"Know, Japanese," Chiun said forcefully, "that if the lives of innocents were not in peril, I would rend your very heart and lay it steaming at your worthless feet."
"You may take my words back to your American masters," Nemuro Nishitsu said pointedly. "I will see that you are given safe passage to the desert."
"I have two others with me, a man and a woman. The man is of a tribe that dwells in the desert. It is there that I wish to go."
"Tribe?" Nishitsu said. His eyes sought Jiro.
"Indians," Jiro supplied. "They do not matter. Our tanks surround their land. They are known to be a peaceful tribe. None have ventured out, nor will they. Indians do not love the whites, their oppressors."
"Then go," Nishitsu told Chiun.
"One other matter," Chiun said quickly. "I demand to ransom the children. They are innocents. Whatever you intend by this outrage, they are not a part of this."
"They keep the adults passive. Fewer of my men die this way, and I am able to spare more Americans."
"Then the youngest of them," Chiun suggested. "The ones under eight years. Surely they are not necessary to your plans."
"The youngest ones are the most precious to their mothers and fathers," Nemuro Nishitsu said slowly. "But I might offer you, say, the students of one school if you will do something for me in return."
Curiosity wrinkled Chiun's wise face. "Yes?"
"I seek Bartholomew Bronzini. If you can deliver him to me, alive and in good condition, I will surrender to you the school of your choice."
Chiun frowned. "Bronzini is not your ally in this?"
"He is a pawn."
"I will consider your offer," said Chiun. And without bowing, he turned and left the mayor's office.
Jiro Isuzu followed him with hate-filled eyes. Then he turned to Nemuro Nishitsu.
"I do not understand. Why do you not offer terms?"
"You will see, Jiro kun. Is the television station ready?"
"Yes. "
"Then begin broadcasting."
"This will enrage their military."
"Better. It will humiliate them. They are impotent and soon the entire world will know it. Go now!"
The Master of Sinanju was silent all during the ride to the reservation, his eyes fixed on some imaginary point beyond the sand-scored windshield.
Neither Bill Roam nor Sheryl Rose tried to converse with him after Sheryl offered what she thought was a comforting suggestion.
"You know, Remo might not be dead. I read about a fellow who survived a skyjumping accident. It happens."
"He is dead," Chiun had said sadly. "I do not sense his mind. In the past, in times of great urgency, I have been able to touch him with my thoughts. I cannot now. Therefore he is no more."
Bill Roam was driving. They were in Sheryl's Nishitsu Ninja, which Chiun had restored to its wheels with what had seemed to be an effortless expenditure of strength. So stunned were they by the events of the day that neither Bill Roam nor Sheryl remarked on Chiun's many feats.
A single road led to the reservation. It was fenced off, but the gates were open. Beside it was a weatherbeaten wooden sign. The legend was half-obliterated by desert sun and wind-driven sand. The top line was nearly unreadable, except for the letter S at the beginning of an indecipherable word. The bottom line said: RESERVATION.
"I could not read the name of your tribe," Chiun said as they passed through the fence.
"You wouldn't know the name," Bill Roam replied dully. His eyes searched the road ahead as a line of cracked adobe buildings came into view.
"I did not suggest that I would," Chiun said flatly. "I asked the name."
"Some people call us Sunny Joes. That's where I get my nickname. I'm sort of the tribal guardian. It's a hereditary title, being a Sunny Joe. My father was one."
"Your tribe, they are mighty warriors?"
"Hell, no," Roam scoffed. "We're farmers. Even back before the white man came."
Chiun's brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
Bill Roam let out a relieved sigh as signs of life began to show in the doorways of the buildings they passed. He pulled up in front of one and got out.
"Hey, Donno, everything okay here?"
"Sure thing, Sunny Joe," a fat old man in blue jeans and a faded cowboy shirt replied. He clutched a bottle of Jim Beam. "What's doing?"
"There's trouble in the city. Spread the word. Nobody goes off the reservation unless I say so. And I want everyone in the meetinghouse inside of ten minutes. You hustle now, Donno."
"You got it, Sunny Joe," said the fat old man. He slipped the bottle into a back pocket and disappeared down the sidewalk, which was raised off the dusty street like an old-fashioned western boardwalk.
Bill Roam parked in front of the meetinghouse, a long wooden building that resembled an old-fashioned one-room schoolhouse right down to the rows of folding chairs inside. Roam went among the chairs, clapping them shut in his big hands. He stacked them against the walls with intent fury.
"Hope you don't mind squatting on the floor," he said after he cleared it. "It's clean."
"It is the preferred way in my village too," Chiun said. He gathered his skirts up and settled to the floor. Sheryl joined him. They watched as the reservation Indians drifted in, their faces sun-seamed and stoic. Most were older than Sunny Joe Roam. There were no children and very few women of any age.
Sheryl leaned over to Chiun. "Will you look at them! I've never been here before. But darned if they don't look sort of Asian about the eyes."
"Don't you read books?" Bill Roam said. "Every one of us sorry redskins came across the Aleutian Islands from Asia."
"I have never heard that," Chiun said.
"How could you, chief? You're one of the ones who got left behind. But it's a fact. If the anthropologists can be believed."
The last tribesmen slipped in and took their places on the floor in stony silence.
"That's everyone," the fat old man named Donno called out as he closed the door.
"You forgetting the chief?" Roam asked.
"Not me, Sunny Joe. He took off for Las Vegas with the money he got for leasing the reservation to that Bronzini fella. Said he was gonna double it or get drunk."
"Probably both," Roam muttered.
"What kind of leader deserts his people in their hour of need?" Chiun said querulously.
"A savvy one," Roam remarked dryly. He stood up; raising his hands, palms open. "These are my friends," he announced. "I bring them here because they seek retisae. The man is called Chiun. The girl is Sheryl. They are here because there is trouble in the city."
"What kind of trouble, Sunny Joe?" a wizened old man asked.
"An army has come from across the seas. They have captured the city."
The tribespeople turned to one another. They buzzed in conversation. As it settled down, an old woman with iron-gray pigtails asked, "Are we in danger, Sunny Joe?"
"Not now. But when the government sends in troops, we could be in the middle of a powerful lot of fighting."
"What can we do? We aren't fighters."
"I am the Sunny Joe of this tribe," Bill Roam rumbled. "I will protect you. Don't anyone worry. When the bad times came, my father, the Sunny Joe before me, kept us fed. During the hard days of the last century, his father watched over his people. Before the whites came, your forebears lived in peace going back all the way to the days of the first Sunny Joe, Ko Jong Oh. This will not change while I walk the ground of our ancestors. "
Chiun had been listening to this with growing interest on his parchment face. His head snapped around suddenly.
"What name did you speak?" he insisted.
Roam looked over. "Ko Jong Oh. He was the first Sunny Joe."
"What is the name of this tribe?" Chiun demanded. "I must know."
"We are the Sun On Jos. Why?"