But suddenly there was cheering from outside. Guns were fired into the air. War shrieks were heard. Columns of men were marching through the scrub and sand of the Idra desert. And to the General's vast relief, they were not marching toward him. They were marching toward the sea. They had left their Mercedeses behind, their lamb dinners served on Royal Doulton china, their almost-Arab desserts. A cry was heard and echoed through the hard night: "Let us die at the gates of Jerusalem."
The General had often ended speeches like that. He would end them and then go home to his air-conditioned palace, and the cheering mobs would go to their homes, and they would all live another day to hear the same words.
But no one was going home. No one was even bothering to drive his Mercedes.
"They will tire in a half-mile and come back to their cars. Then I will tell them they are the real revolutionary heroes and any fools who continue to march with that colonel, excuse me, general, are not heading for Jerusalem, but death. The real road to Jerusalem is through my leadership."
But no one came back that evening or the next evening. The General heard the colonels had organized themselves into platoons and battalions. They trained without comforts. They marched in the desert heat, and if they did not know how to fix a vehicle, they did not use it. Eventually two things happened. Some vehicles were abandoned but others were made to work. The Idran soldiers even became proficient at tank warfare. They did not bother with revolutionary speeches, but learned their weapons, discovered their new leaders, and prepared to live or die in battle.
Their new leader from the ranks of colonels would not give his name. But one of the colonels, a bit shrewder than the rest, pressed him on several occasions to give his name. After all, if he were going to lead them against Israel, they should at least know what to call him.
"Arieson," he said. "You can call me Arieson."
"That's not an Arab name," said the colonel.
"It most certainly is," said Arieson.
"You have been a friend of mine in ages past who would shame the rest of all mankind with your glory."
And the shrewd colonel passed this information to a German reporter in the capital, and that reporter relayed the information to his superiors, and finally the word got to a planning station outside Tel Aviv.
The Arabs were putting together a tough little army the likes of which hadn't been seen in the Middle East since the eighth century, when Arab armies leapt out of the desert to conquer a massive empire in a thunderclap of time.
"How many in that army?" asked Israeli intelligence.
"Fifteen thousand."
"That's nothing."
"You've got to see these guys," they were told. "They're good."
"How good can an Idran be?" asked the Israeli command.
"You'd better not find out."
They dismissed the report. The only time the Idran army had ever fired their weapons in anger was against some defenseless African tribes. And when they heard where the Idrans were going to attack, they were absolutely hysterical. The plan, as they found out, was to launch a drive right into the major base defending the Negev, prove the Israelis could be beaten even though they had larger forces, and then take prisoners and retreat fighting all the way to the Egyptiari border.
None of them in the planning room of the Israeli defense forces outside Tel Aviv thought that within a short time they would be desperately calling up reserves from around Jerusalem to help out their armored units trapped in the Negev.
Sinanju, home of the House of Sinanju, glorious House of Sinanju, smelled as it had the last time Remo had visited it. Waste from the pigsties flooded out into the main street, and the sewage system the Masters had brought the villagers lay unused for want of anyone to install it.
The system was made of the Finest Carrara marble, with pipes hewn by hand and polished smooth. Unfortunately, that particular sewer system had to be installed by Roman engineers. In the year 300 B.C. travel was not as safe as it was nowadays, and the sewer pipes arrived in Sinanju but the engineers didn't. So the pipes lay unused all about, while the town stank.
Remo commented on this as the two of them arrived on the main road from Pyongyang.
"It's amazing the thieves didn't take the pipes also," said Chiun. "But what did you care? You are not even coming with me for love of Sinanju but to find out how to kill someone you cannot kill."
"Do you want me to tell you I love a pigsty?" asked Remo.
"New Jersey is not a pigsty?" asked Chiun.
"It doesn't smell like Sinanju."
"It doesn't produce Masters of Sinanju either," said Chiun.
At the entrance to the village, the elders lined up to greet the returning Master. They were happier this time, because now they could assure him that no treasure was missing. Of course it wasn't missing because it had already gone the last time Chiun had returned to discover that the head of North Korean intelligence had stolen it in a ruse to get the House of Smart ju to work for Kim Il Sung.
When this had failed and the chief committed suicide, which was wise, he had unfortunately taken with him the secret of the treasure's whereabouts. Since he had not even told his glorious leader, Kim Il Sung, the whereabouts of the treasure, it was lost forever.
That North Korea could not reimburse the House of Sinanju was evident. The only question remained whether Kim Il Sung should be punished for the misdeeds of his subordinate, and the answer was yes. But what punishment might be appropriate, Chiun could not decide right away, and in tribute, Kim Il Sung chose to build three new superhighways to the village and place a full chapter glorifying the House of Sinanju in every textbook in every school in North Korea.
Thus, amid Marxist-Leninist ideology would appear the family-history tree of the Masters of Sinanju, with praises on one hand for worker committees and on the ocher for pharaohs and kings who paid on time.
That this confusion was not protested was not unusual. The only thing most students knew about Marxist-Leninist dialectics was that they had better pass it.
So hundreds of thousands of students now learned by rote that Akhnaton in his righteousness gave forty Nubian statues of gold to Master Gi, and King Croesus of Lydia did pay in gold four hundred plowduts, and Darius of Persia offered jewels of one hundred obol weight-along with the principle of the invincibility of the masses over oppression.
This satisfied Chiun that Kim Il Sung was doing all he could. Especially when Remo and Chiun were met at the Pyongyang People's Airport by three thousand students waving the flag of the Masters of Sinanju and all singing:
"Praised be thy glorious house of assassins, may thy truth and beauty reign forever in a world glorified by thy presence."
Remo had waited impatiently with Chiun.
"They don't even know what they're singing," he whispered.
"Never disdain a tribute. Your American students should learn such manners."
"I hope they never learn those verses," Remo had said, so naturally, by the time they reached the village, Chiun had collected this major in of the trip and happily stored it where he nurtured all the injustices Remo put upon him, so that they could bear fruit that could then be sprinkled upon their daily lives.
"Perhaps you think the village elders of Sinanju are fools too, waiting as they are to pay tribute."
"No," said Remo. "Why shouldn't they pay tribute? We've fed them for four thousand years."
"We are from them," said Chiun.
"I'm not," said Remo.
"Your son will be."
"I don't have a son," said Remo.
"Because you play around with all those Western floozies. Marry a good Korean girl and you will produce an heir and we will train him. He too will marry Korean, and by and by no one will know there was a white stain in the Masterhood."