Chiun said just one word. “Unique.”
“Yes.”
“If I dressed in the styles of the teeming rabble, then I would not be subject to such insults?”
“I meant no insult.”
“A Western double-breasted suit of machine-woven wool is common. Would this suffice?”
“Certainly.”
“Golf shirts and pleated trousers and loafers of leather. This is the garment of the casual business. Is this common enough?”
“That would be perfectly accept—”
“Shirts of the Hawaiian islanders are today often seen in any airport in the world, worn by all races of people who are not Hawaiian. Is such a garment common enough that it would pass muster? I use this only as an example.”
Smith was trying to figure out where this was headed. “Hawaiian shirts are acceptably common.”
“Perspiration garments?”
“Sweatshirts would be fine.”
“Denim slacks? Even those that are obscenely lowcut in the front?”
Smith could see Remo biting his lips to keep them closed. “Jeans are common garments, of course.”
“Turtleneck sweaters?” Chiun looked at Smith sharply. “What of them?”
Smith’s mind was racing. Was Chiun about to trip him up? Why was the old Master talking about turtleneck sweaters, of all things? Mark Howard saw Smith’s trepidation and came to the rescue.
“I’m not sure if they are in style,” Howard pointed out. “I get this men’s lifestyles magazine. I’m no fashion buff, you know, but I think it said turtlenecks are out.”
“And yet, they are always about,” Chiun said. “Such is the ignorance of the world that does buff fashionably. They rediscover the cut of dress that was discarded only five years before. There are always those who adjust too slowly, and thus, one sees them as commonplace at all times.”
Smith said somberly, “Master Chiun, I would have no objections to you wearing turtleneck sweaters, regardless of the current fashion.”
“Pah! They are hideous!”
Smith gave a rehearsed, helpless-looking gesture. “There must be some middle ground that we can reach.”
Chiun rested a baleful glare on the window behind Smith. “I shall carefully consider what we have discussed today, Emperor.”
Chiun folded his hands and adopted a pleasant expression that said he was waiting for the next topic of conversation. As if prompted by the old Master, Smith and Howard were both alerted by small sounds from their computers and began concentrating intensely on the displays.
“Well, I can see you’re busy guys,” Remo said. Watching Cybernerd Senior and his young intern play with their computers was almost as bad as trying to work a computer himself. “We’ll be going.”
Smith didn’t look up. “To Ayounde.”
“What’s Ayounde?”
“Please hurry. We just might have time to avert another crisis.”
“In Ayounde?” Remo asked, as he was heading for the door.
“Come, simpleton!” Chiun held Remo’s elbow suddenly, and Remo yelped.
Chapter 8
When they were on the Africa-bound airplane, Remo received a brief lecture on Ayounde. He wasn’t listening. He was still sore at the old Master.
“Master Chan-Su Horn worked for the sultans of Ayounde on three occasions,” Chiun said. “This is something you should know.”
“I know about Master Chan-Su Horn. I’ve read everything in the scrolls about him,” Remo said. “I don’t remember any mention of him working for Ayounde. I remember him working for the Sultanate of Bueni in the armpit of Africa.”
“Bueni was its name once.”
Remo thought he’d made a pretty incisive connection, but Chiun dismissed it without further comment. That made Remo more sore.
“The sultans in those days used gold with extravagance in their own homes but not for purchasing their own security,” Chiun said. “Chan-Su Horn describes a palace with gold-gilt chairs, gold eating utensils and gold oil lanterns. But when the sultan hired Master Horn, he wanted to bargain in the basement. He paid Master Horn for the assassination of just one man, when he knew that three men plotted against him.”
Chiun looked purposefully at Remo. Remo was listening. They were in an aircraft for the next eight hours and it wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go. He might as well show interest, although he knew the history of Master Chan-Su Horn.
Chiun continued. “The man that Master Horn assassinated for the sultan was the sultan’s own brother, who plotted fiercely to overthrow him and take his riches and wives. His companions in the plot were two of the sultan’s uncles. Of course, the two uncles continued their plot once the brother was dead. So Master Horn was again hired by the sultan, but for the assassination of just one of the uncles. The sultan’s desire to hold on to his gold was so strong that he could not bear to spend more than was necessary—and not even that.”
“But he had to eventually,” Remo said. “Didn’t Master Horn go back again?”
Chiun’s nodded. “The sultan perceived his folly early enough. He again summoned Master Horn. Horn had been expecting more employment in the sultanate, by the sultan or his usurper, and was quick to respond. The sultan was not pleased when Chan-Su Horn announced his fee was increased.”
“A little told-you-so toll?” Remo asked.
“An inconvenience premium. So Chan-Su Horn came and left three times when he could have easily performed all three assassinations on his first visit.”
“But it wasn’t inconvenient. You just told me Master Su Horn was in the vicinity.”
“But the sultan was not told that.”
Remo considered it. “The way we get shuttled all over the planet doing Smith’s tricks, we should get all kinds of inconvenience fees.”
“It was the beginning of the end for the sultanate. Its power decreased. The sultans of Ayounde never learned the lesson of gold. Gold is not for gilding chairs. It is for increasing one’s power.”
“We have gilt chairs,” Remo said, picturing at least one ornate golden throne in the house in the Village of Sinanju, which was the ancestral home of the Masters in what was now North Korea. It was Remo’s house now, according to tradition. “I mean, I have a gilt chair.”
“How is your elbow?” Chiun asked.
Remo scowled. “Still hurts. What did you do that for, Chiun?”
But Chiun said nothing, his eyes fixed out the window of the aircraft, where the wing flexed in the rush of air. Chiun didn’t trust aircraft wings. Aircraft wings, he knew, could come off at any moment.
Ayounde’s royal family lost control of the nation and the palace was sacked, although the dynasty continued as just one of many warlord territories. The former ruling family fought the slave traders and the pirates of the eighteenth century. They also fought the Europeans who wanted to help protect them from the pirates and slave traders—and from their own paganism. The warlords were demolished and scattered, and Ayounde was colonized. Half the country became a British protectorate in 1888, and the family that ruled the nation was related distantly to the sultan’s lineage of previous centuries. The other half of the nation became a French territory. The French claimed they had purchased their joint of land legally from a former warlord who was its rightful proprietor. The British weren’t willing to fight the French over the claim. Ayounde wasn’t worth much to either of them.
It wasn’t until 1964 that the British finally granted British Ayounde her independence. The French followed suit, and the nation of Ayounde became reunited and independent. New oil reserves were discovered in Ayounde in the late 1960s, and the government was stable enough to make use of the resource. The country prospered, instituted a gradual process of democratization and became one of the most livable nations in Africa— which wasn’t known for having livable nations. This annoyed the British, who remembered that Ayounde had been theirs. The oil profits should be going to Britain. By rights. But there was nothing to be done about it now.