Slave Safari Read online

  Remo looked up and saw that Princess Saffah’s dark eyes were tinged with sadness.

  “Does the legend say whether I win or lose the fight?” Remo asked.

  “No,” she said. “The legend is silent. But it tells what must happen. The Loni children must come home. And if you are victorious, the Lonis will again rule the land and children will be able to walk the streets and the blind again can be made to see.”

  “It sounds like I’m doing all the work,” Remo said. “What does the legend say of Chiun? Does he do anything except lay in your hut down there like Henry the Eighth?”

  Princess Saffah laughed, and the smile brought beauty back to her finely chiseled face. “You must not speak unkindly of the Little Father. Centuries of hardship have changed the Loni people. Where once we were kind, we are now vindictive. Where once we had charity, we now have malice; where love, now hate; where courage, now cowardice. It is written that the Master will purify the Loni people in the ritual of the sacred fire. In that fire, he will restore to the Lonis the goodness that once was theirs, so that they may again be fit to rule this land. The Little Father may perish in this task, which is why we revere him so.”

  Remo rolled over and searched Saffah’s deep eyes. “Perish?”

  “Yes. So it is written. The flames may consume him. He is a very great man to come back to us, knowing that here he may hear the clock strike the hour of his death.”

  “Chiun knows this?”

  “Of course,” Saffah said. “He is the Master, is he not? Did you not hear his words when first he arrived? No, of course not, you would not understand because he spoke the tongue of the Loni. But he said, ‘I have traveled these ages from the land of Sinanju to stand here again with my brothers, the Loni, and to place my body on the sacred coals to purify their lives with my life.’”

  “He didn’t tell me,” Remo said. “He didn’t say anything about any ritual fire.”

  “He loves you very much,” the princess said. “He would not worry you.”

  “What about you, Saffah? You believe the legend?”

  “I must, Remo. I am first in the line of succession to the crown of the Loni Empire. My faith sustains my people’s faith. Yes. I believe. I have always believed. I have believed in the past when others have come to us and we thought, perhaps here, perhaps this is the redeemer of the legend. But when they failed, it was just their failure, not the failure of the legend. Not long ago, another came and we believed that he might be the one but now, now that you and the Little Father have arrived, we know that he was not the one. You are.”

  “We who are about to die salute you,” Remo said.

  She leaned forward and said closely to his face. “Do you believe in sin, Remo?”

  “I don’t think anything is wrong between two consenting orangutans.”

  “I do not understand.” Her face assumed a look of quizzicality which softened when she saw Remo smile. “You jest,” she accused. “You jest. Someday you must tell me of your jesting and what it means.”

  “I will someday,” he said. “No, I don’t believe too much in sin. I think sin is not being able to do your job. Not much else.”

  “I am glad you have said that, because it is said to be a sin for a Princess of the Loni to know a man before she is wed. And yet, Remo, I want to know you and I want you to enter into me.”

  “Best offer I’ve had today,” Remo said lightly, “but I think you ought to think about it some more.”

  Princess Saffah leaned forward, pressed her lips against Remo’s and kissed him hard. She pulled her head back triumphantly. “There,” she said. “I have already committed the sin of touching a man. Now when your time comes, you will have no reason not to take me.”

  “When I’m sure you’re ready,” Remo said, “no reason could have stopped me. But first duty calls.”

  Duty for Remo meant two things: freeing the girls in the white house behind the iron gate and finding out what had happened to Lippincott.

  But princess Saffah could give him no answers to either of those problems, although she suggested that if evil was involved, it was probably the work of General Obode.

  “We have a friend,” she said, “in Obode’s camp. Perhaps be will be able to help you.”

  “What’s his name?” Remo asked.

  “He is a countryman of yours,” Saffah said. “His name is Butler.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  IN THE AMERICAN CIRCLES that concerned themselves with the activities of the Four Hundred, it was well known that the Forsythes and the Butlers talked only to their cousins, the Lippincotts, and that the Lippincotts talked only to God or to whomever else could match His credentials.

  So when the body washed onto the beach a few miles from Norfolk, Virginia, pummeled and battered by the stones near the shore, it became a big story because the body was identified as that of Hillary Butler. The identification was made through her blue-and-white dress and from engraved jewelry the corpse wore.

  The Butler family bit its lip, as such families do, and refused to indulge in speculation for the press as to how their daughter, soon to be married, had managed to wind up dead and drowned in the ocean.

  The family detested the whole idea, but part of the routine in such accidental deaths was an autopsy.

  Clyde Butler was called by the county medical examiner that afternoon.

  “Mr. Butler, I have to see you,” the doctor said.

  Resentfully, Butler agreed and made an appointment to see the examiner at his private medical office, where Butler’s arrival would not draw attention, as it certainly would have at the county administration building.

  Despite the unseasonable spring heat, Butler wore a heavy dark pin-striped suit as he sat in the doctor’s office, facing him across a tan-painted metallic desk.

  “I suppose it’s about my poor daughter,” Butler said, “Really, haven’t we gone through enough without…?”

  “That’s just it, sir,” the doctor said. “That body was not your daughter’s.”

  Butler could not speak. Finally, he said, “Repeat that.”

  “Certainly. The dead girl who washed ashore was not your daughter.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “Yes, sir. In making the autopsy, I discovered that the girl whose body was found had syphilis. Discreetly, I obtained your family’s records from your physician and dentist. If was very difficult because of the mutiliation, but I can now say without a twinge of doubt that some other young woman is on the slab at the morgue right now.”

  Butler grimaced at what he considered unnecessarily explicit phrasing by the doctor.

  He thought momentarily, then said: “Have you told anyone else?”

  “No one at all. I wanted to talk to you first. Frankly, I did not know if your daughter might have known this other girl, or if your daughter’s disappearance might be tied in somehow with this girl’s death, or precisely what. It’s only fair no tell you that the dead girl wasn’t drowned. She was dead before she entered the water. I thought before I announced anything I would give you a chance to explain.”

  “You’ve done very well,” Butler said, “and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I would like you to do something else for me, if you would.”

  “If I can.”

  “Give me an hour and then I will be back here. Then we can decide what to do and what to say.”

  “Of course, Mr. Butler. Just so long as we both understand that I must fulfill the requirements of my office.”

  “Naturally I understand that, Doctor. Just an hour.”

  Butler left the doctor’s office. In the middle of the next block was a bank in which the Butler family was the controlling stockholder. Butler went in, spoke briefly to the bank president, and in five minutes was ensconced, as he had asked to be, in a private office with a private telephone and a guarantee of no interruptions.

  It was a sticky problem, Butler realized. At first blush, he would immediately think kidnaping and ransom. But why the
n would the kidnapers have gone to the trouble of dressing someone in Hillary’s clothes and jewelry and trying to make it appear as if his daughter were dead? No. Kidnaping was out. Therefore, the next step might be that Hillary herself was somehow involved in this. He had no idea how to handle a thing like that, no knowledge of police processes. And hanging over it all was the publicity problem because of the Butler family’s relationship with the Lippincotts.

  Children with a problem go to their fathers. Butler went to the head of the Lippincott family and all its branches, Laurence Butler Lippincott.

  Succinctly, calmly, he told Lippincott over the phone what had happened. Lippincott, with no trace of emotion in his voice, got Butler’s number and told him to stay put; he would call him back.

  From Laurence Butler Lippincott, a call went to the Senate Office Building. From there, a call went to the White House. From the White House, a special call went to Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. Problems were discussed, options were considered, decisions were reached.

  The links in the chain were then reversed, and finally, the telephone rang in the air-conditioned bank office where Butler sat.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “This is Laurie. Please listen very carefully. We believe your daughter is alive, but that she is no longer in this country. The very highest agencies in our government are now attempting to rescue her. This rescue effort, however, is guaranteed to fail if the people involved suspect that we know anything except what they wanted us to think. Therefore this is what we will do.”

  Butler listened as Laurie Lippincott spoke. Finally he said, “What of Martha?” thinking of his wife who was in a state of near collapse.

  “She’s already done the worst of her suffering,” Lippincott said. “Tell her nothing.”

  “Nothing? But she ought to know.”

  “Why? So she can worry? Become hysterical? Perhaps drop a word here or there that could mean Hillary’s death? Please. The very best thing is to let her think Hillary is dead. If we can get Hillary back, Martha can rejoice. And if we fail, well, one can only grieve once.”

  “What are the chances, Laurie?”

  “I won’t lie to you. They’re less than fifty-fifty. But we’re pulling out every stop. The best we have is on it.”

  “We? You mean the family?”

  “No. I mean the United States of America,” Lippincott said.

  Butler sighed. “Okay, Laurie. Whatever you say. But I’m worried about the doctor. He’s a snotty young bastard. He may give me flak.”

  Laurence Butler Lippincott took the name of the doctor, while allowing himself a small chuckle. “He shouldn’t be too difficult,” he said. Not if his tax return is like most doctors’.”

  So it was that ten minutes later, Butler was back in the office of the doctor, explaining that the doctor must remain silent, must permit the funeral to go ahead as if the dead body were really that of Hillary Butler.

  “Never,” the doctor said angrily. “I don’t know what your game is, but I’m not playing it.”

  His intercom rang. The doctor picked up the phone and said sharply, “I said I wasn’t to be…oh…oh, I see. Yes, of course.”

  He pressed a blinking lit button on the telephone receiver. Warily, he said, “This is he.” He said nothing else for a full sixty seconds. Finally, he said, “Of course, Senator. Yes. Senator, I understand. Of course. No problem. Be glad to, Senator. Yes, I understand.” When he hung up the phone, beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.

  He looked at Butler and nodded. “I won’t say a thing,” he said.

  “Good,” Butler said. “Sometime in the near future, I hope to be able to explain all this to your satisfaction,” he added, wondering if he were not making too big a concession to a social inferior.

  The doctor raised a hand. “No need of that. Whatever you want.”

  “Then, good day,” Butler said. “I must go to the funeral home and console my wife.”

  · · ·

  In Rye, New York, Dr. Harold W. Smith leafed through a pile of reports and tried not to think of the Butler girl or of Remo and Chiun, five thousand miles away in Busati.

  He had done the best he could and assigned his top weapons to the project. There was nothing more he could do, so there was no point in worrying.

  Right? Wrong. Unless the matter were cleared up satisfactorily there might be substantial problems coming from the direction of the Lippincott family. And if they leaned into the President, the President might just fall over on top of Smith, Remo, Chiun and the whole CURE operation.

  And the Lippincotts wouldn’t give a damn that Smith had been considering America’s best interests when he told Remo he could not kill General Obode.

  Unless Remo moved pretty quickly, the whole mess might be beyond unscrambling.

  He wished Remo would phone, but he knew it was not likely. It took forever for CURE’s Busati source to reach them by telephone, and he was a high official of the government. Smith thought of the CURE contact, ex-CIA man William Forsythe Butler. Perhaps if Remo were not successful in getting this squared away quickly, Smith might contact Butler for his advice and help.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE MAN TROTTING UP the hill wore immaculate white gabardines cut in the style of a British khaki bush uniform.

  As he walked into the village, he called aloud a few words of the guttural Loni tongue. The village at first seemed deserted, but slowly people came out of huts and greeted him.

  General William Forsythe Butler stood in the center court of all the huts, talking to Loni tribesmen, scanning the village, looking for a glimpse of Princess Saffah.

  She came around a corner and his face lit when he saw her.

  “Oh, Butler,” she said, “we are glad you have returned to visit your people.”

  He reached for her, then withdrew his hands. He wanted to tell her of Hillary Butler, but held back. Perhaps she would not share his view that the act of revenge had helped even more to cast him in the mold of the Lonis’ redeemer.

  “I am glad to be here,” he said.

  “We have great news.” To his raised eyebrow, she said, “Yes. The legend. It is being fulfilled.”

  She knew, Butler thought, but how had she guessed? It didn’t matter. It was enough that Saffah and the rest of the Loni knew the legend was being fulfilled in his person. He smiled to her, the warm knowing smile that one smiled to another with whom he shared a secret.

  He would have preferred it another way. It would have been better if he and Saffah had been able to discuss it first and then announce it to the Loni in the proper fashion. But if this was the way it was to be, well, who was he to argue? One must seize the moment of history; time is not always tidy.

  Graciousness would probably be the right approach, so he smiled at Saffah, a smile of acceptance that said there would always be between them a special bond of friendship.

  She smiled back, the smile a teacher gives a student who has not thrown up on his desk that day, then turned and extended an arm toward the hut Butler knew was hers.

  The entrance to the hut was empty, and then framed in the doorway, wearing a yellow robe stood the small Oriental of the hotel and the airport.

  He stood there benignly, his arms folded in front of him.

  “Sinanju,” the villagers cried as if in one voice.

  “Sinanju.”

  The old man smiled and raised his arms for silence, with all the sincerity of Jack Paar trying to quiet the opening applause.

  Saffah turned back to Butler. “He is the Master for whom we have waited. He has come these many miles across the seas. The legend comes true.”

  “But…but…but what of the man who gave up his life?” Butler asked.

  Just then, Chiun stepped aside and Remo came out of the hut. He saw Butler, nodded a greeting, and then snapped his fingers.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IN AN AMERICAN CITY, it would have been a ghetto, a slum, the final demonstration that capitalism could n
ot work unless it allowed the hog robber-baron rich to step on the poor man’s neck and grind his face into the dirt.

  But in Busati, it was one of the better streets. And the whorehouse behind the iron gate was definitely one of the better buildings.

  It had once belonged to a British general who had come to the country planning to teach the heathen savages a thing or two, and who had instantly developed a letch for black women of all sizes and shapes. He had had his throat slit one night by a woman whom he thought loved him for his obviously superior soul.

  She took his wallet and the seventy-three British pound notes it contained and returned to her native village where she was as venerated as Marjorie Meriwether Post.

  The house meanwhile was recaptured by the Busati government for non-payment of the four-dollar annual real estate tax—Busati facing its own urban crisis at the time, the necessity to buy another four push-brooms for the one-man street cleaning force who was charged with keeping the city immaculate.

  The house had since that time belonged to the Busati government, remaining vacant until now-General William Forsythe Butler took it over and decided to use it for his own purposes.

  “Look. In the tree,” Chiun said. “Have you ever seen such foolishness?”

  In the dark, Remo’s eyes made out the figure of a soldier with a gun, notched in the fork of the tree across the street from the white house.

  “And in the window of that building over there,” Remo said softly, gesturing with his eyes toward the window where he had just seen a glint of light that could come only from a rifle barrel. “It looks as if General Obode is expecting company tonight.”

  Remo and Chiun stood in the shadows, half a block away from the large white house behind the metal gate.

  “And look,” Chiun said, “there are two…no, three more behind that motor vehicle over there.”