The driver glanced at Remo as he sprawled across the back seat. One could not tell his age from looking at him. He was lean of build, with extra-thick wrists. He had high cheekbones and dark eyes. He wore a pair of loafers, black chinos, and a black T-shirt he had bought in the hotel lobby because he didn't feel like unpacking. The shirt said, "Do it in Denver."
Before letting him in the cab, the driver made him show that he had enough money to pay for the trip, which was thirty miles into the Rockies.
"You gonna train as a killer?" the driver called out, trying to meet Remo's eyes in the rearview mirror. Remo kept looking out the window.
"What?" he said.
"You gonna train in Colonel Mactrug's killer school?"
"Why would I want to do that?" said Remo. He was thinking about orange juice. Orange juice would be good for breakfast. It would take forty minutes to get to the killer camp, five minutes at most to find Mactrug, a second . . . maybe a second and a half to kill him... and then forty-five minutes back to Denver.
That would still be breakfast time, even though Remo hadn't eaten formal breakfasts for years. Old-fashioned breakfasts could not only slow down a person, but if one were highly sensitized to his body's maximum functions, a big, hearty breakfast with meats and sugars could kill him. They would move through the system too quickly and cause heart fluctuations. And even though Remo could control his heartbeat, it was foolish to take chances.
Yes. Orange juice. Definitely orange juice for breakfast. Perhaps some rice. Maybe shredded celery. Or would he save the celery for lunch?
The driver was talking, telling Remo how famous 18
Mactrug was. How deadly Mactrug was. He had seen television shows of Mactrug throwing a knife through a melon that could be a man's head.
He had seen Mactrug shoot an apple out of a tree.
He had seen Mactrug, so skillful with a bullwhip that he could remove a cigarette from a man's mouth.
"Colonel Mactrug fought against Castro in Cuba and against Communists in Vietnam, and he taught the Portuguese in Angola how to fight the guerillas."
"That's what I said. Why should I want to learn from him?" Remo said.
"But he's fought in all those places," the cabbie said.
"And never won anywhere," Remo said. "Have you ever thought of that?"
"Why you going there?" the driver said.
"I've got to deliver a package," Remo said. That was enough of a cover story. It would do. "Wait at the gate."
"How long?" asked the driver.
"I'll let you know when we get there," Remo said.
At the gate were the two flanking machine gun emplacements, with a guard in the middle. A broad flat field, protected by a rising cliff behind, was covered by riflemen on the ramparts of a tall cement bunkerhouse with gun slits in the reinforced concrete. Fortress Mactrug. Remo looked at it and told the driver, "A minute. Minute and a half. Four at the most."
"Should I leave the meter running?"
"Sure," said Remo.
The guard at the gate was a captain in Mactrug's army. He wanted to know Remo's business at Fortress Mactrug, and he wanted to see Remo's identification. He wore a black beret with an ornate brass pin through it. He told Remo there was no loitering. The guard told Remo he looked like a bum in his hippie T-shirt, and bums were not allowed to loiter around Fortress Mactrug.
"I've got business with Colonel what's-his-name."
"Colonel Mactrug is not a what's-his-name," said the captain. He had very shiny black paratroop boots,
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with a vicious-looking dagger stuck into the side of one of them. The captain had a thin blond mustache and a big-handled side arm. He could swagger standing still.
It was too early in the morning to swagger, thought Remo.
"I must warn you that under the trespassing laws of the state of Colorado, I am legally entitled to use whatever force..."
The captain did not finish the sentence because Remo did not want to wait around to hear the sentence finished. He knew it was going to be a long sentence full of legalisms, with vague warnings and ominous moves toward all the weapons. He knew it would be a speech for the two flanking machine gunners. People who wore daggers in their boots were not necessarily killers, but they were invariably speechmakers about killing.
Remo did a little thing for the captain. He put a finger in his heart and stopped it from working. The finger shot through the sternum like a spring bolt, but with no sound except a soft plud, like a crowbar penetrating a pile of loose bologna.
The captain stopped his speech because there was an intense shock in his chest. He had not even seen the hand move. He was talking, and then there was a shock in his chest, and then there was nothing. People do not work well without blood circulating through their system. The captain did not work at all.
With his index finger on the inside of the sternum and his thumb on the outside, Remo held up the captain's body. From a distance, it looked as if the captain had Remo's arm and was arresting him. If Remo balanced the body just right, he could keep the head from flopping over. Also, he had to keep the chest from spurting blood all over him, or he would have to get another "Do it in Denver" T-shirt or, worse, have to unpack back at the hotel.
So Remo crossed the yard with the captain carefully balanced to keep the head upright, yet not to go spurting all over his shirt. Long ago, Remo had been trained
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in balance so his body would adjust to whatever he was carrying. He walked from his own center, not from the striding of the feet. The chest thrust with which he had neutralized the guard was itself an act of balance. Most people, when they issued a blow, would brace and thrust from their feet. But that was because they were employing force. When Remo's hands moved, they were the creation of force—creating the force itself, not using it—so that the strike of forefinger had the power of a rifle bullet fired from just inches away. The danger in this stroke was that, if it was not properly balanced, the finger could be shattered as easily as the victim's heart. It was all balance and all breathing, and what was changed, what had made Remo different from other Westerners, was not what had happened in his body but in his mind.
Remo got the captain to a pair of steel doors at the entrance to the large concrete building. With his free hand, Remo knocked. A slot opened and two brown eyes peered out.
"I'm under arrest," said Remo.
"I don't see the captain's face. Maybe you have a gun in his chest. How do I know you don't have a gun in his chest?"
"I give you my word I do not have a gun in his chest."
"Colonel Mactrug said, 'A man's promise is only a puff of air. If it came from the other end, it would be called a fart.' "
"I give you my solemn word," said Remo. "Have you ever heard of a solemn fart?"
"Let me see you put your hands over your head."
"Open the door first."
"Colonel Mactrug says when you have the gun, you give the orders."
"Come on," Remo said. "It's getting late."
"Hands over the head."
Remo dropped the captain and put his hands over his head. The door opened. A gun poked out, followed