A Pound of Prevention td-121 Page 9

  With his free hand, Remo snagged the blade. When his two extended fingers closed around the sharp metal, the knife blade snapped in two. A long silver section clicked to the sidewalk.

  "Scissors break knife," he said.

  The kid wasn't listening. He was staring in wonder at the broken remains of his weapon.

  Before the shock of what had happened could trigger the kid's impulse to flee, Remo reached out and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Twirling him in place, he gave the youth a good solid kick in his hindquarters.

  The broadside of Remo's loafer propelled the would-be mugger five yards down the busy street. He landed in a painful protracted slide on his bottom that lasted another five yards. When he scampered to his feet, most of the seat of his trousers was missing. Thin smoke rose from the tattered edges. Visible flesh had been scraped raw.

  Howling in pain, the boy scurried away, fanning his smarting derriere.

  "Unbelievable." Remo scowled, returning to the phone.

  "What was that?" Smith's worried voice asked.

  "Freaking Sodom and Gomorrah," Remo snapped. "I'll call you in a while, Smitty, assuming I haven't turned into a salt lick first."

  And when he slammed the phone into the cradle he did so with such ferocity the concrete around the steel pedestal cracked.

  Chapter 10

  The mountain route to the Luzu treasure storehouse had been carefully recorded in the histories of Sinanju by Nuk. Chiun made no note of this as the rotted old Suburban steered the familiar path into the hinterlands of KwaLuzu.

  Bubu drove Chief Batubizee's truck along the old trail across a vast arid plain and up into a jagged collection of low-lying rock hills. When they were halfway up the mountain road, Chiun spied what appeared to be a new development at the distant fringes of the Luzu territory.

  "What is that place?" the old Korean asked, his eyes narrow.

  Batubizee shared the back seat with Chiun.

  "It was built in haste by former government workers," the Luzu chief replied. "It is said to be a place of evil."

  Chiun eyed the distant bungalows with suspicion until the Suburban crested the mountain. The dollhouses disappeared behind an outcropping and were gone.

  The path took them down the other side of the mountain and into a barren valley. Scars in the rock denoted many an abandoned diamond mine. They drove beyond these decaying ruins of the ancient Luzu empire until they reached a secluded part of the valley.

  Chiun recognized the huge stones that served as markers to the Luzu treasure house. They looked like two giant's feet that had been petrified in rock. Turning, Bubu backed the Suburban into the shade between the rocks.

  "I did not know we would have to pay," the Luzu chief said, creeping anxiety in his voice. "Failure to accept prompt payment for a service is unforgivable in Sinanju," Chiun announced. "Worse is to extend credit. That was Nuk's error, and his lesson. No Master before or since has ever engaged in his folly."

  Batubizee and Bubu shared a glance in the rearview mirror. Unlike his nervous chief, the young man's expression was unreadable.

  When the three of them got out of the truck, Batubizee took the lead. He brought them up an ancient path that although seeming to be a natural formation-had been chiseled into the rock with great care.

  The path led up the side of the mountain and to an angled plateau. At the rear of the ridge, the rising wall indented deeply. Batubizee walked into the wide declivity.

  The rock at the rear of the passage was sheered in such a way that it made the face of the mountain appear unbroken. At the far end of the hollow, Batubizee stepped close to a tall chunk of fingered rock. He turned back one time to Chiun, anxiety brushing his big eyes. All at once, he vanished, swallowed up by the stone face of the cliff.

  Chiun had sensed the hollowness beyond the stone wall. When he got close, he found that the rock behind which the chief had gone was a few feet from the wall of the cliff. The gap between offered a narrow opening to a black cave.

  The Master of Sinanju slipped around the rock and entered the cavern. Bubu followed on silent feet.

  The treasure cave was nearly bare. The Luzu Wars and subsequent poverty had siphoned almost everything away.

  Empty coffers had been piled against a handcarved wall. On the floor were rolled a few dusty and rotted tapestries-the tattered remnants of a once great empire.

  In this empty cave of the Luzu, the Master of Sinanju saw a lesson. Even though the Sinanju treasure house was full, there could very well come a time when the tiny Korean village found itself in this same dire situation. He only wished Remo were there so that he could impress on him the importance of what this represented.

  "We are not as rich as we were in the time of Nuk," the Luzu chief apologized, interrupting Chiun's thoughts. He stood across the cave near a small linen-covered chest. The only one of its kind in the large, empty room.

  "You were not rich when Nuk discovered you," Chiun replied, his singsong voice echoing against the bare cavern walls.

  Batubizee nodded stiffly.

  With Bubu's help, the chief hefted the chest from the dirt floor. Carrying it over, the two men placed it at Chiun's sandaled feet. After a second's hesitation, the chief sprang the lid.

  Although the chest was large, it was only halffull. Chiun saw at once that the greenish-tinged gold coins contained within it were of the kind minted for Nuk centuries before. In spite of the many abandoned mines they had passed on their way there, not even a single diamond was in the ratty old box.

  Crouching next to the case, Batubizee looked up at the Master of Sinanju, a hopeful expression on his broad face.

  "Is it enough?" he asked sadly.

  Chiun looked from the chief to the gold. Bending, he removed one of the rotting coins from atop the pile. He held up the gold piece, inspecting it in the stream of wan light that slipped into the cave between the fissure in the rock.

  The old man's silence spoke volumes. Batubizee suspected what the answer to his question would be. Bitter disappointment flooded the chief's soul as he looked despairingly on what little remained of the glory days of his once mighty empire. He did not have the right to expect anything anymore.

  Above him, Chiun harrumphed abruptly. When the chief looked up he was just in time to see the coin vanish within the folds of the old Korean's brocade kimono.

  "This will do as a down payment," Chiun intoned, his face dull. He folded his arms inside his voluminous sleeves.

  Batubizee was beside himself with joy. He clambered to his feet. "Thank you, Master of Sinanju!" he exclaimed.

  "Do not thank me," Chiun sniffed. "I will need a dozen of your most fierce warriors. If you cannot pay for our services in full, do not expect Sinanju to do all the work."

  He started for the door of the cave.

  Batubizee nodded as he followed, his chins bobbing excitedly. "It will be as you say, son of Nuk."

  "And stop saying I am that fool's offspring," Chiun grumbled, annoyance creasing his wrinkled face as he stepped back into the sunlight. "I am not some three-hundred-year-old son of a dimwit." Batubizee didn't argue.

  Perhaps the legends were true. Maybe this was the one man who could lead his people from despair.

  Feeling the hope rising within him for the first time in a long, long time, the Luzu chief hurried out of the murky treasure cave.

  Chapter 11

  The first thing Remo did after he'd checked into the most expensive hotel in Bachsburg was to order thirty thousand dollars' worth of Iranian caviar. When it arrived, he promptly flushed the black sturgeon eggs down the toilet.

  He was surprised that so little caviar cost so much, but was pleased when such a small amount still had the effect he'd been looking for. Bluetinged toilet water overflowed onto the bathroom's tile floor and spilled out onto the plush carpeting of his expensive hotel suite.

  When angry workers arrived with buckets and boots, Remo claimed he was only returning the caviar to its natural habitat. Their inten
se displeasure was precisely what he was shooting for. That coupled with the fact that he knew Smith's grayish face would turn purple when he got the room-service-and-repair bill bolstered Remo's mood.

  Stepping more lightly than he had the past few days, he left the hotel and wandered down the main streets of Bachsburg. He didn't know it at the time, but he was heading in the direction of the presidential palace.

  TWO BLOCKS AWAY, Private V. D. Pecher of the Citizen Force of the Republic of East Africa was completing the last of his late-afternoon rounds. He marched crisply around the exterior of the huge presidential palace, the barrel of his semiautomatic rifle braced smartly against his shoulder.

  President Kmpali was away. A missing president always meant a peaceful shift at the ornate building of French and Portuguese design. Such had been the case for several days.

  Private Pecher liked it when it was quiet. Truth be told, he didn't know what exactly he might do if it ever got noisy when the president was there.

  Pecher-like many of the guards-was white. And in his most private thoughts he still didn't like the idea of having to guard a mooka president. Of course, Pecher kept this to himself. While most of the other white guards agreed with him, one could not say such things in this new East Africa.

  And so Private V. D. Pecher did his job, always wondering what it would have been like if the last white president, O. C. Stiggs, hadn't turned the keys to the kingdom over to Willie Mandobar and his band of mooka rebels.

  On this last afternoon of his young life, Pecher was thinking unpleasant thoughts about Mandobar as he rounded the north side of the palace complex and began marching across the broad east face of the main five-story building.

  He instantly saw the commotion at the front gate. Several other guards were already gathered there.

  Even as Private Pecher began stepping more lively in that direction, a voice cut in on his hip radio. "Code 3 disturbance, main gate. North and east security personnel close it up, double time."

  As soon as the command was issued, Pecher broke into a sprint. On his race to the gate, he was joined by other guards. Although his training was supposed to have prepared him for anything, what Pecher found when they arrived at the gate startled him.

  An ancient Asian in a sea-green kimono stood before the small guard shack. Fanned into a semicircle behind him were another dozen men attired only in the traditional yellow loincloths of the Luzu Empire. Purple paint streaked their ebony faces. Braced beside the right leg of each Luzu was a long, curving machete. Daggers jutted from loincloth straps. An angry Citizen Force lieutenant stood at the mouth of the open gate, barring the old Asian's way.

  "I would see the fiend Mandobar," the visitor announced imperiously.

  Panting and confused, Private Pecher and the other new arrivals looked to their commanding officer.

  "I told you already," Lieutenant I. P. Freeley replied with thin impatience. "Former President Mandobar has gone to China with President Kmpali."

  Hazel eyes narrowed craftily. "Ah, but is he away for the Master of Sinanju?" Chiun asked. Lieutenant Freeley assumed that the man to which he was speaking was this Master of Sinanju-whatever that was. The old man alone would have been little more than a comical nuisance. It was the presence of his silent entourage of armed Luzu warriors that made the Citizen Force man nervous.

  "He is away for everyone," Freeley insisted. "You will have to leave here now." Taking a step back, he nodded to a guard in the shack. "Close the gate."

  With an electronic whine, the tail barred gates began sliding slowly in from either side. They hadn't gone more than five feet before they stopped dead.

  When the lieutenant searched for the reason the gates had stopped closing, he found that the little Asian had placed a sharp fingernail against one thick metal bar. A painful groan of metal issued from the straining track.

  "Remove your hand," the astonished lieutenant commanded.

  Chiun remained where he stood, one arm extended.

  "I will check myself," the Master of Sinanju said. Turning, he confided to Bubu, who led his Luzu companions, "Politicians are notorious liars, presidents doubly so."

  The motor began to shriek and smoke. "Remove your hand now," Lieutenant Freeley repeated.

  He reached for his sidearm. Following the lead of their commander, Private Pecher and the other Citizen Force soldiers aimed their weapons at the wizened figure.

  Near the shack, the smoking motor screamed loudly. Something snapped, and it stopped making any noise at all.

  Chiun finally removed his fingernail from the gate.

  "This man is under arrest!" snarled Freeley. "Take him!"

  Hands tucked inside the sleeves of his kimono, Chiun seemed ready to offer no resistance. But when Pecher and another private came forward, there was the tiniest flicker of a smile at the papery edges of the old man's thin lips. And, unnoticed by the guards, he gave the subtlest of nods from his ancient, speckled-egg head.

  The instant Pecher reached for Chiun's silk sleeve, Bubu's machete sought air, flashing up and around. Catching a glint of brilliant East African sunlight at the apex of its curving arc, it soared down, thunking solidly into the nearest extended rifle barrel.

  Private Pecher felt the hollow clang of metal upon metal. Reflexively, he tugged the trigger of his rifle. Unfortunately, the young private didn't have time to realize that Bubu's machete was buried halfway through the barrel.

  There was a blinding flash as the bullet struck the lodged blade of the machete. When the gun exploded, shards of twisted metal blew back into Pecher's face. He flipped to his back, his face a pulpy ball of flesh and fused rifle.

  Even as the private fell, the rifles of the remaining guards flashed alert, sighting down on the machetewielding Luzu warriors.

  "Drop your weapons!" screamed Lieutenant Freeley at the motionless natives. As he yelled, he noticed that the old Asian who had started the confrontation was gone.

  At the gate, the Luzus held their ground. They offered the soldier no choice. "Fire!" he shouted to his men.

  To his left, a green blur. The same color as the old man's kimono.

  Rifles suddenly flipped this way and that. The lieutenant tracked the flash of movement through the line of soldiers. When Chiun appeared at the far end of the line, not one weapon was aimed at the Luzu warriors.

  "Get the Luzus!" Freeley commanded, wrenching his side arm from its holster. "I will take care of the old man!"

  But before he took a single step, he realized the horrible truth. The natives were no longer outside the gate. His stomach froze to ice when he heard the first warrior cry.

  A flashing machete. The head of a man rolling onto the nearby lawn.

  Lieutenant Freeley wheeled around.

  One of his men ran toward him, his face split open in a sideways smile. Gripping the front of the lieutenant's uniform, the man slid to the ground.

  The Luzus were everywhere. Machetes attacked necks and arms. Gun barrel struck gun barrel as panicked soldiers ducked and swirled. Horribly sharp blades found chests and bellies. Glistening entrails slopped onto burning asphalt.

  The guard from the shack raced into the fray. A hurled machete thudded between his shocked eyes. His men dying all around him, Lieutenant Freeley sought out the man who had brought these maniac Luzus to this place. At the edge of the lawn, Chiun was watching the massacre, his face puckered in displeasure. The lieutenant aimed his automatic at the delicate, bald head.

  Freeley felt the whir of air before he even had time to pull the trigger.

  The machete struck his forearm on the downstroke. With a fat thump, both hand and gun plopped to the driveway. The automatic clattered away.

  Grabbing his pumping arm stump in horror, the lieutenant stumbled away from the growing pile of East African corpses. As he fell, dazed and bloodied, inside the guard shack, the final standing guard surrendered his last breath.

  THE LUZU WARRIORS stood proudly in the baking sunlight, ankle deep in bodies. Faces b
eamed beneath purple war paint. Panting, Bubu sought the Master of Sinanju's approval. But, still standing to one side, Chiun was anything but satisfied.

  "I have never beheld a more pitiful display," the tiny Asian clucked unhappily. "It is no wonder you people have found yourself in such a pathetic state."

  "But Master Chiun, we have won," Bubu insisted.

  "Win, lose," Chiun said dismissively. "Words created for foolish games of chance." Bending at the waist, he picked up Bubu's machete. It was still jammed through the barrel of Private Pecher's rifle. "Such sloppiness," the old Korean complained. "If you lost your weapon in a true battle, how would you defend yourself?"

  Bubu could feel the eyes of his fellow natives on his flushed skin. "I still have my knife," he offered, embarrassed. The bloody dagger he had used to defend himself during the battle was back in his waistband.

  With an impatient snort, Chiun tugged at the machete's handle. The hopelessly wedged metal came free in his hands like Excalibur from the stone.

  The Master of Sinanju didn't give the natives time to be awed. "This is not the blow Nuk taught you," he frowned, throwing the V-chopped rifle away in disgust.

  As he spoke, there was a sudden scuffling noise behind Bubu. The Luzu warriors spun to find Lieutenant Freeley stumbling from the guard booth. He braced a rifle in his one good hand.

  "Observe and learn," the Master of Sinanju told them.

  Before Bubu or the others could react, a whirl of green flew past the assembled Luzus.

  Face ashen from shock and loss of blood, Freeley tried to draw a bead on the advancing terror in green. He was still trying when Chiun descended on him.

  In a blur, the machete flew up, then down. There was a gentle sound, like soft church bells on a snowy winter's midnight.

  The first stroke severed half the barrel. The second invisible chop cleaved the stock in two. The third downstroke removed the screaming guard's other hand.

  With a side-to-side chop, Chiun sliced the scream in the man's throat. Eyes open wide in shock, Lieutenant Freeley's head tumbled onto the hot East African pavement.

  Chiun spun from the falling body.

  "That is how it is done," he announced unhappily. He slapped the machete into the amazed Luzu's hand.