After that the strangeness became stranger still.
There was a bald spot in the back of Colonel Fang's head. He knew it intimately, having watched its progress over the past two years of his life through a facing arrangement of mirrors.
Like some discarded coconut husk, the unmistakable bald spot landed at Colonel Fang's booted feet, along with his scalp. It was, he thought with a nervous mental laugh, as if the top of his head had come off.
The thought stayed with Colonel Fang long enough for him to faint. He never came out of that faint because when his face smacked the floor, his brains slopped out of his exposed skull like so much scrambled eggs.
"YUCK!" Squirrelly said, stepping over the fallen colonel. "Couldn't you have done this in a more PG-13 way?"
"There is your telephone," said the Master of Sinanju, gesturing toward the dull black desk instrument.
"Great. Hang on."
Scooping up the receiver, Squirrelly dialed the country code for the U.S.A., then the Washington, D.C., area code and finally the private number of the First Lady.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
"She's not answering! What's the matter with her?"
"Perhaps she is asleep," Chiun suggested.
"She can't sleep! She's the First Lady. The First Lady never sleeps!"
"She is sleeping now," said Kula.
Squirrelly hung up the phone and placed the back of her hand to her forehead. "Let me think. Let me think. Who do I call? Not Julius. He'll want to dicker for a percentage. Not my mother. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. I know, I'll call Warren."
The rotary dial whizzed, and the line rang only once.
"Hello," a bored voice drawled.
Squirrelly grinned in relief. "Warren! I knew you'd be awake."
"Squirrelly."
"The very same. And guess what? I'm in Tibet."
"I read that. How is it?"
"Not so hot. To be perfectly frank, Warren, I'm under arrest. But don't worry. I just escaped."
"Everyone should escape once in a while. Escape their insanity. Escape the taboos of an unenlightened age."
"I need your help, Warren."
"Name it."
"Call Schwarzenegger"
"Schwarz-"
"And Stallone. Try Seagal, Van Damme and any other hunky muscle type you can think of. Tell them to come running. I need to be rescued. Big-time. A real Technicolor Hollywood rescue."
"I thought you said you just escaped."
"I said," Squirrelly said, her voice going steely, "I just escaped prison. I didn't escape the country. Will you listen for once? I need a big splashy rescue. Tell them we're going to liberate Tibet from the evil Chinese."
"I thought they liked you, Squirl.''
"We're having creative differences, okay?"
"Sooo . . . you need help? My big sister who has all the answers?"
"Yes, Warren, I need help. Liberating Tibet is no two-week shoot. You should see the size of this place. And the mountains. It's positively crawling with mountains."
The drawl at the other end of the line grew oily and ingratiating. "If I make these calls, what're you gonna do for me?"
"Okay. Okay. I can see where this is going, Warren. You wanna be low lama? You got it. You wanna be Tibetan ambassador to Tahiti? I can arrange that."
"What do the Tibetan girls look like?"
"Short, round and not your type."
"Okay, then I want you."
"Cut it out, Warren."
"You, or I hang up."
"You wouldn't do that to your own sister."
"I've run out of erotic experiences. It's you or I slash my wrists."
"Warren, be my guest. Slash your wrists. Enjoy." And Squirrelly slammed the phone down. "I hope you come back as a sexless worm in your next incarnation, Warren!" she added for good measure.
When she turned, the others were staring at her with round, dubious eyes.
"Don't look at me like that!" she fumed. "You can't pick your relatives, you know."
Kula beamed. "Such wisdom from one who has been Bunji Lama for only three days. Truly the Chinese have no chance against us."
"And we will have no chance if we do not leave this place before alarms are raised," warned Chiun in a stern tone. "Come."
On the way out Squirrelly grabbed her Oscar off the desk.
Chapter 29
The word was flashed from Lhasa to Beijing by military radio: "The Bunji Lama has escaped."
It reached the ears of the premier of China by coded telegram.
In his office in the Great Hall of the People, where the air hung thick and stale with tobacco smoke, the premier smoked furiously as he read the telegram slowly. And then again. Once it had been committed to memory, he used the burning end of his cigarette to set the sensitive telegram alight.
He placed it in the porcelain ashtray in one corner of his desk and watched the edges brown and darken to black as the leaping orange flames danced and consumed the sheet. When it was a delicate ball of unreadable paper, he crushed it to ashes with tobacco-stained fingers so callused they felt none of the dissipating heat.
Only then did he call the minister of state security.
The line rang and rang. Finally an operator came on to report that the line was not currently in working order.
"By whose order?" asked the premier in a hoarse voice.
The operator obviously recognized the voice of the highest authority in the People's Republic of China.
His voice squeaked as he replied, "By order of the minister of state security."
"Get me the minister of public security."
When the correct voice came on the line, the premier issued gruff orders. "Have the minister of state security brought before me without delay."
"In irons?" the minister of public security asked hopefully.
"No. But have irons ready."
The minister of state security arrived within fifteen minutes. He was ushered in looking ashen and wiping his high brow.
"Sit."
The security minister sat. With a casual wave of two fingers that vised a smoking cigarette, the premier waved the security guards to shut the door. He did not have to stipulate that it should be shut as they left. It was understood that this was to be a very private conversation.
"The Bunji has escaped Drapchi Prison," the premier said without preamble.
The minister of state security showed quickwittedness. He jumped to his feet and announced, "I will have those responsible shot for dereliction of duty."
"You are responsible."
"But I have been in Beijing all along and out of touch with Lhasa"
"And now you will go to Lhasa and resolve this unpleasant matter."
The security minister, relief in his voice, started for the door. "At once, Comrade Premier."
"Sit. I have not yet told you how you will accomplish this."
The security minister sat down hard. He waited.
"You will not go alone," the premier said in a voice so low it was almost a purr.
The security minister nodded.
"Paper cannot wrap up a fire," the premier said, lapsing into Confucian epigrams. "This cannot remain secret for long."
"The populace has already begun to talk openly of the Bunji's return. They grow restive."
"There is a Western saying," the premier said. "I do not recall how it goes. It is something along the lines of using a flame to fight a conflagration."
"Fighting fire with fire, is what they say."
The premier wrinkled up his bulldog face. "They say it without grace. When you go to Lhasa you will take with you a flame with which to battle this conflagration. Do you know what I mean by this flame?"
"No," the security minister admitted.
The premier eyed his cigarette tip and blew upon it. It flared up red and hot. "It is a small flame," he purred, "and it has not been smoldering long. Therefore, when it flares up it may be an unexpected thing. Perhaps this tiny flame may come to quench the larger conflagration with its purifying heat."