Warren Murphy: Oil Slick

"I offered you protection from the death forecast for you in the legend and you repaid me with treachery."

"But..."

"Silence, wog. It is right that you know my thoughts. I offered you this protection because I wanted; for my own reasons, to dispose of the men who would come to this land to remove you. It was to entrap them that I eliminated those oil scientists in the United States; it was to bring them here that I instituted the oil embargo. It was to throw them off balance that I had you ignore their messages and their warnings. All this was set up by my plan against the day when I would strike them. It was necessary to that plan to keep them here."

"Why?" asked Baraka, a military man considering a military problem. "You know who they are? Why not just eliminate them?"

"Because, wog, I want them to think. They know I am here. I want them to wonder a bit. When will he appear? When will he strike? It is not the attack that is the pleasure. It is the attenuation of the suspense before the attack."

"So?" said Baraka.

"So, wog, you and your treachery have conspired to rob me of my pleasure."

"No, Nuihc, no," said Baraka earnestly.

"Do not lie to me." Nuihc still looked straight through the windshield, biting off his words crisply, teeth clenched. "You agreed to a private deal with Clogg, the oil man, to divert Lobynian oil to his company, for eventual use in the United States."

Baraka thought to protest, then stopped. There was no point in branding the truth a lie. Somehow Nuihc knew.

"But what does it matter? The embargo to America remains."

"Fool," Nuihc hissed, and for the first time his eyes sparkled with anger. "If I, secluded in the palace, can learn of this plan, how long do you think it will be before the American government learns of it?"

He turned to look at Baraka. "Do not say 'but,' wog. Even for you, it should be simple. Once the government learns that oil will again flow to their country, they will be satisfied, even if the oil flow is by secret means. They will be careful to do nothing to upset the agreement between you and your perverted friend. They will call back the two men I seek. And all my plans will have gone for naught."

Nuihc squinted at Baraka. "Do you see what you have almost done?" He did not wait for an answer. "Out of the car, wog," he said.

Baraka opened the door of the car, but as he scrambled out he took a pistol from a small concealed pocket next to the driver's seat. He had no doubt that Nuihc planned to kill him. He would get Nuihc as soon as he got out the other door. He turned to look over the roof of the car toward the other door.

The door opened. He waited for Nuihc's head to appear. And then Nuihc was at his side. He had come out through the open driver's door. His hand flashed, invisible in the darkness, and the pistol dropped out of Baraka's hand, thudding softly in the sand.

"Fool," said Nuihc. "Do you think I trust a goatherd?"

"What are you going to do?" asked Baraka.

"Kill you, of course."

"But you can't. The legend says that I need fear only an assassin from the East who comes from the West."

"Fool," said Nuihc, and this time his mouth creased in a thin-lipped smile. "I, too, fulfill that prophecy. The blood of the East flows in my assassin's veins. And I came to you from the West. Remember me to Allah."

And there was one slow lazy movement of one hand, and Baraka dropped, dead without a chance to scream or moan or even feel pain, his heart reduced to mush under the protective shielding of his breastbone which had been shattered to powdered chips by Nuihc's hand.

Nuihc did not even look at the body.

He reentered the car and began the drive back to Dapoli. He must move against Chiun and Remo now. His mind concentrated deeply on how he would do it as he drove, so he paid only scant passing attention to a man he saw in the far distance, running along a parallel roadway toward the town of Dapoli.

When Remo returned to his hotel room, Chiun was already up sitting in his meditation posture, staring at a blank wall.

"I'm home, Chiun," said Remo cheerily.

He was answered by silence.

"It was a terrible night," he said.

Silence.

"Didn't you worry about me?"

Chiun continued to stare straight ahead.

Remo was annoyed. "Didn't you worry that Nuihc might have gotten me."

The mention of the unmentionable name brought Chiun alive.

He wheeled toward Remo. "The challenge will come only in a place of the dead animals," he said. "So it is written; so it must be. You can spend all night gallivanting if you want; it is no concern of mine."

Baraka's body was found before noon and Dapoli soon resounded with the news.

Remo and Chiun were still in their rooms, working on balance exercises, when the news came over the radio which Chiun kept on continuously as a substitute for television-almost as if he were hoping the radio set would sprout a picture tube and somehow jump into the broadcast of "As the Planet Revolves."

In stilted formal English, with dirge music playing in the background, the radio announcer said: "The esteemed leader, Colonel Baraka, is dead."

Remo had been hanging by his heels from the slim molding over the front door, catching balls thrown to him by Chiun. The exercise was difficult, and for a normal athlete would have been impossible. Trying to coordinate one's hand and eyes and brain while hanging upside down would have been too much. For Remo it was an exercise necessary to teach him that the body must be able to work under all conditions, regardless of environment.

The exercise went like this: Chiun would throw a ball. Remo would catch it one-handed and roll it back along the floor toward Chiun, six feet away, while Chiun would have already taken another ball from the pile which would be on its way to Remo.

Left. Right. High. Low. Fast. Slow. Remo caught them all and was beginning to get that prideful feeling that comes from a perfect performance. He knew it was perfect. So good, so perfect, that he was sure it might drag an "adequate" from Chiun. From Chiun this was the highest accolade. Only once had Chiun slipped and told Remo something was "perfect" but he caught himself quickly and added "... for a white man."

Chiun's arm was drawn back to throw another hard pink ball when the announcer's voice reported Baraka's death. Chiun heard it and threw the ball violently against Remo, so hard that Remo was unable to move before the ball hit him full in the face.

"Goddamn it," he howled.

But Chiun had turned and walked away and was standing next to the radio, listening, his hands clenching and unclenching.

"The illustrious leader's body was found near the Baraka Memorial Road in the middle of the desert on the way to the Mountains of Hercules. A national period of mourning has been proclaimed by Lieutenant General Jaafar Ali Amin, who has assumed leadership of the government.

"General Ali Amin has blamed the Zionist imperialist American-financed swine for the murder of Colonel Baraka. 'It must have taken a dozen assassins to subdue him,' said the general. 'The signs of a struggle were everywhere. He fought bravely against overwhelming odds. The honor and memory of Colonel Baraka will be avenged.'"

Remo rolled to the floor. He paid no attention to the radio.

"Goddamn it, Chiun, that hurt," he said, rubbing his right cheek.

"Silence," commanded Chiun.

Remo was silent. He listened.

Finally, the announcer said that the station would stop broadcasting for three minutes as a memorial to Colonel Baraka and to give people time to take their prayer rugs and pray toward Mecca.

"All right, Chiun," said Remo good-humoredly. "Baraka's dead. Saves you the work."

"It was him," Chiun said. "It was him."

His voice was cold, distant, angry.