"Oh, don't be-" Nancy frowned. She bit her tongue in frustration. There was no point in arguing. It was typically African logic, as logical as the importance of King's name, and therefore impossible to counter with reason, or even proof.
"So what's going to happen to us?" she asked in a voice she made calm.
"Perhaps there will be a ransom for all of you. I do not know. I must sleep on it."
"Look, you can't expect us to pass the night out here."
"Why not? It is a nice night. Perhaps it will not rain."
"And what are you going to do if Old Jack wakes up?"
Commander Malu grunted. "You will put him back to sleep."
"He's been tranked twice in one day. A third time could be dangerous."
"When one fights for a green Africa, one assumes he will walk in the footsteps of danger."
"You sound like King."
"I will take this as a compliment, coming from a white woman."
"Don't," Nancy snapped.
The commander lost his genial expression. He snapped out a curt order in some language other than Swahili and Nancy was brusquely returned to the campfire, rebound, and set back in her place at the campfire's edge.
"You are all very, very lucky," King growled. "Another minute and I would have torn these bonds free and come looking for you." He leaned over and asked, "You all right, Nancy? They didn't hurt you, did they?"
"If they do, it will be all your fault."
King demanded, "How do you figure that?"
"This was supposed to be a research mission. If you hadn't tranked Jack prematurely, none of this would have been necessary."
"You have a funny way of expressing gratitude, you know that? Without my vision, you wouldn't be here in the first place."
Nancy shut her eyes, as if in pain. "I should have gone to McDonald's."
"Their fries aren't as crispy as ours. Everybody knows that."
Chapter 10
As they stepped off the plane, Remo was saying, "Better let me handle customs, Little Father. It's going to be hard enough to get any cooperation out of the local authorities without getting hung up in customs."
"I will allow you to try," said the Master of Sinanju.
At customs, their lack of baggage prompted concern.
"Why do you not carry bags?" the customs inspector asked in an accusing voice.
"They got lost in London," Remo explained.
"You did not wait for your bags?"
"We were in a rush."
The customs man cocked an eyebrow that pushed his sweaty forehead into thick gullies. "A rush to come to Gondwanaland?"
"Right."
"That means you are spies and are hereby under arrest," he snapped, motioning toward two white-uniformed security police.
"Hold the fort," Remo said. "What makes you say we're spies?"
"Because the only rush is to get out of Gondwanaland. Therefore, you are spies out to uproot our popular president, Oburu Sese Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, which means 'The Always-Victorious Warrior Who Is To Be Feared.' "
"Actually, it means 'Rooster Who Mounts Anything Female'," Chiun whispered.
Then the Master of Sinanju stepped in front of Remo.
He spoke a short phrase.
The customs officer looked incredulous. Chiun added another pungent sentence and the man's eyes grew round. He took a step backward, as if confronting his own ghost.
"Now you did it, Chiun," Remo groaned. "What did Smitty say about not getting the locals all riled up?"
Then, shaking his head, the customs officer cried, "Fellows! Come see! Come see! The Master of Sinanju has come to Gondwanaland!"
There was a general rush from the other customs stations. Tourists who had been tied up in hour-long inspections of their luggage-in which fewer items went back into them than were taken out-were waved through as the entire customs force crowded around the Master of Sinanju, begging for autographs.
To Remo's growing surprise, Chiun signed them dutifully and answered excited questions put to him in Swahili.
A customs man came up to Remo, grinning and waving the signature.
"I have the Master of Sinanju's own signature! It is not a great thing?"
Remo glance at the sheet. "He didn't dot the i in 'Chiun. ' "
The man looked, his face sagging. He grabbed the next man to walk by and compared signatures. The other man had one with the i dotted. A third man also had one with the i dotted. And a fourth.
An argument broke out over rights to the signature with the undotted i. Remo couldn't follow it because it was in Swahili, but it seemed that all four men decided that the flawed autograph was the rarest one and therefore the most valuable.
They fell into a busy four-cornered fistfight. That, Remo understood.
While they were fighting, Remo picked the coveted autograph off the floor and dotted the i.
Meanwhile, the Master of Sinanju was putting the arm on the other customs officers, who each clutched autographs.
Remo had trouble following what Chiun was saying until, suddenly, the customs men were pulling key rings out of pockets and fighting one another for the privilege of throwing their keys at the Master of Sinanju's feet.
Remo stepped in then.
"We only drive automatic shifts," he said. "Everybody else can take their keys back."
Two-thirds of the keys were recovered.
"And we insist upon a car with a good spare."
More keys were taken back. The struggling died down.
"Lastly, the car's gotta be blue."
"What if it is not a car?" one man asked.
"What is it, if it's not a car?" Remo wanted to know.
"It is a Land Rover."
"Then you're in luck. Land Rovers are our favorite."
The owner of the Land Rover began hopping about in happy circles. "I win! I win! I win! The Master of Sinanju is going to drive my machine!"
"Actually, I'm going to do the driving," Remo said, putting out his hand to accept the key. The metal barely touched his fingertips before it was swiftly withdrawn.
"I will have no lowly white drive my car," the owner said huffily.
"You lose your golden opportunity, then."
"He does not," said Chiun, putting out a longnailed hand. "For I will drive."
Remo gulped. "You?"
"I might perhaps be rusty," Chiun allowed. "But the skill will return. It is probably just like falling off a bicycle."
"If it is," Remo said sourly, "try to fall off your side, not mine."
Ten minutes later, they were careening through the crumbling streets of downtown Port Chuma, sending chickens and other livestock out of their path while Remo held on to the Land Rover seat for dear life.
"You drive worse than I remember," Remo was shouting.
The Master of Sinanju scooted up an alley to avoid two East German-built Trabants trying to beat one another through the same intersection.
"But I drive better than the inhabitants of this backward place," he countered.
Remo started to express his doubts when the trash compactor sound of the two Trabants colliding drowned out his words.
"Yes?" Chiun prompted.
"Never mind," Remo grumbled. He looked around. The city still had much the colonial look of Gondwanaland when it was known as Bamba del Oro. The stucco buildings were peeling and had not been kept up. A traffic cop in tropical ducks blew a whistle at them.
Chiun sailed past him without concern.
The whistle turned shrill and angry.
Remo looked back. "Now you did it."
"Do not concern yourself, Remo. He can do nothing. For the policemen in this land are too poor to own automobiles."
"I hope you're right." Remo looked ahead. "Aren't those railroad tracks up ahead?"
"Yes."
"Shouldn't you be slowing down?"
"No." And the Master of Sinanju pressed the accelerator flat to the floorboards, simultaneously turning the wheel hard to the left.
Remo Williams had reflexes and nerves far superior to ordinary people. But even he blinked his eyes at sudden sounds. The Land Rover ran over a stone, and the wheels left the ground. It hurtled toward the hard steel rails. That was when Remo blinked.