Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

The weapon remained in the trembling hands.

"Now!"

The weapon was dropped. It struck the jungle floor with a flat finality.

"Now your hands. Raise them that I may search you for concealed weapons."

The hands were elevated.

"Now kneel so that you cannot run away."

Trembling, the Juarezista knelt.

When that was done, Colonel Primitivo knelt, too. He laid his right lower leg across the lower limbs of his captive, pinioning them.

Then, holding his own weapon away out of reach with one hand, he employed the other to pat down the rebel.

He found softness where he expected the hardness of a jungle guerrillero, and when his hand felt around to the front of the khaki uniform blouse, he discovered the soft mounds of a female.

"What is your name!" he hissed.

"Lieutenant Balam."

"Hah! You are no stalking jaguar on this night, eh chica?"

"I am ready to die if necessary."

"And I am prepared to kill you. But I will give you a chance. Subcomandante Verapaz is abroad, here in this zone, on this very night. Tell me where he is and your life may be spared."

"I do not know the answer to your question."

He brought his lips to her ear and made his voice low. "I think you lie, chica. Do you lie to me?"

"No."

"Yes, you lie. Your breasts tremble in your blouse. I know how a woman's breasts tremble when she mouths untruths."

The Juarezista said nothing. She only trembled more.

"There is a village near here. Perhaps he hides there."

"No, he does not!"

"Hah! You are too quick with your answer."

And stripping off her ski mask by its pom-pom, he exposed a fear-drained face. Long black hair cascaded down. He took up a fall of it and brought it to his nostrils. Sniffing, he detected the scent of coconut.

"You smell good for a jungle girl. You use coconut milk for shampoo. It smells enticing."

With a sudden savage gesture he grabbed up a thick twist of lustrous hair and yanked the girl to her feet even as he came to his.

Placing the stubby snout of the H small of her back, he ordered her to march toward the village.

The guerrillera complied, her steps leaden and defeated.

"Go ahead and cry, chica. I think you will need a head start, because after this sad night, this entire jungle will weep because Colonel Mauricio Primitivo has come to visit the rebels."

"Cabron," she said thickly.

"Ah, Subcomandante Verapaz has taught you the proper curses of the city, I see."

"Chinga to madre!"

He laughed. "Perhaps later, you and I, we will do what you suggest. Without my mother."

After that the guerrillera was silent.

They walked steadily toward the smell of burned corn husks, Colonel Primitivo looking back every once in a while.

He saw nothing. Thus, he knew he was not being followed.

He was wrong. He was being followed. But what followed him could not be seen by ordinary eyes or defeated by ordinary arms.

Chapter 36

Remo Williams gestured to the Master of Sinanju to keep his distance.

They were coming up on the village they had smelled earlier. The Mexican colonel was taking his prisoner directly to it.

"This guy may be doing our work for us."

"As long as he takes no credit," said Chiun, "I will not mind."

"Wonder who the girl is."

"A wench who thinks she is a soldier. What manner of barbarians give a female killing weapons?"

"Women can do a lot of things men can do, Little Father," Remo said dryly. "Scientists discovered this just recently."

"That is not what I mean," Chiun hissed. "What idiot would place a dangerous boom stick into the hands of a creature whose moods swing with the waxing and waning moon?"

"You may have a point there, but right now I think the colonel's in no danger."

They moved on, slipping from tree to tree, becoming one with each bole they attached themselves to. Every time the colonel looked back-which was fairly often-he saw only unmoving trees.

Finally the colonel was tramping through the burned cornfield, making enough rustling sounds to awaken the village.

If that was his plan, he succeeded.

A sleepy head emerged from a shack with a thatched roof.

The colonel casually sighted across the shoulder of his captive and shot it to pieces.

A woman screamed inarticulately, and Remo said, "Damn it, Chiun! That guy was unarmed!"

But the colonel heard them not.

The shots brought new heads sticking out. Switching to selective fire, the colonel popped them like birds on the wing.

Sleepy, surprised faces materialized in the gloom, and were as quickly obliterated.

The colonel raised his voice to a shout. "Verapaz, I am come for you! Show yourself!"

Remo was moving by then.

He cleared the space between himself and the colonel in less than five seconds flat, even with having to skirt various exotic trees.

Even then he was not as fast as the guerrilla, who had dropped to the ground, turned like a dog in the dirt and was kicking out at the colonel with her khakiclad legs.

"Puta!" he snarled, bringing his submachine gun down to perforate her belly.

Remo reached him then. One hand drifting out ahead, he broke the weapon in two with a hard downward chop.

The colonel had been holding his weapon steady with both hands. Now they flew apart, each holding a different end.

His eyes went wide at the sight of his bifurcated weapon.

Then Remo was in his face.

"What the hell kind of soldier are you! Those people were unarmed."

"Who are jou?"

Remo relieved him of the weapon parts, tossing them in several directions. The colonel started to grab his combat knife.

Remo let him. When it lifted, Remo took it away from him, held it in front of his face with one hand and used his free index finger to tap the blade. Three taps, starting just back of the point. With each tap, a section of the blade broke off clean until there was no more blade.

Remo handed the colonel back the useless hilt.

To show his gratitude, the colonel tried to shoot Remo in the face with a hastily pulled side arm.

Remo clapped his hands once, abruptly. They came together with the tightly gripped weapon between them.

The colonel felt the sting of the converging hands on his gun hand, flinched and told his brain to tell his trigger finger to squeeze the trigger.

His finger refused. Then the pistol began falling apart in his hands as if every screw had melted.

When he was left with only the cartridge-packed handle, but no breech or barrel, his gun hand began turning red as if sunburned. He stared at it with wideeyed disbelief.

"Can you say 'vascular disintegration'?" asked Remo.

"I do not know those words."

"Think of the veins on your hand turning to mush and letting all the blood seep into your tissues."

The colonel suddenly screamed. Not from the realization of his maiming but from the pain signals that finally caught up with his brain.

Reaching for his neck, Remo squeezed a nerve that cut off the pain. He wasn't in a hurry; he let some pain seep through.

"I'm looking for Verapaz."

Through gritted teeth, the colonel said, "As am I! We are on the same side, yes?"

"We are on the same side, absolutely not, " Remo shot back. "I don't kill noncombatants."

"You are obviously American. CIA?'

"UNICEF."

"The children's fund?"

"That's right. We're looking after the welfare of children everywhere. We also take donations. Dollars, not pesos."

"You are loco."

"If loco means I'm mad enough to break your neck, I have no quarrel with loco. "

"Jou might have your wish, for I believe Verapaz to be in this very village." He gave the prostrate guerrilla a nudge with a black-booted toe. "This Naca, she knows."

Reaching down, Remo brought the guerrilla to her feet.