Yet the man in the kimono had insisted, so here he was, the director general of the IHAEO, in a stinking muddy village with people who didn't even know how to dress. Home, unsweet home.
An especially backward and despicable looking pair were fawning over the polish on his new limousine. "Get those two out of there. They smell," Ndo said to his chauffeur.
"They say they're your parents, your Excellency."
"Oh well, put them in some clothes and get the photographer."
"Yes, your Excellency."
"And bathe them. Yes, god, bathe them."
"Yes, your Excellency."
The place was even worse than he imagined. The fields of maize were even more scraggly, the village square in the center of the huts dustier, and the roads were absolutely impassable. Come rainy season, they would be a sea of mud.
"The roads are awful. What happened to them?"
"The French left, your Excellency."
"They didn't take the roads with them, did they? Did they steal them?"
"They stopped repairing them, Excellency."
"All right, all right: Let's get this experiment over with and get back to where it's livable."
"The scientists have not arrived yet, your Excellency."
"Why not? What's holding them up?" asked Ndo, looking over the long line of dark roofs, the immaculate limousines stretched out like an expensive technological necklace through the yellow dried fields.
"There were only so many limousines to go around, Excellency," his aide said.
"So?"
"So the scientists are coming by ox cart."
Dara Worthington did not mind the ox cart. She did not mind the dust. She had been raised in country like this and it was good to get back to Africa, good to see the people again: Even good to ride in an ox cart again.
Remo and Chiun rode beside her with the other scientists in the carts behind. At several points along the road, they had to pay road tolls.
What they were paying for was occasional patches of asphalt, left from the days of the French. Who they were paying were soldiers of the Uwenda Army.
The Uwenda Army performed other public functions. They collected money at the markets from both shoppers and vendors. They collected money from dice games. They collected cold cash from anyone who wanted to build anything in Uwenda.
Up ahead on the somewhat asphalt road, soldiers now were menacingly turning their machine guns toward the carts. Behind them was a tank, its large cannon also pointed at the small carts.
Dara had heard about a diplomatic tiff when the Soviets had given Uwenda seven tanks. The President for Eternity, Claude Ndo, had read in a British publication that the tanks Uwenda had received were not the most modern in the Soviet arsenal. He did not want second-line tanks.
A Soviet general was sent to Uwenda to explain to the President for Eternity, Claude Ndo, cousin of the director general of IHAEO, that the only difference between the first-line Soviet tank and the second line was a refractionary voltage regulator for use in arctic conditions.
"You have no need of the newer model," the general said.
"Do you need it?"
"We maneuver in arctic conditions," the Russian said.
"We have interests in freezing areas just like any other nation."
"Who are you going to fight in the arctic?" the general asked.
"Whoever we wish. Just like you."
"How are you going to get the tanks there?"
"Give us the tools and we will do the rest. We are your allies. The Third World stands in solidarity with you."
The general mumbled something about the need for the new tanks being ridiculous and was told that the Russians always had a reputation for being crude and insensitive. He was told that this crudeness might cost them allies in Africa. He was told that even now there was a movement in America to get more African allies.
The President for Eternity did not hear the Russian general mumble an old childhood prayer asking that all this might come to pass. The general faced a real problem: if Uwenda got the new tank, then every other African country would want the new tank.
Gabon, for instance, was not going to sit around while Tanzania had the new tank because that would mean a loss of face. And if Tanzania got the new tank, then of course, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Ghana would also have to have the new tank.
It was a nightmare to contemplate so the Soviet general, as he had been instructed by the Soviet foreign office, pulled out a manila envelope.
"These are the plans to show you how your tank is as good as any around," the general said.
The President for Eternity opened the envelope and mumbled, "Not quite a large enough demonstration."
"Would you take a check for the rest?" said the general.
"I think that is good strategy," said the President for Eternity, taking the American hundred-dollar bills from the manila envelope. He insisted upon American dollars because Russians rubles always had to be converted into dollars anyway before they would buy anything worthwhile.
There was one more problem with the tanks that now lined the roadways of Uwenda, looking like magnets for dust.
"Where are the drivers? The people to use the radar for the guns? The mechanics to fix the tanks? You are not dealing with some fool. These things do not run themselves," said Claude Ndo.
And so the general promised advisers also. What Uwenda supplied was the Army officer to sit in the cockpit and stiffly salute the President for Eternity during parades.
One rainy season, the Russian mechanics became ill and the entire armored corps of Uwenda stayed where it was. By the time the Russians recovered, the tanks had been cannibalized and only one could be made to run again. This one now stood alongside the road, protecting the ox-cart caravan which was bringing the scientists who would try to fight the Ung beetle.
A soldier hopped from the top of the tank and strolled up to the first cart. Dara put her body between the soldier and the white refrigerated box holding the chemical pheromones developed by Dr. Ravits.
Four other soldiers followed him. They all looked at Dara Worthington and began lowering their pants. Remo asked them once to pull up their pants. He asked them twice. He even suggested a third time that they do this.
Perhaps, Remo thought, they did not understand English. This had been a French colony.
Remo spoke no French so he settled on a more universal language. He yanked the AK-47 rifle from the nearest soldier's hands and stuck it down the soldier's nearest and pulled the trigger. The soldier jumped as if stung by bees, flipping backward, but even as he did, Remo made sure he felt no pain. He crushed the soldier's temple with a flick of a finger. The other four soldiers understood the message perfectly. Up came the pants. But so did their guns. Remo faded slowly to the left to draw their fire and Chiun faded slowly right. Guns barked in the hot central African dust like coughing machines. The bullets hit rocks, kicked up little beige showers of dust, shredded dry leaves, but missed the two of them.
The soldiers sprayed their shots and launched grenades and still the two looked like mirages floating out there, teasing the men with the guns.
The soldiers were not bad shots but unfortunately they were shooting only at what they saw. None of them had noticed that before the firing, the two men had begun to sway, ever so slightly, but rhythmically, like a snake charmer with a cobra, moving so that the movements locked eyes on them, then relaxed the eyes on them. Some of the soldiers actually hit what they thought they saw, but what they were looking for was never in front of their bullets.