"Not if I get to him first," he said in a dead voice. His shaking hands gripped an imaginary object tightly. Rashid made a mental note to make certain that Lamar Booe didn't get his hands on Reverend Sluggard's throat. He doubted all the force in the universe could pry them loose.
Chapter 20
Remo Williams was standing guard at the door of Reverend Eldon Sluggard's shipboard quarters when Chiun descended the companionway attired in a simple saffron kimono.
"Problem?" Remo asked.
"I bear glad news for the Sluggard."
"The Reverend Sluggard," Remo corrected. "Calling him the Sluggard is disrespectful."
Chiun shrugged. "Lamar Booe has returned to the Sluggard's flock," he reported.
"Great. Who's he?"
"Do you not remember, Remo? The missing boy. The one whose parents claim that he never returned from this place."
"Oh, right. Reverend Sluggard will be happy to hear it. "
"Then why do you not knock on his door?"
"He asked not to be disturbed. Victoria is there with him. They're having a prayer session. It's been very quiet, but they should be out any minute. We're casting off for the Christian Campground soon."
"I see," said Chiun, pushing Remo aside. He looked into the keyhole of the great door. He did not have to bend very far to see.
"Chiun. That's snooping!"
"Information gathering," Chiun shot back. He moved this way and that, trying to see.
"It's our jobs if you're caught," Remo said in a resigned voice.
When Chiun suddenly withdrew from the keyhole, a look of disgust etched on his wrinkled features, Remo asked, "Had enough?"
"Judge for yourself," Chiun said, stepping aside. Reluctantly Remo looked. He saw Victoria Hoar's back. She was on her knees facing Reverend Sluggard. One meaty hand rested on her head, the other flailed the air. Reverend Sluggard's face was reddening by the second. His eyes were squinched shut as if in pain. "Well?" Chiun demanded after Remo stepped back from the keyhole.
"Well what?" Remo asked. "He's leading her in prayer."
"Who is leading whom is another question," Chiun snapped. "But of one thing I am certain, you are as blind as the Sluggard is disgusting."
"Reverend Sluggard. And I don't know what you're talking about. So why don't you tell them to bring the kid here? I'm sure Reverend Sluggard will want to talk to him when he's done."
"Men like him are never done." And with that cryptic remark, the Master of Sinanju stamped up to the deck.
Minutes later, when Remo heard talking coming from the other side of the door, he decided it was a good time to break the wonderful news to Reverend Sluggard. He knocked loudly.
"What is it?" Reverend Sluggard snarled. "Ah said Ah was not to be disturbed."
"Great news," Remo called back.
There was a flurry of sounds and Reverend Sluggard's face appeared through a crack in the door. His jowly face was flushed, his hair unkempt.
"Did we nuke Ah-ran?"
"No. Lamar Booe's back," Remo said cheerily. "Isn't that wonderful?"
Reverend Eldon Sluggard's face did not register pleasure. At first it registered a kind of dazed blankness. Then, as the name sank in, his blank expression started to come apart. The mouth went slack. The eyes grew wild. His nostrils dilated explosively and Reverend Sluggard's hand on the door edge turned so white his many rings seemed to flush with added color.
"Whaaaa-" he said.
"Lamar Booe. The kid whose parents are suing you. He says it's all a big misunderstanding. He wants to see you."
"Whaaaa-" Reverend Sluggard said again.
"Lamar Booe," Remo said, frowning. "He-"
"Ah know who he is!" Reverend Sluggard snapped. "Don't let him in. Ah don't want to see his cowardly face. Stop him!"
"But Chiun's bringing him aboard."
"What is the problem?" asked Victoria Hoar.
"That Booe boy. He's back!" Sluggard's voice was hoarse.
"Back? How can he be back? He was with the others?"
"Someone's at the gate sayin' he's him."
"I don't get it," Remo said. "I thought you'd be pleased. "
"Tell the captain to cast off now!" Sluggard ordered.
"But-"
"Now!" Reverend Sluggard screamed. "Don't you understand the word 'now' ?"
Frowning, Remo went to the wheelhouse and relayed the order.
Immediately, white-uniformed crewmen began to cast off lines. The great dual diesel engines began to turn. When Remo, his head shaking in confusion, returned to the deck, he saw that Chiun was directing the uniformed guards to open the electrically controlled gates to the Eldon Sluggard World Ministries.
A lone boy walked in. The gate started to close after him. Chiun went to greet the boy, when, suddenly, a bus gunned up the street, executed a sharp veer, and skidding on three wheels, rammed the gate. The gate halves, not fully closed, went flying. One cracked the windshield and bounced away. The other went under the front tires as if swallowed by a voracious maw.
The bus bore down on Lamar Booe. The boy turned. And froze.
Remo, knowing he was too far away to affect what would happen next, looked for Chiun. But Chiun wasn't at the spot he had been. Remo's gaze returned to the bus. He caught sight of a flash of saffron. And Lamar Booe was carried out of the way of the juggernaut of a bus.
"Atta boy, Chiun!" Remo shouted.
The bus plowed into the quadrangle. It snapped the standing cross in two and only then skidded to a halt. The door flew open and dozens of men in kaffiyehs and faded dungarees stormed out of the bus. Their weapons, an assortment of machine pistols and automatic rifles, erupted all at once.
The cacophony of shooting and screaming reminded Remo of Vietnam.
Reverend Sluggard stomped up from below. "What's going on?" he thundered.
Remo opened his mouth to speak, but the sight of Reverend Sluggard stopped him. Reverend Sluggard wore a greenish-gold uniform. Gold braid decorated his epaulets. He wore a pristine white visored cap and a ceremonial sword in a scabbard. His ample chest was decorated with rows of military-style ribbons. But they were unlike any service decorations Remo had ever seen. Reverend Sluggard's chest looked like a circuit board. Remo saw crosses, circles and other arcane designs, including one that at a glance seemed to read "Order of the Wrath of the Lord."
"Reverend Sluggard. . . " Remo said dumbfoundedly.
"Reverend-General Sluggard," he boomed proudly. "When Ah'm in uniform, Ah'm Reverend-General Sluggard, the Lord's fearless right arm. Now, what's goin' on?"
"Iranians," Remo said, pointing.
Reverend-General Eldon Sluggard clutched his sword hilt. "How ... how can you tell?" he croaked.
"See those checkered things over their heads? That makes them Middle Easterners. Probably Iranians."
"Tell them to cast off."
"I did."
"Well, tell 'em to cast off faster. We got to get out of here!" The Lord's fearless right arm looked around frantically. He spied a bullhorn on a deck hook and yanked it to his face.
"Cast off! Cast this tub off! Hurry!" Then he turned his attention to the quadrangle. People were pouring out of the ministry buildings. Staff members. When they saw uniformed guardsmen fall, they retreated. Some of the new recruits stood frozen in uncertainty.
"You, there! Boys!" Reverend-General Sluggard howled. "Take up your swords and smite them shitty Moslems!"
A few of the braver volunteers started forward. They were cut down by a precision stream of fire.
"Let Chiun and me handle this," Remo said, starting over the rail.
"Don't be a fool. They're cannon fodder. And I need you here."
"And Chiun needs my help," Remo said. He hit the dock with no more sound than a paper cup and pelted toward the quadrangle.
Remo came around the corner of the Temple of Tribute, whose glass walls were already shattered from stray rounds, and paused long enough to fix Chiun's position. Chiun was slipping up from the gate. Remo backtracked him with his eyes and saw that the boy, Lamar Booe, was safely in one of the glass gate boxes where Chiun had left him. The boy was pounding to get out. The expression on his face was so frightened it looked to Remo like anger, not fear.