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Spoils of War — Hachette UK ebook edition
Hachette UK ebook edition

The DestroyerBook 451981

Spoils of War

When chaplains disappear from several Army bases and soldiers begin behaving in unsettling ways, Smith sends Remo and Chiun to investigate. Their trail leads from Fort Wheeler to the revival meetings of Reverend Artemis and a new military compound called Fort Vadassar, where an apparent religious movement is drawing deserters from across the Army.

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Artemis Thwill, an executive with violent fantasies, pushes a man from Pontusket Bridge and is later drawn by Samantha into a traveling revival scheme. He publicly campaigns against youth tackle football while preaching as Reverend Artemis; he and Samantha recruit soldiers into an Artemis cult. Remo’s dream echoes Chiun’s legend of a Western force challenging Shiva. Smith sends Remo and Chiun to investigate missing Army chaplains and a pattern of disorder followed by robotic obedience. At Fort Wheeler they find the soldiers attending Artemis’s services, where chaplain Malcolm McConnell is killed during a staged exorcism. Randy Nooner, posing as Army intelligence, claims that she is investigating the same activity; after the recruits revolt and kill officers at four bases, Remo finds Fort Wheeler massacred.

Randy’s group used Artemis’s speeches and Samantha’s drugged communion drink to make recruits suggestible, then used unarmed chaplains as their first victims to accustom them to violence. Randy and her father, Senator Osgood Nooner, falsify Army records to present Fort Vadassar as a U.S. base, direct public blame for the massacres toward the Pentagon, and attract deserters into a force meant for Quat. Nooner frames the Pentagon records clerk Joshua Miller, who is shot by a guard. Randy uses Artemis as a public martyr, but Artemis attacks Remo and accidentally falls through a window to his death; Samantha claims the death as murder for insurance.

After General Elalhassein identifies the airport and says he is going to see the sheik, Remo and Chiun travel to Quat, where they are trapped and poisoned. Randy reveals that she and her father planned to use the Quat ruler as a figurehead and take control of an army built from U.S. deserters. Chiun helps Remo survive; Rajii, father of Jola—the palace concubine who warned Remo—kills Randy and agrees to become regent after Chiun urges him to claim the office. Remo coerces Nooner into signing and calling in a confession, and Smith reports an investigation and Samantha’s custody. Remo and Chiun then return to Vadassar to stop the remaining army; after a major battle, the recruits are removed without resistance, and Smith sends the pair to Sinanju.

Sources for this summary

Characters & places

Spoilers

Full articles

Characters 25

Places 29

Organizations 15

Groups 4

People 2

Lore 5

Chapter summaries17 chapters · spoilers

  1. Chapter 1

    The chapter introduces Artemis as an Inter-Agro-Chem executive with violent fantasies and a public campaign against youth tackle football. He pushes a man from Pontusket Bridge; Artemis is initially uncertain the fall guarantees death, but the later account calls Samantha the man’s widow. Artemis assaults Samantha during their meeting; they become partners, and she proposes the God business with Artemis as its deity.

  2. Chapter 2

    Remo dreams of a dragon and a Sinanju legend concerning a Western force challenging Shiva. Chiun calls it the Dream of Death and a passage before final apprenticeship. The narration recaps Remo and CURE, while Smith reports missing chaplains at three bases and a pattern of disorder followed by robotic obedience; he plays a commander’s recording about a murdered aide and a later death ruled suicide.

  3. Chapter 3

    Fort Wheeler chaplain Malcolm McConnell learns from Bill Grimes that soldiers attend an unauthorized service led by Reverend Artemis. McConnell attends, challenges the movement, and is killed during a staged exorcism; Artemis uses the killing to enforce secrecy.

  4. Chapter 4

    The pair enter Fort Wheeler, observe soldiers in vacant or violent states, and find that Major Van Dyne denies witnessing a stabbing and suicide he had seen. Remo kills Van Dyne and fights the response team; General Arlington Montgomery agrees to report leads to Remo.

  5. Chapter 5

    Randy Nooner introduces herself as Army intelligence and tells Remo she believes recruits are killing chaplains. After she says an evangelist may be involved, Montgomery calls Remo with a warning about Vadassar and zombies. Remo returns to find a massacre of the base’s officers; he finds blood at the abandoned service site, while Randy is shown developing photographs of the massacre.

  6. Chapter 6

    Samantha and Artemis argue about their business and past murders. At Vadassar, Randy explains that recruited soldiers were drugged and exposed to Artemis’s rhetoric, producing suggestible obedience; she describes a staged revolt and says the chaplains were chosen as unarmed first victims. A Quati officer tells Artemis that a separate Vadassar army obeys General Elalhassein, and Randy kills the officer.

  7. Chapter 7

    Senator Osgood Nooner tells Joshua Miller that Fort Vadassar has operated without records and offers him a cabinet post to create files and transfer personnel. Nooner sends a false Pentagon-blame account to news organizations, then frames Miller with an unloaded pistol; a Marine guard shoots Miller.

  8. Chapter 8

    Remo and Chiun enter Fort Borgoyne among new recruits and encounter Sergeant Hayes. Remo and Chiun are sent to the hotbox after Remo tries to limit the violence; Chiun opens a wall for the other prisoners, while the pair wait. Smith arrives under a Folcroft escape ruse and takes them out to investigate the Vadassar press conference.

  9. Chapter 9

    Randy’s sedative leaves Artemis unaware that his speech presents him as a martyr. Nooner repeats a fabricated Pentagon-slaughter account before reporters at Vadassar. Remo confronts Randy, is taken away by two Quati officers, and fights them; The sabers land beside General Elalhassein, who is left screaming and is led away by his officers.

  10. Chapter 10

    Randy presents the injured Artemis as a miraculous survivor and delivers his scripted speech, which implies that the Pentagon killed chaplains and threatens him. The media and public react, and recruits desert for Vadassar. In a private room Artemis attacks Remo and dies after crashing through a window during his own failed assault; Samantha calls it murder to claim insurance.

  11. Chapter 11

    Remo and Chiun enter Randy’s house and survive an ambush. They capture General Elalhassein, who identifies the airport and says he is traveling to see the sheik. Chiun identifies the ruling House of Vadass and its connection to Quat; Remo and Chiun head for the airport to follow that lead. Elalhassein is then killed by his own troops.

  12. Chapter 12

    Remo and Chiun reach the Palace of Vadass. An unnamed serving woman, later identified as Jola, warns Remo that she was sent to weaken him and says Chiun drank poisoned tea. Archers kill Jola and wound Remo; Randy uses poison and amplified sensory attacks to torture Remo and claims Chiun is incapacitated. Remo tears out the camera and disables the speakers before a guide takes him toward the throne room.

  13. Chapter 13

    In the throne room, Randy reveals the cognitively disabled sheik and explains how she and her father planned to use Artemis, drugged recruits, falsified Army files and the media to build a Quati-controlled force. Remo is captured and sees Chiun apparently dead.

  14. Chapter 14

    Chiun helps Remo expel the poison and survives his own dose. They fight through the palace and confront Randy. Rajii reveals that Jola was his daughter and kills Randy after she orders him to kill Remo. Chiun declines the throne for himself and Remo and asks Rajii to serve as regent.

  15. Chapter 15

    Remo forces Nooner to write and sign a letter to the CIA admitting to manipulated records and several elements of the Quat/Vadassar scheme, including claims dictated by Remo. Nooner calls the CIA director while Remo threatens him; the director agrees to send a car.

  16. Chapter 16

    The pair return to Vadassar, where the recruits number about 100,000. They attack Quati officers in the dining hall, leaving at least one officer alive. That officer activates sirens and the remaining troops are ordered to kill Remo and Chiun. The pair use a moving formation to contain platoons, while Remo evades fire and captures an officer to order weapons destroyed.

  17. Chapter 17

    Tanks and vans arrive; recruits board without resistance. Smith reports the Nooner investigation and Samantha’s custody on accessory charges, pending examination of the base’s supplies. The President’s general escorts Remo and Chiun to a motel to call Smith, who redirects their promised vacation to Sinanju.

Other mentions20 names & references

Editions & covers

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Edition · cover shown

Hachette UK

2014-09-29

ISBN 9780751558418

Edition details

References & notes

Sources 38 references
  • witness:00000132:ch02:p0137
  • witness:00000132:ch02:p0167
  • witness:00000132:ch03:p0042
  • witness:00000132:ch04:p0037
  • witness:00000132:ch05:p0044
  • witness:00000132:ch06:p0067
  • witness:00000132:ch08:p0105
  • witness:00000132:ch01:p0001
  • witness:00000132:ch01:p0052
  • witness:00000132:ch01:p0063
  • witness:00000132:ch02:p0042
  • witness:00000132:ch02:p0047
  • witness:00000132:ch03:p0168
  • witness:00000132:ch05:p0115
  • witness:00000132:ch05:p0146
  • witness:00000132:ch06:p0112
  • witness:00000132:ch06:p0116
  • witness:00000132:ch07:p0049
  • witness:00000132:ch07:p0061
  • witness:00000132:ch09:p0022
  • witness:00000132:ch10:p0018
  • witness:00000132:ch10:p0075
  • witness:00000132:ch13:p0044
  • witness:00000132:ch13:p0050
  • witness:00000132:ch14:p0108
  • witness:00000132:ch14:p0140
  • witness:00000132:ch15:p0044
  • witness:00000132:ch17:p0003
  • witness:00000132:ch17:p0033
  • witness:00000132:ch17:p0034
Edition and source notes

Names are the bibliography’s title-level “written by” attribution key, not a verified edition byline. credited_authors is null because no first-edition cover/title page was checked. A creator name in the general franchise metadata must not be treated as proof of sole drafting.

registration-declared first publication: 1981-08-15. CPRS record field is the registrant/depositor-reported first-publication date, not independent retail/on-sale verification; no print copy inspected. Source

Spoils of War:

Publisher's description: A preacher and his wife push the US Army toward attacking its own citizens, while Remo and Chiun resist their influence.

Presidential clues

Current U.S. President: historical identity unresolved.

Unnamed President at CURE’s origin

John F. Kennedy

  • Narration says the ultra-secret agency CURE, headed by Dr. Smith, “had been developed by a president of the United States just before his death by violent crime.”

strong cross-book inference; unnamed in this book

This book leaves the deceased CURE founder unnamed. Book 26 explicitly names John Kennedy / John F. Kennedy as CURE’s founder; the contextual match supports a cross-book inference, not a directly observed name or identification of the current incumbent.

Unnamed U.S. President (current-story references)

Unnamed U.S. President whose office is referenced through military reports, a commander's tape, a call for a public statement, a planned approach by Nooner, a promised investigation, and the escort order for Remo and Chiun.

  • Smith attributes reports to the President and says the Tannehill commander sent his tape to the President, who passed it to Smith (ch02:p0134–0156).
  • The story says Congress petitions the President for a statement (ch10:p0033); Randy says her father planned to present his plan to the President, not that the meeting occurred (ch13:p0044).
  • Remo says the President will order an investigation (ch15:p0063); an unnamed general says the President instructed him to escort Remo and Chiun (ch17:p0012).

unresolved

No personal name, dated administration, or unique historical clue appears. The book does not establish that this role is the same officeholder as the unnamed deceased CURE founder.

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