Oil Slick Read online

  “We can’t talk here,” yelled Smith.

  “Good,” said Remo, who didn’t want to talk anyhow.

  “Let’s go back to the car and talk.”

  “Let’s not.”

  They were in the terminal. Chiun was there, seated on a circular cushion, his fourteen lacquered trunks stacked neatly around him. Every so often someone who accidentally or carelessly brushed against one of the large brightly colored trunks would limp away with a little shriek, as if a bee had stung him behind the calf. Chiun sat in delicate innocent repose, his long hands moving so quickly passersby did not see them. The Master of Sinanju did not like strangers lingering near his possessions.

  “Chiun, I’m glad you’re here,” said Smith. “I’m having difficulty reasoning with him.” He nodded to Remo, who stood alongside them stolidly, watching the members of the Third World International Youth Conference.

  “To reason with the unenlightened is like trying to make buildings by watering stones,” said Chiun. He professed the loyalty of the House of Sinanju to Emperor Smith for eternity and a day. But when Smith explained that he wanted Chiun to convince Remo to stay in America for his assignment, Chiun apologized for his failure to understand English very well, but the one thing he could always do was to pronounce “Glory to Smith.” Nor did his English improve on the way to the Boeing 747 with Air France blue on its massive white body.

  Chiun personally supervised the loading of his trunks, promising great rewards and issuing serious threats in regard to the safety of the fourteen ancient pieces of luggage.

  “Don’t let him go,” Smith yelled to Chiun, who scampered like a fluttering flag around his trunks.

  “Glory to Emperor Smith,” said Chiun before disappearing through the door toward the boarding ramp.

  Smith turned, felt himself rudely pushed aside by the oncoming members of the Third World International Youth Conference, and then found himself facing Remo.

  “Remo, you’ve got to take this oil assignment. It’s critical.”

  Remo focused his eyes on Smith, as if he were seeing him for the first time. “Smitty, you listen to me. I know who’s behind the murders.”

  “Then why don’t you go get him? Why are you going on vacation?”

  “First, I’m not going on vacation. Second, I don’t have to go get him. He will find me. No matter where I go. Good-bye.”

  Smith rushed back to the terminal desk.

  “Where’s that plane going?” he asked an Air France clerk.

  “Officially and diplomatically to Paris, because it is not allowed to fly directly to Lobynia.”

  “But that’s where it’s going, correct?”

  The clerk smiled knowingly.

  Smith felt relieved. Remo must know something, or else why would he go to Lobynia. The assassins must have been in Baraka’s employ. He started to go, feeling satisfied, then he turned. “Could I see the passenger list, please?”

  “Certainly, sir.” The clerk held forward the list.

  Smith had felt good when he had learned the plane’s destination. Now as he read the passenger list, he smiled one of his rare smiles. For there, at the bottom of the list, was a name he knew well. Clayton Clogg. The president of Oxonoco Oil.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I HOPE WE GET SKYJACKED.”

  The girl had to shout to be heard over the noise on the plane, and she shouted with an exuberance that was reflected by very erect breasts under a thin white tee shirt.

  “Don’t you?” she asked Remo.

  “Why?” Remo said, still staring past Chiun out the window of the aircraft. Chiun had insisted upon a window seat so that he could watch the engines fall off in time to say his prayers to his ancestors.

  “That is the only way I will get my prayers said,” Chiun had complained. “If I wait for you to tell me anything, I will never find out anything.”

  “Damn it,” Remo had said, “I didn’t know you want to know about Lobynia. How was I supposed to know about some contract the House of Sinanju has had for a thousand years? Do me a favor, will you? Write down who you’ve got contracts with and I’ll hire a clipping service to keep track of them for you.”

  “It is too late to go making wild promises or excuses,” Chiun had said. “I see that I will just have to do everything myself.” One of those things was to be sure he had a window seat, and now he sat there, staring resolutely at the wing of the plane which Remo saw appeared to be on securely.

  “Why would you like to be skyjacked,” Remo repeated, louder this time, so he could be heard over the noise and music and shouting from the front part of the plane.

  “It’d be exciting,” the girl said. “And besides we’d be doing something. Really doing something. Like we’d be taking part.”

  “Part in what?”

  “The struggle for liberation. The Third World. Didn’t you ever hear of them? Palestinian refugees. People who want back the land the imperialistic Zionist pigs have taken from them. Accursed Jewish devils. Do you know they took the best land? They have forests and lakes and land that grows things.”

  “The way I understand it,” Remo said, “when the Israelis took it over it was just sand. There’s no shortage of sand in the area. Why don’t the refugees get their own piece of sand and make something grow on it?”

  “Aha, see. You’ve fallen for that swine Jewish propaganda. Those trees were there. Anyone who says otherwise is a CIA stooge. My name is Jessie Jenkins. What’s yours?”

  “Remo.”

  “Remo? Remo what?” .

  “Remo Goldberg.”

  “Why are you going to Lobynia?” The girl seemed unconcerned that Remo’s name was Goldberg. “Are you going to our Third World International Youth Conference?”

  “I don’t know,” said Remo. “I’ll have to check my tour guide. I think on Monday I’m doing the desert from two till four. Tuesday I’ve got sand inspection all day, and Wednesday I’m going to look at Lobynia’s tree. Thursday we’ve got dunes. I don’t know if I’ve got time for the youth conference. Lobynia is so full of things to see. If you like sand.”

  “You should really try to go to our rally. It’ll be exciting. Young people from all over the world there in Lobynia to strike a blow against imperialism. To raise our collective voices high in the cry for international peace.”

  “And of course this international peace starts by wiping out Israel?” said Remo.

  “That’s right,” came a man’s voice.

  Remo turned away from the window for the first time to look toward the voice. First his eyes lit upon the girl. She was black, her hair wildly afroed, her skin as smooth and sleek as anthracite. Her features were delicate and precise. She was a beauty in any color.

  Behind her, on the other side of the aisle, was the man who had spoken. He wore bib overalls, a dirty tee shirt, and a Roman collar around his neck, above the tee shirt. He looked, Remo thought, like a white parody of a zombie.

  “You say something, monsignor?” Remo asked.

  “No, not monsignor. Just a simple parish priest. Father Harrigan. And I have suffered.”

  “That’s terrible,” Remo said. “No one should have to suffer.”

  “I’ve suffered,” the priest said, “at the hands of those reactionary elements in our church and in our society who do the bidding of the bloodsucking, imperialist warmongers.”

  “Like Israel, right?”

  “Right,” said Father Harrigan, looking downward with a sad expression which he had obviously developed by resolutely feeling sorry for himself. “Oh, those Zionist swine. I’d like to burn them.”

  “Somebody tried that,” offered Remo.

  “Oh?” said Harrigan, as if he had never heard of anyone bold enough to steal one of his own, his very own ideas. “Well, whoever he was, if he had done it right, we wouldn’t have had all this trouble.”

  Remo nodded. “I feel sorry for those two hundred million Arabs being picked on by those three million Jews.”

  “Damne
d right,” said Father Harrigan. “And this won’t be settled until we do it with blood.”

  He nodded his head for emphasis, his carefully coifed gray curls splashing down over his face. He directed his washed-out blue eyes away from Remo and back toward the front of the plane, where other delegates to the Third World International Youth Conference were disrobing each other in the aisles to the tuneless slapping of one guitar.

  Remo turned back to Jessie Jenkins, looked her over and pegged her age in the late twenties.

  “You’re a little old to be traveling with this gang, aren’t you?”

  “You’re only as old as you feel,” she said, “and I feel young. Oh, I wish we would be skyjacked.”

  “No chance of that,” said Remo.

  “Why not?”

  “Why? If the skyjackers robbed everybody on the plane, they wouldn’t get twenty cents. And if they held all of you for ransom, the world would cheer, laugh, and tell them not to hold their breath. Skyjackers would have more sense than to nail this plane. The whole passenger list isn’t worth capturing.”

  The black woman leaned closer to Remo. “There’s a man in the back who’s worth something.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Clayton Clogg. He’s president of Oxonoco.”

  Oxonoco. Remo had heard of that. Right. From Smith. Smith thought Oxonoco might be involved in the murders of the scientists. Remo was about to turn to look at Clayton Clogg, when Jessie said, “But you didn’t tell me why you’re really going to Lobynia.”

  “I want to tell Colonel Baraka about an oil substitute I’ve discovered,” said Remo.

  “An oil substitute?” The woman was interested.

  “Right. He might want to buy it from me. Because if he doesn’t, I’ll sell it to the West and all this economic blackmail over oil will stop cold.”

  “I didn’t know there was such a thing as an oil substitute.”

  “There wasn’t until I invented one. Go ask your friend, Clogg. Tell him I’ve invented an oil substitute and you’ll find out how important it is.”

  “I think I’ll do that,” she said. She got up from her seat and walked toward the back of the plane, where a broad pork-faced man with a pushed up nose and large nostrils sat in the middle of a three-seat section, obviously uncomfortable at being mixed in with such trash.

  Remo thought he would watch Clogg’s reaction, then he decided he would prefer to contemplate the left wing of the plane.

  Chiun spoke: “I have decided.”

  “Oh, the wing is staying on. Good.”

  Chiun turned to him with a withering stare. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “I already have. It is the way to handle nonsense. I have decided. I am going to talk to this Baraka and give him a chance to abdicate before I do anything else.”

  “Why? That’s not your usual way.”

  “Yes, it is. The thinking man’s way. Avoid violence whenever possible. If I can convince him to leave this throne and give it back to the honorable King Adras, then he may go in peace.” Chiun’s benign and loving face made Remo instantly suspicious.

  “The truth, Chiun. Does Adras owe you money?”

  “Well, not exactly. One of his ancestors defaulted on a payment.”

  “Then your house doesn’t have a contract.”

  “Yes, we do. The payment may just have been delayed. The contract was never ended. The ancestor was probably going to pay. Most people do pay their bills to the House of Sinanju.”

  “No wonder,” said Remo. Across the aisle, Father Harrigan overheard only the last syllable of Chiun’s remark. “Jew,” he said aloud. “Infidel Jews. Burn them. Got to burn them.”

  “Ignore him,” Chiun told Remo. “He is not a holy man. Anyway, I will talk to this Baraka first.”

  “Suppose you can’t get to see him?”

  “I am not selling brushes,” said Chiun haughtily. “I am the Master of Sinanju. He will see me.”

  “He’d better.”

  “He will.”

  Chiun resumed staring at the wing, and Remo turned over his shoulder to see how Jessie Jenkins was getting along with Clayton Clogg.

  Jessie Jenkins had slid into the empty seat alongside Clayton Clogg.

  Clogg looked at her, distaste flaring his already distended nostrils. “I’m sorry, this seat is reserved,” he said.

  “For whom?” she said.

  “It is for my use,” Clogg said stuffily.

  “Well, since you’re not using it, I’ll use it till you need it.”

  “If you don’t vacate my seat, I shall call the stewardess,” Clogg said.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Big Oil Company man, I’m not good enough to sit in your seat?”

  “If you wish to put it that way,” Clogg said.

  “You know, I think the people aboard this plane would like to know that you’re the president of the blood-sucking Oxonoco Company.”

  The thought frightened Clogg who had thought he was traveling unrecognized. Resigned, he said, “Sit there if you like.”

  “Thank you. I will. Now tell me why you are going to Lobynia and what the oil business is like.”

  Clogg ignored the first question and took ten minutes to answer the second, carefully explaining how not only his oil company but all oil companies were really benefactors of the public, servants of the people, and how it would be a better world if people would just understand who their true friends were.

  Through the lecture, Jessie Jenkins smiled and sometimes giggled.

  “What are you going to do,” she finally asked, “now that Lobynia has cut off its oil sales to America, and the other Arab countries are going to follow suit?”

  “We have plans for massive oil field exploration and development. We will meet our responsibilities to the energy needs of a vibrant, growing country in a vibrant, growing world.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “And it takes you five years to find a well and another three years to make it produce oil. What are we going to do for eight years—burn blubber in our lamps?”

  Clogg turned and looked at the girl with sudden respect glimmering in his eyes. The question was more pointed than he had expected from a crazed, sex-fiend black revolutionary who didn’t wear a bra.

  “We’ll do the best we can to make our supplies go around.”

  “And that means raising prices so that they’ll go around to the people with the most money.”

  Clogg shrugged. “The free marketplace, you know.”

  Jessie Jenkins giggled again.

  “See that man up there?” She pointed toward Remo. “You ought to talk to him.”

  “Why?”

  “His name’s Remo Goldberg. He’s invented an oil substitute.”

  “There is no such thing. Oil is irreplaceable.”

  “Was irreplaceable. He’s made it expendable.”

  “And what is this Mr. Goldberg doing on his way to Lobynia?” Clogg asked.

  “He’s going to sell the formula to Baraka. And if Baraka won’t buy, he’ll sell it to the West.”

  “That’s interesting,” Clogg said, who began to stare at the back of Remo’s head long enough and hard enough as though to prove that he did find it interesting.

  Later, Jessie Jenkins left Clogg’s seat and went to the front of the plane. Clogg waited until he was sure she was forward before walking down the aisle toward Remo and dropping heavily into the seat next to him.

  Remo looked at the man.

  “Power to the people,” said Clogg.

  “What people?”

  “What people are you on the side of?”

  “All people,” said Remo.

  “Power to all people. I understand you’re a scientist.”

  “That’s right,” said Remo. So this was the man that Smith thought might be involved in the murders of the scientists back in the states. Unlikely, Remo thought. Killers didn’t have pig noses.

  “In oil, I und
erstand.”

  “Right,” said Remo. “I work on energy substitutes.”

  “Where are you employed?”

  “I’m not anymore. I’m a private researcher.”

  “How is your research coming?”

  “Fine. I’ve got an oil substitute,”

  “That’s fascinating,” Clogg said. “You know, I don’t know much about oil but it sounds like it would be a great thing to have. What do you make your substitute out of?”

  “Garbage.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Garbage,” Remo repeated. “Rubbish, offal, litter, detritus. The real thing. What comes out of cans on Tuesdays and Fridays, except in New York, where you’re lucky to get a pickup once a year.”

  “That’s not possible,” Clogg said. “Is it?”

  “Of course it is,” said Remo, trying to remember some of the things Smith had told him. “What is oil anyway? Animal and vegetable matter, decomposed under great pressure. And what is garbage? Mostly animal and vegetable matter. I’ve found a cheap simple way to simulate the pressure of millions of years and convert the garbage to oil.”

  “That’s very interesting, Mr. Goldberg. I’ve heard of experiments like yours.”

  “Yes, there’ve been some. Most of the people doing them are dead now.”

  “That’s too bad,” Clogg said.

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Said Remo.

  “Kill all Jews,” mumbled Father Harrigan across the aisle, and popped a pill into his mouth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “DO YOU HAVE IT?” Baraka asked his minister of transportation.

  “Yes, sir. Right here. It was very easy, too. All I did was call the French ministry and they got clearance from Paris, and Paris called the aircraft and the aircraft beamed back its entire passenger list to the embassy. And I made them hand-deliver it to me here, because I am not a servant to stand around waiting while they decide to do something, but instead the personal emissary of the great Colonel Baraka.”

  “Silence,” thundered Baraka. “I am not interested in the brilliant techniques you used to outsmart the entire French government to acquire a list of passengers aboard a plane. Did it ever occur to you to call Air France and tell them to read you the list?”