The telephone, most likely. It was worth a chance. She found the headquarters, field office, maintenance division, installation unit, and operations center of the ding-a-ling National Baqian Supreme Telephone Network in a one-story cinder-block building at the end of the capital city's main street. The person on duty was the director, maintenance chief,
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installation coordinator, customer service representative, and operations officer. That meant it was her turn to ran the switchboard.
She was sleeping when Ruby went inside because Baqia's three outside telephones didn't get much business, so Ruby of course told her she understood how hard the woman worked and how little the government appreciated her efforts to make Baqia a leader in international communication and sure, wasn't it just a few hours ago that her boyfriend had told her how quick he had gotten a telephone call from his boss in the States, but he had lost his boss's phone number and where did that telephone call come from anyway? And Ruby wouldn't even ask except she knew that this woman would know everything about telephones and that's what she told her boyfriend-Ruby glanced at the nameplate on the desk-she told her boyfriend that Mrs. Colon would know anything and everything about the telephones because in Baqia everybody knew that Mrs. Colon was what kept the country running and what was that number again? And the name of the boss? And I bet you could just get that nice Doctor Smith on the telephone again real fast so I can give him my boyfriend's message, because if Mrs. Colon couldn't do it, it couldn't be done.
When Mrs. Colon got Dr. Smith back on the line, Ruby worried for a moment about her overhearing the conversation but the worry was unfounded. The operator went right back to sleep.
"Listen, you Doctor Smith?" "Yes."
"Well, they got your two men. They hurt." "My two men? What are you talking about?" "Look, don't jive me. I don't have a lot of time."
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Smith thought a moment. "Are they hurt badly?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. But don't worry about it. Anyway, I'm gonna take care of it."
"You? Who are you?"
"You and I have the same uncle," Ruby said. "The big guy in the striped pants."
"And the machine?" Smith said. "That's what's most important."
"Even more than your men?" asked Ruby.
"The machine is the mission," Smith said coldly. "Nothing is more important than that mission."
Smith had barely hung up when the red panic telephone rang inside the top left drawer of his desk.
"Yes, Mister President."
"What the hell is going on now? That lunatic Cora-zon has just broken relations with us again. What are your men doing, anyway?"
"They've been captured, sir," said Smith.
"Oh, my God," the President said.
"I was told not to worry," Smith said.
"Who told you that stupid thing?" the President snarled.
"Ruby Jackson Gonzalez."
"And who the hell is Ruby Jackson Gonzalez?"
"I think she works for you, Mister President," Smith said.
The President was silent a moment. He was remembering the CIA's "big effort" in Baqia. A woman. A black. Spanish-speaking. One Goddam person. Just one. He'd fix that CIA director's ass.
"She say anything else?" the President asked.
"Just one comment," Smith said.
"Which was.?"
"It's not really germane to our problem, sir," Smith said.
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"Let me be the judge of that," the President said. "What'd she say?"
"She said that I be one mean mother to work for," Smith said.
The afternoon sun was like a hammer pounding at his skull and Remo groaned as he came to. His body felt cramped, as if he had been tied in a knot, and it took him a moment to realize where he was. He was in some kind of cage; the buzzing around him was the sound of people talking. He squinted and opened his eyes. There were faces staring at him on all sides. People jabbering at him in Spanish. Mira. Mira. They were calling their friends. Look. Look. Mira. Mira.
They had caged him and he was in the city square of Ciudad Natividado. But where was Chiun?
Remo opened his eyes wide. It felt as if they had been glued shut and it took all his strength just to open them. There was another cage next to him and Chiun was in it. He was lying on his side, his face toward Remo and his eyes open.
"Chiun, are you all right?" Remo gasped.
"Speak Korean," Chiun said.
"I guess we've been captured," Remo said in his thin Korean.
"You are very perceptive."
Chiun was all right, still alive enough to be nasty.
"What was it?" Remo said.
"Apparently the machine with the rays."
"I didn't think he could hit us with it," Remo said.
"Probably he did not. But we were told it does not work well on drunks. It works best on those with well-developed nervous systems, whose senses all work. And since ours work so much better than any-
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one else's, just deflected rays from the machine rendered us this way."
A young boy slipped by the guard who stood in front of their cages and poked at Remo with a stick. Remo tried to grab it out of the child's hand, but the little boy easily pulled it away. Remo clenched his fist and he could not feel tension build up in his forearm. He was awake but without strength, without even the strength of an average man.
The child started to poke again with the stick, but the guard slapped the side of the child's head and the young boy ran away crying.
Remo looked to his other side for another cage. There was none.
"Where's Ruby?" he asked Chiun.
A woman's voice came from near his ear, softly. "Here's Ruby, dodo."
Remo turned to look into the face of a woman with corn rows and a native dress. Only by her smile was he sure it was Ruby Gonzalez.
He looked at her native dress again.
"Now that's real country," he said. "Don't ever grouse about my white socks again."
"I spoke to your boss, Doctor Smith," she said.
"You did? How'd you get to him?"
"Don't worry about it. He one mean bastard."
"That was him," Remo said.
"Anyways, I got to go after the machine first. But then I be back for you. You all right?"
"No strength," Remo said. "The strength's been drained."
Ruby shook her head. "I knew you was going to be trouble when I first saw you. I just knew it."
"Listen, just get us out of here."
"I can't do it now. Too many people. The head man
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here, he just went off in his limousine with his machine. I'm gonna follow him. I'll try to get you loose tonight. Meanwhile, you rest up, try to get some strength back. Trust yo Aunt Ruby."
"If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here," Remo said.
"If it wasn't for me stopping you from going out that door at the jail, you'd be a puddle. I be back." Ruby saw the guard turn to look at her and she twisted her face into a mask of hatred and rage and began screaming at Remo in Spanish. "Yankee dog, Beast, Killer spy."
"All right, you," the guard said. "Get outa there."
Ruby winked at Remo and drifted off into the crowd, which was still pointing and jeering. Remo looked at the faces twisted in hatred at him and to close them out he shut his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
He was not afraid for himself, but he was overcome with a feeling of shame that Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, should be subjected to this humiliation. The thought filled him with an intense fury, but he could not feel the fury fill his muscles with strength.
Revenge would have to wait until later, he thought. At least until he woke up.
But that was all right. Revenge was a dish best served cold.
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CHAPTER TEN
Following Corazon was easy for Ruby after she stole the army jeep.
She just followed the sound of the gunshots, because Corazon considered himself a hunter and while he was being driven pegged shots through the window of his limousine at everything that was not rooted. And sometimes rooted.