Warren Murphy: Air Raid

"START, DAMN YOU, start!" Herr Hahn snapped.

As a rule, he rarely spoke. But with no one around to hear him, it didn't matter. And right now, maintaining his habitual silence was the least of his troubles.

A choking splutter sounded at the rear of the boat. He stabbed the ignition switch. Nothing. No time to check the engine. The last he had seen, they were halfway down the hill. The two men were still three-quarters of a mile up on rough terrain, darting in and out of tree cover and between tidy Swiss homes. But the speed at which they were descending was inhuman.

In the boat cabin, Hahn's round face glistened with sweat. His armpits were moons of freezing perspiration.

"Start, start, start..."

The boat engine coughed and spluttered but wouldn't turn over. Herr Hahn didn't believe in prayer, but at that moment he said a silent entreaty to every thief, pirate and murderer who had come before him to deliver him from the two men who were running at him with death in their eyes.

Holding his breath, Hahn struck the button again. The engine coughed once and roared to life.

Hands shaking, he grabbed frantically at the steering column and the throttle stick. Shoving the throttle to the max, he sent the boat bobbing and zooming across the frothy waves of Lake Geneva.

BY THE TIME Remo and Chiun crossed the last lawn and broke through the tree cover at the shore, the boat was already halfway across the section of lake that separated the new and old cities of Geneva.

Remo was heading for the water, but Chiun touched his arm.

"He is too far gone," the Master of Sinanju said. Remo stopped, squeezing his hands in impotent frustration at the rocky shore. The boat weaved through shuttle traffic and sped toward the big white shape of the cruise liner.

"Damn," Remo said. "Judging by the whiff in the air, that's definitely the guy who was in St. Clair's house. If he'd used binoculars instead of some electronic whatsit in the first place, we could have had him."

Chiun nodded tight agreement. He watched the distant boat through narrowed eyes before finally turning away.

"Come, Remo," the old man said. A long nail flicked at the holes burned in the back of Remo's shirt. "Even the Swiss must have laws against exhibitionism."

Remo looked up the near-vertical hill they'd just descended. A cloud of black smoke belched high into the clear blue sky. He sighed bitterly.

Together, the two Masters of Sinanju began the long climb back up to the burning chalet.

Chapter 11

Young Chim'bor feared the Sky Forest.

It wasn't the same as the other fears he had lived with all his life. Those were old and familiar.

As a member of the Rsual tribe, which lived in small encampments in the dense jungles where the Jamunda River met the mighty Amazon, Chim'bor had spent much of his adolescence identifying fears-both real and imagined.

Where Chim'bor grew up, there were fish so small that they could swim up a man while he bathed in the waters of the Amazon and kill him from the inside. There were mosquitoes that carried diseases that poisoned the mind and snakes with darting fangs and a taste for flesh.

These were real fears.

There were also fears of a supernatural nature. Animals that inhaled the life's breath from tribesmen, gods that punished with torrential rain or blistering sun, shadowed ghosts armed with spears that stalked those who were alone.

These fears were imagined.

Some fears were a combination of both. The pulp of certain trees was stuffed with larvae that were a feast for the tribe. Others caused death the instant they touched the tongue. Legend had it that the succulent larvae had been mixed with the poisonous by tricky gods to test the Rsual men. It was a life test to see who could choose wisely.

Another fear in a world of fears. All known. Everything-from the great white rapids in the north to the mossy valley in the south-was known to the Rsual. It was only a span of a few miles, but it was the entire Rsual world. Everything to fear within that small area had been identified and classified by tribal elders generations ago.

To know one's fears made one master of them. That was what made this new fear so terrifying to Chim'bor.

The Sky Forest.

To the Rsual, it was alien. Like one day discovering a river or rock that had not been there the day before.

It had been brought to the land of the Rsual by whites.

Chim'bor was fourteen when the invaders first arrived five years ago. A man by the standards of his tribe. He would never forget that first frightening day.

Chim'bor and his brother Sor'acha had been searching for gualla near the valley far from the main village. This juicy fruit was difficult to harvest. Since it grew so far up the trunks of the trees, it took two natives to collect it.

They were using the network of vines they'd installed when they were children. Chim'bor climbed while Sor'acha waited on the ground to catch the dropped fruit. When Chim'bor grew weary later in the day, the two brothers would switch places.

Early in the morning Sor'acha was watching as Chim'bor stretched from tree to tree far above. Taking hold of one of the upper branches in his small hand, Chim'bor shook it violently. Green fronds rattled an angry protest, and three of the fat yellow fruit plopped to the ground.

When Chim'bor looked down, he found that Sor'acha wasn't there to catch them. His brother no longer stood amid the great gnarled roots at the base of the tree.

He found Sor'acha standing a few yards away, an ear cocked to the jungle. Strange noises rumbled from the thick undergrowth of the valley.

On callused hands and feet, Chim'bor scampered down the tree trunk. He hurried over to his brother. "What is wrong?" Chim'bor asked.

Sor'acha silenced him with a raised hand. "The ghost faces have returned," he whispered. He was peering intently through a gap in the brush.

Bright sunlight flooded the region beyond. Strange for a land where sun rarely reached past the thick treetops.

The vast valley beyond had been largely cleared over the previous season. There had been many days of toil for the whites and their earthmoving machines. The jungle canopy had been hacked down for miles within the valley. What had been dense jungle was transformed to desert.

"You should not look there," Chim'bor warned. Like most of the Rsual, he avoided the valley since the arrival of the whites.

"I am the older brother," Sor'acha replied. "You do not command me. Besides, do you not wish to know why they are here?"

Although Chim'bor didn't, Sor'acha was determined.

At nightfall, they crept out of the jungle and entered the barren valley. The moon hung bright and big in the sky as they slipped across the barren ground. A man-made hill rose in the center of the valley, its top flat.

The whites were gone. What they'd left behind intrigued Sor'acha and troubled Chim'bor.

A small forest of trees had been planted atop the wide flattened hill. The plants were of an unnatural blue. It was as if the color had bled from the sky to stain the trees.

The small trees were all roughly the same height-twice as tall as Chim'bor and his brother. In the bright moonlight the forest stretched off as far as the night eye could see.

Sor'acha laughed. "Only whites would cut down trees to plant trees," he said. He took hold of one of the saplings. It was warm to the touch.

"This is a place of evil," Chim'bor warned. "The whites have stolen the sky for their trees."

Sor'acha lingered at the edge of the new forest for a time, but there was nothing more to see. Eventually, Chim'bor convinced his brother to leave.

They returned for the harvest six months later. Again, Sor'acha let his curiosity get the better of him. Although Chim'bor was reluctant to visit the Sky Forest of the whites, his brother insisted. The two traveled back through the jungle to the valley and the hilltop forest.