Warren Murphy: Unite and Conquer

The rain beat down on the cockpit bubble, obscuring his view of his surroundings. All he could do was wait.

A figure approached. He wore a black ski mask from which a pipe jutted.

Then abruptly the door opened and a strange voice said, "Hello is all right."

It was a crazy thing to say. Then Winston remembered what the old Korean, Chuin, had told him just before he squeezed their spines, rendering them helpless in their seats: I go now. But I will return. Remember this. Trust no one who may greet you with the words 'Hello is all right.'

It had made no sense, but now someone was saying exactly that. Smith said nothing. His jaw was locked up tight by whatever had stolen his motor control.

"Do you understand English? Are you deaf?" the unaccented voice asked.

When Smith failed to reply, a cool hand began feeling about his neck. With a sudden chiropractic crack of vertebrae, feeling flowed back into his limbs.

"Thanks," Winston said, grabbing the controls.

"I require transportation."

"You got it. Just help my friend the way you helped me."

"Certainly."

The masked man went around to the other side and relieved Assumpta of her paralysis, too. Winston saw then that his eyes were a very distinct green.

Assumpta squealed with joy, "Lord Verapaz! I greet you in the name of the people of Escuintla."

"It is imperative that I escape this area."

"Hop in," Winston said. "There's room in the back."

Assumpta crawled back, saying, "You may have my seat."

Subcomandante Verapaz got in. The chopper settled heavily when he did. He obviously weighed more than his size suggested.

Snapping switches, Winston got the rotor spinning and the ship into the air. The chopper was even more sluggish than before. It rose ponderously, spun once as the lift fought against whatever was weighing it down.

"Damn. We're too heavy!"

"Fire the rockets," Verapaz said.

"What?"

"My enemies approach. We are too heavy, and they will be upon us in under sixty seconds. Fire the rockets at them. This will solve both problems simultaneously."

Winston peered through the rain. Remo and Chiun were closing fast. He hesitated. Once they got within reach, that was it. He could kiss escape goodbye. Assumpta, too.

The words that came out of his mouth surprised even him. "Nothing doing."

"It is our only chance."

At his ear he could feel Assumpta's hot breath. "Do this, Weener."

"No."

"You are El Extinguirador. You yourself have said those two are CIA killers. You must destroy them to save us."

Winston set his teeth. "I can't."

"Then I will do it for you," said Subcomandante Verapaz in his strangely uninflected voice.

Grasping the collective, he jockeyed the ship around. His strength was incredible. Even with both hands, Winston couldn't get it away from him. The chopper began spinning.

With his free hand Verapaz armed the rocket pod.

"Let go, damn it!"

"Weener, do not fight him. He is our Lord Verapaz.

"I said let go, damn it!"

The helicopter stopped its lazy spin.

Through the swimming Plexiglas, Winston Smith saw the fleet figures moving in on them. They seemed to be floating, almost in slow motion. But they were covering the distance to the chopper with breathtaking speed.

A hand arrowed for the firing button, and Winston Smith reached down for his supermachine pistol. Thumbing the safety, he brought it up.

A projecting clip hung up on something. He yanked it free, and in the back Assumpta let out a shrill shriek.

"Weener-no!"

Smith whipped the barrel in line, placing it against Subcomandante Verapaz's masked forehead.

"Don't make me do this," he begged.

"You cannot hurt me with that," Verapaz said.

"This is the machine pistol to end all machine pistols. It will empty every drum and clip in one continuous bullet stream. All 250 rounds. Hollowpoints, Black Talons, Hydra-Shoks, everything. Your head will completely disappear."

"That will not matter."

"Yeah. Why not?"

"My brain is not in my head."

The words were surreal in their casualness. Winston Smith had his eye on the finger hovering over the rocket launcher. If it moved, he would fire. Every sense was concentrated on that finger.

And so he failed to see two tapered hands come up from behind him to grab for his gun wrist.

In that instant three things happened.

He squeezed the Hellfire trigger. The finger hit the rocket switch.

And the two hands pulled the Hellfire away from the Subcomandante's head. Pulled back. Back so the muzzle pointed into the rear of the ship. Where Assumpta sat.

The gun made an earsplitting noise in the tiny cockpit. Its sound lifted over the blade scream. Powder smoke filled the air.

As the rain beat down on the outside of the Plexiglas bubble, the inside was spattered with a livid red.

"Noooo!"

Winston Smith didn't hear the whoosh of rockets over his own scream of pain and rage. He didn't realize the weapon in his hands was still discharging. He could only see the blood. And it kept raining inside the cockpit and out.

When the clutching hands released his wrist, the gun was empty and the masked face of Subcomandante Verapaz regarded him with emotionless green eyes.

"I will remove the body now," he said. "It will resolve our lifting problem."

The flat words hung like a cold mist in the cockpit.

"You bastard!" With that, Winston went for the subcomandante's throat.

All his strength poured through his arms and into his fingers. He found the Adam's apple and tried to crush it with his thumb. It felt like a hard piece of horn.

And the soulful green eyes were looking at him with absolutely no fear or anger whatsoever.

The hand reaching up to his throat was also hard. It squeezed once, and the blood seemed to fill his eyeballs. Smith saw red. Everywhere was red. His mind's eye was even red. And the red was the exact color of Assumpta Kaax's bright blood.

Winston Smith never felt the rain on the back of his head as the door opened behind him. Something pried the hand off his throat and pulled him out into the rain. He landed on his back.

After that, he lost it. Consciousness, hope, everything.

REMO WILLIAMS PRIED the steely hand off Winston Smith's throat and yanked Smith out of the cockpit. The chopper had settled on its skids. The rotor still spun, but it wasn't going anywhere.

Now it wouldn't have time.

In his seat Gordons, still inhabiting the body of Verapaz, looked at him coolly. "Hello is all right. I am a friend."

"Can you say 'sudden catastrophic failure'?" Remo said.

"Why would I say that?" asked Mr. Gordons without blinking.

"Because that's your destiny," Remo told him.

Remo's fist lashed out. Gordons blocked it with a forearm. The forearm, being made of flesh and blood strengthened with assimilated materials like crude wood and metal, simply snapped and hung loosely. Gordons looked at it as if not yet comprehending.

"Where is it this time?" Remo asked savagely. "In your nose?" And he flatted the nose with the heel of his hand. "In your knees?" And he pulled the kneecap off like taking the cap off a gas tank. "In your eyes?" He speared two forked fingers into the green eyes that became empty sockets.

In the close confines, Mr. Gordons had no maneuvering room. He obviously wasn't up to his full potential, either. His reflexes were fast for a human but slow for an android. Remo removed the jutting pipe. Bridgework came out with it. Then he pulled him out bodily.

Gordons found his feet and dug in his heels. Remo let go.

"You missed," he told the android.

"What is your survival secret?" Gordons asked mushily.

"Never say die."

Gordons's surviving arm threw a blind punch. Remo caught the fist, and the hand came off at the wrist, trailing a vein-and-wire mixture. He threw it over his shoulder.