CHAPTER THIRTEEN
But Colonel Baraka did not answer the message, neither that night nor the next morning.
This was not because he had not received the message. As a matter of fact, Jessie Jenkins had placed it personally in Baraka's hand as she and the other two girls sat with him at a small dinner table in an opulent room in the palace, a room whose walls were finished in linen and around the bases of which were pillows, mats, and cushions of all sizes, shapes, and colors.
Jessie had not read the missive, but she wished she had when she saw the reaction it drew from Baraka when he carefully removed the red tie and read it.
The blood seemed to dram from his face. He blotted his face hastily with a napkin, stood up, excused himself from the table, and left the room through a side door.
Baraka went through another door that led into a private corridor of the palace. He walked down the corridor, finally stopping outside a heavy walnut door. He knocked softly.
"Enter," came a thin squeaky voice.
Baraka entered the room. Nuihc sat at a desk, reading the topmost of a stack of newspapers and newsmagazines.
He turned to look at Baraka.
"What requires an intrusion?" he asked.
"This," Baraka said, holding forth the rolled parchment. "It just came."
Nuihc took it and read it quickly. A small thin smile flashed briefly across his face.
He rolled it back up and handed it back to Baraka.
"What should I do about it?"
"Nothing," Nuihc said. "Absolutely nothing."
"What is it, this Master of Sinanju?" Baraka asked.
"He is the man of the legend, come to reclaim the throne of Lobynia for King Adras."
"An assassin?"
Nuihc smiled again. "Not as you know assassins. You are used to dealing with men with guns. With bombs. With knives. But this Master of Sinanju is like no man you have ever seen before. He is himself guns and bombs and knives. Your assassins are like breezes. The Master is a typhoon."
"But then should I not move against him? Place him under arrest?"
"How many more commandoes do you have that are expendable?" Nuihc asked. "For I tell you, you could turn loose all the armies of this godforsaken land, and when they were done, they would still not have touched the robe of the Master." He shook his head comfortingly. "There is only one thing that can save you from that typhoon. That is another typhoon. I am he."
Confused, Baraka began to speak. He was cut off by Nuihc.
"Do nothing. The Master will seek to make contact with you again. Soon, I will be ready to move against him. Leave it to me."
Baraka listened. He had no choice. He nodded, moved toward the door, but with his hand on the knob, he turned. "This Master of Sinanju? Do you think I will ever see him?"
"You have seen him," Nuihc said.
"I have? Who?"
"The old man during the funeral ceremony. That was he," Nuihc said.
Baraka almost permitted himself a laugh, then swallowed it. There was no humor in Nuihc's voice. He had not been joking. And if Nuihc regarded that ninety-pound, aged wraith as dangerous, well, then, Baraka would not quarrel with that judgment.
He nodded and returned to his dinner table, but the pleasure had gone from the prospects of the evening's seduction. His mind kept returning to the two men he had seen during the funeral ceremony. The aged Oriental and the young American. They were something special. This he knew.
"Who gave you the letter?" he asked Jessie as he began to bid goodnight to the surprised girls, who had fully expected to have to fight off a horde of lust-crazed Arabs.
"A man I met on the plane."
"Did he have a name, this man?"
"Yes. His name was ..." she hesitated momentarily, knowing the virulent anti-Semitism of the Lobynians. "His name was Remo . . . Goldberg," she finally blurted.
Baraka ignored the surname, which she thought was very odd. "So his name is Remo. Remo," he repeated.
The names ran through his mind that night as he lay in his bed. Remo and the Master of Sinanju. And as he finally drifted into sleep, he saw again the valley leading to the Mountains of the Moon, and remembered the prophecy of "the man from the East who comes from the West."
He woke up, sitting upright in his bed, sweat running down his darkly handsome face. He feared now. And he hoped that Nuihc was a great enough typhoon to stand against the aged one.
It was a strange thing to put one's faith in a man about whom he knew nothing.
There was more to faith than that. And he got out of bed and kneeled at its side, facing East, prostrated himself, and began to pray earnestly and fervently to Allah to protect his servant, Muammar Baraka.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"See. He did not get my missive," said Chiun, promptly at noon the next day.
"Maybe he got it and decided to ignore it."
Chiun looked at him in astonishment.
"That is absurd. It was a formal communication from the Master of Sinanju. One does not ignore such things."
"Maybe he doesn't know who you are. Maybe he never heard of Sinanju."
"Why do you persist in that foolishness? Did you not learn when we visited the Loni Tribe that everywhere the name of the Master of Sinanju is known and respected? What more proof do you need?"
"You're right, Little Father," said Remo with a sigh. "The whole world knows about Sinanju. You can't pick up a paper without reading about it. Baraka just didn't get the note." Remo had no desire to argue with Chiun. He was more interested in wondering about Nuihc, where he was and when he would make a move, than in getting involved in one of Chiun's old blood feuds.
"I know he did not get the missive," Chiun said agreeably. "But today he will." And as Remo sat and watched, Chiun withdrew the ink and the pen and the parchment and laboriously drafted a new letter to Baraka. When he was done, he looked up and said politely, "I will deliver this."
"Good for you, Chiun."
"If you had a letter to deliver, I would deliver it for you, too."
'I'm sure you would."
"I would make sure it got into Colonel Baraka's hands."
"Absolutely," said Remo.
"Aha, you say 'absolutely,' but you do not believe Chiun. I can tell. Go ahead. Write a letter to Colonel Baraka. Go ahead, write one for me to deliver."
"Chiun, I don't have to. I believe you, for Christ's sake."
"You say that now, but the question will always remain in your head. Would Chiun really have delivered my letter? Go ahead, write a letter. I will wait."
And because there seemed to be nothing else to do, Remo took a piece of paper and wrote out quickly:
"Colonel Baraka.
"I have discovered an inexpensive substitute for oil. If you are interested in talking to me before I talk to the Western powers, you can contact me in Room 315 at the Lobynian Arms, assuming the hotel does not fall down before your message gets here.
"Remo Goldberg."
"There, Chiun," said Remo folding the note neatly. "Deliver that."
"I will. I will put it in no one's hands but Baraka's."
"You can try," said Remo grudgingly.
"Ahhh, no. You try. I do. That is the difference between being the Master of Sinanju and being ..."
"... a pale piece of pig's ear," Remo wearily concluded the sentence.
"Correct," said Chiun.
Minutes later, Chiun left the hotel room. Remo walked downstairs with him because the room was driving him stir crazy and he decided that better than sitting in the room would be sitting in one of the lobby's two chairs, because while the lobby was as ugly as the room, it was bigger. The other lobby chair was filled with the ample, suety, sweating bulk of Clayton Clogg. Clogg saw Remo ease into the chair next to him, and he nodded, as slightly as was possible, to acknowledge Remo's existence.