Warren Murphy: The Final Crusade

"Iraq, too, was once a worthy place. Perhaps we shall visit it next. Ah," cooed Chiun. noticing a sidewalk vendor. "A melon seller. Come, come, Remo, I have waited all my life to break a good Persian melon with you."

"Should we?"

"We have plenty of time before the Sluggard's ship arrives, and our business with the Persian rulers will be swiftly completed."

Chiun floated over to the melon seller's stall. The rough-skinned melons were piled in old crates on the sidewalk. Chiun examined several of them critically, sometimes shaking them close to his ear.

"Find a good one?" Remo asked patiently.

"These are not ripe. It may be earlier in the season than I thought. Ah, here is a choice one. Pay the man, Remo."

Remo forked over an American twenty-dollar bill. He was not given change.

The Master of Sinanju grasped the melon in both hands. His long-nailed thumbs sank into the skin like hypodermics.

"Better not drop it," Remo cautioned. "That's a twenty-dollar melon."

Chiun separated his hands. With a soft splitting sound, the melon fell into exact halves into his hands. He offered Remo one.

Remo looked at the exposed yellow meat.

"It's all mushy inside," he complained.

"Spoiled." Chiun looked. And saw that it was so. Angrily he took the melon back to the proprietor. Remo watched as a heated exchange in Farsi ensued. It ended with Chiun going through all the melons, splitting them in half, and dropping them in the gutter, where they splashed in their overripeness. The melon seller was screaming and tearing at his hair.

When Chiun returned to Remo's side, he said, "Recover your money. He has no good melons."

"Must be a ripoff artist," Remo said, not bothering to go after his twenty dollars. It was out of Smith's pocket anyway.

They walked until they came to a pistachio vendor. Chiun's sullen face lit up.

"The pistachios look good," he said brightly. But when he examined the tall paper bags filled to the brim, he saw that they were small, wizened nuts, not the fat green ones his ancestors had described.

His face darkening, Chiun resumed his stride.

"This place has fallen upon evil days," he muttered. "The melons are bad and the pistachios are not worth the trouble it took to harvest them. What could have happened?"

"They happened," said Remo, jerking a thumb at a pair of passing white-turbaned mullahs. They stalked down the street in their camel-hair cloaks like buzzards with folded wings.

At the Iranian Parliament building, General Mefki greeted the Master of Sinanju with a proper bow. Not a full bow, but a respectful one, Chiun noted.

"We will see your leader now," Chiun told him.

"A thousand pardons," returned the general, his face shiny with sweat. "But the Grand Ayatollah has declined to see you. I have tried to reason with him, but-"

The general's words stopped at the sight of the change in the Master of Sinanju's face. It was stormy, the eyes afire.

"I've seen that expression before," Remo said in English. "I'd drag your High Ayatollah out by the beard if I were you."

"Come with me," said the general, who suddenly feared a firing squad less than he did the fire in the tiny Korean's eyes.

The Grand Ayatollah looked up sharply from his prayer rug on the floor. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the pair whom the general had escorted into his private chamber of meditation.

"In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful," he mumbled.

"What is this he mutters?" Chiun asked.

"The Ayatollah is very pious," said General Mefki. "He asks for Allah's guidance at the beginning of all meetings."

"He'd better pray this one goes right," Remo said. The general looked at him as if suddenly placing the accent. "American?" he asked.

"Yes," said Remo.

"No," said Chiun. "He is Sinanju. He used to be American. "

"But you work for America now?"

This exchange obviously puzzled the Grand Ayatollah, who did not speak English. He asked a question of the general.

Chiun answered it, in perfect Farsi.

"I am Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju. My ancestors were once proud to have served the Peacock Throne." The Grand Ayatollah took a sip of his tea. He spat at Chiun's feet in a gesture of contempt. In Farsi he intoned, "The shah was a wounded serpent, as were all who came before him. If you served his ilk, that makes you a serpent's lackey."

Chiun's face trembled, and Remo wondered if he should get between Chiun and the Grand Ayatollah. Then he recalled Smith's instructions.

"Remember, Smith wants us to avoid a war here," he whispered.

Chiun hesitated. His face went flat.

"I come as an emissary of the United States," Chiun said quietly, evenly. And he was surprised to see the Ayatollah's face betray a flicker of fear.

"He fears America, not Sinanju," Chiun whispered to Remo.

"Obviously he doesn't know Sinanju from Shinola," Remo whispered back. "Keep that in mind."

"A force of American renegades has set sail for these shores," Chiun went on. "These people are hosts of a man named Sluggard. It is not the wish of the American emperor that these forces inflict harm upon Persia. Nor is it America's wish that these Americans, except possibly their leader, come to harm here. Allow us to arrest our renegades; and the one who has caused you so much trouble, Sluggard, will be turned over to you."

"Hey, I don't think that's a good idea, Chiun," Remo complained when he got the translation. "Sluggard may be bad, but he's still an American. I can't see turning him over to these turban-winders."

"Hush," said Chiun. He turned to the Grand Ayatollah. "Does the Imam agree?"

The Grand Ayatollah said nothing. He took another sip of tea. This time he swallowed it.

General Mefki spoke up then.

"I believe I can assure you that our forces will not engage these Americans, if the House of Sinanju will turn them away."

"Done," said Chiun.

"I will not speak for the Pasdaran," said the Grand Ayatollah at last. "They will do what they will do. It is in Allah's hands."

Chiun's brow furrowed.

"What does that mean?" Remo asked General Mefki after he had translated.

"It is their way of avoiding responsibility," he replied. "The clerics can no longer control the Revolutionary Guards they have inflicted upon this country, but they dare not admit it."

"Tell him," Remo said, gesturing toward the Grand Ayatollah, "that if his Guards cross us, we will crush their bones to powder."

General Mefki translated Remo's words.

The Grand Ayatollah's face betrayed true fear then. And Chiun was so shocked he said nothing.

Finally the Grand Ayatollah began muttering inaudibly.

"We will sink the American fleet in the Gulf. We will punish the Great Satan, here and on its very shores."

"He's bluffing," General Mefki explained in English. "They are all like that, revenge-crazed. He is old and helpless and knows it. The mullahs have broken the back of this once-proud nation and it is only a matter of time before the people rise up against them. Let me suggest we end this audience and that you go do what you must. You have my pledge of noninterference. It is all you can hope for here."

Chiun, his face unhappy, strode up to the Grand Ayatollah and, standing almost in his face, bowed low over the man's samovar and piles of cakes.

"May Allah maintain your shadow," he said, and he straightened. "We go now to accomplish our mission." The Grand Ayatollah waved him away with a feeble gesture.

Outside, on the Parliament steps, Remo asked Chiun, "Why did you bow to that old fart?"

"It was a gesture of respect."

"You respected him?"

Chiun shrugged. "Only long enough to spit into his tea. "

And while Remo was laughing, Chiun turned to General Mefki.

"I seek a carpet merchant named Masood. Do you know of such a man?"