Warren Murphy: Date with Death

"Aim," the leader commanded.

The soldiers moved forward another step.

Then Remo saw it: a scrap of blue brocade billowing behind the moving line of guards; and he knew he was unstoppable now.

He raised himself off the ground in a jump so well-controlled that he seemed to be levitating; then he began his descent. He glided down in a flying wedge, his feet landing firmly on the chest of the lead attacker. The soldier screamed, his Uzi spiraling out of his hands. The force of the blow sent him flying toward the wall, where he caromed off the top edge, spun in midair as if by magic, and then hurtled head first into the valley below.

The others, surprised by the strange trajectory of their leader's path, hesitated a moment before firing.

A moment was enough. Chiun whirled through the formal ranks of soldiers in a neat inside line attack, killing each man in turn as he wove between them. The old man moved so fast that not even Remo could follow the motions of his hands and feet. But he knew that each blow was perfect from the crisp, rhythmic, deadly sounds of impact.

While Chiun worked, Remo gathered the women together and moved them as unobtrusively as possible toward the stairwell. One of them was so covered with lacerations and bruises that she could not walk. Her long dark hair was matted with blood. Her face was gashed and swollen, but despite her wounds, Remo could tell that she was a great beauty.

"Are you Consuela?" Remo asked, picking her up gently.

The woman nodded, trying to force open her bruised eyes.

"There's a dead man in the valley who loved you," he said. Then he stopped short.

He heard a sound from the other side of the bell tower, a sound that to him was as unmistakable as a baby's cry or the crack of gunfire: it was the sound of a helicopter.

Forgetting he still held the woman in his arms, he walked a few paces to see beyond the tower. The chopper was a large Grumman painted bright blue, and two men were getting inside. The first was dressed in stylish civilian clothes, the other in the all-black fatigues of the soldiers who'd defended the monastery. The civilian crawled into the helicopter without a backward look. The other glanced behind him briefly, turned away, then froze where he stood and turned again. He had recognized Remo.

And Remo remembered the soldier's face, too. It was a face of death and torture, of severed hands and dying children. For Remo, Major Deke Bauer possessed the face of war.

Remo's mind was suddenly a confusion of banished images and sensations: a skewered bird, roasted, its white plumes blowing in the breeze before a jungle downpour; a line of bodies suspended on wire, seeming to dance an eerie jig by morning's first light; the stench of rotting flesh.

A low groan escaped from his lips. The superhuman reflexes drilled into him through a decade of Chiun's teaching vanished. For him. now, there was no Sinanju. There was nothing but the war and the endless, futile comedy of the Hill.

As if it were occurring in slow motion, he watched Bauer snap his Uzi into position.

"A chopper'll be coming tomorrow with rations…." said a faraway voice in his memory.

"I took the Hill, and I'm going to keep the Hill, and I don't care if every last one of you bastards dies for it…."

"Put up a second wire. That'll teach 'em not to fuck with the U.S. Army…."

"Get down!" The voice, panicky and loud, startled Remo as he fell to the ground with the woman, screaming, in his arms. Sam Wolfshy's arms were still outstretched. And then he heard the bullets, and the Indian collapsed on top of Remo and the woman in a spray of blood.

"Oh, my God," Remo said, coming to his senses. "Sam!"

The chopper's whirling blades beat the air. It lifted off gracefully, hovered for a moment, and then sped off toward the horizon.

Chiun finished off the last soldier in his attack and came to them. With deft hands he lifted the big Indian off Remo and Consuela.

Sam's arm had been all but blown off at the shoulder. The old Oriental made a quick tourniquet from a length of silk torn from his robe. "He will live," he said. "For a while. How long I cannot say. But he cannot make the descent down the mountain, even if we carry him."

Remo remained where he had fallen, his face dazed. Vaguely he felt the woman slipping from his arms. "He saved us," Consuela said. "Otherwise, the bullets…"

"Yes. I saw," Chiun said. He looked down at the Indian. "I knew he had something of the hero in him," he said softly.

Wolfshy's lips curved into a smile. His eyes opened slowly. "I heard that," he whispered. "Think you can teach me Sinanju now?"

Chiun placed his cool hand on Sam's brow. "My son, courage such as yours is beyond any discipline."

Remo turned away. He had seen a man's face, and that look had probably cost Sam Wolfshy's life. It was the one unpardonable sin, and Remo had committed it. He had forgotten Sinanju.

It was the chopper, he said to himself. The damned chopper….

And suddenly he could hear it again, menacing and inexorable, the helicopter in his mind that would lead him to madness.

But it wasn't in his mind. Consuela burst into a flurry of Spanish as she pointed to the eastern horizon.

Remo saw it, too. It was coming from the opposite direction from where Bauer's helicopter had gone. As it drew nearer, he could see that its markings were different, too. It was a police helicopter.

"Karen!" Consuela gasped. "She must have contacted the police before she died."

Chiun smiled. "Our yellow-haired friend is with them."

"How can you see that far?" The Mexican woman looked at him. bewildered.

"Don't ask." Wolfshy said.

The Korean was on his feet. "We must be quick. The police will find you medicine and a place to rest, son. But you must not mention that Remo and I were with you."

"Why not? You did—"

"It is our Emperor's wish that we remain anonymous. Tell the authorities that you acted alone." He took a final look at Consuela. "And tell these women to clothe themselves. It is disgraceful."

He lifted Remo up by the ribs and propelled him toward the stairwell. By the time the police helicopter landed and Karen Lockwood and the officers got out, the two of them were deep in the valley, out of sight.

?CHAPTER TWELVE

By nightfall, Remo and Chiun were near the foothills of the mountain range. Remo had not spoken since Deke Bauer's bullets tore across the sunlit monastery roof. Those bullets had almost killed Sam Wolfshy, and it had been Remo's fault.

How could I forget? Remo asked himself again and again. How could I ignore all the discipline and training of Sinanju because of a moment's memory?

The sight of Deke Bauer's face had caused him to lose control. But he had let it happen. At the moment when he most needed his skills and confidence, he had lost them. And Sam Wolfshy had paid the price for Remo's failure.

At the edge of a barren copse, near a streambed trickling with water. Chiun finally let go of his pupil's arm and told him to sit down. Remo obeyed, his face a tense mask of self-hatred.

Chiun built a fire. Then, with a stone, he fashioned a bowl from a piece of wood and filled it with water. He untied a small silk pouch from the belt of his robe, poured its contents into the water-filled bowl, then set the bowl on the fire.

"It is rice," he said softly. "Even Masters of Sinanju must eat."

Remo stood up and turned away.

"And so must you, whether you feel you deserve it or not," the old man added pointedly.

Remo leaned against a tree. He remained there, his eyes focused inward, until the rice was cooked. Finally he walked over and knelt beside the old man. "I want you to do me a favor," he said, so quietly that he was almost inaudible.

"So the white man speaks at last. Of course, his first words are to demand some service of me. But I am prepared. Go ahead."