Spoils Of War td-45 Page 4

  "This can't be true," Father McConnell whispered as the mob whipped themselves into a frenzy.

  The cheering was interrupted by shrieks and applause, which grew and sweUed throughout the tent as a man and woman appeared at the side entrance. The crowd parted as the two of them climbed onto a platform set up in the front beneath a "Praise Artemis" sign painted in pink Day-Glo letters.

  The man was the strangest looking pastor Father McConnell had ever seen. He sported shoulder-length blond hair, the ends of which curled over the shoulder of a snow-white toga trimmed in rhine-stones. In his right hand he carried a sparkling trident. In his left he carried a white neon lightning

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  bolt. He looked like a football player on his way to the Beaux Arts ball.

  He raised his implements into the air as a sign that the services were about to begin. The crowd went wild. Smiling broadly, he handed the trident and the lightning bolt to the woman, who was similarly attired in diaphanous white gauze, which silhouetted her curvaceous body in awesome detail. The woman knelt to receive the props, exposing a scandalous portion of her ample bosom.

  "Good Lord," Father McConnell said in spite of himself.

  Reverend Artemis posed like a statue as the roar of the crowd subsided. The woman blew Dinah Shore kisses to the troops.

  "My children," Artemis intoned, "we are gathered here this evening to praise the holy name of the one true God."

  "Praise God!" the recruits shouted.

  "And to condemn the evildoers who worship falsely."

  "Death to the false gods!" the recruits screamed.

  "For our nation is plagued with the evil spread by the false gods and their demented followers."

  "Death to the followers of the false gods!"

  Father McConnell noticed that the recruits were reading their responses from huge cards held by the woman on stage.

  "And only through the strength of our military might may we hope to banish evil from our land."

  "Praise God!" they shouted. "Hail Artemis!"

  Father McConnell could not believe his eyes. That was what it said on the card: "Hail Artemis."

  "Haü Artemis!" they yelled. "Hau Artemis!"

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  r

  "No," McConnell whispered. "Oh, dear God . . ."

  He began to back away through the press of bodies toward the exit, but he was restrained by two burly soldiers carrying billy clubs.

  "Let me go!" Father McConnell hissed. Instead he felt the cold metal of handcuffs slapping shut over his wrists, and felt his body borne high above the heads of the congregation as the guards carried him forward.

  "What have we, o sentries?" Artemis boomed. The crowd was still.

  "A heretic, most exalted Lord Artemis, God of Gods." They set McConnell down at the feet of the white-robed pastor.

  "What say you?" Artemis boomed, staring at McConnell.

  Father McConnell cleared his throat to speak. No sound came out. He tried again. "I am Father Malcolm McConnell of the Roman Catholic faith, chaplain to the Fort Wheeler United States Army Base," he said. His pronouncement was met with boos and Bronx jeers and shouts of "Infidel!"

  "Are you come to make amends for your evil existence as a tool of the corporate-military oppressors?" Artemis asked.

  "I most certainly am not," McConnell said. "What you are practicing is blasphemy, and it cannot be condoned—"

  "Death to the evil messengers of false gods!" someone screamed so loudly that his voice cracked. And then the tent was teeming with enraged soldiers stampeding toward the handcuffed priest.

  "Halt!" Artemis said, raising the neon lightning bolt offered by the woman in white. Instantly, si-

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  lence fell over the throng. "Clear the circle. It is time."

  A hushed buzz filled the tent. "Time for what?" Father McConnell asked, feeling his sweat pouring from his armpits. "Time for what?" he repeated.

  A lone soldier worked his way through the crowd to the edge of the circle surrounding Father McConnell. It was Sergeant Grimes. His hands were in his pockets, and he smiled. "Exorcism," he said softly. "That's what the Sunday evening services are for. I was in charge of getting you here, devil priest."

  Father McConnell's eyes widened. "Sergeant Grimes," he whispered.

  "Your kind's not long for this world," he said. "Not if we have anything to do about it." A buzz of assent circulated around the sweltering tent.

  Artemis raised his hands for silence, and the crowd was still. "Before we cast out the evil in the demon follower of the false god, we will purify ourselves with the taking of the Cup," he intoned. The woman in white scurried behind a curtain and reappeared with an enormous silver chalice filled with red liquid. Artemis took it by its two handles and spoke in a voice of deepest authority.

  "You are the soldiers of Artemis, about to take the first step toward destroying the oppressors of this nation," he said. "The flag of America proves its devil worship by bearing thirteen stripes. From the beginning has it been a repository of evil on earth. You did not enter this army to die for the devil-worshipping politicians."

  "No," came the thundering response.

  "You did not enter this army to march into distant lands to wage war on innocents."

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  "No," the men yelled, looking as one thousand-eyed animal at the cup in Artemis's hands.

  "You did not enter this army to see your nation's poor and helpless beaten by the corporate-political system."

  "No!"

  "And now I ask you: Why did you enter this army?"

  The recruits looked among themselves, bewildered. "I will tell you," Artemis whispered. The crowd listened raptly. "You joined the army to find the one true way."

  Cheers.

  "Put your faith in me, o Lambs of Artemis, and I will show you the road to glory."

  "Praise Artemis," they shouted.

  "I will take you all to a promised land, where you may serve men of greatness. Even as I speak, that land is opening up to you, awaiting your triumphant entry. And that land shall be called Vadassar."

  The room buzzed with excitement. "Hail Vadassar!" the men shouted.

  "Vadassar will be your home and your strength."

  "Hail Vadassar."

  "Vadassar will be your master and your servant."

  "Hail Vadassar."

  Father McConnell looked up, puzzled, at Artemis's fiery eyes. What on earth was Vadassar?

  "One day, my children, I will be gone from this world, but Vadassar shall remain to carry on my work through eternity. When I die, Vadassar will provide for you." Artemis held the cup before him at arm's length. "Therefore, this do in remembrance of me," he said, his eyes ceilingward. "With this Cup will you find Vadassar and serve it welL"

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  I

  "This is madness," Father McConnell said, crossing himself. A soldier slapped his hands down.

  The men formed a single une to approach Artemis and his chalice of murky liquid. One by one, they drank from it, and as they did, their eyes took on a vacant stare, their jaws sagged open, and they wandered aimlessly around the tent, not speaking, not focusing, mindlessly walking into one another like bumper cars.

  "Behold the devil priest!" Artemis roared, pointing to the trembling Father McConnell at his feet.

  The men formed a circle around him. "Out, demon, out," they chanted. Their voices were low. They inched forward menacingly. "Out, demon, out."

  "This is the United States of America," McCon-nell pleaded. "You can't do this."

  "Out, demon, out." The circle tightened.

  "Come to your senses!"

  "Out, demon, out." The white-robed woman with Artemis f ell to her knees. "Out, demon, out," she moaned, tearing her gossamer gown to her waist, exposing her fleshy breasts. Her nipples were pink and hard. She writhed on the floor at Artemis's feet, beside McConnell.

  "She's picked up his spirit," Artemis yelled. "We have a true demon in our midst, spreading his evil filth to
the prophetess Samantha."

  Screams of outrage filled the night as the men closed in, zombielike, and the prophetess Samantha stripped, wriggling, to the buff. "Out, demon, out," she called breathlessly as she bucked and thrashed on the floor.

  "As we do to you, priest, so shall we do to all who serve the oppressors of men," Artemis shrieked.

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  . Father McConnell closed his eyes and repeated the Pater-Noster for the last time.

  With a heave, Artemis lifted the prophetess Sa-mantha out of the way as the recruits fell in a wave on the trembling form of Father Malcolm McConnell. When they were done, the priest was little more than a smear on the dirt floor of the tent.

  "And whosoever here shall betray himself or others shall die," Artemis concluded in final warning against anyone present who might still be entertaining the notion of discussing the evening's activities with someone outside the holy order.

  "Praise Artemis," the prophetess Samantha chanted weakly as the remanís of Father McConnell were being covered with sawdust.

  "Praise Artemis!" the troops cheered, tossing paper money at their new god while Samantha, naked as a jaybird, blew them kisses.

  "Wow, that was a hot one," Samantha murmured under the roar of the crowd.

  "Shit," Artemis said. "I missed out on the action, as usual."

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  Four

  "Oklahoma," the fatigued, lemony voice on the telephone said. "The chaplain from Wheeler was reported missing this morning. It must have happened last night."

  Remo and Chiun were stopped at the gate by two sentries who looked as if they were experiencing the final stage of narcotics poisoning. "Where you going, man?" one of them asked, scratching his crotch.

  "How about straight ahead?" Remo took out his wallet and rummaged inside for appropriate identification. The Department of Agriculture card would have sufficed, but the guard held out a shaky hand. "Wait, mister. You from the devil-worshipping socio-industrial-corporate oppressors?"

  "What?"

  "You from the—"

  "Never mind," Remo said. "Whatever you said, we're not from there. My friend here's a student nurse. We've come to pick up a few pointers on ptomaine poisoning from the mess halL"

  "Enter," the guard said.

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  Remo looked over his shoulder at the guards as he trotted inside. One was nodding off, his forehead resting against the barrel of his rifle. The other was staring fixedly at the sun. "Say, can either of you tell us the way to the administration building?"

  The nodder snapped to with a lazy jerk of his head. "Uh," he said, trying vainly to retract his tongue into his face, "I think it's a white building. Mostess administration buildings be white. Always a white building when I go to get my food stamps or the welfare. Once, when they was gonna make me an administrator in the CETA program, they sent me to an administration building, and that one was white too. And when the judge tell me I gots join the army or gets twenty years, that be in a white building too. Yup, you just find yourself a white building. That be the administration building."

  Remo glanced around.

  "All the buildings are white," he said.

  The guard roused himself enough to look around. A small furrow appeared between his eyes. "Lookie, lookie," he said, astonished. "Every last one of them. Hey, Wardell." He prodded his associate, who continued to gaze, unblinking, at the white Oklahoma sun. "Wardell, lookie here. All these buildings be white. Hey, Wardell." Wardell stared on.

  "Thanks a lot," Remo said, as he and Chiun walked away toward the mass of white buildings clustered ahead.

  "These are the fighting men Emperor Smith employs to defend your country?" Chiun asked.

  "Yeah," Remo said.

  "No wonder you lost against even the Vietnamese. The first recorded war victory in the long, lamentable history of those duck-romancers."

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  "Uh huh," Remo said. "Our army didn't lose Vietnam. The rest of the country gave up. Not the army. But that was the old army. This is the new army. These are all volunteers."

  "This, then, is their chosen work?" Chiun asked.

  " 'Fraid so, Chiun."

  "Now I understand."

  "Understand what?"

  "How Emperor Smith finds you to be even moderately useful. Look at what he has to compare you with."

  "That's interesting," Remo said. "I always thought he compared me with you and found me witty, charming, sensible, intelligent, and a perfect delight to have around."

  "Heh, heh," Chiun said. "I've always told you that Smith is a lunatic, but I never told you he was a fool. He would not be likely to compare a chip of glass with a diamond and choose the chip of glass. Heh, heh."

  Chiun looked around. The expression on his face would have been appropriate for watching babies being boiled. "How long has your army been like this?"

  "A few years," Remo said. "We used to have an army like everybody else; when we needed soldiers, we drafted them. To protect their country, people came. Then some genius decided it was too much to expect anybody to sacrifice anything for his country, and they changed the army to all volunteers."

  "So these people fight not for love of country, but for a paycheck?" Chiun asked.

  "That and to stay out of jail or because they've used up every other kind of government check they could get without working."

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  "It'll never work," Chiun said. "It doesn't," Remo said. "Now the Persian Army," Chiun said. "Good?"

  "So-so. The Master at that time helped them, and so they made short work of their enemies. But volunteers were not allowed. The emperor of the Peacock Throne knew that soldiers should be unwilling recruits. Only then will they be angry enough to fight well. The Carthaginians too. They were better. They had a Master of Sinanju too, and he did most of the fighting while they played their lutes and drums. Thus developed the Carthaginian victory at Bothay." Chiun raised an index finger in the air. "But no Carthaginian ever deserted."

  Just then, a young recruit came walking toward them. He stared straight ahead, and his arms hung limply at his sides as he strode in even paces toward the gate.

  "Excuse me, soldier," Remo said. But the recruit walked past him without missing a step.

  "Rude," Chiun said. "He must be a Cypriot." "He's an American soldier," Remo said irritably. "And he's stoned, to prove it. Well, anyway, there's someone else up ahead we can ask."

  About 20 yards away, two soldiers stood talking. "Hey, fellas," Remo said, but they must not have heard him, because as he approached, one of them drew a Bowie knife from his uniform and plunged it into the heart of the other.

  "Wait a second," Remo said, racing ahead to collar the attacker. "What the—" But even as he spoke, the soldier with the knife stabbed himself in the chest, hara-kiri style. He slumped to the ground, a thin smile playing on his lips.

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  "Hey. You." Remo shook the still-warnl corpse, whose eyes were already glazing over.

  "Your American army behaves abominably," Chiun said. "The angle of his elbow was completely incorrect. It was merely luck that he managed to accomplish his task, even at such close range and with such an unnecessary weapon." He shook his head. "Tsk. Disgraceful."

  Just then a lean, athletic-looking major with a team of six soldiers in full combat dress surrounded the two bodies. The major looked briefly at Remo and Chiun, then directed his men toward the entrance gates. Remo noticed that the soldiers all looked straight ahead as they marched in perfect rhythm.

  "Everybody looks mindless around here," Remo observed.

  "Of course," Chiun said with a small smile of triumph.

  "Why 'of course'?"

  "They are white. Mindlessness is natural to those of your race."

  "Two of those soldiers were black."

  "Black skin, tan skin, pink skin," Chiun said with a dismissive wave. "All non-yellow persons behave as one in America."

  Remo ignored him. "I guess that's the administration building over there. I see
typewriters in the windows."

  A guard stood in front of the big white building. His eyes, too, were vacant. Remo waved a hand in front of the guard's face, but his stare was unblinking. They walked past him and climbed automatically to the top floor of the building, where the bellowing bass voice of someone behind a door labeled

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  "General Arlington Montgomery" drowned out all the other noise on the floor.

  "I'm damned if I know what's going on, Major. It's your job to tell me everything I know. Now you find out where that pansy chaplain went to, or you stay on latrine duty till the day you retire." A telephone jingled as it slammed into its cradle.

  Inside, a middle-aged WAC sat typing. She looked up coldly.

  "Hi. We're here to see the general," Remo said.

  "Do you have an appointment?" Without waiting for an answer, she began to type again.

  "I don't think we need one," Remo said as he slid two fingers to the base of her ear. The WAC nuzzled and purred like a kitten. "More," she said. "Are you an officer?"

  "No. I was in the army once, but I was a private."

  She leaped out of her chair with a clatter and assumed a karate stance. "A private?" She brushed imaginary germs off her neck. "Ugh. Touched by a private. Get out of here before I have you exterminated."

  "Ah, gentle lady," Chiun said, smiling sweetly, "I can see you are a person of rare discernment, meant only for the finer offerings of this life."

  "Oh, really?" she said, cocking her head coquet-tíshly. "How can you tell?"

  "It is written on your lovely visage, reminiscent of the flowering jasmine which blooms on the shores of my native village." As Chiun settled into a chair beside the WAC, who was now looking at herself in a compact mirror, Remo walked through the door to the general's office.

  "Howdy," he said.

  "How the hell did you get in here?"

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  "Your guards are out to lunch, and your secretary's establishing relations with North Korea."

  "What? Why aren't you in uniform? Where are you from?"

  "Listen, let's cut the formalities. I'm here to find out about the missing chaplain."

  A look of shock passed over the general's face. "How do you know about that? Who sent you?"