The hunt was twenty minutes old when Remo's quarry took a break, the early rush of panic fading as they picked up no immediate suggestions of a hot pursuit. They fanned out in a small glade overgrown with ferns, three gunmen keeping watch while the remaining six were huddled in a group, their heads together.
Remo studied them, moved past the guards as if he were invisible. The leader of the party was Chinese, but he spoke Malay to the others. Remo didn't understand a word, but no translation was required for him to know they must be hashing over what had gone wrong with the raid on Stockwell's camp. The leader started out with questions, but the answers clearly failed to satisfy him, and he had progressed to curt instructions by the time Remo began to make his move.
He started with the sentries, closing on the nearest one and striking from the shadows, catching man and weapon easily before they hit the ground. No noise. He didn't think of Audrey or of anything beyond the fine points of the stroke he knew by heart.
Imagine every move before you make it. See it in your mind and let your muscles feel it.
Done.
He moved on to the second guard, had no more trouble there. The target was not perfectly aligned, so Remo let the sentry hear him coming, just a scuffling in the dirt to bring the soldier's head around. He pulled the punch enough to keep from shattering his adversary's skull—too much potential for the sound to carry—but it did the trick, regardless. Blood was leaking from the dead man's nose and ears as Remo eased him down onto the turf.
The third lookout appeared to have no clue of what it meant to stand a ready watch. He had his back turned toward the forest, busy listening to every word his leader said, when Remo look him from behind and snapped his neck without breaking a sweat. Three up, three down—but now he had a problem on his hands.
The other six all carried automatic weapons, most of them Kalashnikovs, and while the distance was not great, their huddle almost perfect for his purposes, he didn't want to simply fling himself among them, striking left and right as if it were a barroom brawl. For one thing, he couldn't be sure the leader would survive that way. And for another, he wasn't convinced that the Chinese would be of any use to him, alone.
Which meant that he would have to use a gun.
It ran against the grain. Those days were long behind him now, the teachings of Sinanju having lifted Remo to another plane, where firearms were both awkward and unnecessary. He could snatch life from his adversaries in a hundred different ways, bare-handed, and if that failed, he had learned the secrets of converting household objects into deadly weapons as the need arose. With guns, you had the noise and smell, ballistics tests, the problem of disposal—but the rules were all on hold tonight. Whatever happened in the next few moments, the authorities could search for months and come up empty.
On the flip side, if he made his next move empty-handed, Remo could be forced to kill all six of the guerrillas, and come out of the experience no wiser than when it began.
The choice was made. He held the third dead sentry's rifle cocked and ready as he stepped into the glade.
"Does anyone speak English here?"
The sound of Remo's voice brought six men scrambling to their feet, a couple of them aiming guns in his direction. They were startled, but they also saw the AK-47 in his hands, and when their leader barked an order to the rank and file, they held their fire.
"I said, does anyone speak English?"
There was a momentary hesitation. Several of the Malays glanced back and forth at one another. Finally, the leader made things easy, holding up one hand as if he were a schoolboy asking for a bathroom pass.
"I do," he said.
"That's fine. Now, tell your boys to lay their weapons down—no tricks—and line up over there." As Remo spoke, he pointed with the AK-47's muzzle to a clear spot in the glade, some ten or twelve feet to the left of the Chinese.
The would-be soldiers did as they were told, reluctantly at first, but when the leader started snapping at them, they got motivated in a hurry. Remo had them covered as they stacked their weapons in a pile and lined up touching shoulders, as if waiting for a uniform inspection.
Remo could have shot them where they stood, one burst to knock them down like bowling pins, but he had something else in mind. Six pairs of eyes were focused on him as he crossed the glade in dappled moonlight, thick ferns swishing feather soft around his legs.
"You sit down on that log," he told the Chinaman, and pointed to a spot that placed the leader six or seven strides from the collected hardware.
It would have to be enough.
"All comfy?"
Remo waited for the leader's curt, resentful nod before he went to work. He used the AK-47 as a cudgel, spinning it around, first striking with the butt and then the barrel, crushing skulls, ribs, Adam's apples, breastbones, vertebrae. He caught the first two absolutely by surprise, and nailed the other three as they tried to break and run. The rifle wasn't balanced for such work, but it served well enough until he broke the stock on number four and had to kill the fifth by hand.
Their leader sat and watched them die, a stunned expression on his face. He didn't have to ask what had become of his three sentries when he saw the bodies strewed at Remo's feet. A sharp flick of the wrist, and Remo sent the broken AK-47 spinning out of sight.
"Okay," he said, not even winded by the massacre, "let's talk."
"Who are you?" asked the Chinese leader when he could find his voice.
"I'll ask the questions," Remo told him, stepping closer just to emphasize the point. "All right?"
"All right."
"You made a move on Dr. Stockwell's expedition, and I need to find out why."
"Stockwell?"
He closed the gap, reached out and grabbed his adversary by the throat. It was a simple thing, no trick at all, to hoist him off the ground and let him dangle, choking as a steely grip cut off his flow of oxygen.
"I guess I wasn't clear about the rules," said Remo. "When I ask a question, you're supposed to answer it, not pick a word and give it back like I was talking to a parrot. Do we understand each other?"
Remo shook the man a bit, then dropped him in a heap. Stepped back and gave his prisoner enough room to get up on hands and knees.
"We don't know Stockwell," the Chinese informed him, holding one hand to his throat and speaking in a raspy tone. "No names. I'm told a group of round-eyes will be coming, one of them a comrade. He has information I must send back to… send back."
He let the fancy footwork go for now. "Which round-eye?"
"We don't know. He will reveal himself when it is time."
"You took a chance back there," said Remo, "shooting up the camp. How did you know you wouldn't kill him?"
"My men get excited," the Chinese replied. "I try to stop them. They are not much good."
"Not anymore. You want to join them?"
Blinking rapidly, the Chinese shook his head. "No, please."
"Okay. What kind of information were you looking for?"
"Don't know. The round-eye would deliver. We would pass it on."
"On, where?"
The kneeling soldier hesitated, finally shook his head. Remo's hand moved to his neck and at a certain spot applied pressure. The soldier's eyes bulged as he was overtaken by a universe of pain he never even knew existed.
"That was just a love memento," Remo told him when he let go. "I don't think you really want to piss me off."
The Chinese stared at Remo. Silent tears of pain left bright tracks on his sallow cheeks.
"Once more, then," Remo said. "Who's waiting for the information? Where's it going?"
Silence, and he was about to try a different strike, had one arm poised and ready, when his hostage blurted out a single word.