Warren Murphy - Voodoo Die

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says, 'You got no chance at all,' and then, of course, he does in the poor old thing."

"Wonder," said Dr. Jameson, "who is this man in the hills? And what is this other man, this other force that's going to make the man in the hills king? And why didn't she tell him what he wanted to hear?"

"I think it would be like denying her religion," said the aide.

"Seems strange," said Dr. Jameson. "Dying probably denies her religion, too. She should have just told the mad bugger anything he wanted to be told."

"Not their culture, sir. This is voodoo. This is spirits. A smaller spirit acknowledges a greater spirit and the worst thing that can happen is that a smaller spirit does not acknowledge its relative weakness. That apparently is what Corazon has done. He's failed to acknowledge the supremacy of this holy man in the mountains. His cousin refused to commit the same thing."

"Seems strange," said Jameson. "I'd rather be an apostate than a puddle."

"Would you?" said the aide. "Would we? Why do we risk our lives in this work rather than tend shop or something in Surrey, sir? Why is running over to the enemy and getting rewarded handsomely something that just isn't done?"

"Well, ummm," said Dr. Jameson. "Just not done."

"Precisely. It's our taboopsir. And denying their voodoo is theirs. So there it is."

"You culture people are bonkers. You make the most absurd thing sound logical," said Dr. Jameson.

"One person's heroism is another person's insanity," said the aide. "It all depends on the culture."

Dr. Jameson waved the man to silence. Legends bothered him. They confused things. Instrumentation,

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on the other hand, was the great solver of life's puzzles.

Corazon had showed them the machine and, with the miniaturized instruments hidden on their bodies, they had recorded its power and its sounds and its waves.

The conclusion of the experts-"just rough, of course, sir"-was that'at the point of impact, a rearranging signal was sent to the cells in the human body. In other words, the cells rearranged themselves.

"In other words?" said Dr. Jameson. "I haven't followed a bloody word."

"The machine sends out a signal that triggers matter to alter itself. Organic matter. Living matter."

"Good. Then if we have the signal we can make the bloody machine ourselves."

"Not quite, sir. The types of rays and waves in the world are infinite. The triggering device in Corazon's machine is probably some substance we know nothing about."

"Then how did that savage in medals figure it out?"

"He probably just lucked into it," said one of the scientific members of the team. "Just a guess, until we get lab reports, but I think the machine works off the human nervous system. That poor woman's dress was cotton. That was organic material. But it was unaffected."

"I felt a bit woozy, sir," offered the youngest member of Jameson's team. "When the machine went on, I felt woozy."

"Anyone else?" asked Dr. Jameson.

They had felt tingles. Only one man had felt nothing, and that was Dr. Jameson himself.

"You had a spot of brandy before our meeting, sir," offered an aide.

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"Yes. True," said Jameson.

"And there was that Umibian. We heard that Corazon had to hit him twice with the rays before he went. He was drunk as a lord, sir."

"Nervous system. Alcohol. Perhaps," said Dr. Jameson. "Perhaps we could assault the presidential palace roaring drunk, eh? And then we'd be immune to the machine."

The men chuckled. Unfortunately things were not that simple. The whole island, especially the capital of Ciudad Natividado, was seething with foreign operations. One might successfully get his hands on the machine, losing quite a few men in the process, but then be too weak to get it out of the country. Because all the other agents seeing one with the prize would join together to thwart the winner. Whoever got the machine first would have to fight a mini world war. Alone.

Dr. Jameson had grown to love this keen working group of effective killers. They could get on with the dirty work and leave it behind. He would match his stout band against anyone else. But not against everyone else. The odds were just too great.

It was a weird island, this. And a weirder situation. The key to a situation with so many weird variables was to stay orderly and not try to match weird with weird, witch doctor with witch doctor, but just stay with what you knew. Keep the British square, so to speak. Let the others make the mistakes. Yes. Dr. Jameson sucked on his pipe and watched the scrub and palm whiz by his window on the dirt road.

Had Corazon stumbled onto some sort of magic? The dials on the machine were not all functioning. Unless, of course, the most destructive machine ever

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invented used parts from a Waring blender and a spring-motor from an Erector set.

In Ciudad Natividado, the British point man reported that their room in the hotel had been occupied by an aged Oriental and a skinny white man who, when confronted with the working end of a Walther P-38, replied that he wasn't that happy with the island, his own government, any other government, the day, the hotel, the man pointing the gun, or the taped soap opera blaring out of a television set that had been brought to play the tape, which he had seen twenty-two times and didn't like the first time, either. However, if the British agent wanted to do himself a favor, he would not interrupt the show. Especially since in this heat, he would also be doing the white man a favor because the white man didn't feel like disposing of bodies, but in this heat you couldn't just let them lie around.

Yes, the white man had responded further, he was aware it was a pistol being pointed at his face and, no, he did not know it was a Walther whatchamacall-it and it made no difference whether the man intended to shoot or not.

"Say anything else?" Dr. Jameson asked.

"Yes, sir. He didn't like those drums beating all the time either."

"Sounds like a nit," said Dr. Jameson over the radio.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, remove them from the room, if you would."

"By force?"

"Why not?"

"Yes, sir. Kill?"

''If you have to," radioed Jameson.

"It is for a room, sir. Only a room."

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"On Baqia, that is enough."

"They look so defenseless, sir. Not a weapon on them. And the white man is an American, sir."

"It's been a hard day," said Dr. Jameson. "Please." And he waited in his car, with the rest of his team in their cars, for the word that the room had been cleared out. When twenty minutes had passed, Dr. Jameson sent another man with a radio transmitter that worked and told him to report back that indeed the room had been cleared out, and if the first agent's radio had failed to work properly there would be what-ho in the supply room back in London.

The second agent did not return, either.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Remo looked at the pistol. There was a way a man cradled a pistol butt that was a fairly certain indication of when the trigger would be pulled.

Most people tended not to notice these things, because when you are looking at someone you think is about to kill you, the perceptions of trigger fingers and how the ridges of the skin rest on the gunmetal trigger just aren't there. Unless they were trained to be there. It was like hitting a baseball with a bat. It would be an impossible thing for someone who had never seen a baseball come at him before, but it was just a regular occurrence for a major leaguer who had hit baseball after baseball.

So Remo knew the man wasn't about to pull the trigger because he just wasn't ready for it. The pressure of the finger ridges wasn't there.

"Yeah, okay, thank you for the threat and come back when you're ready to kill," Remo said.