When Victoria Hoar's mouth disengaged itself, she went on speaking. She had Eldon Sluggard's undivided attention. He was quivering from head to toe.
"The problem is that you've been targeting the same audience the others have. Everyone has been fishing in the same pond."
"That's where the big money is. Old ladies. Widows. The lonely ones. Most of them are on welfare or Social Security. They got nothing but despair. Ah reach out to them and Ah say, 'You give me some of that money in God's name and God will repay you three fold.' They believe it. Ah call it 'Investing in Heaven.' "
"I call it soaking the gullible."
"It works."
"Did work. But no more."
"Guess it worked too good," Eldon Sluggard mused, staring at the ceiling.
"The idea is sound. But now you go after the second-most-gullible demographic group possible."
"Second?"
Victoria Hoar nodded firmly. "Second."
"There's nothing more gullible than a seventy-five-year-old widow with nothing better to do than watch game shows and listen to her joints creak," Reverend Sluggard said flatly.
"Little old ladies don't go off to fight wars."
"Of course not. Who'd be crazy enough to-"
"Teenagers. "
"Huh?"
"Specifically teenage boys. Girls seem to mature faster. "
"Teenage boys don't have the disposable income. Not to part with. They're all spending it on teenage girls and cars and drugs or whatever. The youth of this nation are going to pot."
"You don't want their money."
"Sure Ah do. Money is what the God Game is all about. "
"Not when you can have their bodies," Victoria Hoar said, running her tapered fingers through his pomaded hair.
"Ah don't want their bodies. Ah want your body."
"We'll get back to that. But listen. Do you remember your European history? The Crusades?"
"I didn't go to school much."
"But you know what the Crusades were?"
"Sure, Slim and Jaimie had one before they got all jammed up. They called it their Crusade for Cash. Ah laughed when Ah first heard about it, but the bold approach must have worked. They were raking it in until Jaimie's mascara ran during that press conference rainstorm and everyone saw that she was a he. Gave new meaning to the term TV evangelist."
"That's a different kind of crusade. The original Crusades were launched into the Islamic world by the popes. It was a little like your operation. A scam. They called in soldiers to reclaim Jerusalem in the name of God, but they were really just using God as an excuse to capture land and pillage. It worked for a while, too. They had Jerusalem for a long time."
"What good would that do me? Ah don't want Jerusalem. Hell, the Jews got that sewed up anyway. And they're meaner than snakes when you stick your nose into their patch. Ask any Egyptian."
"I'm not talking about Jerusalem. I'm talking about some of the most coveted land on earth."
"Palm Springs?"
"No. Places like Iran. Iraq. Oil-rich places."
"Oil ain't worth piss these days. Ask any Texan."
"Not now. Not today. Ten years ago, yes. But not now. Do you know why not, El?"
"Too much of it. Market's saturated. Like mine."
"There has always been too much of it. But it's the Iran-Iraq war. While they were fighting they sold cheap to keep their war machines going. Now they're selling cheap to rebuild their shattered economies. OPEC is practically in shambles over it. The price of oil is so soft now that in Houston they can't afford to pump the oil they know is down there. Why bother? The Iranians or Iraqis will only undercut their prices by ten dollars a barrel. "
"So?"
"So if someone, some extraordinary person, could gain control over those oil-rich areas, they could dictate the price of oil. And much more."
"How come you know so much about this oil stuff?"
"My daddy's in the oil business."
"And what business are you in?"
"The pleasure business," Victoria Roar said with a nasty little laugh before she went down on him again. When Reverend Eldon Sluggard had pried himself off the ceiling, he panted out a question:
"How can Ah make this happen?"
"You have a TV cable network that can reach millions of people. You have a powerful way of speaking. You can do the recruiting. Just shift your efforts to reaching the teenagers of America. They'll respond. Kids these days are very militaristic. Why do you think Vietnam movies are so big? Get them worked up against Iran. Lay it on thick. We'll start a camp here. We'll separate the curious from the committed and then train the committed to fight."
"How do we get them to Iran?"
"I still have connections in the oil business. Leave that part to me. You deliver the crusaders and I'll get them to the crusade."
"Ah don't know. Ah'm tempted. But Iran. It's a big place. "
"Seven years of war has drained Iran of fighting men. Its economy is on its back. It's a pariah nation. It can barely hold back the ragtag Mujahideen rebels, and half the populace will see us as liberators. If we can hold the oil fields long enough, the country will fall into anarchy. There will be a mullah hanging from every lamppost. We can just walk in. Trust me."
Reverend Eldon Sluggard considered. Finally he asked, "Can Ah still work the old ladies on the side?"
"All you want," said Victoria Hoar, sitting up and reaching for her neatly folded skirt.
"Hey! What about you?" Eldon Sluggard asked.
"What about me?" Victoria responded, absently hooking her bra.
"I got off twice. You ain't even got off once. Don't you want to?"
"No. I get off making things happen."
They were happening again, thought Eldon Sluggard. The new Cross Crusade spot hadn't even run to the end and the phone banks were lighting up. New recruits were calling at a rate of three a second. Volunteers manning the phones hastily took down the names of the recruits. This time, Eldon Sluggard was going to launch a bigger and better crusade. One that would work. He could feel success now.
Besides, as Victoria Hoar had said just this morning, Eldon Sluggard had no choice. He had angered the mullahs in Tehran. They were after him. And their kind never gave up until they got their way or got run over.
They were not going to get the Reverend Eldon Sluggard, he promised himself. No sirree. Not even if the Pershing Gulf ran red with blood.
Chapter 13
"You're very good at what you do," Victoria Hoar told the man she knew as Remo Cleaver.
"He is adequate," sniffed Chiun.
"I do all right," Remo said. They were in Eldon Sluggard's conference room. Victoria Hoar was looking into Remo's dark eyes. Remo was looking at her breasts. He decided that his first impression had been wrong. They were not too small. They just looked that way. Probably they were perfectly proportioned for Victoria Hoar's eel-slim body.
"That is what I said," Chiun put in. "He is all right. Another word for 'adequate.' I am glad he admits it."
"Oh, he's just being modest."
"Not him," said Chiun, eyeing the pair with undisguised concern. Victoria Hoar had drifted up to Remo as if he were a flower and she was a bee. Or was it the other way around? Either way, they were drawing together in a pre-copulation way. Chiun knew the signs. He would have to do something about this before Remo ruined their assignment.
"No, not him," Chiun repeated, suddenly appearing in the space between the two. He looked up at Victoria Hoar's dreamy face. "On the other hand, I am modest. Extremely modest. Possibly unsurpassed as a modest person."
But the white woman named Victoria Hoar did not deign to take notice of the Master of Sinanju. She continued looking into Remo's hard face. Chiun looked again. Remo's expression was no longer hard. It was softening. Worse, it was soft.
"Arrggh!" Chiun said.