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  "If you no help me now, you not my woman," said Corazon.

  "I'll just have to deny myself." She fastened her belt and blew the dictator a kiss.

  "It not hard. You go to yellow man and white man and give them two little pills when they drink. Then you come back to your lover, me. Eh? Great plan."

  Ruby Jackson Gonzalez shook her head.

  Corazon shrugged. "I charge you with treason. Guilty as charged. Go to jail."

  This little indictment and trial over with, Ruby found herself being manhandled to a prison compound seventeen miles outside Ciudad Natividado on Baqian Route 1.

  Meanwhile Corazon knew he had to do something about the two Americans without delay. He had broken relations with the United States, put himself in

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  the hands of the Russians, and the Russians now claimed they had given forty-five lives to Baqia.

  Which was true, but it only meant that forty-five Russians couldn't handle the two Americans.

  And now the American woman wouldn't poison the pair and his own generals and ministers seemed to disappear, for fear they would be asked to attack the two devils in the Astarse Hotel.

  The only one who was around was Major Estrada and Corazon did not want to use him. First, Estrada wasn't smart enough to do it and second, Corazon didn't want to lose the one man he knew who wouldn't kill him if he got a chance.

  He thought briefly of going to the priest in the hills and throwing himself on his mercy. Maybe Juanita's prophecy could be made wrong. Maybe these Americans wouldn't team up with the holy man in the hills to overthrow Corazon?

  He couldn't do it. It would loosen his grip on Baqia, and if that grip slipped he would be dead before the sun set. Show weakness and a dictator was finished.

  There was only one thing to do. He had to make friends with America. This meant exposing himself to criticism from international organizations for human rights, which only recognized them for people who were friends of the United States. And it meant condemnation in the U.N. pickets in front of his three embassies in Paris, Washington, and Tijuana, and all sorts of general nuisance by people whose tails twitched when Moscow barked.

  No matter. It would buy time. Make friends with America and maybe they would slow down whatever it was those two Americans planned to do. And that would give Corazon time to get into the hills and

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  get rid of that holy man. And with him dead Juanita's prophecy could not come true.

  Corazon sighed. He would do it.

  He sighed again. Ruling a country was hard work.

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  CHAPTER SIX

  The cable was marked "Top Secret Super Duper," so the secretary of state knew it was from Baqia when the thin blue sheet, folded into a self-envelope, was placed on his desk.

  The message inside was from Generalissimo Cora-zon and was brief:

  "We starting relations with you again, okay?"

  The secretary of state chewed a Mylanta for his stomach, which bubbled like a noxious vial of chemicals from a horror movie. Nothing in the curriculum of the Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs had prepared him for this. Why hadn't they told him about people like Corazon and governments like Baqia's?

  They had broken off relations two days earlier by announcing that they weren't going to have sex with America anymore. No reason. Now they were re-

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  opening diplomatic relations with a kindergarten note. Okay?

  And it wasn't just Baqia, it was everywhere. Foreign policy seemed so easy when you were just lecturing about it. But when you tried to practice it you found the theories and the plans getting swamped by the people you had to deal with, people whose foreign policy might be dictated by whether or not they liked their morning meal.

  And so the United States had lost its initiative in the Mideast, and every time they though they had put it back together that lunatic with a striped pillow case on his head would threaten to shoot somebody else and it would all come unglued. The United States had thrown its lot with the revolutionary rabble in South Africa and Rhodesia and, when the governments of those countries backed down with concessions, the revolutionaries rejected them. China seemed about ready to retreat back behind its traditional closed doors and no one knew who to talk to to try to prevent it.

  And then there were natural resources. Was it some kind of cosmic joke of God to have the nitnats of the world breed and multiply over the oil and the gold and the diamonds and the chrome and the asphalt and now the mung?

  He sighed again. Sometimes he wished that all the one-term talk of this President were true, so he could go back to college and lecture. At least a lecture was orderly, with a beginning, middle, and end. Foreign policy was nothing but middles.

  He told his secretary to get Generalissimo Corazon on the telephone. If mung was that important, he would welcome El Presidente back into the American

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  family of nations, assuming El Presidente Icnew what the American family of nations was.

  His secretary was back on the line in three minutes.

  "They don't answer," she said.

  "What do you mean they don't answer?"

  "Sorry, sir. There's no answer."

  "Well, get me the deputy El Presidente if they have one ... or the minister of justice ... or that dopey major that Corazon trusts. Yes, Estrada, I think it is. Get me him."

  "He doesn't answer, either."

  "He what?"

  "I tried him. He doesn't answer, either."

  "Is there anybody there I can talk to?"

  "No sir, that's what I've been trying to tell you. The switchboard operator-"

  "Where is she?"

  "In Baqia."

  "Of course she's in Baqia. Where in Baqia?"

  "I don't know, Mister Secretary. They only have one operator in the whole country."

  "What'd she say?"

  "She said that the government had taken the day off. Call back tomorrow."

  "The whole government? A day off?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The secretary of state popped another Mylanta.

  "Okay," he said.

  "Do you want me to try tomorrow, sir?" the woman asked.

  "Not unless I tell you to. By then they may decide not to have sex with us anymore."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Forget it. Sorry."

  So the secretary of state had no explanation of

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  Baqia's change of heart when he called the President of the United States to notify him that the relations were on again, okay?

  "Why do you think they did it?" the President asked.

  "Frankly, sir, I don't know. If I could find a way to take credit for it, I would. But I can't. Maybe the CIA puUed it off."

  As luck would have it, the director of the CIA was in the White House, signing up for a new lawyers' insurance program. It was like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but instead of paying for medical care it paid legal fees for government officials when they were indicted. Almost everybody on the White House staff and in the CIA had signed up.

  The President asked to see the CIA director. 'The Baqians have opened relations with us again." The CIA director tried not to show his surprise. All the personnel they had sent and had Ruby Gonzalez pulled it off? How? From jail? He had been advised by a friendly embassy of the fate of the CIA's last spy.

  "That's good news. We were really making a major effort there," the director said. "I'm glad we got such quick results." He was thinking. Maybe Ruby Gonzalez did have something to do with it. There had been at least fifty foreign spies killed there since Ruby left the States. Maybe there was something, after all, to hiring minorities.

  "According to my information, you had very minimal presence there," the President said. "That's what you finally agreed to, if you remember."

  "That's not exactly how it worked out," said the director. "We sent a woman. We sent a black. We even had someone named Gonzalez. And I guess it all<
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  worked out pretty well. The foreign bodies are piling up like garbage outside a French restaurant."

  "Have you gotten reports from your agents?"

  "Not yet," said the director.

  "Where are they now?"

  "I don't exactly know."

  "What have they done while they've been in Baqia?"

  "I don't exactly know," the director said desperately.

  "You don't know what's going on there any more than I do, do you?" the President said.

  "Actually, sir, I don't know exactly why Corazon decided to reinstate relations."

  "Never mind. I do," the President said.

  He dismissed the CIA director and went to the red telephone in the upstairs bedroom drawer. He lifted it off its base and the familiar voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith answered.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Congratulations. The Baqians have reopened relations with us."

  "Yes," said Smith. "I was just informed."

  The President was silent for a moment. He also had just been informed and the secretary of state only fifteen minutes earlier. How had Smith found out so fast? Did his sources extend right into the White House and the State Department? The President decided not to ask. He didn't want to know too much about how Smith worked.

  "Do you know how it happened?" the President asked dryly.

  "There have been forty-eight deaths of foreign agents in the last forty-eight hours," Smith said. "I

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  would imagine our personnel had something to do with that. Did you send in CIA personnel?"

  "Reluctantly, they agreed to send people," the President said.

  "One of their agents is in jail, I am told," said Smith.

  "Well, get him out. But primarily, we want that mung machine."

  "The agent's a her," Smith said.

  "Get her out, then. But the machine is really important. And, Doctor, I want to apologize for trying to call off your people earlier. I suspect they work differently from what I'm used to."

  "They work differently from what everyone is used to, sir."

  "Just tell them to keep at it."

  "Yes, sir," said Smith.

  Because the Baqian government had shut down for the day, the three telephone lines into the country were open and Smith had no trouble reaching Remo and Chiun in their hotel room.

  Remo answered.

  "This is Smith, Remo. How does it go on the-"

  "Just a minute, Smitty. Is this business?"

  "Of course it's business. Do you think I called to pass the time of day with you?"

  "If it's business, talk to your man in charge. I'm retired, remember?" He held the phone out. "Chiun. It's Smith for you."

  "I am here at the order of the President," Chiun said. "Why would I talk to underlings?"

  Remo talked into the telephone again. "The President sent him here," he said. "Why should he talk to you?"

  "Because I just talked to the President," Smith said.

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  Remo extended the telephone again. "He just talked to the President, Chiun."

  Chiun rose from his lotus position as if he were levitating from the floor.

  "This would not be a bad job," Chiun said. "If it were not for all these distractions."

  "Suffer. It's your turn in the barrel now."

  Chiun fixed his face in a broad smile before he spoke into the phone. He had learned that in a popular women's magazine as a way to appear vital and "with it" when speaking on the telephone. He did not know what "with it" meant, but he was sure vital was good.

  "Hail, noble Emperor Smith. Greetings from the Master of Sinanju. The world trembles before your might and bows before your wisdom."

  "Yes, yes," Smith said.

  "I have not yet gotten to the good part," said Chiun. "Where the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky and yea, even the fishes of the sea rise up to proclaim their loyalty to you."

  "Chiun, what's wrong with Remo?"

  Chiun glanced carefully at Remo, who was sprawled on the bed, to see if anything about him had changed in the last few moments.

  "Nothing," he said. "Nothing at all. He is the same as ever. Slothful, vile, indifferent to responsibility, uncaring about obligation, ungrateful."

  Remo recognized the description. He waved a hand in acknowledgment.

  "He is leaving this difficult assignment to me," Chiun said. "Because he is jealous that the President gave it to me directly, this responsibility to make the Baqians recognize our government as its friend."

  "Well, you've done a good job on that."

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  "We do what we do," said Chiun, who did not know what Smith was talking about.

  "Yes?" said Smith. "Just what is it you do?"

  Chiun glanced at Remo and drew a series of circles around his temple with his right index finger.

  "We make our presence felt," Chiun said. "But always as a mere reflection of your glory," he added quickly. "Yours and the real emperor's."

  "Well, now the real part of the assignment remains," said Smith.

  Chiun shook his head. That was the trouble with emperors. They were never satisfied. There was always something else, to do.

  "We stand ready to execute your orders," said Chiun.

  "You stand ready," Remo called out. "I've quit."

  "What did he say?" Smith asked.

  "Nothing. He is just talking to himself. And since he cannot get an intelligent answer, he has taken to bothering us in our conversation."

  "All right," Smith said. "The first and primary obligation is still the machine. We have to get it before anyone else does."

  "We will do it."

  "And there is an American agent in jail."

  "And you want her killed?"

  "No, no. She is in prison. Corazon put her there. We want her released."

  "And you want the jailer killed? So he will take no such liberties again?"

  "No, no. I don't want anybody killed. Just free this agent. Her name is Ruby Jackson Gonzalez."

  "That is all?"

  "Yes. Can you do it?"

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  "Before the setting of another sun," Chiun promised.

  "Thank you."

  "Such excellence of service is only your due, Emperor," Chiun said before hanging up. He told Remo, "I can't wait until my President decides to get rid of Smith. The man is a lunatic."

  "Your President?" asked Remo.

  "The House of Sinanju has a saying: 'Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.' My President."

  "What does Smitty want you to do?"

  "That machine again. Always everybody is worried about some machine. Now I ask you, how can they have an important machine in this country, which cannot even keep a hotel room clean?"

  "You knew the machine was your assignment when you took this job," Remo said.

  "And there is someone in jail whom Smith wants freed."

  "How are you going to do that?" asked Remo.

  "There is no way to do anything in this country. One cannot get clean towels or running water or decent food. I am going to the President, this Cortisone, and tell him what I want done."

  "You think he'll listen to you? His name's Corazon."

  "He will listen."

  "When are you going?"

  "The best time for the doing of a task is the moment of realizing the task exists. I am going now," Chiun said.

  "I'm going with you," said Remo. "I haven't had a laugh all week."

  Chiun went to the drapeless window of the room and as Remo watched he waved his arms and pointed

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  in elaborate gestures. He finally turned away with a satisfied nod.

  "What was that all about?"

  "The President, Corazon, was there. He looks in our window all day long. I told him I am coming."

  "He's the President?" Remo asked. "I thought he was a Peeping Tom."

  "He is Corazon."

  "He's probably running like hell r
ight now," said Remo.

  "He will wait," Chiun said as he went to the door.

  "What's the name of this agent you're supposed to get free?" Remo asked.

  "Who knows? A woman. Ruby or something. I did not hear the rest. All American names sound alike."

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Both the lieutenant of the guard and the sergeant of the guard had decided they were going to have their way with Ruby Gonzalez, rape being allowed when the prisoner involved was a political enemy, had offended the sainted person of El Presidente, and was good-looking enough to make the effort worthwhile.

  Neither of them had scored because Ruby, out of the goodness of her heart, had warned each of them of the other's plan to put him out of the way-the sergeant wanting to do the lieutenant in so he could be promoted to the lieutenant's job, the lieutenant wanting to get rid of the sergeant so his undeserving brother-in-law could buy himself the sergeant's commission.

  Ruby sat on the floor in her cell. There was a stuffed bag on legs that was supposed to be a mattress but she knew, without ever having been in

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  jail that women prisoners who spent time lying or sitting on their beds asked for trouble.

  Sooner or later, she knew, the sergeant or the lieutenant would be back with a gun for her. She had promised each of them that she would use the gun on his enemy, thus ensuring her benefactor's life and success. After the murder, she would be allowed to escape and no one would ever hear from her again and the Washington government would put $73 million in a Swiss bank account for the one who helped her.

  The hardest part of the whole concoction had been deciding on the amount of money the U.S. would pay for her ransom. She figured she could probably get $5,000 out of the CIA. But thousands, she knew, wouldn't impress a Baqian. It sounded too much like hundreds. A million was right, but an even million sounded like a made-up number, like a fake. So she settled on $73 million. The seventy-three had the undeniable ring of truth, aided along by the fact that most Baqians couldn't calculate up to seventy-three.

  It would work, she decided. Particularly since she had decided, from the time she met the first guard at the jail, that she could buy the entire Baqian civil service for the price of a three-pound can of decaffeinated coffee.