Warren Murphy - Walking Wounded

Remo didn't answer for the longest time. Then he spoke. "Here comes Chiun. Remember what I said about using my name."

But Dick Youngblood didn't reply. His eyes were closed and his big bulldog face had settled into sleep. Remo went to greet the Master of Sinanju. Chiun came riding in on the back of his elephant. Chiun tapped the elephant's flank with a short length of bamboo and the elephant stopped and knelt. Chiun dismounted.

"You did not need to wait," Chiun told him. "Rambo and I would have caught up to you."

"We need rest," Remo said simply.

"We need to reach the American submarine," said Chiun. "If it is discovered by the Vietnamese, it may leave without us, and then where would we be?"

"In Vietnam," Remo said simply. "Where a lot of us have been for a long, long time. Anything else would be a step up. Even dead."

"You seem more at ease than I have seen you in a while," Chiun pointed out.

Remo looked away. "Why not? We're almost to the coast. "

"I mean with me."

"You got us out. I'm not worried about you anymore."

"But your face is not entirely free from worry."

"Don't you think it's time to get rid of the elephant? He's slowing us down."

"I promised him a nice home when this is over."

"He won't fit in the submarine."

"That remains to be seen," Chiun said.

"Have it your way, Little-" Remo abruptly walked away.

Chiun bounced after him. "What did you say?"

"I said have it your way, you little gook," Remo said hotly. "I just don't want my people jeopardized because you insist on having your way about everything. Got that?"

Chiun stopped in his tracks. "Yes," he said softly. "I have it. I have it perfectly."

Hours later, a Hind gunship orbited by. It flew higher than the last few, which had all gone down in flames under the concentrated fire of their AK-47's. The tanks had long ago stopped turning up in the road. Not all the machine-gun fire in the world could affect them, but each tank that had gotten in their way had been confronted by the Master of Sinanju. Treads had been popped, cannon bores bent double, and hatches smashed shut. They rolled past each piece of wreckage with impunity.

"Looks like he ain't sticking around," Youngblood told Remo.

Remo watched the gunship disappear beyond some hills. "He couldn't have missed spotting the elephant," he replied. "We'd better get on the move again." They pushed south along the completely deserted road. Not even the occasional conical-hatted farmer could be seen.

Dick Youngblood shoved his head into the driver's pit.

"They know we're on this road," he whispered. "No doubt about it."

"What do you think?"

"There's two ways this could go. One, they've given up and are lettin' us go. The other is that they're massing somewhere ahead for an ambush."

"The Vietnamese don't know about giving up."

"Well, there you go," Youngblood said quietly. "Been real nice knowing you, Remo."

"I've come a long way for you," Remo said. "I'm getting you home."

"Well, I've been talkin' to your gook friend and he's sayin' there may not be room on the sub for all of us. He keeps lookin' at me when he says that. Why's he doing that?"

"He's not a gook, and don't worry about Chiun. I can handle him."

"Yeah, while you're handling him, who's going to be handling whatever the Vietnamese are getting ready to throw at us?"

Remo grinned. "I thought I'd leave that little detail to you."

Youngblood slapped Remo on the back boisterously. "Always said you were a generous man. Glad to see that much ain't changed."

They rolled on through the night, pausing only to allow Chiun and his elephant to catch up. The sound of the tank's noisy motor beat down on Remo's concentration. He ran with the hatches open because the oil stink was getting to his sensitive nostrils.

Every few hours a helicopter gunship prowled above. But they were unmolested. It was very ominous.

The tangy scent of seawater crept into the air just as dawn was breaking. Remo began to worry. They were nearing their destination, if Chiun's directions were on the mark, but there had been no sign of the Master of Sinanju in many hours.

Remo sent the tank around a long bend in the road that ran through the middle of a rubber-tree plantation. A figure stepped out onto the road and cocked a thumb like a hitchhiker.

"Chiun!"

"Who else?" asked the Master of Sinanju, leaping onto the moving tank. The Amerasians squatting on the superstructure moved aside to make room for him. "Where's the elephant?" Remo wondered.

"We took a shortcut and I saw danger so I sent him ahead."

"Bait, eh?"

"Remo! Your memory may not know me, but I would think your judgment would tell you that this sweet face would never harm a worthy animal."

"Okay," Remo said. "What are we getting into?"

"Many soldiers, many tanks. And the helicopter things."

"How many?"

"Many, many."

"That's a lot."

"They are on the beach we seek. I do not know about the submarine. I could not see it."

"Let me know when we're getting close," Remo said grimly.

"You have a plan, perhaps?"

"I have an objective. I'm going to reach it, plan or no plan."

The Master of Sinanju sniffed disdainfully.

"Rambo talk again. It will take years to purge you of it, and I am already an old man. Fie!"

"No," Remo said. "Semper Fi."

Dick Youngblood's voice sang out from the tank's innards. "Do or die!"

Chapter 22

The defense minister ordered the Hind gunship pilot to make a final pass over the slow-moving T-54 tank. It looked like such an ineffectual object, with tiny figures clinging to its superstructure.

Obviously, he thought, it was not the machine, but the men inside. He ordered the pilot to return to the staging area.

It would have been a beautiful stretch of white beach but it swarmed with soldiers in fatigues and a ranked mass of T-72 tanks and a few of the older T-64's. They were lined up at the shore, tread-to-tread, their smoothbore cannon all pointing in the same direction. Inland. Toward the shore end of the road.

In one way, the assembled might of the Vietnamese Army was beautiful in the defense minister's eyes as he stepped from the settling gunship and marched under the watchful eyes of the tank commanders, his holstered sidearm slapping his thigh.

General Trang snapped a salute in greeting.

"They are less than a kilometer away," the defense minister told him.

"They have no chance, as you can see."

"They have cut a scar down half the countryside already. Do not underestimate them-especially when they are close to their objective."

"And what objective is that? I see no rescue craft."

"Our patrol boats report sonar soundings in the bay. Very large sonar soundings."

General Trang's face grew grim. "A submarine?"

"I have ordered depth charges dropped on it," said the defense minister, climbing atop a tank for a better view of the harbor.

"Dare we risk it?"

The defense minister looked down at him coldly. "We have won the military war with the Americans," he said. "But we have lost the economic war. Our industrial base is a shambles. Our money is worthless. We have no potable water anymore. We have enemies on all borders and our supposed friends the Russians, who are like the Americans except they have no money to spend, are leeching us dry. One day soon, we may have to fight them too."

"None of what you say is new to me, comrade."

"But obviously you have not applied your brain to the political situation. Let me do that for you. Our only hope lies with our former enemies, the Americans. Only their friendship and economic assistance can save Vietnam. We must have their goodwill, even if we have to achieve it by force."

"I understand. We can never get it if the American prisoners escape on their own."