"Here?" asked the guard, turning. He waved his oaklike arms in the empty air in front of him, as if his quarry were invisible.
"They're gone." Eldon Sluggard gasped. For when the security chief had turned, the two had moved with him.
"Don't be silly," Victoria snapped. "They're behind him again. It's just that we can't see them. Watch and I'll prove it."
Victoria Hoar walked to the end of the room. The two were obviously skilled in some kind of advanced stealth tactics. Perhaps something like the old ninja warriors used. She knew that when she got to the other side of the quaking guard, they would be visible again.
They were not. For once, Victoria Hoar's composed features broke into shocked lines.
"They vanished!" she gasped.
"What did I tell you?" Sluggard said angrily.
"Where are they?" the guard cried. He acted like a man who had been told a thousand sniper rifles were being trained on him. He didn't know which direction to fear most.
"All right, you two. You win. Ah have a security problem. Ah admit it," Eldon Sluggard called.
The sound was like a tree being struck by lightning. Later, Eldon Sluggard swore he had actually seen the jagged flash in the conference room, but that was impossible.
But what all three occupants of the room later agreed to was that there was a loud crack, and when they stopped blinking, the conference table was falling in two long sections as neatly as if a buzz saw had been run along its length.
Standing between the two falling sections were the tall white man and the little Oriental. The Oriental wore a green robe that was decorated with yellow nightingales.
"Who ... who are you?" Eldon Sluggard stammered.
"My name's Remo. Remo Cleaver. And this is Chiun. We're your new heads of security."
"Over my dead body," the former head of security barked.
He drew a bead on the Oriental's head. The Oriental whirled, his kimono swirling like a cheerleader's poodle skirt, and his hand swept out.
The security chief felt the impact on his weapon. It was a light touch, exactly the kind of a blow he would expect from a frail old man. Ineffectual.
Grunting a relieved laugh, he took aim again. The old Oriental simply retreated to a clear space and folded his arms into the wide sleeves of his kimono. The guard pulled the trigger.
Click.
Must have been a misfire, he decided. He pulled it again.
Click click click, went his .357 Magnum revolver. "They couldn't all be misfires," he said stupidly. He went to break open the cylinder. It was then he recognized what the problem was. There was no cylinder. There was instead a square frame where the cylinder had hung.
"I believe this is what you seek," the old Oriental said, plucking the missing cylinder from a sleeve.
"Give it back," the security chief said hoarsely. Raising his weapon like a club, he charged the old man. The Master of Sinanju shrugged. He flicked the cylinder away with a delicate finger. The cylinder flew across the room, caught the guard in the solar plexus, and carried him to the far wall. The wall TV set shattered and the security chief poured to the floor like so much melting taffy.
The old Oriental turned to the Reverend Eldon Sluggard with a serene expression on his wise face.
"We can discuss salary requirements later," he said.
"You're hired," Eldon Sluggard said quickly.
"Of course," said the Master of Sinanju, bowing.
"One question, though."
"Yes?"
"Why me? Ah mean, why are you volunteering to help me out. Ah had-or thought Ah had-the finest security force money could buy."
"We heard about your problems with the Iranians," Remo told him. "We thought you could use our special skills."
"It was his idea," the old Oriental put in. "Remo was attracted to this task because of his newly rediscovered religious beliefs."
"Born again?" asked the Reverend Eldon Sluggard, smiling.
Remo gave the old Oriental a glancing frown. "You could say that," he admitted.
"Sometimes I think he was born yesterday," Chiun inserted archly.
"Well, then, welcome to God's country!" Reverend Eldon Sluggard said expansively. He put out a bejeweled hand. Remo shook it tentatively. Chiun pretended not to notice the gesture. Sluggard recovered quickly. "Victoria, why don't you show these fine folks to their quarters while Ah take care of that matter we discussed."
"My pleasure, Reverend Sluggard," said Victoria Hoar. She was not looking at Eldon Sluggard when she spoke. She was looking at the man who called himself Remo Cleaver. A dreamy smile alighted on her face.
"Don't be long, though," he said pointedly.
"Of course," Victoria Hoar said in a vague voice. "Absolutely. "
Frowning, the Reverend Eldon Sluggard left the room. His muttered "bitch" floated in his wake.
Chapter 12
The Reverend Eldon Sluggard stormed onto the set of his Get with God program. A skeleton crew of gaffers and camera operators was busy preparing for the next broadcast taping.
"You're early, El," said Win Jymorski, the show's director.
"Get everything together. Fast. We're taping another Cross Crusade spot."
"Now? I haven't seen the script."
"There's no script. Ah'll wing it. Ah'll show those ragheads in Tehran. They don't scare me!"
Quickly the electricians brought up the lights. The cameras moved into position. The soundman fussed with microphone levels.
And the Reverend Eldon Sluggard got up on the dais in front of a great flat map of the world. He picked a steel pointer off the Lucite podium. He paced impatiently, collapsing and expanding the pointer grimly.
Victoria was right. One setback wasn't going to knock Eldon Sluggard on his ass. That woman sure had a way of putting things in perspective. Especially when she got down on her knees.
"Whenever you're ready, El," the director called.
"Okay. Now," said Eldon Sluggard decisively. His voice dropped into a deeper register. It was his preaching voice. In the glory days of the Eldon Sluggard World Ministries, it used to make the over-sixty crowd swoon. But now Eldon Sluggard was targeting an entirely different demographic group.
"We're on," the director called, throwing a cue. Eldon Sluggard faced the camera squarely. The red light came on. He smiled expansively.
"This is the Reverend Eldon Sluggard, and Ah'm speakin' to the youth of America. Yes, you. Don't reach out for the channel selector because it's not just me knockin', it's God. God Almighty, and your country." Eldon Sluggard took a deep breath.
"You love your country, Don't you? And you want to see it strong. And you want to see it continue to be Christian. Well, Ah want that too. Hallelujah! But there's some who have designs on our sweet nation. Maybe you don't read the papers. Maybe your folks don't talk about this around the dinner table. And you know why? 'Cause they're scared too! That's right. Even as Ah'm standin' here talkin' at you, there are people in a foreign capital plotting to take over this country. No, it's not the Russians, bad as they are. It ain't the Chinese either. It's worse people. You've seen them on TV, talkin' out of both sides of their scrubby beards. You've heard how they once held our diplomats hostage for more than a year."
Sluggard pounded the Lucite podium with a fat fist. "That's right. You know who Ah'm talkin' about. It's those mullahs in Ah-ran. You can see it on this here map."
Eldon Sluggard whipped the pointer in his hand like a car aerial. It jetted out its full length. He placed the point over the Persian Gulf. On the map, it was called the Pershing Gulf, but the camera wouldn't show that because the lettering was too small.
"This is Ah-ran," he went on. "The most brutal, repressive nation on earth. You see this gimcrack here? That's what they call a red crescent. It's got nothing to do with Communism. This is the symbol of the Moslems. Now the people in Ah-ran are Moslems. They ain't like us. Not that Ah'm against Moslems, you understand. There are good Moslems and there are bad Moslems. You look around the Middle East here, and parts of Africa, and you see a whole lot of these little red crescents. Most of these other countries belong to the Moslem world. But they belong to the Sunni Moslems. Ah-ran belongs to the other kind, the Shiites. Now if you have trouble keepin' 'em straight, Ah'll let you in on a little trick. The Sunni Moslems are the good Moslems. Ah kinda nicknamed them the sunny Moslems on account of they're always happy and smiling. Now, the other kind, Ah call the shitty Moslems on account of them being assholes.