Warren Murphy: Oil Slick

He still yearned to be the Master of Sinanju. Today, the Master would test him.

Chiun stopped before the gigantic red-and-white-striped oil tank and listened. From many miles away, he heard the hushed breeze buffet the coastline of this country. He heard the light scurrying of small desert animals. He heard the sound of oil moving slowly, heavily through a massive four-foot-wide pipe that snaked its way across the desert and ended here in a small concrete blockhouse, where its precious juice was piped from the building through smaller pipes to the rows of tanks,

But he heard nothing else.

Behind the long row of tanks, there were derricks of producing wells, but they too had been shut down for the day. Chiun moved softly through the sand toward the gigantic steel towers.

He stopped just before reaching the towers and turned around. It was as if he were in an amphitheater. He was bounded on three sides by oil tanks, on the back by the oil towers. No better place to be than in an arena.

Chiun stopped, folded his black-robed arms, and spoke, his voice ringing in the sodden stillness of the Lobynian summer.

"I am the Master, come to face the usurper of my duties. Where is he? Does he hide in the sand like a sick and dying lizard? Show yourself."

And a voice answered, ringing in echo off the oil tanks, "Be gone, old man. My challenge is to the white man to whom you have given the secrets. Be gone."

"You have not dishonored the white man," said Chiun. "You have dishonored me and dishonored the memories of all the Masters who have gone before. Show yourself."

"As you will," responded Nuihc's voice, and then he appeared atop an oil tank sixty yards across the sand from Chiun. Like Chiun, he wore a two-piece black costume, and now he spread his robed arms against the sun-bleached white sky and called out: "You are a fool, old man, for now you must die."

Nuihc looked across the distance to his uncle, contempt on his face, then jumped from the top of the tank. He seemed to float in slow motion. He landed lightly in the sand at the base of the tank and raised his eyes toward Chiun again.

Slowly he began to walk across the sand toward the aged, frail Chiun.

"You are too old, old man. It is time another took your place," Nuihc said.

Chiun did not speak; he did not move.

Nuihc advanced. "And after you are gone, then I shall deal with the pale piece of pig's ear who is your disciple."

Chiun was still silent.

"The buzzards will pick your meatless bones," said Nuihc still advancing, now only twenty yards from Chiun.

And still Chiun did not speak or move.

And then only ten yards separated them, and Chiun slowly raised a hand above his head.

"Stop!" he called and his voice resounded like thunder in the mock arena and Nuihc stopped in mid-stride, as if frozen.

Across the yards, Chiun fixed his steely hazel eyes upon his nephew.

"You should pray to your ancestors for forgiveness," Chiun said softly. "And especially my brother, the father whom you have disgraced. You go now to meet him in another world."

Nuihc smiled thinly. "Have you forgotten, old man, that you may not kill another from the village? I am protected."

"I knew you would hide, like a woman, behind a shield of tradition," Chiun said. "But I will not be untrue to my duties. I will not kill you." He paused, and then his eyes narrowed even further, until they were only thin penciled slits in his face, which now looked like a primitive mask of hatred and doom. Nuihc seemed relieved, but Chiun said, "No, I will not kill you. But I will leave you here in broken pieces and let the sun finish the task I am not permitted to complete."

And then Chiun took a step forward. And another. And another.

And Nuihc backed up. "You cannot do that," he cried.

"Swine," shouted Chiun. "Dare you to lecture the Master on his powers?" And then he jumped through the air toward Nuihc, who turned and fled, running to escape between two of the tanks out into the broad trackless desert.

But Chiun was in front of him. Nuihc turned again. He felt the whir of air pressure and lowered his head fractionally. A yellow hand flashed by, over the top of his long hair. It hit with a crash against the side of one of the tanks, and thick gooey oil poured through the rupture Chiun's blow had made in the steel.

Nuihc gasped and bolted to the right, again heading for an opening. But there ... again .,. Chiun stood before him, a spectre of death and destruction in black.

In desperation, Nuihc left his feet and leaped toward Chiun, his feet cocked beneath his body, ready to lash out and smash into the old man's face or body. Chiun stood unmoving as Nuihc flew toward him. Then Nuihc's right leg flashed out, aimed at Chiun's face, but Chiun merely raised his right hand and to Nuihc it felt as if his foot had slammed into a mountain. He dropped heavily onto the sand, but as fast as he was he was scurrying away in another direction.

He slipped crossing the growing pool of oil that gushed from the ruptured tank, turning the sand arena into a sticky quagmire, then saw ahead of him one of the two oil towers and ran frantically toward it. He leaped upward, grabbed a crossbar, spun his body around, and then began to climb up the slim pyramidal steel web.

Chiun walked slowly across the sand toward the tower.

Remo returned to his room, pleased with the day's work, hopeful that getting Adras back onto the throne had helped lift Chiun out of his despondency.

"Hey, Chiun," he called as he entered the hotel room. There was no answer and the only sound in the room came from the radio, as the announcer talked about the impact of the oil embargo in making the West understand the unity of the Arab peoples.

"Chiun?"

Remo looked around the room, then went through the door into his room. There he saw the note on the floor. He picked it up and read it.

"Pig Remo. I wait for you in the intended place. N."

Chiun had gone instead of Remo. But where was the intended place. He carried the note back into the other room. Chiun should not have gone. It was Remo's challenge to meet. Suppose it was a trap? If Nuihc had hurt Chiun in any way, then he would not sleep another night on the earth, Remo vowed. But where was the intended place?

The squawk of the announcer burst into his thoughts and he went angrily over to turn off the radio.

"... and the shortage of fossil fuels has seriously hurt the West's economy . . ." Remo snapped it off. The intended place was a place of dead animals. But where?

And then it came, spurred by the radio broadcast. Fossil fuels. Of course. The place of dead animals was an oil field, Remo dropped the note and ran downstairs. Moments later he was in a taxicab.

The driver looked at Remo's face, drawn tight with anger and fear for Chiun, then looked at the spot on the dashboard where his meter had been until it was removed by an aged Oriental several hours before.

"Do not tell me, sir. You wish to go to our oil fields, correct?"

"Drive," Remo said.

If he could have climbed higher he would have, but he could not, and so now Nuihc hung from the very top of the oil derrick, looking down in fear at Chiun, who stood eighty-five feet below him, his arms folded across his chest.

"The most timid squirrel always seeks the most high branch," Chiun said.

"Be gone," called Nuihc. "We are members of the House. We have no quarrel."

"I go," said Chiun. "Yet, hear this. The white man, Remo, is the true heir of Sinanju. Count yourself lucky that he did not come today to meet your challenge. He would not have treated you so kindly."

Nuihc clung to the top of the derrick. The old man would go; Nuihc need only wait. He would live to fight another day.

He watched Chiun slowly unfold his arms below.