The stroke of good fortune was Dr. Ravits. One of the drones had been killed in the laboratory which had been having nothing but trouble since it started. They were always having killings there, and to Ndo the lab was nothing but a pain. None of the employees seemed politically aware and they certainly didn't know how to throw a party and if they weren't necessary for public relations in the West, he wouldn't have had them at all. But now this Ravits person had gotten himself killed and Ndo was going to use it.
That was why he was flying into New York City: to address the United Nations on one more attempt to destroy IHAEO.
Ndo loved New York, loved the skyline, loved it even more than Paris. New York was power and action and all those wonderful furriers from which he supplied his girlfriends and his sons' girlfriends.
He didn't like the people, of course, but then again, he never had to meet any of them. They rode in subways and they walked on the streets. Ndo never did either.
He got clearance from his bodyguards to descend and walked down the stairway from the jetcraft to his limousine and found two men waiting for him in the backseat.
One wore a kimono. The other wore a black T-shirt and black slacks.
"Who gave you permission to ride in the car with me?" asked Ndo.
"Hi," said Remo pleasantly. "We've come on business."
"I do not discuss business except by appointment."
"Your secretary was uncooperative too," Remo said. "He is in the front seat."
Ndo glanced into the front seat. A very big man was curled up in a fetal position. The big man was his favorite bodyguard and could break someone's arm with one hand. Ndo had seen him do it. His favorite bodyguard, was not moving.
"Ah, business, yes," said the director general of IHAEO. "Well, I am on my way to the United Nations. Let us do our business quickly."
Ndo gave the pair his most attentive look, even while he set off his emergency alarm to alert bodyguards and local police. Ndo had long-standing orders on what to do if he was abducted. The long-standing orders were to give any terrorists exactly what they wanted if they would return Ndo unharmed. Of course, he had already eliminated the danger from most of the terrorists in the world by putting them on the IHAEO payroll.
Ndo listened politely to some claptrap about bugs and laboratory experiments and a rainy season. He listened until he saw the blue bubble of a police car in front and then another one in back. Gas suddenly filled the backseat but he knew enough to hold his breath. A dark mask fell down from the car's ceiling. He pulled it over his face and breathed pure oxygen.
He waited for a full count of four hundred, far longer than anyone could hold his breath. Then he pressed the gas-exhaust lever and waited until there was absolutely no trace left in the backseat, then replaced the mask in its compartment. The police would have to take care of the bodies.
But there were no bodies. The white man just continued talking. He was still talking about bugs when Ndo tried to stab him with a little ceremonial knife he carried. The knife had the poison of the Gwee bush. It would send anyone cut with it into painful paralysis, like an execution which took a week of dying, every moment in agony.
The knife somehow wouldn't cut the man's skin. Remo put it away on the floor.
"So that's what we want," he said finally. "The good points are that you are going to help millions. The bad points are that if you don't do it, we are going to take off your face."
"I am not afraid," Ndo said.
Remo pressured the thumb up against the forearm, creating a shock through Ndo's nervous system. But he accepted the pain, accepted it as he had learned to accept pain for the initiation ceremony of the Inuti. "
Remo cracked the thumb and still the man didn't surrender. He did not surrender as his ribs strained close to his heart, even though sweat began to pour from his forehead. Then, with a smile, Ndo passed out.
"I don't want to kill him, Little Father," Remo said. "We need him to give orders."
"He is afraid of death," Chiun said. "But not of pain."
"I've never seen anything like that," Remo said.
"Because you have not adequately studied the history of the Masters of Sinanju."
"I have," Remo said.
"Not adequately."
Remo glanced at the police cars. Uniformed officers stood alongside the cars, guns down. He did not want to have to hurt them.
"Not adequately," Chiun repeated.
"I don't care," Remo said. "I'm not wearing a kimono."
"If you had read the histories, you would," Chiun said.
"What do the histories say about kimonos that's of any help?"
"The histories say that only pale pieces of pigs' ears refuse to wear the kimono."
"Where does it say that?" Remo asked. "I'm the first white Master ever."
"It says it in the latest history of Sinanju, called 'The Persecution of Chiun' or 'How Benevolence Is Never Rewarded.' "
"Skip that. What about this guy?" Remo said.
"The Inuti are like that. They once had great emperors. It is manhood training he used to resist your pain. Don't worry. The Inuti are a reasonable people," Chiun said.
"Meaning that they paid their assassins," Remo said.
"In goats and goat products. But at least on time," Chiun said. He reached into the vest pocket of the diplomat's three-piece suit. With a gentle working of the nerve endings around his solar plexus, Chiun brought the director general of IHAEO back to consciousness.
"You are Inuti," said Chiun, who had told Remo before that to know the tribe of an African was to know the man. Unlike whites, Chiun had said, Africans had a history and loyalty to their villages. No proper African would defy his father as Remo defied Chiun.
Ndo smiled. It was a cold smile because pain was still in his body but it was a smile of triumph.
"We are Sinanju," said Chiun.
Ndo had heard the tales of the dreaded ones from the Orient who had served the ancient kings of the Inutf.
"What does Sinanju care about bugs?" asked Ndo.
"What cares about what Sinanju cares about," said Chiun.
"Whereas I respect the House of Sinanju, my hands are not my own," Ndo said. "I have obligations, commitments. What can I do for you other than this?"
"When Sinanju wants something else, it will ask for something else," Chiun said. "Tell me, Inuti, do you think that your ancient conquest of pain is enough to build the wall that stops Sinanju?"
And with that he held before Ndo his Ga, the little wooden statue. Ndo was fast but his hands were like great slow muffins compared to the speed of the long fingernails. Ndo reached but the statue was out of his grasp.
Slowly Chiun broke off Ga's right leg. Ndo wept. "Ga's manhood is next," Chiun said.
"No," cried Ndo. "Do not. My seed will die with it."
"So, Inuti, we understand each other," said Chiun. Ndo offered to make Chiun the wealthy director of any agency he wished but Chiun's answer again was: "Sinanju cares about what Sinanju cares about."
"You mean we all have to go into the bush to look at bugs? There will be a revolt."
"There will be the glorious vindication of Dr. Ravits' work," Chiun said.
"Dr. who?"
"One of the scientists," said Chiun.
"I don't know them. Who heads his department?"
"Dara Worthington," Remo said.
"I don't know her. Who is her director?" Both Remo and Chiun shrugged.
"Give me Ga and I will find out," Ndo said.
"You will find out because I have Ga and will keep him until you do," Chiun said.
Ndo looked at the old Oriental, then dropped his eyes and nodded.
As he waved the police away and told them it was all a misunderstanding, he heard the two men from Sinanju talking. They were arguing about kimonos and Ndo knew he never wanted to see a kimono again in his life.