Coin of the Realm

Remo pushed the Low Moo away and sat up. "I was on my way to see you," he said. "Honest. But I happened to bump into her. One thing just led to another."

The Low Moo rearranged her skirts. She stared up at the Master of Sinanju, her eyes as big as a tomcat's. "You consort with the enemy of him whom you are sworn to preserve," Chiun said coldly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know who is trying to kill the High Moo?"

"Sure, I do," Remo said, getting to his feet. "Everybody."

"You are blind, Remo. The traitor lies at your feet."

"Her?" Remo said, aghast. "No way, Chiun. You got it all wrong. I was out in the jungle. There must be two dozen different plots being hatched. If you ask me, it's practically open season on the High Moo. I think he's been working everyone too hard. They're fed up."

"Spoken like a peasant," the Low Moo said sulkily. Remo put his hands on his hips.

"Hey, what happened to wanting me?"

"I do want you," she hissed. "And I will have you!" The Low Moo sprang to her feet. A bone knife flashed up from under her skirts. She came at Remo, the knife held low for a disemboweling slash.

"Hey!" Remo yelled, his eyes wide. Reflexively his hand caught her knife wrist. He twisted. The Low Moo squealed in pain. Remo kicked her ankles out from under her. She went down in a pile.

Chiun retrieved the viciously curved bone knife from the floor.

"Yes. It is the same design as the other."

"What's going on here?" Remo demanded hotly.

"She did not want you the way you think," Chiun said, examining the knife.

"Yeah? What other way is there?"

"She wanted to poon you."

"And she would have if you hadn't interrupted."

"She wanted to eat you," Chiun said. "Poon means 'to eat.' "

"No, ai means 'to eat,' " Remo said.

"Ai means 'to dine.' Poon means 'to consume.'"

Remo blinked. He looked into Chiun's unwavering eyes. His eyes flashed down to the Low Moo. She averted her gaze. Her pink tongue licked at her lips. She rubbed her bare belly as if from a stomachache.

"You mean . . ." Remo began to say. Chiun nodded flintily.

Remo looked at the Low Moo again.

"It's not true, is it?" he asked quietly. "This wasn't what you meant by desiring my organ. To eat?"

"I deserved you. Other Low Moos enjoyed the Flesh Feast in the days of the whites who came to this island. Why should I not be like them? I earned my throne."

"Earned?" said Chiun sharply. Remo looked blank.

"Do you think that I was born Low Moo?" She laughed cruelly. "When Old Moo sank, the royal family escaped to the high plateau where the mountain palace stood. This palace. The peasants all drowned, but the royal family alone survived."

"You are all descendants of the House of Moo?" Chiun asked. "Every islander?"

The Low Moo nodded. "Ever since then it has been a struggle between those who sat upon the Shark Throne and those who did not. The strong ruled. The weak worked. My father slew the last High Moo only two years ago."

"In the Fifth Year of the Third Cycle," Chiun said, plucking the coin Remo had found from his sleeve. "The same year that the High Moo ascended the throne."

"There were four assassinations that year," the Low Moo went on. "Since then, my father has ruled through his might. There has been stability. Only the octopus worshipers vexed his kingdom. But now they are gone, and the troubles are worse."

"So you came to the throne with him?" Remo asked. "You weren't born a princess?" His voice was stunned. His features a little sick. The truth was starting to sink in.

The Low Moo shook her head. Her gaze was faraway. "I was the younger of two sisters. Tuka-Tee was Low Moo before me."

"What happened to her?" Remo wanted to know. The Low Moo shrugged unconcernedly.

"I poisoned her. Crushed stonefish spines in her food." Remo turned away.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Not as sick as you would have been had I not come to your rescue," Chiun pointed out.

"She's a princess, for Christ's sake," Remo said to no one in particular. He towered over the Low Moo. "You're a princess!" he roared. The Low Moo cringed. "And you're a freaking cannibal."

"Do not be insulting," the Low Moo shot back. "Moovians do not eat one another. Only whites. And no one has eaten human flesh since the last white man came to these shores. They were made slaves for a time. When they were freed, there was a feast. The Low Moo always had her choice of the best meat. And only the Low Moo."

"Equal eating for the High Moo was out?" Remo said bitterly.

The Low Moo shrugged. "No white women ever came. The royal family does not eat members of the same sex. Do you think we are ... perverts?"

"Perverts!" Remo shouted. "Listen, where I come from-"

"Enough," Chiun said. "Now you know the truth."

"Now I know," Remo said dully. He hadn't loved her, but somehow the truth hurt. He didn't understand why. "What do we do with her?" Remo asked. "She's still the Low Moo."

"She stabbed her father."

"Yes," said the Low Moo. She sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing. Her bare breasts shook with the vehemence of her words. "The High Moo is dead. I possess the Shark Throne now. And all of its wealth. If you wish to claim any of the coins, you will do as I say."

"No," Chiun said, taking her by the wrist. The Low Moo struggled. The old Korean's fingers tightened like claws. "He lives, thanks to Sinanju."

And Chiun dragged the Low Moo, spitting and scratching, from the room. Remo went along uncertainly.

The Master of Sinanju threw the Low Moo at the feet of her father. She sprawled there, supine and frightened.

"I lay at your feet your assailant," Chiun said coldly. "Speak her fate and I will make it so." His hands went into his kimono sleeves. His spine straightened proudly.

"Wait a minute, Little Father," Remo began. A raised hand hushed him.

The High Moo's eyes were clearing.

"She is my daughter," he said dully. "There is no other I trust. Let her live. She is willful and cruel as a cat, but she only wanted to feel the white man's flesh between her teeth."

Remo shivered in spite of himself.

"There are others," Chiun went on. "Other plotters. Remo has uncovered their perfidy."

"Yeah, it's real bad," Remo offered. "Just about everyone on this anthill wants to kill you. Now I know why. It's their only chance for upward mobility. The Low Moo told us how it really is on your little tropical paradise."

"I need my peasants. Without them, there will be no one to mine the metal, make the coins, and grow the rice. "

"Then choose one or two plotters," Chiun suggested. "I will make an example of them before the others. A few heads sitting on spears is a wonderful deterrent to plotters."

The High Moo shook his head slowly. "I need every peasant. We have already lost too many."

"Then what would you have me do?" Chiun demanded in an exasperated voice.

"Let them go."

"Go! I am royal assassin to the House of Moo. How can I protect you if I cannot deal justice to pretenders to the throne? Where is the deterrent? What is your power?"

"My power lies here," said the High Moo, pointing to his right arm. He lifted his war club feebly. "And in the wealth of my treasure, which every Moovian covets but no one may possess but me."

"In other words," Remo said, "you have nothing."

"Well-spoken," said Chiun, distaste thickening his voice.

"I would sleep," said the High Moo. "Leave me. We will speak of these matters after the sun has restored the color to my empire."

"Some empire," said Remo, turning to go from the room.

The Master of Sinanju beheld the supine figure of the Low Moo, and the great snoring bulk of the High Moo. They no longer appeared royal to his wise eyes. He saw only a fat man with a feather drooping over his thick features and a spiteful and treacherous girl.

He left them without a word.

Chapter 35

They asked Shane Billiken if he could swim and he said yes.

They asked Shane Billiken if he could swim with his hands tied behind him and his feet weighted with vats of cheese.

"Of course not," he snapped.

"Then it's settled," Dirk Edwards said. "You go over the side."

It took three of them to hold Shane Billiken down on the deck while a fourth tied his wrists behind his back with rope. Getting the goat cheese tied to his feet proved more difficult. For one thing, they found they would have to drill holes through the vats for the ropes to go through. For another, Shane kept kicking the wooden vats to pieces with his frantic feet.

"Let's think this through," Dirk Edwards said at last.

"Great idea," said Shane Billiken. "Let's not rush into anything. "

I meant how we're going to do it, not if," Dirk Edwards said. "You got us into this fool operation."

"I hired you. I gave you all my money."

"Your mistake. Besides, we aren't in this for the money. We're soldiers. We have a soldier's pride. How the fuck do you think this operation will look written up in the pages of Soldier of Fortune?"

"Not so hot if it comes out that you murdered your employer," Shane pointed out.

"Exactly. Not to mention all the screwing around these islands we've done. Gus, find something we can use as a plank. "

"Plank?" Shane said blankly.

"Yeah, it's traditional during mutinies to make the captain walk the plank. And I'm a traditional kind of guy."

"I don't think you guys are considering the karmic repercussions of this."

"You're right. We're not."

"Look, I can pay you more money. Just don't kill me."

"We got all your money. You just said so."

"Then I'll cut you in on the treasure. Did I tell you guys about the treasure? Half for me, half for you guys to split up."

"We don't need you to find any treasure."

"Sure you do. Only I know what the girl looks like. And the two with her."

"A white guy and a gook in a party dress. How many of them can there be in the South Pacific?"

"You never know. Synchronicity is one of the great misunderstood forces of the cosmos."

"So are sharks. Hey, somebody see if there's any red meat left. Throw it in the water. It'll be more fun if we toss him into a mess of man-eaters."

"No, not that. Anything but that."

"No, not that," Dirk Edwards mimicked. "Anything but that. You sound like a pansy. I hate pansies. I gotta kill you for that reason alone."

"And for the cheese," someone joined in.

"Yeah. For the damned cheese. I should never have signed on without checking you out more carefully."

"There's no more meat," a voice called up from below.

"Damn. I guess it's back to the cheese."

Shane Billiken resumed kicking wildly. "No, no, no!" he screamed.

"Hey, shut up! Shut him up." It was Gus. His voice was excited.

Dirk Edwards dropped into a crouch and clamped a dirty hand over Billiken's wide mouth. "What is it?" he hissed.

"I see an island."

"Steer clear of it. The Hawaiian authorities probably have the whole South Pacific on the lookout for us."

"Maybe. But not this island."

"Say again?"

"There's a junk lying at anchor on this side."

Dirk Edwards replaced his hand with a boot and stood up. Shane Billiken tried to shake the boot out of his mouth, but that only made the boot press down harder. He stopped struggling.

"Yeah, yeah," Dirk said, his voice rising.

Shane Billiken felt the boot go away and two hands yank him to his feet.

"That the junk?" Edwards demanded, pointing.

Shane Billiken said, "Yes!" He would have said yes if he had been asked if Peking was the capital of Alaska.

"Change in plans," Dirk said. "We ain't going to kill you. But you gotta do everything we say from now on."

"Done," said Shane Billiken. "Thank you."

"We ain't doing this for you. We can't kill you without noise and I ain't blowing our chance to salvage something from this miserable operation."

"Whatever works," said Shane Billiken gratefully.

"Okay. Pull down the sails. Cut the engines. Douse the lights. And everybody listen up. You too, Billiken. You play your hand right and we'll cut you in for a piece of the treasure."

"Half?"

Stone faces stared at him. "A quarter?"

"Aww, Dirk, why don't we just strangle him and get it over with?" Gus drawled.

"We need every hand. Provided we get cooperation."

"Ten percent!" Shane called out. "Ten percent works for me."

"You get five-if you pull your weight."

And Shane Billiken found his hands being untied and an M-16 placed into his trembling fingers. This was his last chance and he knew it. He promised to pull his weight from now on. He used his most convincing voice. Anything to avoid the sharks. Shane knew everything there was to know about sharks. He had seen every jaws film. Talk about unevolved.

Chapter 36

Michael P. Brunt's voice was jaunty over the long-distance line.

"Brunt the Grunt," he said. "You point and I do."

"This is Brown," Harold Smith said. "Have you completed your assignment?"

"Mission accomplished."

"You have recovered the tea service?" Smith asked blankly.

"What if I said yes?" Brunt asked. Smith could hear a raspy scratching noise. It sounded like Brunt was scratching his beard stubble.

"Please stop talking in circles. What did you find?"

"Nothing. No tea service. No furniture, unless you count a TV and a bunch of boxes. If you want my opinion, the guy took it on the lam, as we detectives like to say."

"Boxes? What kind of boxes?"

"What do you care?"

"What was in them?"

"Got me. They were padlocked. For all I know, they were booby-trapped too.

"Could you describe them?"

"Oh, about four or five feet long. Kind of like footlockers. Some of them had brass handles and fittings. They came in an assortment of colors. Gaudy, too. Designer luggage they definitely weren't."

"And you did not open them?"

"My job was to go in and recover the tea service without disturbing the domestic environment, correct?"

"Yes," Smith admitted glumly.

"Those babies were secured with monster brass padlocks. Not the combination kind, which I could have cracked, but the kind you open with a key. A big brass key. Get it?"

"Clearly," Smith sighed. "You dared not open them."

"Not without the big brass key, which I did not find, or a hammer and cold chisel, which I must have left in my other suit. Did I do right?"

"Yes, of course," Brunt suggested, "for more bucks, I could take another whack at it. Maybe you want your tea service so much you don't mind if I make a mess."

"I do mind. The occupant must never know his dwelling was penetrated."

"Burglarized, you mean. Only CIA types say 'penetrated.'"

"Yes. Burglarized."

"So now what?"

Smith considered. The scratching came over the line again.

"If I need you, I will call you again," he said at last.

"Sounds like a kiss-off to me."

"You have your check."

"Cashed and spent already. I could use more. My secretary keeps asking for a raise."

"Good-bye, Mr. Brunt," said Smith, hanging up. He swiveled in his cracked leather chair, his gray eyes regarding Long Island Sound through the office picture window.

"Boxes," he muttered. What could these boxes contain? Armaments, perhaps. Brunt had described them as footlockers. Assault weapons were often shipped in similar boxes. Or weapons components. Stinger missiles, for example. Or in the case of a more complex device, such as a portable rocket launcher, the components were often transported in several boxes of the type Brunt described.

Was the house being used as a weapons-storage site? Was Smith the target of terrorists'? If so, why hadn't they made their move? If not, who was their target?

This was too critical now for a broken-down private investigator. Smith would have to get into the house himself, despite the risk. He must learn the contents of those boxes.

The time for waiting was over. Smith went to his file cabinet and from a folder deep in back extracted an Army-issue .45 automatic and two clips. He inserted a clip and sent a round into the chamber to check the action. Then he placed them in his briefcase, where they nestled in a false compartment under the telephone hookup.

Dr. Harold W. Smith left his office, a gray man with a cold white face and a purposeful stride that made the guards in the lobby dispense with their usual tipped-hat acknowledgments. They had seen that look on Smith's face before. It usually foreshadowed someone getting fired.

Chapter 37

Shane Billiken felt positively transformational. He really did.

Under cover of darkness, they had heaved to outside the lagoon. Dirk "Ed the Eradicator" Edwards and his men donned their jungle fatigues and greased their faces with green and black camouflage paint. They slid survival knives into ankle sheaths and taped magazine clips together to make reloading easier. Then they went over the side in rubber rafts, which they scuttled in shallow water. From there, they waded.

Shane Billiken carried an M-16 assault rifle over his head and clutched a marlin spike between his teeth. His shirt pockets were stuffed with spare clips and extra rounds and Gouda cheese. He hadn't any camouflage clothes, so he settled for rubbing his white ducks with borrowed jungle paint, not forgetting to anoint the triangle of hairy chest exposed by his buttonless shirt. At the last moment, he kept his mood amulet because, happily, the bull had turned green. It blended in perfectly.

He felt truly in touch with his animal side. There was just one nagging doubt to be resolved.

"Does it get easier?" Shane wanted to know as they waded onto the crushed-shell beach. "The killing stuff. I mean. "

Dirk shot him a wolfish grin. "Sure it does. Hardly anybody ever throws up the second time."

"That's good," said Shane. "I hate throwing up. It's so, you know, primal."

"Nothing's more primal than killing," Dirk snorted. "Right, boys?"

They scaled the island's steep western slope. The face was riddled with square openings shored up with bamboo beams.

"Are these tunnels?" Gus demanded. "I was in Nam. I don't dig tunnel action. Gives me the creeps."

Dirk Edwards waved them into a crouch. He eased forward to one of the dark openings. He sniffed. No animal smells. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and shone the light in.

"Looks to me like a mine," he whispered.

"Maybe the treasure's in there," Shane said eagerly.

"Yeah," Dirk said slowly. He detected faint stirrings inside the mine. "Maybe it is. What say we check it out?"

"Suits me," Shane said, slipping the safety off his rifle. "Glad to hear it. You go first."

"Me?" Shane was shoved forward by several of the others. His eyes were sick. Dirk grinned at him. Shane decided the tunnel was less threatening than Dirk's grin. He crept in.

A murmur of laughter rippled up from the others. They waited, listening. The sound of Shane Billiken's stumblings echoed from the mine.

"The fool don't have sense enough to take off his sunglasses," Dirk guffawed.

His laughter died suddenly when sounds of firing came from the tunnel. Shane burst out, his face a twisted warp of panic.

Dirk pulled him down. "What was it?" he spat. "What'd you find?"

"Eyes. I saw eyes. Human eyes. I shot at them. I think they're all dead."

"Natives," a man hissed. "They'll be all over us."

"Don't panic," Dirk barked. "Tunnel probably muffled the sound so it didn't carry."

Shane Billiken started to gag. Everybody saw it coming. They piled on him; stuffing headbands and belts into his mouth to stifle the vomiting sounds. When Shane's convulsions stopped, they let him go. He spent fifteen minutes quietly spitting chunky yellowish fluid out of his mouth. He rinsed his mouth out with dirt.

"I thought you said it never happened that way twice," Shane gasped. His breath smelled like sour cheese.

"Some people have to get used to blood," Dirk replied. "'Okay, we press on. Stay away from the tunnels. There's a big building on the high ground. I'm betting that's the treasure house."

"No," Shane said. "I dreamed on it again."

"You gonna start that bilge all over?"

"No, the building is the sacred temple. I saw it in the dream. The treasure house will be near it, though."

"Yeah, and did you dream its location?" Dirk asked sarcastically.

"No, but I brought along an attuned way of finding it."

"What's that?"

"This," Shane said, pulling a Y-shaped branch from under his silk shirt. "It's a dowsing rod," he explained when confronted with a circle of blank camouflage-painted looks.

"Ain't those used for finding ground water?" someone asked.

"This is a willow branch. It will find anything I want. Including treasure. Watch."

Shane Billiken put down his rifle and stood up. He held the dowsing rod by its forked ends, with the tail of the Y pointing outward. The branch quivered in his hands. His hands quivered too. It was impossible to tell which was affecting the other.

"I can feel the magnetic pull already!" he declared. "Come on!" Shane went up the hill. The others hung back uncertainly.

"Wood ain't magnetic," Gus pointed out.

"No," Dirk growled, "but we ain't got any more clue where that treasure's at than he does. We got nothing to lose. Saddle up."

They trailed after Shane Billiken in a ragged line, dropping into defensive crouches every time Billiken tripped over a rock or ground root, their eyes sharp and their weapons pointed out in all directions.

After the third time, Dirk Edwards snatched the Ray-Bans off Shane's face and threw them away.

"Hey!" Shane protested. "Those are my trademark."

"They'll mark your gravestone if you fuck up one more time." Shane received an ungentle shove. "Now, get going!" Shane pressed on. He seemed to do better now that he could see. He tripped only once more, and that was because his Adidas sneakers were coming off his feet like bad tires.

"Damn!" he said as he pulled himself to his feet. The others had dropped into a defensive circle, their hearts in their mouths and blood in their eyes.

"Lemme shoot him, Dirk," Gus moaned. "Please." They were on level ground, near a hidden path they had discovered.

"What's wrong now?" Dirk called out. "Besides your usual clumsiness?"

"I fell and broke the rod."

"What a tragedy."

"You don't understand. I was close. I could feel the odyllic vibrations." Shane reached down to recover the willow pieces, which had fallen under a lightning-scorched tree. He leaned into the tree to steady himself and it cracked like a burnt twig. He fell across a wide flat and was surprised to feel his right foot sink down into something clammy and wet.

"Oh, God," he moaned. "I'm wounded. My foot's all wet."

"Maybe he pissed himself," someone said dryly.

Dirk Edwards came to his side. He examined Shane's foot. It disappeared into the top of a wide stump. He pulled it free.

"Is there much blood?" Shane moaned, looking away.

"None," said Dirk. He wasn't even looking at Shane's foot anymore. He was looking into the stump, where silver glints rippled under disturbed water. He turned to his men. "I want you all to get a grip on yourselves, understand? No shouting. No hooting. No bullshit. I don't know how, but this idiot found the treasure for us."

"I did?" Shane asked blankly.

He climbed to his feet and joined the group clustering around the stump to drink in the sight of stack upon stack of round silvery coins. The moonlight made them shimmer.

"I did!" Shane exulted. Everyone piled on him. They wrestled him to the ground, a dozen hands clamping on his mouth and throat.

When they finally let go, Shane Billiken's eyes were feverish. "I did. I did. I did," he whispered over and over again. "Didn't I? I made a positive affirmation and it worked. Finally."

"Everybody grab as much as they can carry," Dirk ordered. "We'll take this stuff back to the boat in rotating groups of threes. The first group stays with the ship to guard that end. The main force will remain here with the treasure. If we hustle our butts, we can have all this stuff on the boat before dawn."

"Then we sail home, right?" Shane said.

"No. There's natives on this island. I've been at sea without a woman for more than a week. I feel like having me some island girls. When we're done loading, we'll see what we can rustle up in the way of enforced R-and-R. Everybody with me on that?"

Everybody was. Except Shane Billiken. He volunteered to stay with the treasure. His offer was accepted.

The Master of Sinanju sat in the courtyard of the High Moo's palace. He faced the east, his eyes closed. The rising sun warmed his parchment countenance. Sea breezes toyed with the wisps of hair that decorated his wise face. He was transcending with the sun, an old Sinanju custom.

When he had finished meditating, he laid his hands upon his knees and arose like a straightening sunflower. Remo sauntered up from the jungle. He carried something black and shiny in one hand.

"I have decided," Chiun said gravely. "We will leave Moo today. My heart is heavy, but my mind is clear."

"Don't say your good-byes just yet," Remo said evenly. "We have problems."

"I absolve us of any problems associated with the House of Moo. It has sunk into evil ways."

"Not them. I was out for a walk and I found these." Remo held up a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. "Elvis is on this island," he said.

"Nonsense," Chiun snapped. "Elvis is dead. Or living in Minnesota. Reports vary."

"Not Elvis Presley. Our old pal Shane Billiken."

"Oh, him," Chiun said, waving disrnissively. "A mere annoyance."

"Maybe, but there's a ship outside the lagoon and it's crawling with jungle fatigues. And they're armed to the gills. "

"Our ship is safe?" Chiun demanded.

"So far. But the news gets worse. I happened to walk by the ol' treasure stump. It's been emptied."

"My coins!" Chiun squeaked.

Remo nodded grimly. "Everybody's coins. And I tracked bootprints leading down to the lagoon. The coins must be on that boat."

"They will rue this day," Chiun cried, shaking a tiny fist.

"Why should they be any different than us?" Remo asked rhetorically.

Together the Master of Sinanju and his pupil descended from the lofty summit of Moo. Chiun was a driving storm cloud in an azure kimono. His chin jutted forward. He scorned the treacherous path to the shore and instead took the direct approach. Branches and mangrove thickets were crushed from his path.

"Where are the peasants?" Chiun asked at one point. "I do not see them at their toil."

"While you were transcending with the sun, I had a little talk with them about labor-management relations."

"Be good enough to speak English, not American."

"They're on a sit-down strike on the back part of the island. They won't stand up until the High Moo makes certain concessions. I've been appointed strike leader."

"You are poisoning their minds with foolish notions, Remo," Chiun scolded. "These people need their High Moo. "

"The High Moo needs them, you mean. Uh-uh. After today, things are going to be different. Hold it," Remo said suddenly.

Remo and Chiun froze. Down below, white men were running in and out of the mines, trailing lengths of wire. Others hunkered down in the mangroves, confident they were invisible in their fatigues.

"I count five on land," Remo said. "Yes, five. Let us cut their number."

"Hold on," Remo said. "'They're up to something in the mines."

"Not for very long," Chiun vowed.

Dirk Edwards waited until the last man was out of the mines.

"Okay, everybody get down," he said as he lifted his clenched fist to signal the men with the detonators to be ready.

"Remember," he said, "when they blow, it will bring the natives out where we can pick them off. Just shoot the males. We can handle the women easy. Maybe we'll get lucky and dislodge same of whatever they're mining, too."

And then he brought his fist down and twisted the handle of his own detonator.

The ground lifted under Remo and Chiun's feet. They reacted instantly, leaping into the treetops with the graceful alacrity of gazelles. The palms shook like dust mops in angry hands. They began toppling. The ground beneath collapsed like the sand at the top of an hourglass pouring down.

"The whole slope is crumbling!" Remo shouted.

"Higher ground," Chiun called. He leapt into the next tree, Remo following. They swung from tree to tree as the whole slope seemed to cave to behind them. Remo paused long enough to look back. The sheer western face of Moo, which was riddled with mines and tunnels, was falling like an avalanche. Instead of cascading snows, it was a nightmare of soil and foliage and palms sliding into the sea. The roar of moving earth was like a freight train.

Dirk Edwards saw that he had miscalculated. He called retreat.

"Every fucker for himself!"

They broke for the beach. They splashed into the surf ahead of a tidal wave of soil and stones. Some abandoned their weapons as they swam for the ship.

Belowdeck on the New Age Hope, Shane Billiken was happily counting coins.

"Seventy-seven ... seventy-eight ... seventy-"

The concussion sent the kerosene lamps gyrating in their gimbals. Shane plunged up the companionway. The two men on watch, Gus and Miles, were at the rail pointing toward Moo, their mouths hanging open in stupefaction.

It looked as if the entire island was coming down. Birds flew into the air. Shane saw a scampering monkey buried alive. A faint dust cloud lifted and kept on rising, and Shane realized it was the insects of Moo, fleeing the collapse of land.

"Where are they? Can you see them?" Miles shouted hoarsely.

"No. Wait! There in the water. They're swimming for it. "

Shane saw Dirk Edwards stroking like mad, the others not far behind. One slow swimmer was caught by the sliding wall of soil. He went under a bubbling mixture of newly created mud.

Shane's mind crystallized instantly. The treasure was below. The others were in the water. And he was alone on deck with only two men.

He looked around and spotted an assault rifle leaning beside the mainmast. He tiptoed back and took it in his sweaty hands. His thumb squeezed off the safety and he crept forward.

He shot Gus first. He shot him point-blank in the back of the head, scattering his face across the water. Miles whirled and Shane riddled his chest. Miles staggered back. His mouth gulped like a beached fish's.

While Miles teetered against the rail. Shane sent a foot into his caved-in chest. He went overboard, Shane then hoisted Gus's carcass over the side.

Within what seemed like only seconds, the water was full of churning sharks. They attacked like hungry dogs, turning the water pinkish-white.

Shane called down encouragement to the sharks. "Hey, do what you love!" He started to raise anchor and then took the wheel. He kicked both engines to life. The schooner dug in and raced away.

Shane Billiken was very pleased with himself. He didn't feel like vomiting in the least. In fact, he felt hungry. He decided that once he had cleared the island, he would go below for a good fistful of Limburger, and maybe finish counting his coins.

Chapter 38

The roaring, rumbling, snapping, and splintering sounds began to subside at last.

Remo and Chiun dropped from the shivering trees to the ground on the summit of Moo. They ran to the Royal Palace. Moovians were milling about the palace, their voices high and plaintive.

"So much for my strike," Remo muttered. He gazed back to the lagoon. "Looks like Elvis is taking a powder." The ship was heading for open water. But down in the lagoon, whose deep blue water was turning slowly milk chocolate, tiny figures floundered. They were swimming away from a spot of water that churned white and pink.

"Sharks," Chiun said. "Those men must return to land."

"We better clean them out before they get organized. They'll be after the junk next."

"Yes." Chiun turned to the milling Moovians. "Never fear," he cried. "We will deal ruthlessly with these interlopers. Inform the High Moo that the Master of Sinanju will not let this atrocity go unpunished."

"I thought you'd gotten over your High Moo worship," Remo said bitterly as they raced down the loosened and tangled western slope.

"We have not taken our leave yet."

There was no white beach there anymore. Just a soaking apron of mud. The moisture was creeping upward. The soil, made heavy by seawater, fell in occasional mudslides.

Dirk Edwards and his men crawled onto this mud, carrying their weapons. They were met by two resolute figures. Remo and Chiun.

Dirk took one look and growled out a low order. "Waste them."

The order was easier given than carried out. Dirk raised his AK-47 and got off a short snarling burst at the white man. He peered past the thinning gunsmoke and the white man was running toward him, dead-on. He pulled the tape-doubled clip out and inserted the other end. He tried single shots, but the white man zig-zagged between the shots somehow. Dirk plucked out a hand grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth, and let fly.

The white guy stopped, looked up at the descending object. Dirk's wolfish grin wreathed his muddy features. It died when the white man casually caught the grenade like a pop fly ball and tossed it back in Dirk's shocked face.

Dirk had no place to run. He burrowed into the mud like a clam. He stuck his fingers in his ears to ward off concussion damage. The explosion was muffled. When it subsided, Dirk stuck his head out. Smearing the mud from his eyes, he looked around.

His men were deploying frantically. They fired every which way; like amateurs. What the hell was wrong with them?

Then he saw. The old guy. The gook. He was systematically taking them out with what looked like kung-fu moves, but were not. The old man vented no heart-freezing cries. His punches and kicks were not swift and flamboyant. They were more graceful. There was an economy of movement that Dirk Edwards have never seen before. It was too pure for kung-fu, he told himself. And the thought surprised him. He had great respect for kung-fu.

The white guy was moving in and out of the tangles of uprooted palms. Dirk had trouble spotting him even though his bare white chest should have been a dead giveaway. He was like a ghost.

One of his men slunk past a clump of bushes and suddenly the white guy was behind him. He came out of nowhere, chopped once at the back of the neck, and Dirk didn't have to hear the ugly crunching noise to know he had lost another man. The weird angle of his neck as he fell told him that.

The white guy moved on.

Dirk scrambled out of the mud. He went from body to body, collecting plastic explosive charges. He still had a detonator strapped to his belt. He felt his pockets. Yeah, a few blasting caps too. He circled away from the fighting-it was more like a massacre than a fight-until he came to open beach. He clambered up the hilly island. There were other mines here too. He found one as close to the damaged western slope as he dared go and crawled in.

In a matter of moments he had planted a charge. He fixed the rest in other strategic places, trailing wire back to the shelter of a coral outcropping. He hooked the wires to the detonator.

"So long, suckers!" he shouted, and twisted the plunger. Gouts of fiery soil jumped into the air. The ground shuddered. Dirk grinned. He waited for the shuddering to subside. Strangely, it kept on going. Like an echo chamber. Puzzled, Dirk peered over the outcropping.

What he saw made his blood run cold. The island was coming down like a sandpile. Not just the part he had blasted. All of it. Water came pouring out of the mines. High above, on the summit, the stone building was sinking as if into quicksand.

A wail rose from the summit. Screams. Terrible screams of terror. But Dirk Edwards didn't hear the screams. His own were too loud.

A wave of loose earth was coming at him and he plunged for the blue water.

Chiun realized it first.

"Moo is falling into the sea."

"Can't be," Remo said hotly. He clutched a mercenary in his hands. He waved his long fingernails before the man's face and suddenly it looked like the pink side of a watermelon rind.

"These nails are good for something, at least," Remo said, dropping the body.

"Lo!" Chiun pointed upward.

"Christ," Remo said anxiously. "What do we do?"

"The junk. Come."

Remo hesitated. The ground under his feet was separating like cornmeal. "We can't abandon everyone," he shouted.

"And we will not. We will bring the junk closer to land. It is their only hope. And ours."

"I'm with you," Remo said quickly.

Together they plunged into the brown water. They struck out for the junk, taking care to swim wide of the feeding frenzy of hammerheads.

Remo spotted another swimmer angling across their bearing. He was also making for the junk.

"He's mine," Remo called, pointing him out.

"I will ready the ship," Chiun said.

Remo slipped under the surface. He found himself once again in a fantasy world of multihued coral. Old Moo. He homed in on Dirk Edwards' kicking feet. Remo darted for them like a dolphin.

Remo came up from below. He pulled Dirk Edwards down by the ankles. Then he grabbed his throat, holding him underwater. Remo gave Dirk just enough time to see the wrath on his face before he shattered his shoulder joints.

Dirk Edward's face registered surprise when he found that his arms would not move. They hung limp. Stupid arms. He needed them to swim with. He kicked, but suddenly there was pain in his hips.

He looked down and saw that he no longer had hips. His pelvis felt mushy, no longer solid. And his legs hung straight down like cooked noodles.

Then he was sinking, down, down into a beautiful world of coral reefs. He looked to see where he would land, and there was a gap in the reef below. He slipping down through it and all became black.

At first Dirk couldn't tell if he was dead or in some kind of dark hollow place. He decided he was dead, and further decided it didn't feel so bad after all. Then his eyes became accustomed to the dim light and he saw that he was surrounded by shelf upon shelf of dead people, all in big jars like bugs in specimen bottles.

The shelves shook, causing the jugs to wobble and topple. They broke, unleashing their contents in a dark red cloud like blood. Dead eyes stared at him accusingly and Dirk suddenly wondered if they were really dead. Some of them seemed to be pointed at him.

Dirk screamed then. His lungs emptied and the breathing reflex that could not be denied demanded that he inhale. He swallowed the water into his mouth and stomach and lungs. Odd, it tasted like wine.

He was dead when he floated down to solid ground, settling on a tiled floor like a discarded marionette.

Remo clambered up the Jonah Ark's hull and over the rail. Chiun had the foresail down. The wind filled it. "Take the tiller," the Master of Sinanju snapped.

Remo leaned into the tiller, and the junk came about slowly. He cursed its slow response time. The bow lined up on the shrinking island of Moo.

It was an incredible sight. Like a sand castle drying in the sun, Moo simply crumbled. The Royal Palace was sinking as the supporting ground disintegrated.

All around Moo, the water was turning to brownishblack mud.

"Can't we move faster?" Remo cried.

"The wind is not with us," Cliiun returned. He stood on the bow, his feet apart, his back stiff.

"How can it just sink like that?" Remo moaned.

"It is not. Use your eyes, not your heart to see, Remo." Moo was not sinking. It was spreading out. It lost height.

It lost shape. With sick eyes Remo saw tiny figures being pulled under the shifting porous volcanic soil. It was like dry quicksand. Others climbed palms and rode them down to the water. The boles snapped apart with thunderous splinterings. Remo lost sight of every tiny figure he picked out.

The junk wallowed closer. Remo's eyes searched the water for survivors. He saw none. He pushed at the tiller, sending the boat around.

"Might be some survivors on the other side," he called. Chiun said nothing in reply. Remo couldn't see his face. He wondered what thoughts were going through the Master of Sinanju's mind as he watched an important link to Sinanju's past crumble.

On the far end of the island, the soil was spreading even further into the water. The summit of Moo was barely ten feet above sea level now. And still it shifted and spread. It was all going to go.

"There!" Chiun cried. "I see the High Moo."

Remo peered past the rakish sails. He spotted the High Moo splashing helplessly in the water. His arms waved at them. He called for them to rescue him.

"Hurry, Remo," Chiun called back. He went to the rail.

"I can't get out and push this thing," Remo snapped back.

Then other figures appeared in the water. They surrounded the High Moo. At first Remo feared they were sharks. But they were Moovians. They grabbed at the High Moo, pulling at his face and hair and arms. They were beating on him, dragging him down with them.

They pulled him below the brown water, which was turning chlorophyll green from crushed vegetation. Bubbles marked the spot where the High Moo disappeared. One head surfaced after a while. A girl's. Remo thought he recognized her although her wet hair was plastered to her face. It was the Low Moo.

"Hold on," he called in Moovian.

"Nah," the Low Moo called back. "I am the last. All the others have perished. There are no more. Go away. Moo is no more. I have no subjects, no throne. There is no place for one such as I in your world. I no longer wish to live. Go, Remo, but never forget us."

"No chance," Remo said, diving into the water.

He set out for the Low Moo, but she saw his intentions and jacknifed under the water. Remo slipped down after her. He followed the trail of air bubbles that spilled from her open mouth. She wasn't even trying to hold her breath. She went as limp as a starfish and Remo knew before he reached her that she was gone.

He pulled her to the surface and tried desperately to squeeze the water from her lungs. He touched his lips to hers, and puffed steady breaths into them. "Come on, come on," he urged.

Her lips remained cold, her eyes closed. Reluctantly Remo let her go. The Low Moo floated away, her face brown and composed and nearly innocent.

Remo fought back the burning sensation in his eyes as he climbed aboard the junk. He couldn't understand why he should care that the cruel Low Mo had perished. He took the tiller, sending the junk around for another circuit of the island.

There were few bodies. They floated facedown, many of them.

The hammerhead sharks closed in.

"Shouldn't we stop them?" Remo asked. Chiun kept his back to him.

"No," Chiun-said distantly. "It is the way of the sea."

"That was the Low Moo I tried to rescue back there, you know."

"So? "

"I know it sounds strange, but I wish I could have saved her."

"Why?" Chiun asked in a cold voice. "If we took her back to America, she would only try to eat you again."

"Hey," Remo said angrily. He stormed up to Chiun and spun him around. "That was uncalled-for."

But then he saw the tears rilling down Chiun's lined cheeks and he swallowed.

"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly.

"History had repeated itself," Chiun said slowly. "Greed destroyed Old Moo, and greed has claimed what had survived almost five thousand years."

"Greed, nothing. It was those killers and their explosives."

"No, my son. Mere explosives would not have done all this. Old Moo sank because the High Moos of those days also forced their people to mine every foot of land in search of coin metal. Eventually they undermined the very earth, and the seas claimed Old Moo. Now the greedy sea has drunk the last of Moo, and the last poor Moovian. "

As they watched, the final patch of dry ground grew dark with moisture and soon it was indistinguishable from the ugly brown of the sea.

Steam rose in mighty tendrils from the place where Moo had been.

"Behold, Remo. Do you see those mighty arms reaching up to the very sky?"

"Yeah. Steam from the hot jungle growth. So what?"

"They only appear to be steam. For those are the very tentacles of Ru-Taki-Nuhu itself, holding up the sky."

"Bull," said Remo. But he stared into the swirling steam uncertainly. Did he see suckers?

Chapter 39

It was four days later. The mouth-watering smell of hot egg-lemon soup woke Remo Williams. He jumped out of his bunk and made his way to the junk's galley, where he found the Master of Sinanju hovering over the galley stove.

"Do I smell my favorite soup?" he asked brightly.

"You do," replied Chiun in a happy voice. He turned, a steaming wooden bowl in his hands.

At the sight of Remo's face, Chiun let out a screech. "Aiiee!" he cried.

"Yeah, I know," Remo said, holding up his hands. His nails were long and curved. "Aren't they gross?"'

"Your nails are perfect. It is your hair. And beard."

"Huh?"

"They are a sickly yellow." Chiun looked into the bowl. His eyes narrowed. His lips thinned. "Lemon yellow." He marched to an open porthole and emptied the bowl's contents overboard.

"My breakfast!" Remo cried.

"No more egg-lemon soup for you," Chiun muttered angrily as he dumped the remaining potful after the bowl. "It has had an unforeseen effect upon your ridiculous white consitution."

"Unforeseen?" Remo folded his arms. He tapped a foot impatiently. "Chiun, I think you have some explaining to do." He was looking at his fingernails.

Chapter 40

Dr. Harold W. Smith noticed the shiny blue Buick in the next-door driveway when he pulled into his own. His lips thinned. They were home, his mysterious neighbors. That changed everything.

As he put his house key in the front door, the portable phone in his briefcase buzzed. Perhaps it was Remo calling, Smith thought, his heart racing. He fumbled the door open.

Smith plunged into his living room. Mrs. Smith was sitting in an overstuffed chair, facing an identical highbacked chair.

"Oh, Harold, I'm so glad you're home," Mrs. Smith gushed excitedly. "I'd like you to meet-"

"One moment, please," Smith said curtly. "I have some phone calls to make." And he hurried into the den, leaving his wife to mutter apologies to her guest.

"He's not like that, really. It's just that he's been so overworked."

"I recognized him as a man of responsibility," the other voice said gravely. "And have I told you that you brew excellent tea?"

Smith opened the briefcase at his desk. He lifted the receiver.

"Yes?" he said crisply.

"Smitty? Remo here."

"Remo!" Smith bit out. "Where have you been? Never mind. That's not important now. We have a crisis."

"I'll be right over."

"No, I'm not at Folcroft. I'm home."

"I know. I saw you drive up."

"You did? You're in the neighborhood? Wonderful. Listen carefully: unknown agents have bought the house next door to mine. There's something very wrong there. I don't have time to explain the details, but I want you to look into this. Find out who they are and what they're up to. I believe that at the very least, they're storing munitions over there. The apparent leader is a man who calls himself James Churchward."

"I'm already on top of it, Smitty."

Smith gulped. He was so relieved that his normally ashen face flushed with perspiration. "You are?"

"Look out your window," Remo suggested.

Smith hesitated. Carrying the briefcase awkwardly, he moved over to the window. It faced the house next door. Smith peered through the chintz curtains.

Framed in the opposite window, Smith saw a blond man with a full golden beard. He was holding a telephone receiver to his face. His lips moved. The words they mouthed were reproduced in Smith's unbelieving ear.

"Hi, neighbor," Remo's voice chirped. "Come on over."

"Stay right there," Smith hissed. He slipped out the back door and crept to the rear of the other house. He knocked gingerly. The door opened.

"Don't mind the place," Remo said casually. "Chiun and I are still working on it."

Smith walked in on leaden feet. His face drained of color. Remo led him to the living room, which was bare except for a projection TV and two reed sitting mats. In the middle of the room stood a huge cardboard container.

"Grab a piece of floor, Smitty. I'll be just a minute. This arrived today. It was the first thing I bought after I closed on the house. I never thought I'd have an urgent use for it." Smith's eyes focused slowly.

"Your hair," he croaked. "That beard."

Remo touched his blond head. "One of Chiun's little schemes gone wrong," he said as he attacked the cardboard box with curved talonlike fingers.

"Your nails."

"Exhibit B," Remo said. The box lay in strips, exposing a tractor lawn mower. Remo pushed it over on its side, revealing sharp rotary steel blades. He began filing his nails on the sharpest blade. It sounded like two steel files rasping one another. Remo talked as he worked.

"I have to admit Chiun fooled me this time. I thought the soup was a special treat. You know, a celebration because we'd finally bought a house."

"This is your house," Smith said hoarsely.

"Yup. We answered an ad. Hey, imagine our surprise when we found out it was next door to yours." A fingernail dropped to the floor. Remo started to work on the next one.

"Imagine . . ." Smith's eyes were sick. He looked away, and through an open door he saw stacks of brass-bound lacquered boxes in the next room. They were festooned with old-fashioned padlocks. Chiun's steamer trunks. They fit Brunt's description perfectly. Smith didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So he swallowed uncomfortably.

"Naturally," Remo was saying, "I objected at first. But Chiun convinced me. He said the emperor's assassin should dwell no more than twenty cubits from his emperor. I didn't measure, but I guess we've got twenty cubits between us. Besides, we'd been living at Folcroft for over a year now, so I figured security wouldn't suffer."

"No. But I have. Do you have any idea what I've been going through for the last two weeks?"

"No," Remo said as he went to work on his other hand, "but I can guarantee you it's nothing compared to what Chiun and I have experienced. So do me the favor of not telling me your story and I'll return it. Okay?"

"Who is James Churchward?" Smith wanted to know. His hands hung limply.

"That's me. Sorta. It's one of the aliases you gave me. I used it when I bought this place. Don't tell me you forgot?"

"Oh, my God," said Smith. "No wonder I recognized the name. No wonder the computers couldn't access those files. I was fighting my own rebuff programs." He sank to the floor and took his head in his hands. He pulled at his gray hair. "I never thought to check your alias file. I never dreamed you were connected to this."

"Join the human race," Remo said when the last dead fingernail clipping clicked to the floor. "Now you know you're not perfect."

"Where is Chiun?" Smith asked hollowly.

"Next door. Paying a courtesy call on Mrs. Smith." Smith's head shot up.

"My wife?"

"Yeah, she recognized us from that time we met at Folcroft. She invited us over to tea, but I had my manicure to do. To tell you the truth, I think the only reason Chiun accepted was that he knows I'm still pissed at him over the egg-lemon trick."

"Egg-lemon?" Smith's voice was drained of emotion.

"Yeah, he's been feeding me egg-lemon soup for two weeks now. It's mostly lemon, but it's got eggshell bits in it. I've been drinking it by the gallon, little dreaming that the eggshells were making my nails grow faster and harder. You know how Chiun's always on my case to grow mine like his. But the joke turned out to be on him. The stuff turned my hair yellow. It freaked Chiun out. He says a true Master of Sinanju should not go around looking like a fuzzy lemon. And all the time I was on Moo, I thought the soft bone knives were the problem. These nails are ridiculous. They couldn't have been cut with anything less than tempered steel."

"Moo?"

Remo's hands shot up. "Forget I mentioned it. I'm just happy to be home. My roots are coming up brown again, so I figure I'll be completely normal in a week or two. Oh, well, live and learn. It could have been worse."

"How so?"

"It could have been egg-lime soup." Remo grinned, brushing at his hair.

When Smith didn't join in his laughter, Remo remarked, "You're aging just like vinegar, Smitty."

"I feel as if I've aged a year since I saw you last."

"Better let me help you to your feet," Remo said solicitously.

Dr. Harold W. Smith allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He winced at the pain in his arthritic knee.

The Master of Sinanju came in through the front door, and at the sight of Smith, he bowed formally.

"Greetings of the day, O tolerant Harold. I have been conversing with the Empress Maude. She is a sterling woman, truly worthy of one such as you."

"You don't have to lay it on too thick," Remo said. "He's not as upset as you expected."

"I am laying nothing on, thick or thin," Chiun protested. "I am merely offering up my thanks now that we will be neighbors with Emperor Smith. I trust while Remo and I were taking our much-overdue and thankfully received vacation, no villains troubled your kingdom?"

"You are supposed to check in every day, if you are not in a prearranged location," Smith pointed out sternly.

"Exactly what I told that innkeeper," Chiun said quickly. "And you should have been there to witness the tonguelashing I gave him. Do you know that scoundrel did not have a single working telephone?"

"I'm going home now," Smith said, shaking his head. "I do not feel well."

"A wise decision," Chiun said. "You look pale-but at least you are not a sickly yellow." Chiun shot Remo a distasteful glance. Remo stuck his tongue out at him.

After Smith had gone, Remo showed his spread fingers. "Notice anything?"

"Yes," Chiun said. "You have maimed yourself. Tonight I will lie awake, deprived of sleep, wondering what will be next. A ring in your nose? Tattoos?"

"Actually, my next goal in life is duck in orange sauce. I never thought I'd say this, but after all that soup, I'm really looking forward to duck. "

"You may look forward to it, but we have unfinished business. "

"Billiken?"

"He has the treasure of Moo. Including Sinanju's rightful share. He must not be allowed to go unpunished or word will get out that Sinanju has lost its mighty vigilance. Then the vultures will circle my village and the treasure of Sinanju will be prey to any fool who covets it. For it is our reputation that does most of our work for us. Otherwise we could not enjoy this splendid home, but instead be forced to dwell forever in the village of Sinanju, safeguarding our property. Such a day will never dawn while I am reigning Master. If it happens on your watch, it will be on your head, but as long as I live-"

"Stow the lecture," Remo said. "I'll be with you as soon as I get rid of these toenails and shave."

"I cannot bear to look," Chiun said, turning his back as Remo tried to figure out a safe way to trim his toenails with a lawn mower.

Chapter 41

The British Museum in London wouldn't accept Shane Billiken's call.

He got through to the Smithsonian, but when the curator realized who he was, he hung up.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston was no better. They transferred Shane Billiken to their public-relations staff, and Shane hung up on them.

"What's wrong with people?" Shane demanded, slamming down the receiver. He was in the living room of his Malibu home. Stacks of Moovian coins surrounded him. Shane had counted them seven times, each time coming up with a different total. The exact number didn't matter. He was rich. If only someone would believe his story.

Frustrated, Shane riffled through the mail that had come while he was away. There was a postcard from Glinda. She was shacked up with a rock singer in Rio. He threw the card away. The bank statement said he was overdrawn by nearly six hundred dollars. And the mortgage on the house was due in a few days. Although surrounded by the entire wealth of the vanished Moovian empire, Shane Billiken was flat, dead, sucking-wind broke.

"No problem," he said suddenly snapping his fingers. He grabbed the Yellow Pages and looked up the listing for coin dealers. There was one in Beverly Hills. They'd know how to treat him. He picked out a dozen coins and piled into his Ferrari.

"But you don't understand," Shane was explaining heatedly to the proprietor not twenty minutes later. "These are rare ancient coins. From Mu. Don't tell me you never heard of Mu. It was a great continent that existed before the dawn of time. It sank. But not all of it. A little bit of high ground stuck up. Except that it sank too. Recently. Last week, as a matter of fact. And before it went, I rescued these coins. There aren't any more left. I got them all."

"Sank?" asked the coin dealer.

"Yes!"

"Twice?"

"Yes! That's it. You've seized the concept perfectly. You must be highly evolved to catch on so quickly. Congratulations. Don't ever change."

"But you're willing to sell them to me, instead of to the Smithsonian?"

"The Smithsonian people are nimnoids, and I've got a minor short-term cash-flow thing going on right now. I've got more of these coins. Tons. Otherwise I wouldn't be making you this truly excellent deal. So how much?"

"I see," said the coin dealer. "Tell me something. I thought I recognized you when you walked in. Haven't I seen you on TV?"

"That's right!" Shane Billiken said eagerly.

"On the Donahue show. You're Shane Billiken."

Shane Billiken's hairy chest puffed up. His mood amulet turned from orange to blue.

"That's right."

"The New Age guru?"

"Exactly!" Shane Billiken said. He fairly shouted it.

"The one who's always talking about Atlantis and Nirvana and other mythical places?"

Shane's chest deflated. His face fell. He seemed to shrink.

"That was different. Mu is real. Or it was."

"But it sank."

"Well, yes."

"So there's no proof?"

Shane pounded the glass counter. "The coins! The coiris are your proof. Some of them are thousands of years old. Probably. "

"They look pretty new to me. Besides, why should I believe you now when I didn't believe in your Atlantean high priestess, what was her name again?"

"Princess Shastra," Shane said in an injured tone. "She was my Soul Mate."

"Is that so?" said the coin dealer. "But when I was in high school, she was my classmate. Only then she called herself Glinda Thirp and her tits were real."

Shane Billiken's face slowly turned gray.

"What will you give me for the metal content?" he asked in a small voice.

"Oh, about six cents, depending on weight."

"You robber. These are pure silver. Maybe platinum." The coin dealer shook his head soberly.

"Tin," he said firmly. "Tin? It can't be."

" 'Fraid so."

"Tin," Shane BilIiken said dully. "Tin." Slowly, carefully he swept the coins back into a paper bag. His eyes were wounded. His lips moved soundlessly. His mood medallion slowly turned from blue to black.

He walked out of the coin shop, his tread as heavy as a deep-sea diver's walking in lead boots.

The coin dealer watched him go. He wondered what Shane Billiken meant as he went out the door. He kept muttering one thing over and over:

"Tin. I don't believe it. I shipped tin again."

When Shane Billiken returned home, the unpaid mortgage loomed suddenly larger than a mountain. It was all gone. He had no hope left. He couldn't summon up a positive affirmation to save his life.

He noticed the stack of newspapers that had come while he was away, Woodenly he went through them one by one, page by page.

His eyes bugged behind his sunglasses when he came to the entertainment section of the previous day's paper. The woods were full of Roy Orbison impersonators. There was a Roy Sorbison, a Roy Orb-Son, a Sun-Ray Orison, a Ray-Ban Bisonor and many others. Their similar puffy features, masked by identical sunglasses, stared out at him mockingly. Every ad had "Sold Out" printed over it in funeral-black letters. With a sick clutching in the pit of his stomach, Shane Billiken lifted his thumb and saw that there was even one thief who called himself Roy Orbit Sun. And he was playing in the Hollywood Bowl.

"No! No! No!" Shane Billiken moaned, not noticing that he was making a negative affirmation. He tore through the stack of papers, looking for the item he had for years dreamed of reading, but which he now dreaded. He found it on page one of a week-old paper:

POP BALLADEER ROY ORBISON, DEAD AT 52

The great Orbison had passed away of a massive heart attack a week ago Tuesday; while Shane was at sea.

As he collapsed in his beanbag chair, the terrible irony of it descended on Shane Billiken like an Egyptian curse. His window of opportunity was lost. He couldn't compete with all those other Roy Orbison clones. It was booming industry now.

Desperately Shane closed his eyes. There was one last hope, one last shot to take. He would employ a technique he described in The Elbow of Enlightenment as "Uncreating the Reality."

"It never happened, it never happened," he chanted, mantra-like. "Roy's alive, he really is. I never left home. I never left home. Everything is fine. Everything is cool. Everything is fine. Everything is cool."

Shane's tense expression softened. He felt better already. Meditation had always worked for him. Soon, he would open his eyes and all would be well. Was there anything else he should wish for, he wondered, now that the Wheel of Destiny was under his control. Oh, yes.

"Glinda's back, too," he murmured. "And she's naked. All is well, all is good. There's no place like home. There's no place like home," he added, thinking why not? It had worked for Judy Garland.

But when he opened his eyes, the repeating images of Roy Orbison impersonators stared back at him like a blind army, and Roy the Boy was still dead. He searched the house for Glinda, but she was nowhere to be found, either.

Shane Billiken, high priest of positivity, felt very, very negative.

And so Shane Billiken piled the coins of Moo into the reed boat which he had repaired with Krazy Glue and shoved it into the surf behind his home. He placed his favorite guitar in the bow next to a bottle of gasoline siphoned from his Ferrari. He pushed off.

When the boat was afloat, he clambered aboard. The sun was setting, its twin reflection showed on his RayBans. It was a cool, sweet night. The stars were right.

Shane had done his horoscope. It had assured him that it would be a good night to die. Either that, or he had cancer. It was hard to say. His tears dripped all over the chart, making the ink run.

Shane waited until he was far out to sea before he shook the gasoline all throughout the boat. He poured the remainder over his head. Then he applied flame from his Zippo lighter to the stern. It caught slowly because the boat was already wet.

Then, taking up his guitar, he began to sing what had become the theme song of his life in a pain-choked voice. "It's oooooovvvvvveeeeeerrrrrr," he wailed.

He faced the setting sun, his back to the wavering yellow flames. Shane Billiken was going out like a Viking, a song on his lips. He wondered if he had been a Viking in a past life. Or maybe he would become a Viking in the next. Was it possible to be reincarnated into the past? Shane hadn't studied that, but he hoped all knowledge would soon be revealed to him. He had earned it.

He wondered what was taking the flames so long to reach him. And why did his feet feel so wet? He looked down.

The boat was sinking. Strange long fingernails were piercing the bottom. They withdrew.

"Damn!" he said. The flames hissed as seawater quenched them. In seconds he was floating in a gasoline slick, clutching his Ovation guitar like a life preserver.

A head popped up beside him. "Remember us?" Remo asked.

"You have my treasure," Chiun said. He surfaced on the other side. His eyes were angry and narrow.

"Hey, you can't do this. This is my funeral. I'm going to die. And you can't stop it. My horoscope foretold this."

"Yes," Chiun said gravely. "You will die, but for your base temerity, you will not die the death you prefer, but the one I choose for you. For you have been the instrument of great tragedy."

"You got me wrong. It wasn't me that wrecked that island. It was those mercenaries. Talk to them. I'm just a leaf in the karmic wind."

"No," Chiun said. "You will talk to them for me. I wish you to deliver a message."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"No one trifles with the possessions of the House of Sinanju."

And suddenly the old Oriental's hand was in Shane's face, and he never heard his Ray-Bans crack and never felt the bone chip fly back from the bridge of his nose all the way through his brain and out the back of his skull. He just sank to the bottom, where he became one with the food chain.

The Master of Sinanju emerged from the surf, his arms full of coins.

"Going back for more'?" Remo asked, wringing seawater out of his pant legs.

"No. This is the amount we earned. The remainder do not matter."

"Be a shame to leave the rest out there with Billiken."

"Pah!" Chiun spat. "They are worthless."

"What do you mean, worthless? They're pure silver. Aren't they?"

Chiun shook his wise head. "Impure tin. It is not the metal that makes Moovian coins so valuable. It is that they are Moovian."

"Then why bother with your share? And why kill Billiken over it?"

"Because, worthless or not, these are the property of Sinanju. Just because others do not treasure it does not mean that we do not. Besides," Chiun added, "These have sentimental value. And as far as any know, they are the only Moovian coins left. The fewer there are, the more valuable they will be. Who knows, one day America might sink and take with it all its precious metal. Even tin might become valuable then."

"Don't hold your breath," Remo said, plunging back into the surf.

"Where are you going?"

"To salvage a couple more coins," Remo called back. "I'm famished. Maybe I can convince some unsuspecting restaurant owner to take them in trade for an order of duck with orange sauce."