Smith began typing orders into his computer. They were routed to an American aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean.
"You must make certain that our aircraft havo clearance at Akkadad airport," he said as he typed.
"I will safeguard it," Chiun assured him.
Smith completed his work. "A flight crew will be there in twenty minutes," he said. "You may depart with them."
"There is something I must yet do," Chiun said.
"I would not linger long, Master Chiun. The Mideast is threatening to explode. I fear there might be nothing left that any one man can do to prevent a major conflict."
Chiun's reply was strangely enigmatic, made all the more so by the bad connection.
"Unless it is the right man," answered Chiun. Before Smith could ask his meaning, the line went dead.
Chapter 37
Remo barreled the jeep as far through the thick lines of Ebla Arab Army soldiers as he could.
Bodies bounced off the grille, rolling across the hood and dropping behind the speeding car.
The gunfire directed at him from the small army was fierce, much of it inadvertently striking fellow Arabs.
Bullets ripped into the engine. More tore away at the tires. Through it all, Remo kept his head down. When the tires were shredded and the engine began smoking and chugging its dying gasps, Remo popped the door and dived from the slowing vehicle. He struck the asphalt with his shoulder, rolling beneath the shadowed belly of a parked Eblan tank. The car continued on without him. Fire erupted from beneath the hood as the soldiers continued shooting at the out-of-control jeep.
No one had seen Remo leap from the car. As the soldiers concentrated on the empty vehicle, he slipped past their lines, ducking around the high white wall that surrounded Taurus Studios. He made a beeline for the executive offices.
Upstairs in the office complex, Remo was irked to find that Assola al Khobar wasn't in the office of Bindle and Marmelstein. Since it had such a commanding view of the entire Taurus compound, he had hoped the terrorist might be conducting his final business from here. He was ready to leave when he sensed a feeble heartbeat coming from behind one of the office desks.
Hurrying over, Remo found Hank Bindle lying against the wall. A deep maroon stain of coagulating blood moistened the shoulder of his sport shirt. Remo crouched down beside the studio cochair, helping him into a more comfortable position.
"Did al Khobar do this?" Remo asked gently. Bindle's eyes rolled open. They dropped over to Remo.
"No," he responded, voice terribly weak. "It was Mr. Koala."
Remo shook his head impatiently. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," Bindle said. He swallowed once, hard. "He made a lot of noise in the bathroom. Then he left."
There was something not quite right. Bindle's heartbeat was weak, but not thready. Scanning his prone form, Remo could find no other wounds on his body. And the one he had didn't appear life threatening. It was almost as if...
"You faker," Remo snarled suddenly. "You're as healthy as a horse."
He dropped Hank Bindle. The executive's head clunked loudly against the wall.
"I've been shot," Bindle pouted.
"And I've been annoyed by you for the last time."
Leaving Bindle on the floor, Remo stepped across the room, sticking his head inside the bathroom. He was surprised by what he found.
A pile of scraggly hair lay on the floor around the vanity. More clogged the drain and stood in stark contrast to the white porcelain of the sink. Remo saw a hair jammed razor lying beside the sink.
Near the toilet was a small pile of clothes. Remo recognized them as al Khobar's. Something lay underneath them. Stepping into the bathroom, Remo pulled the object out from under the laundry.
It was a garment bag.
As he puzzled over the crinkling bag, he remembered seeing it before. He also remembered seeing the material hanging from the bottom of it as the terrorist's aide carried it inside. In a flash everything suddenly made complete sense.
Remo hurried out into the office.
"Help me," Hank Bindle groaned, reaching a bloody hand toward Remo's retreating form. His voice was stronger now that he had to call to Remo. Remo continued on without turning.
"I'm dying," Bindle insisted.
"Not soon enough for me," Remo said. He ran out the door.
Chapter 38
Sultan Omay sin-Khalam was dead. That was the only explanation for the remarkable cessation of pain.
He was alert. More awake than he had been in months. The great veil of suffocating Death had been lifted from him.
Omay opened his eyes expecting to see the face of Allah. Dasht-i-la-siwa-Hu. "The desert wherein was none save He."
He found to his great surprise that Allah bore a striking resemblance to a terror he remembered experiencing in hallucinatory shadow during his last hours on Earth.
"Allah, is this really you?" Sultan Omay asked. The face of the vision hovering above him grew severe.
"I am not your god, Eblan cur," the Master of Sinanju replied tartly.
Only then did Omay feel the hand manipulating his spine. This was why his pain had fled. He had heard of the healing powers of the legendary Sinanju Masters.
Omay sank back into the pillows of his own bed, in his own room, in his quarters in the Great Sultan's Palace.
"You revive me to kill me?" Omay asked. His voice was strong now. As it once had been.
"Yes," Chiun replied. "For you have one final duty to perform."
Omay smiled. It was his most sincere smile in years.
"Do as you will, assassin," he said. "For it does not matter. What you have seen is only surface. I will live long after your hand delivers the final blow." There was a strong smugness in his tone. He grinned triumphantly.
"You refer to your Great Plan?" Chiun spit.
The smile vanished from Omay's face. "What do you know of it?" he demanded.
"Only that it has already failed," Chiun answered.
He was lying. The Great Plan could not have failed. It wasn't set to be implemented until the moment of his death. To ensure that it would come to pass, Omay had placed his most trusted ally in the government of Ebla, Finance Minister Mundhir Fadil Hamza, in charge of the scheme.
A bluff. That was what this was.
The bluff became reality in the next moment as another face appeared at Omay's bedside. It was that of Minister Hamza himself. He appeared to be deeply shaken.
"O great Sultan," Hamza wept, "all is lost."
"What do you mean?" Omay demanded.
"The money-your money, Ebla's money-it is all gone."
"Gone? Gone where?"
Hamza was crying openly. "To the hated West, Sultan. To the wound that bleeds money. It has gone to Hollywood."
As the words sunk into the mind of Sultan Omay, Chiun chased the finance minister from the room. Omay could not comprehend what Hamza was saying. There was far too much money for it to have been spent. His personal finances, as well as much that was tied into the government of Ebla itself, was going to be dispersed among radical fundamentalist groups upon his death. Ebla would become a benefactor to global terrorism on a scale unseen in the history of the world. In death Omay's Great Plan would bring about the bloody change he had not achieved in life. But now he was being told that that dream was over.
He was given no more time to question.
Even as his mind tried to absorb the crushing defeat, he felt his body being lifted from his bed. His hand still manipulating the nerves in the sultan's lower spine, Chiun carried Omay across the large room to a spot just inside the Plexiglasenclosed balcony. He set the Eblan ruler on the floor of the Fishbowl.