Warren Murphy - The Final Crusade

"I can't walk on my left foot. It hurts something fierce. Has for over three years now."

"You know what gout is, brother?" said Reverend Sluggard for all to hear.

"Yes."

"It's another word for Satan. I'll bet the doctor told you he can't cure you."

"That's right, Reverend."

"And you know what? He was right."

Tears of disappointment appeared in the corners of the old man's eyes.

"He can't. But Ah can. And the reason Ah can is that Ah know you can't get rid of the devil with pills or medicines. You get rid of Satan by castin' him out. And you all watch. Ah'm gonna cast out that old devil called gout. "

And placing his hands on the man's thining hair, Reverend Eldon Sluggard raised his voice to the rafters. "Powers of Satan, Ah command you to be gone. Leave this poor old man be. Spirits of Darkness, Ah cast you out!"

The old man winced with each shouted word. "Now," said Reverend Sluggard, stepping back. "Ah say to you, brother, stand free from Satan's shackles. You, on either side, let him go. He don't need your support no more."

The supporting pair let go of the man.

Without support, he was forced to put his weight on his heavily bandaged foot.

"Now, walk toward me."

"I ... I'm afraid."

"Come on, come on. Ah got enough faith for both of us. Walk!"

The old man took a hobbling step. His feet supported him.

"Look," he shouted. "Look, I'm healed. I can walk!"

"Hallelujah!"

"Sure you can walk." Reverend Sluggard grinned. "The devil's been cast out of your foot. Now you know what you gotta do next?"

"Pray!" said the old man.

"No. You go right over to that nice girl in white and you show God how thankful you are. You go and double your contribution."

The old man went obligingly. His step was firm.

"Amazing," said Remo.

"This will go on all day," said Victoria.

"Pah!" spat Chiun in a disgusted voice. He watched the old man walk over to the girl and hand her more money. Then the man went back to his seat. By the time he got to his aisle, Chiun noticed that he was beginning to favor his bandaged foot again.

But no one else noticed. Their eyes were on Reverend Eldon Sluggard. He was curing a little girl of pancreatic cancer. The little girl said she felt better when Reverend Sluggard told her she was cured. Her mother wept for joy. A man with cirrhosis of the liver was next. Reverend Sluggard laid his hand upon the man's abdomen and shouted to the rafters. He pronounced the man cured.

The Master of Sinanju noticed a blind man in one of the lines. He was alone. He was asking to be brought before the Reverend Eldon Sluggard. He wanted to see again. His voice was pleading. Only Chiun noticed him.

Then two of the white-clad acolytes discovered the man and took him by the arms. Quietly but firmly they led him out of line and out of the Temple of Tribute. Even over Reverend Sluggard's shoutings, Chiun heard them promise that they were taking him to Reverend Sluggard, who would cure his vision.

An hour later, when the last person threw away his crutches, the blind man had not returned. Chiun knew why. You could convince anyone he was cured of an inner ailment, or that his feeble limbs were empowered once again-at least as long as his euphoria was maintained-but no one could convince a blind-man that he could see color and shape.

Chiun frowned as he left the Temple of Tribute. Was this what passed for faith in America? he wondered. Was this the faith that Remo clung to despite having had his vision cleared by Sinanju, his senses made whole?

Remo and Victoria joined the Master of Sinanju in the quadrangle. The congregation was returning to the buses. Chiun noticed that one of the persons who had left their wheelchairs behind had to be helped into the waiting bus.

"Wasn't that inspiring?" Victoria said, squeezing Remo's arm.

"You know how I feel?" Remo said. "I feel exactly the way I used to feel when I would come out of confession."

"Stupid?" asked Chiun.

"No. Sort of ... purged."

"Ah. I know that feeling," Chiun remarked.

"You do? I didn't know they had anything like confession in Sinanju."

"We do not. We have something equally efficacious."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Chamber pots."

Chapter 14

The Master of Sinanju wore his concern on his gracious face.

Not that anyone cared. Especially Remo.

A week had passed. Remo was standing in the wings of the studio where Reverend Eldon Sluggard was taping the latest edition of his Get with God program. Chiun did not understand the meaning of the name and had asked Remo to explain it.

"It's slang," Remo had replied. "It means ... to be one with God. These people in the studio audience want to be one with the Lord."

"They wish to die?"

"No, of course not."

"I am confused. Is it not said in Western religions that in order to be one with the Supreme Creator, death must first occur?"

"Well, yes. But some people believe that it's possible to know God spiritually."

"How?"

"I don't know how it works. But the nuns used to talk about it all the time."

"Ah," said Chiun, "the nuns. And you believed them, although they offered no proof to you?"

"This is faith, Chiun. You don't need proof. You need faith."

"In what?"

"In God."

"Have you ever spoken to this being you call God?"

"No. But the nuns told me all about him. Just like Reverend Sluggard is doing now."

"Do you have faith in Reverend Sluggard?"

"Sure," Remo said quickly.

"And why?"

"Because he's the leader of an important movement. He does good for people. He shows them the way to become the best they can be. Everyone says so."

"And if everyone told you he was a false prophet, would you believe that as well?"

"If he's not the man of God everyone says, why would the Iranians single him out for attack? Answer that."

"And that is your proof of this man's holiness?"

"What else could it mean?" Remo demanded.

"It could be that he angered them."

"Sure he has. He's been warning us about the Moslem threat for years. He told me so. Besides, why would Smith send us to protect him? Huh?"

"I see your newfound faith extends also to Smith," Chiun said quietly. "It is unfortunate." And while Remo's attention remained on the Reverend Sluggard, the Master of Sinanju departed in silence. He repaired to the quarters that had been set aside for them. The quarters were in the great boat that Eldon Sluggard used for his living place. It was explained that Remo and Chiun had to stay close to Reverend Sluggard at all times to protect him from the godless Moslems.

Chiun had replied that the Moslems were not godless. Otherwise they would not be Moslems. Victoria Hoar had countered that Moslems believed in the wrong God.

Chiun had started to ask her how she knew there was a right God, when he realized the stupidity of his own question. There was only one Supreme Creator. Only the name by which different peoples addressed him differed. And over that, non-Koreans had made war throughout history.

Chiun entered his stateroom and went to the telephone device. Ordinarily he despised the machines. They always rang when he was watching something particularly enlightened, and the calls were usually for Remo. Normally, Remo handled all telephonic work, but this was one conversation that the Master of Sinanju did not want Remo to be privy to.

Chiun picked up the receiver and pressed O for Operator. The operator came on the line and Chiun said, "I wish to speak with Harold Smith."

"What city, please?" the operator asked politely.

"It is the city named after one of your breads."

"Bread?"

"Yes, in the province of New York."

"City or state?"

"Is there a difference?" demanded the Master of Sinanju impatiently. "It is the one where Harold Smith resides." Why was it that these whites insisted on giving the same name to entirely different places? Usually names stolen from other countries. Once he had noticed a Cairo, Illinois, and a Carthage, New York, on a map. There were also a Paris, Texas, and a Troy, Ohio. Chiun once awoke from a particularly terrible nightmare in which the mothers of his village were forced to once again drown their starving babies as they did in the old times, because ignorant modern kings had been sending their emissaries to negotiate with the Master of Sinanju, Utah.