"He does not look so bad," said Chiun thoughtfully. "He will probably listen to me."
"Probably the mountain will come to Mohammed," said Remo.
In the silence ordered by Baraka, a detail of soldiers now came down the steps of the palace, each four bearing a casket, carrying them out onto the balcony and placing them on the platform behind Baraka.
"Another demonstration of the cowardly Jew," yelled Baraka, pointing at the dozen caskets behind him.
The crowd roared.
When it silenced, Baraka said, "We have come to pay tribute to men who gave their lives to keep Lobynia free."
More screaming and yelling followed this.
It went on that way, each sentence interrupted by cheers and applause, as Baraka told how the men had found out plans for a sneak Israeli attack on Lobynia with atomic pistols, and they set out deep into the heartland of Israel, even into Tel Aviv, and foiled the plan and laid much of that city waste before they were finally overwhelmed by the entire Israeli army.
"But now Tel Aviv knows that no place on earth is safe for them. No place out of the reach of Lobynian justice," Baraka said, touching off screams, even while wondering to himself how Nuihc, who was so small and frail, had been able to kill so many commandoes, who-while they might not have been much as fighting men-had the normal numbers of arms and legs each.
As the cheering continued, Baraka searched the faces of the Americans gathered in a soldier-contained group in front of him. There were the usual assortment of pretty girls. He tried to pick out the prettiest one, in order to invite her to a private dinner at the palace some night during their stay. He gave up the job, but narrowed the number down to three. He would invite all three.
The thing in overalls was, no doubt, a minister of some sort. Mohammed, bless his name, would cringe, were he to have such disciples. It was a wonder that Christ's memory had survived, Baraka thought.
He looked away from Father Harrigan in hurried distaste. In the back of the group staring coldly at him were two men of a different cast. One was American, obviously, but he bore the same sort of hard good looks as Baraka himself. His eyes met Baraka's and there was only cold depth in them, no glimmer of warmth or respect. Even more interesting was the man next to him. He was an aged Oriental in a long gold robe. When he met Baraka's eyes, he smiled and raised an index finger, as if to signal Baraka that he would talk to him later. His eyes were hazel, like Nuihc's, and had the same sort of detached deep placidity that Nuihc demonstrated.
Baraka had no doubt that these were the two men whose arrival Nuihc had been awaiting. The days ahead might yet be interesting, Baraka thought.
"And yet," he yelled, "was a word of this brave strike into the Israel heartland carried in the pig press of the Western world?"
He choked off the cheers by answering his own question. "No. Not one word. The capitalist Zionist press of the world was silent about the bravery of our fallen commandoes."
More cheers. Through them, he heard the priest in overalls yell, "What do you expect when the publisher of the Times is named Sulzberger?"
That was good, decided Baraka. He would use that the next time he was interviewed for American television.
He let the crowd shout itself down this time and then said, "We will speed our commandoes' souls to Allah, by prayer." Obediently, the crowd all turned eastward, toward what was now Saudi Arabia and the city of Mecca.
Many of the crowd took prayer rugs from under their garments and spread them out before kneeling on them.
"Pray unto Allah for the repose of their souls," commanded Baraka. He dropped to his knees also, his sharp eyes glinting beneath the visor of his military hat, watching the crowd, making sure there were no guns aimed at him.
The Americans shuffled around, then they too dropped to their knees. All but the hard-looking one and the old Oriental. They stood like two slim trees in a forest of kneeling humanity.
Baraka was outraged. But a hiss came from the windows at the back of the balcony. "Let them be," said Nuihc's voice. "Do not touch them."
Baraka decided to overlook the religious affront. He lowered his head in prayer.
Silence crowned the vast arena.
Then the voice of the prostrate Father Harrigan rose above the crowd.
"God of man, let those responsible for these deaths burn alive in ovens, according to thy grace. Let them singe and scorch in hell for their very whiteness. Let the full measure of vengeance be taken in thy good name. For an eye, let there be not an eye, but a hundred eyes. All according to thy goodness and love, let death run free among the Zionist white devils, the usurpers and rapers of the land. We ask it in the name of peace and brotherhood."
"Not bad," Chiun said to Remo as Harrigan's voice died out. "Especially the part about putting white people in ovens. Did I ever tell you that they were white because God took them out of the oven too soon?"
Only a hundred times," said Remo, looking around the crowd.
"All right, you've seen Baraka. Seen enough?"
"Yes, for now," said Chiun.
Seconds later, Baraka rose to his feet and looked over the kneeling crowd, before signaling it to rise. The two men, the American and the Oriental, were gone, vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up.
He wondered if he would see them again, before Nuihc worked his will upon them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Lobynian Arms was about what Remo had expected.
It had been a hovel in the days of its glory. Now, maintenance and operation were exclusively in the control of the Lobynians, who had nationalized the hotel as a national treasure, and had proceeded to turn it into an international disgrace.
The paint was chipped and peeling in the two adjoining rooms that the frightened soldier had secured for Remo and Chiun.
The beds, consisting of dirty, sported mattresses on twisted metal frames, lacked not only sheets but covers. There was water in the showers, but only cold, the hot water knobs having been removed.
One of the windows in the smaller of the two rooms was broken, which Remo thought should have gotten rid of the stale smell in the room, until he noticed that pouring through the broken glass were the even staler smells of the great Lobynian outdoors.
"Nice place," he said to Chiun.
"It will keep the rain from our heads," said Chiun.
"It never rains in Lobynia."
"That explains the smell. The country has never been washed."
Chiun carefully counted the steamer trunks, satisfying himself that there were still fourteen of them. He opened one and began to pooch around in its innards, finally coming out with a bottle of ink, a long straight quill pen, and a sheaf of paper.
"What are you doing?"
"I will send a communique to Colonel Baraka," said Chiun.
"I'm going to call Smith."
What the room lacked in beauty, the telephone service equaled in inefficiency, and it took Remo forty-five minutes and four tries to get the buzzing ring to the Chicago dial-a-prayer whose number he had given the hotel operator.
"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," came a recorded voice, scratchy from being patched halfway around the world.
"Gimme that old time religion," Remo said dutifully into the telephone, and then heard a whirring and clicking as his voice signal triggered a series of switching operations and finally he heard another click and Smith saying, "Hello."
"This is Remo. We're on an open line."
"I know," said Smith. "There isn't a secure line in that entire country. See anything interesting? Clogg or Baraka?"
"Both of them," said Remo.
"You said you knew who was behind this?" asked Smith cautiously.