Holy Terror

Reverend Titus Powell travels from Jason, Georgia, to Patna to find Joleen Snowy, but she has joined the Divine Bliss Mission and refuses to leave. Maharaji Gupta Mahesh Dor subjects Powell to a coercive program of sex, drugs and persuasion; Powell resists and dies. The Patna prophecy that harm to holy men brings calamity helps shield the mission from officials after an earthquake. CURE sends Remo Williams and Chiun to investigate a reported American “big thing.” At a New Mexico motel Chiun kills an armed man called Clete; Smith says a CURE defector also used Clete as a hiding name, though the narrative does not say whether they are the same.

A sheriff working for Dor dies during Chiun’s questioning. In San Diego, Remo and Chiun encounter the mission’s recruiters and learn the event is at Kezar Stadium. Chiun discovers Ilhibad guards have left their mountain home and drives them back. In the deserted Patna compound Remo finds a dead American and Joleen, who tells him Dor has gone to California. In New Orleans, stockbroker Ferdinand De Chef Hunt learns that his maternal family’s hereditary skill with thrown objects can be used as a weapon. His employers Winthrop Dalton and V. Rodefer Harrow persuade him to join Dor’s movement; Dor hires him to kill Remo and Chiun.

Smith discovers that Dor has leased Kezar Stadium and that CURE’s secrecy may have been compromised. In San Francisco, Remo and Chiun reconnect with Joleen at a local mission run by Gasphali Krishna, actually Irving Rosenblatt, who admits he faked conversion and knows little about Dor’s plan. Hunt attacks Remo at a church carnival with metal plates and cuts a cable on a ride carrying Chiun and Joleen; Chiun holds the car together until it can be stopped. Elton Snowy arrives with a posse to retrieve Joleen and later buys explosives and a gun. CIA deputy director Cletis Larribee, a Baptist lay preacher, is a willing participant in Dor’s planned televised event, where he is to expose state secrets and endorse the Blissful Master.

At Kezar, Remo contains Snowy’s bomb in Larribee’s briefcase. Hunt attacks with stones; he kills a guard, and Remo kills Hunt. Remo kills Dalton and Harrow and pressures Larribee not to reveal secrets. Larribee instead sings “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”; Dor’s broadcast collapses and he leaves the country. Snowy reunites with Joleen but knocks her unconscious when she says she loves Chiun. Smith later reports Larribee died in a car explosion, while the apparent CURE security leak was caused by a low-level clerk. The novel does not connect the explosion to Snowy’s bomb, which Remo had contained in Larribee’s briefcase. Chiun returns after saying he has inflicted a delayed fatal blow on Dor, and decides to stay with Remo to continue his training. Remo ends by saying he will rent a submarine for the postponed trip to Sinanju.