Warren Murphy: Slave Safari

"Butler," said Obode. "I think there are times when there are some things you not only fail to understand, but you refuse to try understanding."

"I'm only a colonel," Butler said.

"All right. Now you're a general. You must understand everything now. Understand this, General. I take no chances with the Loni legend. I do not want Westerners in Busati. I do not want this Remo Mueller. I do not want any more of your white women from America."

"As one general to another, Big Daddy, let me say I've got to have one more."

"Get one from China."

"No. It's got to be America. It's got to be a certain one."

"No more," said Obode.

"This one is the most important one. I've got to get her. If you say no, I'll resign."

"Over a white woman?"

"A special one."

Obode thought deeply for a few seconds. He cupped his chin in his ham-wide, cave-black hands. "All right. But this is the last."

"After her, General, I will want no more. She makes it all perfect."

"And you say I am hard to understand," said Obode. "One last thing, General Butler. Do not think the legends are all lies or that General Obode is a fool."

He put a heavy hand on Butler's shoulder. "Come, I will show you something you do not think I know. You have been watching that tail under the bush, you think there is no predator around because you do not see one. You think the lizard ran into the sun for no reason, right?"

"Well, yes, I guess that's what I was thinking," said Butler, surprised that Obode had seen his interest in the bush.

"Good. Good to show you a point. Even if you cannot see something, it does not mean that it does not exist. There is a predator around."

"I saw no rats or birds. I still see the tail."

Obode smiled. "Yes, you see the tail. But come quickly or you will not see it."

When they reached the bush, Obode drew aside the green foliage. "Look," he said, smiling.

Butler looked. He had seen a tail all right, but that was all that was left of the lizard, sticking from the full mouth of a very fat frog.

"Sometimes when you run from danger, you run to it," said Obode, but he forgot the lesson very quickly that afternoon when he again not only refused to see the writer, Remo Mueller, but ordered him evicted from Busati. Immediately.

CHAPTER SIX

The Busati Hotel had air conditioning that did not work, faucets that gave no water, and elegant carpeting with inlaid old food. The rooms were like furnaces, the hallways smelled like sewers and the only remnant of its former grandeur was a clean brochure with Victoria Hotel scratched out and Busati Hotel pencilled in.

"Spacious, air conditioned and elegant, the Busati Hotel offers the finest conveniences and the most gracious service in all East Africa," read Remo.

Chiun sat on the floor, his white robe flowing and motionless behind him. Remo sat on the edge of the bed with the high brass posters.

"I've heard of untruth in advertising," said Remo, "but this is a bit much."

Chiun did not answer.

"I said this is a bit much."

Chiun remained a silent statue.

"Little Father, there is no television set before you. You're not watching your shows. So why don't you answer me?"

"But I am watching my shows," said Chiun. "I am remembering them."

Remo was surprised that he shared a bit of Chiun's anguish at the master's loss of the daytime soap operas. They had been a constant nettle to Remo through the years, but now that they were gone, he felt sorry for the Master of Sinanju.

"That Watergate thing will not last, Chiun. All your shows will return."

"I know that," said Chiun.

"So you don't really have to sit staring at a wall."

"I am not staring at a wall. I am remembering. He who can remember the good things as though they were present can live his happiness forever."

"Well, let me know when you stop remembering, so we can talk."

Remo looked at his wristwatch. At home, Chiun's soap operas went off at 3:30. He would time Chiun and see how close he came to judging the time.

At 3:27 by Remo's watch, Chiun toward turned him.

"You missed, Chiun."

"Missed? What stupidity are you pursuing now?"

"The shows go off at 3:30. And it's only 3:27 and you were done," Remo said triumphantly. "Three minutes off. A child could have a better sense of time than that. Three minutes is a long time."

"Three minutes is not very long in the life of one who has dedicated every minute to foolishness," Chiun said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, you forgot the moments of selling. I do not watch them. I do not use soap powder."

Chagrined because he had indeed forgotten the three minutes of commercials at the end of the day's stories, Remo said, "Yeah, well, anyway, I was talking about the brochure."

"It may not be a lie," Chiun said.

"Look around you, it's not a lie?"

"I look around and I see that perhaps at one time it was the truth. I see elegance in decay. So if these things were said about this palace when they were true, then the advertisement is true."

"Are you telling me, Little Father, that to say this is a stink hole is a lie?"

"I am telling you that truth is a matter of time. Even in this very land there are people who were once great and who now hide in the hills like frightened calves."

"Well, I don't need that drivel now, Chiun. I need advice. I'm supposed to see the top man in this country to find out about that white house, without letting him know that I know. But he won't see me."

Chiun nodded. "Then my advice to you is to forget all your training and run head first like a crazed dog into what you, in your lack of perception, think is the center of things. There, thrash about like a drunken white man, and then, at the moment of maximum danger, remember just a brief part of the magnificent training of Sinanju, and save your worthless life. At the end of this disgrace, you might by good fortune have killed the right man. This then is the advice of the Master of Sinanju."

Remo blinked. He stood up from the bed.

"That's utterly stupid, Chiun."

"I just wanted for once to give you advice I am sure you would follow. But since I have invested such wealth of knowledge with you, I shall increase this investment. You think because the emperor appears to be the center of things, he is the center of things."

"It's president, not emperor."

"Whatever name you wish to give to an emperor is your pleasure, my son, but emperors do not change in state. And what I am saying to you is that you must know the center of this thing before you can attack it. 'You are not an army that goes blindly wandering through bush and hill and can by sheer weight of numbers accidentally accomplish what it wants. You are skill, a single skill that is designed to crush one point, not ten thousand. Therefore you must know that point."

"How can I find that point waiting around here in this crummy hotel?"

"A man sitting sees many sides very well. A man running sees only ahead."

"I see many sides when I run. You taught me that."

"When you run with your feet," said Chiun, and was silent. Remo left the room to see if he could find something to read, someone to talk to, or even a vagrant breeze to get into the middle of. He was unsuccessful. But at the stately doors of the hotel, he saw a busboy run desperately past him with fear in his eyes. The manager of the hotel hid the books. The doorman snapped to attention.

And then Remo saw it. Coming up the main street of the capital city of Busati, an army convoy, machine guns bristling from jeeps. Leading it was the man who had extended the invitation that writer Remo Mueller see General Obode.

When the lead jeep of the convoy arrived at the doors of the Hotel Busati, it stopped in a screech of dust off the unpaved street. Soldiers jumped off their jeeps all along the line before their vehicles braked.