Fool's Gold Read online

  "Thank you all," said Lord Wissex. "The House of Wissex has always relied on its loyal allies and friends in its hour of need. We are assured by your faithful service of your good wishes and we see fine fortune ahead for all in these endeavors upon which we now embark."

  There was general applause.

  "We have been called upon to defend the natural rights of the independent nation of Hamidia— which we will do," said Wissex. "And do forthrightly."

  "Hear, hear," came voices from the ten gunmen.

  "Tally ho," said Lord Wissex. "Follow me." All ten snipers marched into the courtyard and then into the palace, where Generalissimo Moombasa sat brooding with his general staff.

  "Rifles," he said to Wissex in disgust. "I got thousands of rifles."

  Walid ibn Hassan heard his precious loved one called a "rifle." He said nothing; nor did the others. He had been in situations like this before and Lord Wissex had explained:

  "In situations like this, talk not with your tongue but with your weapon. And I will decide when that talks."

  But Hassan did not need Lord Wissex to explain this. His father had told him this. And his grandfather had told his father and his grandfather had been told by his great-grandfather.

  For the family of Hassan had worked for the House of Wissex for many generations. In days gone by, way in the past, Hassan knew, a man would pledge himself to a king's service and when the king prospered, the man would prosper. But when the king fell, so did the man. He would lose everything.

  Then one day, an Englishman had arrived in Tunisia looking for the best rifle shot and when it was shown to be a Hassan, he explained to the man a new way of doing things. One did not serve a single king, but one provided a service to any king. One worked for gold. Gold never failed. Gold was never assassinated or defeated in battle or ever betrayed its owner one dark night with poison in a friendly-looking cup. All eyes smiled on gold and never was the revolution that had overturned it.

  Gods disappeared before man's love of gold. Give Lord Wissex your rifle and Lord Wissex would give you gold. After, of course, proper commissions were taken by the House of Wissex. Lord Wissex had not come to the shores of Tunisia as a charity.

  Through the years, the House of Wissex had been proved right, so Hassan waited, letting the insults pour from the semiliterate South American dictator. As did Mahatma and Wu and the Ghanaian and all the other snipers. They had heard insults before, but they always got paid.

  "I use my own rifles. Why I gotta pay you, Wissex? Millions?"

  "Because these are not just rifles," said Lord Wissex coolly. "These are prime-quality snipers."

  "Already I got snipers. You hang in a tree and you shoot someone in the head."

  "Would you like a demonstration?" asked Wissex.

  "Sure. You. Carlito. General Carlito. Shoot that nigger in the face." He pointed to the Ghanaian.

  General Carlito wore dark sunglasses and many shiny medals. Walid ibn Hassan could hear the medals shaking.

  General Carlito spoke. "You there. Captain. Shoot the nigger."

  And the captain spoke.

  "You there. Sergeant. Shoot the nigger."

  And the sergeant, looking at the Ghanaian's fine rifle, and remembering tales of what happened when Wissex's knife fighter had come to the palace, jumped out the first floor window and ran.

  "Must I do everything myself?" said Generalissimo Moombasa. He put his right hand on his pistol and with his left hand pointed to Hassan, who was holding his beloved one in his fingers in front of him.

  "You there," said Moombasa and Hassan stepped forward.

  Moombasa stared at him with Latin dark eyes. A deadly smile crossed his face. His weight balanced evenly on both feet. His hand rested on the pistol as light as a bird, but as deadly as a hawk.

  "You there," said Moombasa again and beckoned slowly with a left finger. Moombasa's officers stepped aside lest a bullet stray, a bullet heading for their beloved generalissimo.

  "You there," said Moombasa, his voice now even arrogant. "Shoot that damned sergeant who jumped out the window."

  The Hamidian general staff applauded.

  "We got to keep discipline," said Moombasa. The general staff agreed. Without discipline, man was nothing. Discipline, said one colonel, separated man from beast.

  "You got a point there," said the generalissimo.

  Hassan walked casually to the window, raised his gun in a smooth motion, and fired as soon as it reached his cheek.

  The Hamidian general staff thought he had made a mistake, that the gun had gone off accidentally. They had not even seen the Tunisian aim.

  "You want another shot?" said Moombasa.

  "Excuse me, Generalissimo," said Lord Wissex. "He hardly needs that, what?"

  "What?" said Moombasa.

  "Doesn't need that, what?"

  "What? What what?" asked Moombasa.

  "Please come to the window," said Lord Wissex.

  The entire general staff moved to the window and there, lying at the wall of the palace courtyard, was the sergeant with a single shot in the back of his head.

  "What you call that thing?" said Moombasa, pointing to the weapon in Hassan's hands.

  "Beloved," said Hassan.

  "Yeah. Where they sell them beloveds? Looks like a Mauser to me."

  "Excuse me," said Lord Wissex. "The hiring of the tool includes the man."

  "Can I shoot that thing?" Moombasa said.

  "I am afraid that is one thing I cannot sell you," Wissex said.

  "All right then. The rifleman," Moombasa yelled. "But I want that mountain of gold. I was assured that the knife fighters wouldn't fail."

  "I beg your pardon," Wissex said, "but not so, sir. What we assured you was that we provided the finest knife fighters there are."

  "This time I want success."

  "You are getting the best," said Lord Wissex.

  "Make sure," said Moombasa, and while Hassan and the other snipers marched out, Wissex finalized the contract. Five million dollars more.

  Before the snipers set off, Wissex described the woman they were to seize. Apparently, there was some obstruction, he said, some bodyguards that were better than the usual thick-witted musclemen.

  "You there, Mahatma, you will be in charge. I want to know what the bodyguards are like, before you destroy them. But seize the girl unharmed."

  And then Wissex took out a map and showed where the woman and her bodyguards would be going. It was a small village in the Yucatan peninsula.

  "They will be going to this village. Camping over probably. And then on to this area over here, where the woman may find an inscription. That might be the best point because they will all be concentrating on that inscription. Do you understand?"

  "Spoken is done," said Mahatma.

  There were other things Terri Pomfret didn't like besides heights and depths. She didn't like mosquitoes. Some said the Yucatan grew them with bellies like baseballs and beaks like railroad spikes.

  "How come he isn't bothered? Or you?" she said to Remo. They had stopped four times for her to rest.

  "Because, like the forces of the universe, mosquitoes respect the good," Chiun said. "However, they do not bite Remo because I have taught him tricks."

  "Teach me tricks," said Terri.

  "Why?" said Chiun.

  "Because I'm not going any farther unless you do," she said.

  "Then sit and stay here. We have promised to keep you alive, not comfortable," Chiun said.

  "Why did you have to say that to him?" Remo asked Terri.

  "What difference does one more insult make in a life?" Chiun interrupted. "They are like the mosquitoes. Killing one does no good, nor is it missed."

  "What insult? What insult did I say?" screamed Terri. Her skin bitten, her legs raw from the sweating pants, the jungle so humid it was like swimming; and now to top it all, the Oriental was angry at her.

  "Well, you wouldn't think it's an insult," Chiun said.

  "Of course
I don't think it's an insult. I don't even know what it is," she said.

  "How crude. How white," said Chiun.

  "I didn't say it," Remo said.

  "No. This time you didn't. But your friend did."

  Remo was mad. Terri Pomfret wasn't his friend. She was a very talky professor who had to be escorted to some make-believe mountain of gold. But early on, when he had had trouble convincing her that she would be safe, Chiun had decided that she was Remo's friend. That way, he could add her actions to Remo's and keep brimming the bowl of the world's injustices to a kind, decent old man wishing only peace. It sometimes could keep Remo in line.

  But this time, Remo had decided it was not his fault and she was not his responsibility. And he was going to do the job because it was his job. No more. She was not his friend, and he wouldn't take that baggage from Chiun. Even if she was attractive when she wasn't yelling as she was now.

  "Will you, for heaven's sakes, please, please, please tell me what insult I committed. Just tell me. I won't do it again."

  "It's nothing," said Chiun.

  "No. Tell me. Please tell me. So I will never do it again."

  "If you wish and only because you beg. I should be addressed as 'Gracious Master.' "

  "Certainly, Gracious Master. Absolutely, Gracious Master."

  And Chiun raised a finger so that the long nail was perpendicular to his shoulder.

  "Correct," he said. "See, Remo. I have just met this noisome woman and already she knows how to address me."

  "I'm not calling you Gracious Master," Remo said.

  "And after all I have given him," Chiun told Terri.

  "Why don't you call him Gracious Master if that's all he wants?" Terri asked.

  "You don't understand," Remo said. "Let's go."

  "And now you're mad," Terri said to Remo.

  "Sweetie, if you want to go through life with everyone liking you, better dig a hole and end it now because that isn't going to happen," he said.

  Terri slapped her neck. There was another mosquito bite. Chiun picked three leaves and told Terri to chew them.

  "The Chocatl chew them from birth and mosquitoes never bother them. A good people, the Chocatl. In your calendar of 907, we serviced the Chocatl, although they were somewhat poor. We took carvings instead of gold. The Incas had gold. The Mayans had gold. But not the Chocatl. But because they showed proper respect for a Master of Sinanju, we killed the evil king who was persecuting these good people. Even though they had no gold. Only carvings."

  "That's a beautiful story. But I thought the Americas were only discovered in the 1400s," Terri said.

  "By white men," Chiun explained.

  "Why didn't you share your knowledge with the world?" Terri asked.

  "Open up a market to competitors?" Chiun said.

  "I think that is very beautiful about serving someone for only carvings because that was all they could afford. It makes even assassins look noble. Not that I have anything against what you do," Terri said.

  "We are often misunderstood," said Chiun. He looked at Remo, but Remo was looking up ahead. This was supposed to be a village trail, yet there were no signs of anyone having walked the path in the last few hours— which they would certainly find if they were close to a village. There were no freshly snapped twigs or pressed foliage from feet that left ever-so-minute impressions on the cells of the leaves.

  "Don't you think that is beautiful?" Terri asked Remo.

  "About the carvings of the Chocatl?" Remo said.

  "Yes."

  "Have you seen them?" Remo asked.

  "No. Of course not."

  "Ask him what those carvings were made of," Remo said.

  He tried to get the sense of the village up ahead as Chiun had taught him. One could feel a concentration of people if one let the body do it. You didn't force the listening or you would never hear. You let what was be, and in being, you understood it was there. But the path was widening and there was no village up ahead. How he knew, he could not explain. But like so much of Sinanju, it just was.

  There was something up ahead but it wasn't a friendly village.

  "What were the carvings made of?" Terri asked, chewing the leaves and happily surprised that mosquitoes now seemed to try to avoid her.

  "A nothing," Chiun said. "Certainly not gold."

  "He says nothing," she told Remo.

  "Since when is jade nothing?" said Remo. He raised a hand for a halt.

  "Jade? The carvings were jade? And you said they were nothing," Terri told Chiun.

  "You can think of jade as nothing," Chiun said blandly.

  "No one else does."

  "When you are used to working for gold and settle for less, then jade is nothing. It is nothing compared to your lovely smile," Chiun said.

  "Do you mean that?" Terri asked. Her head turned toward Chiun, she bumped into Remo.

  "Hey. You interested in living? Stop," said Remo.

  "How could I not mean it?" Chiun asked Terri.

  "I've been told my smile is my best feature," Terri said. She felt a hand on her shoulder. Remo was pointing for her to step back.

  "It always is with the really great beauties," Chiun said.

  "I've never thought of myself as a great beauty. Attractive maybe. Stunning perhaps," said Terri Pomfret. "But not really a great beauty. Not really. Not all the time, anyway."

  "When the Master of Sinanju says great, he means great," said Chiun. "I have seen stunning and attractive. You are far beyond that."

  "Hey, Terri. Death. Destruction. Fear. Getting killed. Valium. Heads rolling. Fingers cut off. Danger," said Remo, trying to get her attention.

  "Yes," said Terri, giving a very special smile to Chiun. "Did you want something, Remo?"

  "I want to save your body."

  "Oh, yes. That. Thank you. Your teacher is such a wonderful person. I am so glad I got to know how really decent a true assassin is."

  "Step back. That's it. Thank you," said Remo.

  "I mean, most people think assassins are just killers, you know. They don't take time to really know them."

  "Back," said Remo.

  "They judge without knowing. And that is just ignorance," she said.

  "Beautiful woman, he is working. Please step back with me," said Chiun.

  "I didn't notice," she said apologetically.

  "Yes," said Chiun. "Three direct threats can be very subtle."

  Remo moved on up the trail. He wanted to be alone for this. He wanted to move alone. He was quiet with the trail but the birds were not calling. He was quiet with the trail but the noises of people where there should be noises were not coming up the trail.

  He had not done much training in the countryside because, as Chiun had explained, major work was almost always done in cities because that was where the rulers were.

  Yet the way to knowing the jungle was knowing oneself. One knew the sea by one's blood. One knew the jungle by one's breath.

  Remo moved like a midnight dream, silent with all that was around him because he was part of all that was around him. Long ago, before he had been recruited for this training, in a time of beer and bowling alleys and hamburgers with cheese on them and sugar and tomato sauce, he would have thought of a place like the jungles of the Yucatan as bushes that should be removed.

  Now, as a part of it, he was sure of it.

  "I hate this junk," he mumbled to himself, looking at the broad green leaves and bright flowers. "Pot this place, plant some grass and make it a golf course or a park."

  A bowling alley, he thought, would look nice around here. Anything would look nice here except this jungle. That was what he thought when he saw the outlines of a man in camouflage combat fatigues. Man had a gun. Another sniper on the small ridge surrounding the trail that entered the village. Lookouts.

  Remo moved off the trail and skirted the two snipers. He would have liked to have moved up a tree for a look into the village but high things for men who were preparing a trap always attracted no
tice. Underbrush was safe.

  He moved low through that until he came to the clearing. The clearing reminded him that people did not really ever live in the jungle because they always had to clear space for their villages.

  And then he saw the pit. He knew what was in there because no one was moving in the village. All the villagers had been killed and put in that pit. And then leaves had covered it.

  It had to be recent, within the last few hours, because human bodies rotted quickly. It was one of the few species that almost always had food in its stomach.

  There were more men. A few surrounded the village but the greater concentration were at the small hillock to the south, the one with a black craggy rock sticking out of it, as if someone had brought it in from Colorado and stuffed it into the jungle.

  Remo counted ten men in all.

  The main body was at the large black rock. They also had a spring net as if they were going to capture some animal. The important thing, Remo told himself, was not to let any one of the snipers go wandering off. One of them might just throw a shot down the trail, which would be no problem for Chiun but might hurt Terri.

  Ten, thought Remo and moved up behind the first very quietly. The sniper was lying in prone position, the rifle resting on his palms. Remo severed the spinal column just beneath the cranium. The sniper went to sleep on his rifle forever.

  Remo caught the next sitting lotus-like with the gun in his lap. Remo moved his left hand to the throat and with the concentrated power some might ascribe to a steam shovel kept the man seated with more and more pressure until the back cracked.

  He put away two more who were scanning the long trail with binoculars. He simply put the binoculars into the heads with a smothered slap into the lenses. The eye sockets kept going.

  Remo heard a little tune in his head. It was "Whistle While You Work" and he hummed it softly.

  Walid ibn Hassan waited with his beloved, trained perfectly on the trail before him. He had not heard on his small radio from Mahatma for twenty minutes. That was strange. Mahatma had been the first point on the trail and had seen them. Three of them, an Oriental, a woman, and a white man.

  He had beamed that in on the shortwave to Lord Wissex's man at a station nearby, and Hassan had picked it up on his radio. This was necessary because Wissex wanted to know what the bodyguards were like. Hassan knew why. He had heard that knife fighters had been killed by these bodyguards and now here he was. It was the old rule: first knives, then guns.