Warren Murphy: Chained Reaction

"Trooper Drake reporting, sir," he said when he saw Colonel Bleech step out from behind the tree. "Sir, I'm innocent, sir."

"I have the letter, Drake."

"Sir, may I explain ?"

"Shhhh," said Colonel Bleech. "About face. Look at the men."

"Sir, I had help from other troopers. I'll give you their names."

"I don't want their names. I know everyone involved. I know everything in this unit. We have people everywhere and they all look out for us. Know this. Your commanding officer knows everything."

And Bleech winked to Teasdale as Drake turned around. Walker Teasdale heard something rustling behind him and there, crawling up from a jeep with a long curved sword, was the colonel's orderly. He held the sword curved in his hands as his elbows dug into the loamy pine-needled earth, and Teasdale realized that those down below would only see Drake and him, and would not see the colonel and the aide.

Walker Teasdale had seen the colonel behind the tree only because he had recognized the place he was going to die.

Bleech motioned Teasdale behind the tree. He winked and put a friendly arm around Teasdale's shoulders. Walker didn't know whether to be more surprised by the friendly arm or the sword.

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They had practiced twice against melons but everyone thought it was a joke. Nobody used swords nowadays.

"Give me a nice clean cut, Walker," whispered Bleech, pointing to Drake's neck. "I want the head to roll. If it doesn't roll, son, kick it down the hill."

Walker stared at Drake's neck and saw the little hairs growing over the edge of his collar. He felt the hard wood handle of the sword and noticed that the blade had burnished edges. It had been sharpened recently. It was heavy in his hands and his palms became moist and he did not want to lift the sword.

"At the neck," said Bleech. "A nice even stroke. Come on, boy."

Teasdale felt the air become hot in his lungs and leadenness draped his body, like chains holding him down. His stomach became watery like a cheap pancake syrup and he did not move.

"Walker, do it," said Bleech, loud enough for the tone of the order to get through.

Drake turned his head and, seeing the sword in Teasdale's hands, covered his face. His body trembled like a spring on the end of a jerking string and a dark brown spot spread on his pants, as he released his bladder out of fear.

"Teasdale," shouted Bleech and, losing his temper, he depressed the switch on the microphone in his hand and the entire unit heard their commanding officer yell, "Trooper Walker Teasdale, you cut off that head now. Clean and fast. Now."

Down in the valley, it sounded like the voice of the heavens and then the whole unit noticed who

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was up there with Drake and Teasdale. It was the colonel and he was giving an order and ol' Walker Teasdale wasn't doing anything about it. Why, he wanted Walker to cut off Drake's head, for treason. It wasn't Teasdale's time to die at all, but Trooper Drake's.

Bleech caught all this in an instant.

"I am giving you a direct order," said Bleech and then, flipping off the microphone, added, "They've all seen and heard my order. It's, too late now, son. You've got to take Drake's head. Now, c'mon. You'll be happy afterwards."

Walker tightened his grip on the sword. The aide crawled away. Walker raised the sword high as he had been taught because you could not take a head swinging just any which-way; you took it level because the blade had to cleave through the vertebrae level or it got jammed in bone. That's what the instructor had said.

He pulled back the sword. He planted his left foot and then Drake looked around. He looked at Teasdale's eyes and stared, and Teasdale prayed that Drake would just turn away. It was hard enough knowing the man, but killing him when he was looking in Teasdale's eyes? Walker couldn't do it. He had sworn to kill enemies, not people he knew.

"Please," said Teasdale. "Please turn your head away."

"Okay," said Drake, softly, as if Walker had asked him to remove his hat or something.

And the way he said it, so pleasant and meek, Teasdale knew it was all over. He let the sword drop from his hand.

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"I'm sorry, Colonel. I'll kill an enemy but I can't kill one of our own men."

"I can't allow the unit to trust each other against my orders, Teasdale. This is my last warning. You've got to do it."

And then the microphone was on again as though the trees down below were breathing static and Colonel Bleech gave his last order to Trooper Walker Teasdale.

"Cut off his head."

"No," said Teasdale.

"Drake," said Bleech. "Do you follow orders?"

"Yessir."

"If I let you live, will you follow orders?"

"Oh, yessir. Yessir. Yessir. Anything. Special unit all the way."

"I'm going to get a head one way or another. Drake. Give me Teasdale's head."

Trooper Drake, still trembling with fear, dove for the sword, lest Teasdale change his mind. He snapped it from the rawboned young man's hands and was up and swinging wildly in an instant. He took a slash at the head and the blade cut through flesh and bounced back off the skull, stunning Teasdale. He felt the blade crack at his head again and then he heard his colonel talking about a level blow from behind and there was a stinging at the back of his head and then a deep dark numbness.

The eyes did not see as his head bounced down the hill rolling crazily in bumps and bounces like a punted football making its way toward an end zone.

The eyes did not see, nor did the ears hear. The

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body was back up on the hill spurting red rivers from the neck.

But a last thought was held somewhere out in the vastness of a universe that went on forever.

And that thought was that Colonel Bleech, for all his talk of soldiering and killing, was but a clumsy amateur at best. And by this evil deed he had offended a power in the center of the universe, a power so vast it would unleash the ultimate force of man.

And when that force was unleashed, Bleech would be but a pitiful popped pumpkin, splattered like the melons the men had practiced their sword thrusts on.

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CHAPTER TWO

His name was Eemo and it was his last assignment. He did not know the man, but he never knew the men. He knew their names and what they looked like and where he could find them.

But he no longer cared about what they had done or why they had done it. He cared only that when he finished them it was neat and clean and with an economy of motion.

This last man lived in the penthouse of a hotel in Miami Beach. There were only three entrances to it, all guarded, all locked with triple keys that three men had to agree to use simultaneously, and since a former security advisor to the Central Intelligence Agency had designed this little hotel fortress and guaranteed it impenetrable from above or below, the man slept that morning with ease and contentment, until Remo grabbed his fleshy pink face in his hands and said into the stunned eyes that he would squeeze the man's cheeks off unless he explained some things very quickly.

Remo knew the man's shock was not at his appearance. Remo was a moderately handsome man with high cheekbones and a dark stare that tended to liquefy the resolve of women when he

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turned it on them, if he cared about that anymore, which he didn't. He was thin, lean to perfection, and only his thick wrists might indicate that this man might be anything different from normal.

The assignment certainly wasn't. Remo had seen this sort of penthouse arrangement fourteen times. He called it "the sandwich." They put a nice piece of bread on top with perhaps a machine gun or two, several men and a metal shield reinforcing the roof, and they locked all the entrances below, probably adding devices there, and so the top and bottom were nice and cozy and safe. But the middle was as open as a French bikini.