," said Chiun. "A fitting end to these games, then. Nothing is fair."
He continued to look straight ahead and Smith looked toward Remo for an explanation.
"He's ticked 'cause I didn't win a medal," Remo said.
"Nothing has gone right in these Olympics," Chiun said. "Nothing has happened the way I planned."
The self-pity oozed from his voice and Remo wondered if he should tell Smith what had happened. Yesterday, returning from Moscow, Chiun had become philosophical about Remo's defeat, and when Remo had pressed him, he found out that Chiun had figured out a new way to gain fame and fortune from the games. Chiun had decided that the entire world saw him lift Vassilev and the six hundred pounds of weights and this should bring the offers of endorsement contracts to him immediately in great floods. It was only when they reached London that Chiun found out that the television had blacked out at just that moment, and no one had seen him toss Vassilev
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around like a rag doll. Remo had not had the heart to tell Chiun that it was Chiun's own fault: that when he snapped the television cable that was blocking his way, he had stopped the TV transmission of the weight-lifting competition.
"I'm sorry for that, Chiun," Smith said.
Chiun eyed the ceiling in disgust, and Remo felt sorry for him. Chiun had not gotten Ms gold medal, had missed out on all his endorsement contracts, and had experienced nothing but disappointment because of Jimbobwu Mkombu. And Mkombu might turn the entire thing into a great success for himself.
That wasn't fair, Remo decided.
"So Mkombu's going to get away with it," he said to Smith.
"Probably."
"Maybe," said Remo.
At that moment, he decided the job was not yet done.
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Carried by jungle drums, passed in whispered word from one soldier to another, the story spread through the jungles above South Africa and Rhodesia that a slim white avenger stalked the jungles, seeking vengeance.
The stories said he was able to move unbelievably fast; that he was there one moment and gone the next. That bullets could not hurt him. That he smiled when he killed-smiled and spoke of vengeance for the sake of honor.
And Jimbobwu Mkombu's soldiers worried, because the trail of bodies was coming through the jungles toward them. And the soldiers asked themselves, "Why should we die this way for Mm? On a battlefield, yes, because we are soldiers, but at the hands of a white avenging spirit who smiles when he kills? That is no way for soldiers to die."
"He wants the general," one soldier told another. "Why should we die in his place?"
The other soldier heard a noise and fired a shot into the brush. Both men listened, but heard nothing.
"Do not let the general hear you speak that way," the second soldier warned. "He would have you shot or have your head torn off. He is very nervous these days."
"Of course. He knows this white avenger is coming for him."
"Silence, you fools," roared Mkombu's voice from
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above their heads. "How can I hear what is going on in the jungle if you keep whispering and mumbling? Be quiet, you dogs."
The first man leaned over to the second soldier. "He's drunk again."
The second man nodded and both looked up at Mkombu's window.
They were Mkombu's personal guard. They were also his sons.
Inside the building, Jimbobwu Mkombu was finishing his second bottle of wine. When the bottle was empty, he smashed it against the wall, as he had done with the first, and opened a third bottle.
These fools, he thought. How could he hear anyone coming if they always babbled? Maybe he would have them shot in the morning. As he lifted the bottle of wine to his mouth, he wondered how it had gone wrong. Even though his men had been killed before they could eliminate the American Olympic team, things still had seemed to work out in Mkombu's favor. The world, never informed who was behind the planned murders, was infuriated with South Africa and Rhodesia, calling for a multinational force to enter both countries and overthrow the governments. Mkombu would soon be ruler.
And then this . . . this white avenger had appeared and Mkombu's world had turned upside down.