Warren Murphy: The End of the Game

But even as they looked toward the leader, he moved back away from the firelight, and then he was gone into the night with that vision.

Remo could feel the man struggle inside the heavy coat and he let the coat be a bag that restrained the man more than protected him. He played the man beyond the sentries with little slaps, as simply as if keeping pizza dough spinning overhead.

Away from the campfire and the guards, Remo let the man down.

"Good evening," he said politely. "I have come with a message. The White House is off-limits."

"We have no harm against Americans. We have no harm."

"Lying isn't nice," Remo said. "Liars lose their coats."

He snapped the coat from the man's back, cracking an arm as he did so. He knew the man had broken an arm because he was trying to keep warm now with only one arm.

"Now know one thing. The White House is off-limits. The President of the United States is off-limits."

The leader nodded.

"Why is it off-limits?" Remo asked patiently.

"Because he is not the Great Satan?" said the Iranian.

"I don't care what goes on under those rags you wear on your heads. Call him the Greatest Satan if you want. Hell, you can call him Two-Gun Justice if you want. But know one thing and keep it warmly in your mind. You are not going to kill the American President. Do you know why?"

The man shook his head. Remo took off the man's shirt.

"Say why. Say why. Say why," said the man, reaching for the shirt.

"Because," said Remo. "That's why." He held out the shirt for a moment and then threw it over the man's shoulders. He added the big wool coat.

"Hear now something else. You do not represent God. You are little men and have been for a thousand years. You have come up, with all your talk of being God's anointed, you have come up against something that has found your camp in your country, ignored the bullets of your guards, and the fearsome cold of your winters. That ought to give you pause. Do you know the old legends?"

"Some," said the man. He clutched his coat tightly, hoping it would not be snatched from him again.

"Have you heard of Sinanju?"

"A new American airplane?"

"No. Sinanju is old. Very old."

"The Shah's men?" the Iranian said.

"You're getting warmer," said Remo. "But not the new Shah. The old Shah. A long time ago. Before Mohammed."

"Oh, the old Shahs. Sinanju were the servants of death. But they are all gone. They left long ago. Cyrus. Darius. They are gone with the great emperors."

"Sinanju is still here," said Remo.

"You are Sinanju?"

"So you have heard?" Remo said.

"The old legend tells of the world's greatest assassins who came from Sinanju and they protected the Shahs in olden times. You are Sinanju?"

Remo did not answer. He let the man see that the cold night did not bother Remo's exposed arms. He let the man feel himself lifted by one thin arm. He let the man know the answer in his senses.

"But Sinanju is from the East. You are a Westerner."

"Are you such a fool?" intoned Remo. "Do you not see the cold made harmless to my body? Did you not see the night give up the severed head? Do you not see that one man now holds you aloft? Like a baby?"

"You are Sinanju?" hissed the Iranian.

"You betcha, you wool-covered bum," said Remo. It lacked rhythm but he didn't like this country anyhow and he wanted to get out. He had finally seen this fabled land of Persia and it smelled. They never did get their sewer systems down right.

"Sinanju is back," the leader said. "Will the Shah return?"

"No business of mine," Remo said. "I told you. I don't care what you believe. But you don't attack the American President. You hear? Off-limits. Repeat after me. Off-limits."

"Off-limits."

"You attack other Great Satans, if you want. I don't care. Run around your streets yelling. Run around your own embassies blowing them up. Do whatever you want, but America is a no-no."

"No, no," said the Iranian.

"Good," said Remo. "Every group you talk to now, every group you send out, you give them the warning of Sinanju. The American President is a no-no. And if you don't listen, then Sinanju will be back and we hang heads like blossoms as in the olden days."

"What?"

"Heads like berries," said Remo.

"I don't understand," the leader said.

"Heads like mushrooms," Remo said. "You don't have a legend where we hung heads like mushrooms?"

"Like melons on the ground," said the Iranian leader.

"Right," said Remo. "Right. Melons on the ground," and he hung the man upside down for a moment by his boots to let it sink in. Of course the man had remembered it better than Remo had. Remo had generally ignored the tales of Persia before it became Iran because he had generally not wanted to come here. He had been, of course, generally right in that desire. Iran sucked. Old Persia was probably no better. Legends were always better in the telling than in the living.

The leader was returned to the campfire with further instructions.

All during the night, as the young Iranian volunteers snuggled warm in their wools and furs to keep out the cold, they thought of him who needed no clothes. They thought of the voice from the dark. They thought of the head that had been wrenched off the body.

Simple death was one thing. But that which lurked out in the dark was another. They had been trained not to fear death. Thousands of their friends had died in suicide charges during the Iraqi war. Of course, their friends had been yelling and chanting as they raced toward death. But this thing out there was not death in glory for them. It was the night. It knew. It was there. Always there. It came at its own time and it would come for them.

They whispered to themselves that it was the Great Satan and while they had all wanted to fight the Great Satan, it was something else when it really was the Great Satan.

In the morning, the leader spoke very softly. It was a whisper over the cold black charcoal to ears that strained to listen. He said that it was not the Great Satan that had ruled the night. It was he who come from the old Shahs, even before Mohammed, he from those who dealt death, with heads rolling like melons on the ground, like the night before.

One of the followers from Quom had heard of those who dealt death that way. But they were from the East, he said. The vision was white.

"Sinanju," the leader said quietly. "The vision is from Sinanju," and he went on to say that there was only one way to escape the vision and that was never to harm or think of harming the American President. They would not be going to America to organize bands of suicide heroes to strike at the head of the snake of the Great Satan. They would strike instead at other Great Satans. Perhaps the neighboring Arabs would be a better target. Beirut was always good for a suicide bomb. Kuwait was a jewel to slaughter whoever might be walking by. And in Ryadh, there were rich Saudis who could be stabbed, beaten and, of course, bombed, in their bedrooms right in Mecca itself, the holiest of places.

The leader looked around the young faces surrounding the burned-out fire. Not a voice called for a renewal of the war against the Great Satan who lived in Washington, D.C.

Out of the blood-red sun on that harsh dry morning came a sound, like whistling.

"Good morning," said the person walking in over the horizon. He was a man but his face was the face of last night's vision. He was smiling and while he wore only a short-sleeved shirt and trousers, he seemed not to notice the cold.

If one of them had started to run, they would all have run. But they sat around the fire unmoving.

"You sweet fellows are going to escort me to Tehran and there you will give me one of your silly plastic flowers, tell me I am going to heaven, and then plunk me on a Pan Am the hell out of here."