Warren Murphy: Walking Wounded

Remo dodged it. Not quite well enough. It struck one elbow right on the funny bone. Remo jumped and howled and clutched his elbow.

And while he was preoccupied with his pain, Chiun picked up a single-shot starter's pistol from a butcherblock table, calmly inserted the bullet, and offered the weapon to Remo, grip first.

"Now you," he said.

Remo took it. "What do I shoot at?"

The old Korean smiled benignly. "Why me, of course."

"I know you. You'll skip out of the way," said Remo, putting the pistol down. "You did that to me the first time we met."

Chiun shrugged. "Fine. Then I will shoot at you." And he picked up the weapon, stepped backward several paces, and drew on Remo.

Remo hit the floor and clamped his hands over his head.

Chiun's smooth brow had wrinkled. "What are you doing? I have not yet pulled the trigger."

"Are you going to?" Remo asked.

"Of course. You surrendered your turn. Now it is mine. "

Remo rolled off to one side and curled into a ball so the bullet, if it struck him, wouldn't penetrate to a vital organ.

"You are doing it wrong," Chiun said petulantly. But his hazel eyes held an amused light.

"That is what I was taught in Vietnam."

"You were taught wrong. You do not react until you see the bullet coming at you."

Remo squeezed himself tighter. "By then it will be too late. "

"You have seen me dodge these little rocks before."

"Yeah."

"Now you will learn. Stand up."

And because he knew that being shot would be infinitelv less painful than disobeying the Master of Sinanju, Remo stood up. His knees felt like water balloons about to break.

"Wait for the bullet," said Chiun, sighting on his stomach.

Remo's hands shot up. "One question first."

Chiun cocked his head to one side like a terrier seeing his first cat.

"Is Smith still going to pay you if I die?"

"Naturally. If you die, the failure will be yours, not mine."

"That's not the answer I was hoping for."

"Hope for nothing," Chiun said. "Expect the worst." And he fired.

Remo hit the floor, the explosive sound of the discharge piercing his ears. He slid along the floor on his stomach, hoping he hadn't been gut-shot.

"Am I hurt?" Remo had asked after a long silence.

"Not unless you are frightened by loud noises."

"How's that?" Remo asked.

"I used a dummy."

Remo's head came up. "Say again."

"Also known as a blank."

Remo climbed to his feet unsteadily. His face was not pleasant.

"You showed me the bullet," Remo said tightly. "That was no blank."

"True," said Chiun, reloading the pistol. "The bullet I showed you is this bullet. It is real. Are you ready?"

"Isn't it my turn again?"

"I have lost track," said Chiun, and fired.

This time Remo's sidewise leap was instinctive. He heard, before the sound of the bullet firing, a cracking noise like a bullwhip lashing out. It was the sound of the bullet passing. Passing! A punching bag behind him exploded in a shower of sawdust.

"I did it!" Remo shouted. "I dodged the bullet."

"I fired wide," Chiun said blandly, reloading the pistol.

Remo's grin squeezed into a lime-rickey pucker. "Not again."

"This time you will look into the barrel of the gun. Look for the bullet."

"I can't. My nerves are shot."

"Nonsense. I have just helped you tune them. You are now truly ready to dodge the harmless little rock." Remo knew he had no choice. He focused on the black blot of the pistol bore. He tensed. Chiun held his fire. Then Remo remembered his training. An assassin did not tense before danger. He relaxed. He let his muscles loosen, and Chiun nodded with satisfaction. Then he fired.

Remo saw the muzzle quiver. He saw the black maw turn gray as the bullet filled it. Then he moved. The bullet passed wide and struck a chinning bar with a hollow sound.

Remo grabbed his elbow again, hopping and howling. "Ouch! Yeoow! What happened? I dodged the bullet. I think."

"True," said Chiun, blowing smoke from the muzzle the way he had seen American cowboys do on TV. "But you did not dodge the ricochet."

"You did that on purpose," Remo growled.

Chiun smiled, wrinkling his wise countenance. "You dance funny."

"On purpose," Remo repeated.

"An enemy would have aimed his ricochet at your heart, not at your funny bone," said Chiun as he replaced the pistol on the table.

Remo looked at his arm. There was no blood. Just a red crease where the bullet had grazed him.

"My turn," said Remo, reaching for the pistol.

"Your turn, yes," agreed Chiun. "But also we are out of bullets."

"Well, at least I proved I can dodge bullets now."

"From a single-shot weapon, yes," said Chiun. "Tomorrow we will try it with a timmy gun."

"Tommy gun. And there's no way I'm going to let you open up on me with a machine gun."

But he had. Not the next day, but three days later, after Chiun had shot at him with a Winchester repeating rifle, a .357 Magnum revolver, and finally a vintage drum-loaded tommy gun. Remo had learned to see the bullets coming, to dodge even the ricochets, until he reached the stage where a man coming at him with a loaded gun no longer tweaked his adrenals but made Remo smile condescendingly. He had learned that a gun was only a clumsy device for throwing rocks. Puny little rocks at that.

And so he watched Fester Doggins and the Colombian throw rocks at one another. Sometimes one of the rocks zipped up toward him. Remo shifted to one side to let the speeding pebble slide past him. He was far beyond the bullet-dodging stage now. His eyes had learned to read the path of a bullet in flight, like a pool hustler calculating where the eight ball would drop. He didn't know how he did it, any more than a runner completely understood the complex relationship between brain impulses and leg-muscle responses that combined to make running happen. He just did it.

When the gunfire died down, there was only the Colombian huddled in the wheelhouse of his yacht and Fester Doggins hunkered down behind his pickup truck. Everyone else was dead. Remo waited. If one killed the other, that would leave only one for Remo to dispose of personally. It would be nice if they polished each other off, but Remo knew that was too much to ask.

While the two men caught their breath and reloaded, Fester Doggins happened to look up. He saw Remo. Remo gave him a friendly little wave.

"Hey!" Fester Doggins called up to him. "Who the Sam Hill are you?"

"Sam Hill," Remo replied. "In the flesh."

"DEA?"

"Nope. Free agent."

"Good. Whose side do you want to be on?"

"Mine," said Remo.

The Colombian, hearing Remo's voice, raised his rifle and drew a bead on Remo's head. Remo knew he was a target when he felt a dull pressure in the middle of his forehead. He looked down at the yacht. He shook his head and waved a finger at the Colombian. "Naughty, naughty!" he admonished.

The Colombian fired once. Remo jerked his head to one side and the bullet shattered the rock face behind him.

Remo picked up a stone not much larger than a quarter and flicked it back at the Colombian. It struck the rifle just ahead of the breech. The rifle broke in two and the Colombian sat down on the deck, hugging his bone-shocked arms and sucking air in through whistling, clenched teeth.

"Where were we?" Remo asked Fester.

"I got a proposition for you," Fester Doggins called up.

"Shoot," Remo said.

"Take care of the Colombian and I'll cut you in on my score."

"How much?"

"One-quarter. We're talking fifty kilos here. It streets at twenty thousand dollars a kilo. What do you say?"

"Who unloads the boat?"

"We do."

"No sale," said Remo. "I don't do heavy lifting. Tell you what you off load and it's a deal."