"Am I correct in assuming you had those commodities people killed because they knew about efforts to depress the market in wheat, winter wheat to be exact?"
"Correct. Absolutely. Totally correct. Totally."
"And that was so that people would invest in this new Wondergrain, because of the larger need now?"
"Make people more responsive. Correct. Totally correct. Greater need. Greater buying. It's going to be a boon to mankind. A boon. A helpful boon. Totally a boon. I can cut you in. You'll be rich beyond your wildest dreams."
"And Fielding?"
"He's an idiot," said Jordan. "We can control the whole thing. That dummy wanted to give away the profits. Name the grain after his dingy butler. It was I who saw the whole thing as Wondergrain, the miracle answer to today's food problems. I took over the packaging and marketing. I control the shares. We can be rich. Rich. Rich." Jordan screamed the "rich."
Most men scream when their spinal column snaps into their navel.
If Remo had thought only about what Jordan was saying and let his body flow the stroke, there would would have been no problem. If he had thought about just the stroke, there would have been no problem. But thinking about both, Remo noticed something wrong. Not that the final effect was different. Jordan lay on the press tent floor, ears at heel like a folded card.
It was the performance that was wrong, the angle of penetration that lacked the perfect perpendicular to his upper arm, which now felt a small meaningless twinge. The difference between Sinanju and other methods, other methods of anything for that matter, was that the form must be precisely correct, no matter what the result.
As Chiun had said: "When the results are different, it is too late." So Remo did the stroke twice more around an imaginary Jordan, the flat hand tip coming back towards itself in the snap that became perpendicular on final impact. It was right. Good.
"Disgrace," came the squeaky Oriental voice from the flap of the tent. "Now you learn to do it right. Now you bother to learn correctness. You have shamed me." It was Chiun.
"In front of whom? Who the hell else would know?" said Remo.
"Imperfection is its own disgrace," said Chiun. And then in Korean bewailing the years of pearls cast before ungrateful pale pieces of pig's ear and how not even the Master of Sinanju could transform mud into diamonds.
"No," said Chiun to someone behind him. "Do not come in. You should not look upon shame."
A telephone rang behind Remo. A reporter stirred, woke up, and answered it groggily.
"Yeah. Right. It's me. I'm right on top of everything. Yeah. They planted the grain this morning under sparkling hot skies, the new Wondergrain that can save the world from starvation, according to James O. Fielding, 42, of Denver. Yeah. Let the lead stand. Nothing happening. I'll stay right on it. Right. Harvest will be in four weeks… the Wondergrain. It's rough out here in the Mojave. Let me tell you. Change that lead to planted the grain in the dry unyielding sand of the Mojave Desert.' Etcetera. Etcetera. Right." The reporter hung up and crawled over his raincoat to the bar, where he poured a full glass of Hennessey cognac, drank two gulps, and went slowly to the floor head first so that he was sleeping upside down.
"It is CIA plot," came a woman's voice behind Chiun.
She was beautiful standing there in the desert sunlight, rich black hair flowing to her shoulders, full womanly breasts and a face of jeweled perfection, eyes dark like an unlit universe, and skin smooth with youth. She also had a mouth. Loud.
"Is CIA plot. I know. CIA plot. CIA ruining goodwill of American peoples, attempting to destroy the revolution. Hello, my name is Maria Gonzales. Long live the revolution."
"Who is this?" Remo asked Chiun.
"A brave young girl helping revolution against white imperialist oppressors," said Chiun sweetly.
"You tell her who you work for?"
"He is a revolutionary. All third-world peoples are revolutionary," said Maria.
"Could you put aside that revolutionary jazz while you're with me?" said Remo.
"As a matter of fact, yes. I am a farmer first. I talk revolution like you talk apple pie. If you are a friend of this sweet old gentleman, I'm really glad to meet you." She extended a hand. Remo took it. The palm was soft and warm. She smiled. Remo smiled. Chiun slapped the hands apart. Such touching was improper in public.
"I'm an agricultural representative of the democratic government of Free Cuba. I think you people really have something good here," said Maria. She smiled. Remo smiled back. Chiun got between them.
Fielding was pressing the final soybean into the crusty dry soil when Remo got to the inner edge of the crowd. The field itself was on top of a small hill. While the planting area was no more than twenty yards square, it sat inside an open area four times that size, surrounded by high, barbed-wire-crowned hurricane fencing. The field had a strange smell to Remo, a slight odor that was more a memory than a sense.
"Tomorrow," Fielding was saying, "I will plant a similar crop in Bangor, Maine, and the next day in the Sierras, and the following day, the final planting in Ohio. You are welcome to attend those also."
After he covered the last seed with his foot, he straightened up and rubbed his back. "Now, the sun filter," said Fielding and the workmen covered the plot with an opaque plastic tarpaulin, shaped like a tent.
"What you have just seen," said Fielding, catching his breath, "is the most significant advance in agriculture since the plow. I will tell you this. It is chemical. It eliminates the need for expensive land preparation, it expands the parameters of temperature and water needs which has kept tillable land at only a small percentage of the earth's surface. It requires no fertilizer or pesticides. It will grow in thirty days and I hope you will all be back here that day to witness this revolution. Gentlemen, you are seeing an end to world hunger."
There was a scattering of applause from foreign newsmen, some mumbling about whether this would be ten or fifteen seconds on national television, and then from the press shed came a shriek.
"Dead men. There are dead men all over the place. A massacre."
"Wow," said a reporter near Remo and Maria. "A real story now. I'm always lucky. Send me to a nothing story and I always luck out."
Like seepage from a ruptured water tank, the mob flowed toward the press shed trailing television cables. A turbaned man, with a nameplate that said "Agriculture India" tugged at Remo's arm.
"Kind sir, does this mean I do not collect my money for attending?"
"I dunno," said Remo. "I don't work here."
"I took a trip for nothing, then. For nothing. Promised two thousand dollars and will receive nothing. Western lies and hypocrisy," he said in his Indian singsong, the language of a people Chiun had once said had only two consistent traits: hypocrisy and starvation.
Sweat beaded on the patrician face of James Orayo Fielding as he watched the press disappear from the Mojave compound, heading for the twin tents outside the perimeter fence. Suddenly, it appeared as if his entire life descended on him with fatigue and he reached out for a steady arm. He grabbed for support a thin young man with high cheekbones and thick wrists. It was Remo.
"Your friends are gone," said Remo.
"The news mentality," said Maria. "In Cuba we do not allow journalists to cater to such morbid curiosity."
"Sure," said Remo. "That's because murder is an everyday thing."
"You're being unfair," said Maria.
"It is hard to make an American fair," said Chiun. "It is a thing I have been trying to teach him, lo these many years."
"Korean fairness, Little Father?" said Remo, laughing.
Chiun did not think that was funny, nor did Maria. Fielding steadied himself. Weakly he took a pill from his shirt pocket and swallowed it dry.
Remo's eyes signaled ever so briefly for Chiun to get Maria out of hearing range. Chiun suddenly noticed a vision of hibiscus, lo, across the desert, like rising zephyrs above the Katmandu Gardens, Had Maria ever seen the Katmandu gardens when the sun was mellow and the river cool like a gentle breath of a friendly north wind? In an instant, Chiun had her walking out into the desert aimlessly.