smacked their glowering faces to assorted jelly and pulp.
"So far so good," said Remo as the trio hit the ground with a dead thud.
Chiun moved ahead. "The Deaf Mullah is this way."
"If you say so," said Remo, glancing at the heavy green door. "But I'd say there's something important behind this door, too."
"It must wait."
was piercing Yusef Gamal's clearing eyes as they came to rest on the grandeur of the Fist of Allah.
"It is magnificent," he breathed.
"It is colossal," said Jihad Jones.
It was a steely construct of slablike plates and angles, wide, tall and massive in its brutish lines. Every surface gleamed of chilled steel except a sheet of plate glass mounted high on a forward edge. It looked too heavy to move, never mind fly through the skies.
Then a thought struck them.
"Why does it rest upon great rolling wheels?"
"To carry it to its ultimate destination," explained Sargon the Persian.
"The launch pad?"
"No, to the target the Deaf Mullah most desires above all others."
"Abeer Ghula, of course," said Jihad Jones.
"No, more than that harlot."
"What could be more desirous of destruction than the hypocrite who insults the pure flame of Islam by her very existence?" "A target whose destruction will bring the heart of Zionist-occupied America to a standstill and maim infidels without number," said Sargon the Persian in a flat, dead voice.
"What saddens your voice?" asked Jihad.
"I have just armed the Fist of Allah, therefore I am doomed."
"Doomed?"
"I have placed its atomic heart within the missile without proper protection."
"The warhead?"
Sargon shook his head. "It is in the back. You will drive from the front."
"What will be your part, Sargon?"
"I will recite the countdown, at which point you will drive over my doomed body, saving me from an agonizing, un-Islamic death and catapulting me to Paradise."
on the other side of an ornate door, and Remo said, "Let's just bust in."
Chiun nodded.
Remo stepped back and lifted one foot. Kicking high, he sent the panel flying inward like a big wooden kite that skimmed along the floor to impale a far wall.
Two startled Afghan guards shrank from the unexpected commotion and wheeled, their Kalashnikov rifles dropping into line. Remo went for one, while Chiun took the other.
One got off a shot. Remo wove aside, avoiding the bullet by instinct more than conscious design, and broke the Afghan's spine by the indirect expedient of punching him in his stomach. When Remo's knuckles encountered hard bone, they withdrew. The Afghan folded in the middle like a pair of colorful pants, his bearded face slapping the tiled floor.
Chiun's Afghan was cocking his AK-47 when a flutter of sharp fingernails like a swarm of dragon- flies became busy about his face. They retreated, leaving stunned eyes staring from the rags and tatters of what had been a moment before a bearded human visage.
The man pitched forward on his face—what remained of it.
At the far end of the great room under the mosque dome was a chevron-shaped niche whose blue walls were a riot of Arabic calligraphy.
Before it stood a plain green glass shield. Behind the shield a seated figure moved like something seen through cloudy water.
A hand lifted an ear trumpet to one side of his head.
"Bingo," said Remo.
They advanced.
A of steel hung from the forward portion of the towering hulk that was the Fist of Allah.
"This is the nose cone," said Yusef Gamal, patting it proudly. Hollow, it rang like a great bell.
"The nose cone points to the sky," Jihad countered. "This points toward the east."
"Enter, both of you, quickly," said Sargon.
"I will go first," said Yusef.
"The pilot goes first," growled Jihad Jones.
"This does not matter. You must go now."
Yusef clambered up the ladder and entered through the stainless-steel hatch in the side of the multi- wheeled behemoth.