"I persuaded him."
"The Chinese want uranium?"
"He wasn't told, but that's what Dr. Smith believes. I can't see Beijing wasting agents on a dinosaur hunt."
"The Chinese are a mystifying race," Chiun replied. "They want to be Korean in their hearts, but since perfection has eluded them, they scheme like Japanese and try to make up, through intrigue, what nature has denied them."
"An unbiased view, of course," said Remo.
"When the truth is biased, should we lie? I had no hand in the creation of mankind, thus I gain nothing from a simple statement of the facts. All Asians envy the Korean people."
"What about the rest of us?" asked Remo.
Chiun responded with a gesture of dismissal.
"Black men envy whites," he said, "and white men are the most pathetic of the lot. They envy one another. It is too absurd," the Master of Sinanju finished, chuckling dryly to himself.
"Well, this has been a slice," said Remo, "but I really ought to catch up with the others now."
"And how will you explain your absence?"
"Oh, they think I'm dead."
"So your appearance may surprise them."
"I don't plan on dropping in," said Remo. "I've been following their trail since dawn and watching from a distance."
"In the hope this 'ringer' may reveal himself?"
"It's all I've got to go on at the moment."
"And your dalliance?"
"Say what?"
"The woman. What is she expected to reveal, beyond what you have seen already?"
"You were watching?"
"It is my responsibility," Chiun said.
"Well, you can scratch her off your worry list. We lost her in the raid last night."
"I never worry. Was she shot?"
"Quicksand."
"Another clumsy white."
"You shouldn't talk that way about the dead."
"Who better to discuss, without a fear of contradiction?" asked Chiun. "I trust that you did not become attached to this one."
"No," said Remo.
"It would be a grave mistake."
"I know that."
"Very well. You may wish to consider a revision of your plan."
"Which plan is that?"
"Your plan of hiding from the others."
"Why?"
"Consider the effect a ghost may have upon a guilty conscience."
"That's a thought."
"You are perceptive," said Chiun.
"I'm also out of here. You coming?"
"In my own time," said the Master of Sinanju. "These frail limbs—"
Remo grinned. "Just try to keep the noise down, will you? The Big Kahuna may show up and use you for an appetizer."
"Whelp."
"I'll see you, Little Father."
"Only if I want you to."
Chapter Fourteen
Dr. Stock well's dwindling group had gained a quarter of a mile since Remo left them, but he had no trouble catching up. Their progress was sluggish, with Stockwell plodding like a man whose hope was gone, continuing the march on stubbornness alone. Pike Chalmers didn't seem to care how fast they traveled, pausing every thirty yards or so to scan the jungle, listening, his AK-47 leveled from the hip. Their guide had slowed to the professor's slogging pace, and Sibu Sandakan resembled nothing quite so much as an exhausted marathoner suddenly confronted with the prospect of a twenty-seventh mile.
Remo was still debating Chiun's suggestion when he overtook the party, coming up behind them through the trees. He understood the logic of surprising them and watching for the kind of odd reaction that would point a ringer out, but he had tried that once before without results. Besides, he had no reason to believe the raid had been coordinated with his quarry, much less aimed at him. It seemed to Remo that the rebels had been jumpy. Looking for a way to speed things up, they had exercised poor judgment, acting on their own initiative. In that case, every member of the team would be surprised to see him still alive, but none had any special cause for disappointment at the fact.
Except, perhaps, for Chalmers.
He had definitely drawn a bead on Remo in the clearing last night, no excuses based on the excitement or confusion of the moment. He had also killed at least one of the rebels, though, and that appeared to mitigate against him as their contact on the team. More likely, Chalmers simply wanted Remo dead as payback for their brief encounter in K.L.
But who else on the team would fit the profile of a turncoat? Remo had examined each of them before, and none would be his own first choice for a clandestine operation. Only Chalmers, with his mercenary background, seemed to have the requisite credentials for the job, but his contempt for Asians and a certain lack of finesse made Remo yearn for more-persuasive evidence.
At least today he knew there was a ringer on the team. He trusted the guerrilla leader that far, even if the man had initially lied about his knowledge of the mission's goal. One member of the party was in league with the Chinese, had sold himself, and eighteen lives had already been lost as a result.
How many yet to go?
The question had no relevance for Remo. He wasn't concerned with numbers, unless they prevented him from finishing his job. What Remo needed at the moment was a suspect he could focus on and deal with one-on-one.
If he rejoined the others now, there would be calls for an explanation of his disappearance. He could always claim that he was knocked unconscious, maybe got disoriented in the dark and only found the group again by pure dumb luck, but would they buy it? And if not, what then?
He had about decided to maintain his distance, watching from concealment, when Kuching Kangar stopped short and raised a warning hand to halt the others. Remo froze in place, his senses reaching out in search of danger signals.
He almost missed it, but a subtle movement in the undergrowth before him marked the presence of another human being. Make that several human beings, crouched beside the trail. He hadn't seen or heard them going in, because they made no sound or movement to betray themselves. As for the human smell, once Remo saw the nearest of them, it appeared the almost-naked men were daubed with mud, like body paint, that covered them from head to foot.
Pike Chalmers almost cut loose with his AK-47 when the natives showed themselves, but he was concentrating on the new arrivals, and he overlooked Kuching Kangar. Before the Brit could aim and fire, their guide had turned on him and swung the heavy bolo knife he carried, knocking the Kalashnikov from Chalmers's hands.
Chalmers cursed, reached for his pistol, but the Malay guide was faster, leaping forward with a snarl to press the bolo blade against his adversary's throat.
"No guns," he warned, and Chalmers spent a moment glowering before he gave it up and raised his hands.
The tribesmen carried spears, some bows and arrows, with a hand-carved war club here and there. It was not their equipment, though, that held Remo's attention. He was looking at their faces, bodies, frowning as he checked them out.
Of twenty natives he could see, their guide included, only six were normal in appearance underneath the layers of mud. The rest displayed a wide range of bizarre deformities that made them look like something from a circus sideshow. Three were pygmy sized, but with heads out of proportion to their bodies, clutching six-foot spears in tiny hands. Another held his fighting club in hands like lobster claws. A fifth had short, bowed legs beneath a massive torso, with a dwarfish, pointed head on top. The man beside him only had one eye, but it was planted squarely in the middle of his forehead. Yet another stood on cloven feet, resembling fleshy hooves. Webbed fingers, crooked spines, diminished and distorted limbs—as Remo glanced around the group, he saw it all.
The expedition was surrounded by a tribe of pissed-off freaks. Professor Stockwell glanced around at the distorted limbs and bodies, fright-mask faces that surrounded him, and felt his last reserves of courage drain away. It was too much: first the guerrillas, then losing Audrey in a quicksand bog, and now this, surrounded by a band of nightmare creatures armed and seemingly intent on mayhem. And Kuching Kangar was clearly part of it—a friend of their assailants, possibly a member of their tribe. There were a few among the native band with normal faces, well-formed bodies, and he guessed their trusted guide was one of those, at liberty to move in the society of men without provoking undue curiosity.