Warren Murphy: Blood Lust

Ever the newsman, Don Cooder asked his question first and thought about it later. "Who's being executed?"

They seized him roughly, and two more went in after Reverend Jackman.

"I knew they'd free us," Jackman whispered as they were hustled down the stairs.

"They say they're the execution escort." Cooder hissed.

"Yeah? Who's being executed?"

"I think it's us."

"Is it us?" Reverend Jackman asked tightly of one guard.

"You have been condemned to die before all the world."

"Does that mean cameras?" Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder said a quarter-second apart.

"I believe it is called simulcasting," the guard offered.

The Reverend and the anchorman exchanged glances. The glances said that the news was bad, but at least they were going out as the centers of attention.

"Is my hair okay?" asked Don Cooder.

"Am I sweating?" asked Reverend Jackman. "I don't want my people to remember me all sweaty."

Then together they asked the escort if they had a final request.

"Yes," they were told.

Reverend Jackman requested a good makeup man. The best.

Don Cooder asked if he could go first.

Reverend Jackman decided going first took precedence over a good makeup man. "Let my people see me sweat. Sweatin's no sin."

They argued about who would have top billing at their mutual execution all the way to the crossed scimitars of Arab Renaissance Square.

Remo Williams, dressed like a scarlet-and-purple genie out of The Arabian Nights, stepped from the overheated armored car. His hair was wet, and the sweat crawled down his exposed and sunburned chest between the loose wings of his purple vest.

Kimberly Baynes led him past the crowd that surged on either side of the broad throroughfare that ran through Arab Renaissance Square like a sea of mustaches. He passed under the shadow of the upraised scimitars. It felt like the cold shadow of death falling over him.

Kimberly stopped at a wooden platform like a reviewing stand positioned in the middle of the thoroughfare, directly under the apex of the crossed sabers.

"Ascend," she commanded.

Remo mounted the stairs, his legs wood, but his Sinanju-trained feet as silent as a whisper.

The reviewing stand was awash with Renaissance Guards, AK-47's at the ready. They stood between the Revolting Command Council, who wore condemned expressions, and a knot of people at the front of the stand.

Still blinking the light from his eyes, Remo raked that group, looking for Maddas Hinsein.

He discerned a tall Arab woman in an abayuh surrounded by several persons who might have been Maddas Hinsein: one wearing an all-white suit that made him look like the Bad Humor Man, another in a khaki uniform, and a third in a green burnoose. Remo squinted, trying to identify which was Maddas.

He gave up. It was like trying to distinguish among dates.

The man swathed in a green burnoose abruptly stepped forward and, lifting his hands in the familiar palms-up benediction, faced the crowd. The crowd roared their response.

In the shadowy folds of his headdress, the familiar brushy mustache of Maddas Hinsein quirked in a cold smile. He spoke into the microphone. The crowd roared and the brown hands emerged from his robes to gesture toward Remo. The crowd went wild.

"The Iraiti people are very proud of you," whispered Kimberly Baynes, hovering behind Remo and translating. "They think you are the only righteous American in the world."

"Where'd you learn Arabic?" Remo thought to ask.

"Your future bride taught me." And she laughed.

Remo said nothing. A short impatient snapping sound came to his ears. He glanced around and he saw Kimberly's abayuh rustle. Of course. Her other hands. They were worrying a hidden rumal, the ceremonial strangling scarf of the Thuggee.

"I'm not strangling anyone," Remo said tightly.

"You will do as you are bidden," Kimberly returned. Then, "You will use the Sinanju blow known as the floater stroke."

Remo flinched inwardly. It was the most dangerous blow in Sinanju. The unforgiving blow. Once unleashed, the pentup power of it rebounded on the attacker with fatal results if the blow did not land. And as the scent of Kali choked his nostrils, Remo knew that he would deliver it upon command.

He also understood he had the option of missing-and thus executing himself. Kimberly's muted laughter told him she appreciated his dilemma too.

The crowd was settling down now, assisted by Iraiti crowd-control police wielding kidney-punishing truncheons.

And then, from a grumbling APC that braked before the reviewing stand, came Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder. They were arguing.

"I go first," Reverend Jackman insisted.

"No, me. Me. Me. Me."

They were brought up to the reviewing stand, where the burnoose-clad figure of Maddas Hinsein turned to greet them. He smiled widely. His dark eyes sparkled.

The cameras strategically positioned around Arab Renaissance Square zoomed in for the moment of high drama to come.

The victims were made to halt before the burnoosed figure. Muttered words came from under the shadowy kaffiyeh. Brown hands lifted as if to bless the dead.

"With all due respect, President Hinsein." Don Cooder pleaded, "as the highest paid network anchor in the world, I respectfully, humbly, and sincerely request the right to die first."

"As a fellow third-world brother," Reverend Jackman piped up, his eyes protruding like turtle eggs emerging from a mudbank, "I claim that right."

"I don't think he understands English," Cooder whispered.

"I'm with that," Reverend Jackman said. He lifted his orator's voice. "Any of you folks speak English?"

The Revolting Command Council maintained their stiff, full-of-dread expressions. They, too, were picturing themselves swinging on the ends of U.S. ropes. The big woman in the abayuh standing directly behind the man they took to be Maddas Hinsein faded backward, her feet clumping like a soldier's.

Then, under the prodding of the guards, Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder were made to turn around until they faced the phantasmagoric figure of Remo Williams.

"Address your victims," Kimberly Baynes whispered to Remo.

Remo stepped forward. The crowd went still. Even the birds in the sky seemed to go quiet.

Remo stood nose-to-nose with Reverend Juniper Jackman.

"This isn't personal," Remo said stiffly.

"Amen."

Remo stepped sideways until he was looking into Don Cooder's worried face.

"But you," he growled. "You, I'm going to enjoy."

"What'd I do!" Don Cooder demanded, suddenly scared.

"Remember the neutron bomb you had built?"

Cooder's mouth fell open. "How'd you know about that?"

"That's why."

And then Kimberly spoke up. She hovered very near.

"Execute!"

Remo stood frozen for a full minute.

Deep within him, he fought to resist the order. Sweat broke out on his brow and trickled coldly down the gully of his spine. He lifted one hand, forming a spearhead with fingers and thumb.

He drew back. The power of the sun source that was Sinanju began to build within the column of bone and sinew that was his arm. His eyes flicked from Don Cooder's trembling face to the shadowy visage of Maddas Hinsein towering by a full head behind him.

"Now!"

Remo released the blow with a vicious snap of his forearm.

The energies, coiled like a viper, rippled down his arm as Remo drove hard fingertips toward the unprotected throat of his intended victim. There was no stopping it. One of them would die.

Remo's mind froze. If there was ever a time I needed you, Little Father, he thought wildly, I need you now.

What happened next happened too fast for human eyes to ever comprehend, and although it was recorded on video and broadcast throughout the world, no one saw it clearly.