Warren Murphy: Arabian Nightmare

"The trouble is," Smith went on, "we have unleashed nothing. We believe the Iraitis are referring to Remo and Kimberly Baynes."

"This is not good," Chiun said, his frown making his face shrivel into a mummylike death mask. Leaping flames from a tiny Sterne, fire sent wavering blue shadows across the Master of Sinanju's dry features like the ghostly turning of the pages of history.

"Are you referring to the fact that we have no control over Remo and Kimberly?"

"No," said Chiun, "I am referring to the fact that your opponent, Maddas Hinsein, was born with the sun in Taurus. This is very bad. It means he is stubborn and intractable. He will not surrender until he is dead. And perhaps not even then."

"How can that be?" Smith wondered.

"For a true Taurus, this is possible."

After dipping a stiff writing stick into an ink stone, the Master of Sinanju made another brushstroke.

"The moon in Scorpio," he added.

"What does that mean?"

"He enjoys dressing as a woman." Chiun looked up, his eyes glinting. "That explains how he still lives."

Smith cleared his throat. "Er, Master Chiun, I must inform you that the word out of Abominadad is that Maddas Hinsein is dead. If he were not, why has his defense minister seized power?"

Idly the Master of Sinanju aimed a remote-control unit toward the nearby combination television and VCR unit. A tape began playing.

Smith watched intently as the last televised images out of Irait played again. He saw Remo pull back one arm to unleash the death blow that was meant to extinguish Don Cooder. Remo's hand, a spear of stiffened fingers, snapped out.

Too fast for even the camera to record it, a woman in a flowing black abayuh reached out to snatch Cooder from the blow's path. Remo's hand kept going, striking the grinning mustached figure in the green burnoose that stood directly behind.

"That man was not Maddas Hinsein," Chiun informed Smith as the tall burnoosed form was blown out of the frame with bone-breaking force.

"Why do you say that?" Smith asked as the camera caught a glimpse of the woman in the abayuh as she lifted her garment to expose her naked form and spidery limbs.

"Because," Chiun said, hitting the pause button, "that is Maddas Hinsein."

Smith leaned into the screen, blinking owlishly.

In one corner of the frozen image, a second abayuh-clad figure was vaulting over the reviewing-stand rail. Smith saw clearly the shiny black paratroop boots under the garment's wildly lifting hem.

"Boots," Smith said. "Very interesting, but hardly proof positive."

Wordlessly Chiun tapped the off switch and returned to his labors.

Noting the cool blue glow of the Sterno fire, Smith said, "I trust the wok was sufficient for your needs. Finding a brass brazier on short notice was not possible."

"We shall see if it accomplishes its purpose," was all the Master of Sinanju would say.

"The President has not yet made a military decision," Smith said when the silence had grown long. "The Hamidi officer in charge of the multinational coalition, Prince General Sulyeman Bazzaz, has refused to allow our forces to move. Politically, the President is stymied."

"Tell me of the other forces," Chiun suggested, still working on his scroll, which lay flat with its corners slightly curled under the weight of four stones.

"Well, currently the U.S.-led coalition includes the Hamidis, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the-"

"Speak to me not of Arab forces," Chiun snapped. "They are like the desert sands once the storm of war commences. They will sting the eyes and drag down the feet of your soldiers-those who do not turn against you."

"Well, there are the British, the French, the Greeks, the Italians, the Poles, the Canadians, and other European elements."

Chiun looked up. "No Mongols?" he squeaked in surprise.

"No Mongolian units were available to us."

"I do not mean uniformed footmen," Chiun retorted, "but sturdy horse Mongols."

"We do have the Turks on our side," Smith offered.

"Turks are acceptable," Chiun sniffed, "if one plans a slaughter. "

"The President is hoping to avoid any deaths."

"Then he is unworthy of being President. For the enemy enjoys carnage and will only be halted by his own destruction."

Chiun made a final dot on the scroll and left it to dry.

At that moment a furious crackling came from the covered wok.

"Ah," said Chiun, turning his attention to the fire. "It is done."

"I will leave you to your meal, then," Smith said, a trace of disappointment in his tone.

The Master of Sinanju lifted a frail hand whose long nails were like horn projections from which the flesh was retreating.

He said, "Hold, Emperor Smith."

Lifting the wok's brass lid, he laid it aside.

At the Master of Sinanju's beckon, Smith drew near. He leaned over the wok, from which steam and a faintly distasteful aroma rose.

"Isn't that-?" Smith began to say.

With his bare hands, Chiun lifted a tortoiseshell. Moisture beaded up from its humped dorsal surface. It was an odd rusty color, and speckled with brown leopardlike spots. Hairline cracks started from either edge. They radiated toward the dividing depression like thunderbolts in conflict. Here and there, they crossed.

"Show this to the general who commands your forces," Chiun directed.

Smith blinked.

"But what is it?" he blurted.

"It is a tortoiseshell," said the Master of Sinanju in a bland voice as he replaced the wok cover.

"I know that. I obtained it for you. But what is its significance?"

"The general will understand. Now, please leave me. I am weary from my labors."

"As you wish, Master Chiun," Harold Smith said in a puzzled voice. He went away, carrying the hot smelly object in ginger fingers.

The next morning a UPS express courier delivered the tortoiseshell in a nondescript Jiffy mailer to a side door of the White House.

The President of the United States himself signed for the package. He opened it, and even though he knew what to expect within, he still found himself turning the cracked and shriveled tortoiseshell over and over in his hands.

"I don't get it," muttered the President.

A moment later, the tortoiseshell in one hand and the cherry-red CURE line in the other, he was repeating himself to Harold Smith.

"I don't get it." His voice was as bewildered as a child lost in a mall.

"Nor do I," sighed Harold Smith. "But I would do as Master-"

"-The Oriental."

"-instructs. He has never failed us before."

"But this smacks of voodoo. How will it look to our coalition allies?"

"Like voodoo," Smith admitted. "On the other hand, what do you have to lose?"

"You have a point there," said the President, shoving the tortoiseshell back into its Jiffy bag. "The ways things stand, we're on the brink of the biggest military conflagration since the Big One."

"Good luck, Mr. President."

The Jiffy bag was couriered over to the Pentagon by a military attache and presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Down in the Tank-the Pentagon's war room-the Joint Chiefs lowered the lights before they extracted the withered shell for examination.

No one spoke for many minutes. Finally the chairman personally brought up the lights.

He held the shell up so that everyone could see, clearly and absolutely, that it was a tortoiseshell that seemed to have lain in the sun too long.

"Looks like the back off a turtle," the chief of staff of the Air Force ventured.

This seemingly safe opinion was contradicted all around. Some said it was a turtle shell. Others that it wasn't a shell at all but something else. No one one knew exactly what.

The chairman left the growing disagreement and got on the horn to the White House. He identified himself, asked a silent question, and listened intently for several moments before hanging up.