"You're not supposed to. Just walk naturally."
He let go of her wrist. They walked a few more steps. Remo stopped and grabbed her arm again.
"What--?"
"Shh," he said. He felt the pressure waves increasing on his body. He did not know what he sensed or how he sensed it, but there was a faint pressure, circling in on him, invisibly touching him, a caress of danger.
"There's a weapon on us," he said softly.
"How do you know?"
"I know is all. Upstairs window. Wait. Wait. Now!"
He pushed her aside as a shot cracked. She hit the soft grassy earth and rolled behind a large stone that decorated the home's flower-bedecked front garden.
Remo had spun into a double spiral. The shot had been meant for his right hip. He knew it without knowing it and he went heavily down onto the stone path.
"Remo," Pamela called. She started for her feet.
He lay heavily on the stone path. "Just shut up and stay there," he hissed. "No matter what happens."
Hamuta smiled. The white man lay on the ground, still, his right hip jutting out from his body at a harsh, unreal angle. Hamuta knew he had hit the ball joint just the way he wanted to.
But the damned woman. She had slipped behind the rock, out of his sight.
He waited a moment, rifle still raised to his shoulder, then shook his head. He did not like changes in his program but he was going to have to make one. He would dispose of the man first and then take care of the woman.
He looked again at Remo.
Perhaps this time, the left hip.
Remo felt the second shot before he heard the sound.
In the fraction of a fraction of a second before the bullet reached him, he sensed its direction, its velocity, its intended target and, at the last moment, jerked his body off the ground. The bullet hit the flagstone below his left hip and he could feel shards of stone spray upward against his side. He settled back, twitched and groaned. Behind him, he could hear the rebounding slug whistling off across the road.
Pamela groaned. "Oh, no."
Remo twitched.
For a moment, Hamuta thought about removing the man's earlobes but he decided against it. There was no fun in it, a simple bullet in the heart would be best and fastest. Then go downstairs, find the woman and dispose of her too. She might prove to be more fun.
He lined up the sight with Remo's chest and squeezed the trigger.
Pamela Thrushwell was looking toward the house when she saw the flash from a gun's muzzle just inside the second-floor window. Then she heard the crack. She spun to the left, just in time to see Remo's body crumple, as if folding itself around something. It jerked back, three feet, rolled once and then lay facedown, arms sprawled out.
Hamuta did not like physical movement but not even his favorite weapon could fire through the rock behind which the young woman was hiding. He came out of the house and glanced up the slight incline to where Remo's body lay still. He was disappointed; he had wanted to have more sport with the man. Three shots, two hips and a heart, were not even enough to whet his appetite. It had been a very unspectacular, unsatisfying kill, and he would be glad to leave this barbarian country and return to a civilized land where even dying had rules and gentlemen observed them.
He walked up the path, rifle held loosely at his right side. The woman might be armed, he thought randomly. Well, it didn't matter. Women were just simply hopeless with firearms. She would be no threat; it would be no contest.
Before he reached the young white man's body, he stepped off the path and headed on a straight line for the large stone. He moved silently over the well-trimmed grass and when he reached the rock, he stopped and listened. Clearly, he heard her breathing and he smiled slightly to himself.
He bent over and picked up a small stone, made moist by the Pacific air. He moved silently to the right side of the stone, nearest the walkway, then tossed the pebble over the stone's other end.
It hit with a small sound, rippling through a flowering azalea bush. Without waiting, Hamuta moved around the right side of the rock.
He was confronted by Pamela Thrushwell's back. She stood in firing position, looking away from him, toward where the sound had come from, and before she could move, Hamuta had stepped toward her and knocked the pistol from her hand.
She wheeled to see the elegantly dressed little man, holding a rifle at his side, and smiling at her.
"Who the sod are you?" she demanded.
Hamuta smiled at her coarse British accent. The woman might be a battler and that was good. It might redeem what had so far been a very dull day.
"I am going to give you a chance to escape," Hamuta said. "You may run."
"So you can shoot me in the back?"
"I will not shoot until you are least twenty-five yards away," he said. "A twenty-five-yard head start." He smiled. "Because we are both British."
"No."
"Then I will shoot you here," Hamuta said.
Pamela's eyes strayed toward the ground where her pistol had fallen.
"You will not be able to reach it before I fire," he said. He had backed up so he was five feet away from the woman, far enough so that no sudden lunge of hers could reach the rifle before his bullet reached her brain.
A sudden jolt of fear surged in Pamela. For a moment, she seemed undecided whether to run or to take a chance on diving for the gun, hoping that a lucky shot would get the man before he got her. He seemed able to read her mind. He said, "Run and you have a chance. A small chance but a chance. Move for that pistol and you have none. Now run."
And then there was another voice that rang out over the lawn. It came from behind Hamuta.
"Not so fast, butterball."
Hamuta wheeled. Remo stood on the walkway, fifteen feet away, looking at him. The young American's eyes were dark and cold and in the lengthening evening, shadows carved his face into harsh angular planes.
Hamuta's jaw dropped open in shock.
"How are you there?" he asked, almost to himself as much as Remo.
"I'm a fast healer. I always was. Pamela, is that the voice?"
She was unable to answer. Surprise and shock had frozen her tongue.
"I said is that the voice?" Remo repeated.
"No," she finally coughed.