Warren Murphy: Troubled Waters

"Your call," he said. "Just stay the hell out of my way."

Remo left the old man standing in the darkness and moved through the night swiftly, his ears and instincts leading him. He made less sound in passing than a night breeze whispering among the trees. No man would hear him coming.

The sounds ahead of him began to change, grew even more bizarre. Instead of cheering, shouts and laughter now, it sounded more like gagging, interspersed with coughs and garbled curses.

Remo was picking up his pace when yet another sound erupted in the night. Staccato, sharp, like heavy-metal thunder. Gunfire.

What kind of party did these wack-job pirates throw, anyway?

CHIUN WAS IRRITATED. He had hoped his special stew would buy himself more time for the treasure hunt while Remo dawdled, but the arrival of guntoting South Americans spoiled his plans.

Now he would have to find and protect Stacy Armitage. He couldn't let her be shot. He would never hear the end of it.

He moved through the camp, a shadow flitting amid the chaos.

A pirate lurched into his path. This one hadn't been wounded yet, but suffered only from the effects of Chiun's culinary masterpiece. He had already emptied out his stomach, judging from the dark stains on his chin and faded denim shirt, but that didn't prevent his doubling over, retching with the dry heaves.

Chiun was merciful. He sent the buccaneer to his reward with a stroke that was barely more than a caress. At that, it was enough to whip the pirate's head around and snap his neck as if he were a chicken. When he landed in the grass he was already dead, the cramping in his stomach mercifully forgotten.

Chiun pressed on, here dodging bullets from the forest, there dispatching pirates as he met them, with a touch, a jab, a kick. He left a trail of broken mannequins behind him, lying twisted where they fell.

When he had almost reached the prison hut, a burst of automatic rifle fire streaked through the air above his head and stitched its way across the hut's thatched roof. Inside, a woman screamed-not Stacy Armitage; Chiun would have recognized her voice. As he gained the doorstep of the hut, one of the three young hostages who had been here before him rushed outside.

Chiun didn't know her name, but he recognized her as the one who had withdrawn into herself, as if from shock. Whatever else she had become, the woman hadn't lost her voice entirely, nor had she forgotten how to run. In fact, if Chiun hadn't been there to stop her, she would certainly have run into the middle of the firefight, to her almost certain death.

The girl was several inches taller than Chiun, and she outweighed him by as much as thirty pounds, but she seemed weightless as he looped an arm around her waist and whisked her back inside. The other three, including Stacy Armitage, stood gaping at him in surprise.

"Robin!" the blonde spit out. "What's wrong with you?"

"Chiun, can we get out of here?" The question came from Stacy. She stood watching him, arms crossed, hands clasping her elbows as if to stop herself from trembling. "Well, can we?"

It didn't sit well with Chiun to leave before the job was finished, but it sounded very much as if the buccaneers were being massacred without his help.

"This way," he said, and moved directly to the side of the hut that was farthest from the door, farthest from the gunfire rattling outside.

Its roof aside, the hut was built of scrap lumber.

The wall he chose was plywood, and it shivered at his touch. He took a step back from the wall, examined it and lashed out with one hand. The steelstrong blades of his fingernails slashed through the plywood once, twice. A freshly made archway was left as the wood pieces fell to the earth.

Chiun turned to face the four women, his face impassive.

"Now we go," he said.

KIDD TRACKED ONE OF THE raiders with his revolver, framed the runner in his sights and squeezed off two quick shots. Though he had never seen the man before, it pleased him greatly when his bullets struck and spun him in his tracks, dumping him facedown into the dust.

Some of his men were starting to recover, fighting back in something that recalled their old, familiar style. The sickness that had gripped so many of them earlier still sapped their energy and made their movements awkward, but they clearly recognized the danger that confronted them, and those still fit to use a gun or blade would not go down without a fight.

The first outbreak of gunfire had come close to paralyzing Thomas Kidd. It stunned him to imagine anyone had found his secret compound, much less that the unknown enemies could mount a raid and take him by surprise. The shock had lasted but a heartbeat, though, before Kidd told himself the law had found them somehow. But no sooner had the notion taken shape than he rejected it. Lawful authorities, he knew from prior experience, came bearing papers from the courts, announcing their arrival with all manner of lights and sirens, demanding surrender before they opened fire.

Which told him that the men around his camp were outlaws, like himself. How had they come to be here at the very moment of his wedding? And why had they attacked like this, without apparent motive?

There was no time, in the heat of battle, to answer such questions, and Kidd had barely drawn his revolver when the answer came to him, as plain as day. Along the west side of the compound, several raiders were already breaking from the trees. One of the faces shown to him by firelight was familiar, after all.

Carlos Ramirez!

Kidd had known the cocaine lord was coming for another boat. The bargain they had struck was lucrative for all concerned. He had expected the Colombians to show up sometime following his wedding ceremony, while the celebration was in progress, to join in the festivities. Now, instead, here they were with guns blazing, and led by Ramirez himself!

Logic meant nothing in a fight for life. It didn't matter why Ramirez and his men had gone back on the bargain, shifting from allies to mortal enemies.

All that mattered now was stopping them-and that meant stopping them forever, dead in their tracks. His first shot had been aimed at Carlos, but Kidd rushed it, jerked the trigger instead of squeezing it, the way he had been taught, and the bullet had missed by inches. Ramirez had gone to ground, beyond the firelight, and then everyone had been firing at once. Billy Teach had found his M-60 machine gun, staggering to battle with it tucked beneath one arm, his shirt and denim pants still reeking with the remnants of his recent meal.

The Chinaman would pay for that, whatever he had done, but that wasn't Kidd's first priority. Old men could wait their turn to die, when there were younger men with guns around, demanding his attention at the moment.

One of those, in fact, was charging Kidd's position, firing from the hip with some kind of stubby automatic weapon. Kidd swiveled to face him, raising his revolver in a firm two-handed grip, sighting on the shooter's chest before he squeezed off two quick rounds.

The young Colombian was staggered, lurching sideways, firing even as he fell. The bullets raised a storm of dust between himself and Kidd, but none came close enough to cause the pirate chieftain any harm. Instead, he watched his dying enemy collapse, twitch once and then go slack in death.

Around him, as he scanned the compound, Kidd saw numbers of his own men sprawled among the slain. He gave up counting at a dozen, knowing that there had to be more, but he believed their enemies were still outnumbered. If his men stood fast, despite the sudden illness that had weakened them before the sneak attack, they had a chance.

And if they won the fight, what then?

That problem had to wait until another time. He saw Ramirez now, just rising from behind the cook fire in his fancy clothes, the jacket spoiled by soot or gun smoke, Kidd couldn't say which. Nor did it matter, as the pirate leader rushed his business partner turned would-be assassin, closing the gap between them with long, loping strides.