When they returned to the mansion, Remo called Smith from the first floor hall telephone.
“It’s over,” he said.
“Wimpler?”
“Dead. Bottom of the ocean.”
“His invisible outfit?” Smith asked.
“You’re getting just like Chiun,” Remo said. “The salt water destroyed it.”
“And the Emir?”
“Okay, the last time we looked,” Remo said. “I guess they can relax for a while.”
“Probably not,” Smith said. “There will always be someone who wants him dead, Remo; someone else who will hire a hit man or a mercenary or a whole army. I’m going to send in new security forces tonight to guard him. You make sure that you don’t leave there until everyone is in place.”
“Okay, Smitty.”
Remo hung up and looked over at Chiun who still seemed disconsolate.
“C’mon, Chiun. Cheer up. Let’s go upstairs.”
There was no answer to their knock on the Emir’s door. They walked in to find the Emir lying on his back on bed, his arms flung out to his sides in a grotesque parody of death. But this was no parody because there was no life left in the monarch’s body. There was a smile on his face.
Princess Sarra was seated by the bed, her head in her arms. She was crying. Next to her on the mattress was the revolver with which she was to protect her brother. The candles still burned in the room.
She looked up as Remo and Chiun entered.
“Remo…”
“I know.”
“He died only moments ago. He was sleeping and then he just stopped breathing.” She said it with a tone of desperation as if she expected Remo to be able to do something to repeal the Emir’s action.
“His troubles are over,” Remo said.
Chiun stood at the foot of the bed and bowed his head. “I salute you as a great ruler, a true son of a true throne.”
· · ·
The Emir was buried in the United States. The rulers of his country who had offered millions to have him back alive, so they could kill him, refused his body in death, and denied him burial in his native land.
· · ·
Sitting at an outdoor café on University Place in New York, Smith asked Remo: “The Princess?”
“I put her on a plane.”
“To where?”
“I didn’t ask.”
Chiun sat glumly at the little table, twisting a paper napkin into thread-thin strips.
Smith nodded toward him, his eyes asking Remo a question.
“He’s been upset since we lost Wimpler’s invisible paint,” Remo said.
“Well, those samples you saved us and his car in the garage should give us enough to duplicate the formula,” Smith said.
Chiun looked up sharply.
“And then what will you do with it?” he said.
Smith shrugged. “Turn it over to the Defense Department. Some kind of military application, I guess,”
Chiun went back to tearing his napkin, unhappy as he watched all possibility of commercial enterprise being drained from the invisible, black paint.
“Don’t feel bad,” Remo said. “In the wrong hands, that paint could have been used for a lot of bad things, Chiun.”
“Name one.”
“Well,” said Remo. “It could have been used to paint Sinanju. Then Smitty’s submarine, filled with gold, would never be able to find it.”
Chiun said something sharply in Korean.
“What did he say?” Smith asked Remo.
“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”
“Try me.”
“He said that when he’s a world-famous writer, people won’t treat him this way.”