Unpopular Science

The Berber guard scowled, then shook his head. “You need an appointment, little old man.”

Chiun looked thoughtful, and smiled, and his hand whisked at the guard, who slumped forward where he sat. His forehead began dripping into his lap, and his Berber dialect took one step closer toward true extinction.

“He says we need an invitation,” Chiun said as they left the nodding corpse.

“I’m inviting you,” Remo said, waving magnanimously at the entrance to the dank, dark slum-within-a- slum.

“I would refuse if I could.”

Through the archway they entered what had once been a fine courtyard, but was now a dim, evil-smelling grotto. The corners were black with filth and trash. The deteriorating cobblestones channeled some sort of evil, greasy-looking liquid between them.

“Who are you?” demanded a voice from the shadows beyond a crumbling brick divider wall. The interior of the courtyard was filled with shacks that might house an extended family.

“We came for the auction,” Remo called back, scoping out the figures in the shadows. The shacks were abandoned at the moment, but there were five men in the walkway around the fringes, and they were the kind of men Remo didn’t want to see any better than he could. Unfortunately he saw almost perfectly despite the darkness.

“The auction is over.”

“Hey, we didn’t get a chance to place our bids.”

“Go away, stupid foreigner.”

“I don’t want to talk to you, anyway. Who’s the real man in charge?”

The speaker came toward them, waving his automatic rifle. Everybody had an AK-47 these days, ever since the Iraqis stopped needing them by the hundreds of thousands and began their new lucrative export business. This one was brandished threateningly in Remo’s direction. “I am in charge!”

“You? You’re a twerp.”

“I am the commander of all these men and you are dead!”

“Don’t think so.” Remo reached out, and out, and out, and the Casablancan with the AK made a spluttering noise. The American seemed to be stretching his arm to inhuman lengths.

“Actually, I’m just light on my feet,” Remo said as he stood in his original position and gripped the shocked gunner by the collar.

“And in the head,” Chiun added.

“You really are the guy in charge?” Remo demanded.

“No, it is not I!”

“No, it’s okay, I believe you now, twerp.”

The man tried to get his AK leveled between him and his assailant. This was difficult to do while hanging by the shirtfront, toes just grazing the earth. The Casablancan suddenly felt himself being shaken.

His body rattled, his limbs jounced and a few blackened tooth chips joined his AK on the old cobblestones..

“Tell the Twerp Team to back off,” Remo said.

“They’ll kill you if you kill me!”

“Or not, I don’t care. Hold on.”

The Casablancan was suddenly on his own two feet. He squinted for focus and found himself staring at the tiny Asian in the outlandish robe.

“Your dwelling smells of offal,” the smiling Asian said in perfect Berber. Not city Berber, but the old traditional Berber of his great-grand-uncle.

Then he saw the white man, who was moving like a sentient shadow from man to man, crossing several yards in a heartbeat, and every time he reached one of them the man fell. Then, just seconds after he had been freed, the leader found himself being lifted again in the fist of the white man.

Off to the side he heard the collapse of the last body, and he knew his army of Casablancan street fighters was no more.

“Sorry, twerp, no more Team.”

“I talk.”

“Yeah, you just did something else, too,” Remo said in disgust, holding his captive far away where he couldn’t drip on him. “Who’s the broker?”

“Broke her?”

“Who sold the plans?”

“I did.”

“You just hosted the auction, you didn’t own the merchandise.”

“No, it was my merchandise.”

“You’re sort of the Christie’s of Morocco, hmm? Sony if I find it hard to swallow. I think you better come clean.”

Chiun smirked.

“The man will kill me if I say anything,” the captive whined.

“Like I won’t.”

The captive ran frantically, but all the leg-pumping in the world would get him nowhere without having his feet on solid ground. Eventually he went limp. “Barcelona,” he admitted.

“Good fish in Barcelona,” Remo noted.

“Arms man there. Cote. Allessandro.”

“An arms merchant in Barcelona named Cote Allessandro.”

“No, Allessandro Cote.”

“Okay. Good. Thanks.”

“So you won’t kill me?” The captive’s face broke into a hideous smile.

“Yes, I will. I was being sarcastic,” Remo explained. “The world need arms auctioneers like I need another old bossy guy telling me what to do.”

As they were leaving, Chiun said, ‘I forgive the casual insult because your earlier remark was amusing, however unintended ‘Better come clean.’ Heh!”

Through the door came the freckle-faced teenager with the dirty scrub-brush hair. He grinned and waved. “Hiya, Pop!”

“You bring in half zee desert vith you.” The older man was scowling, his voice heavy with a German accent. “You know what sand vill do to my electronics?”