"I am not afraid of you."
"Damn," said Remo. Turning to Chiun, he said, "Your turn, Little Father."
"I am no harmer of females. That is your job."
Sighing, Remo told the girl, "This is going to hurt me as much as it hurts you."
"Hurt her as much as you wish," said Colonel Primitivo, dark eyes flashing with anticipation.
Remo took her left earlobe, where a sensitive nerve was located, and pinched it. The guerrilla seemed to surge up out of her boots and squeezed her tearing eyes shut even as she gnashed her lower lip to a crimson rag.
"I do not know!" she wailed.
"She lies," spat the colonel.
"She's telling the truth," said Remo, releasing the girl's earlobe.
Gasping for air, she shrank back into her uniform, saying, "Kill me now if you must."
"The next person who touches her," a cold voice said from the jungle thickness, "eats angry subsonic rounds!"
Chapter 37
The commanding crack of a voice came from the west.
Remo's gaze veered toward the sound.
The ranks of trees were clustered tightly, and clotting darkness held sway between them. The gathering clouds above had almost swallowed the last fading starlight before the approach of dawn.
But there was enough starlight for Remo's eyes to capture and magnify.
Deep in the murk, a figure in black resolved itself out of the shadows. The head was muffled except for a slash surrounding the eyes, which were darkened with burned cork.
Remo saw the eyes. Blue.
"Bingo!" he said. "There's our man, Chiun."
"The eyes should be green."
"Blue-green. They're close enough for government work."
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Chiun called.
"Step away from the girl!" the crack of a voice said.
"Make us," taunted Chiun.
"I'll wax you all."
"You wax us and the girl dies, too," Remo pointed out.
"That's a chance I'll take."
The guerrilla stiffened and held her breath. Otherwise, she didn't look very worried.
Remo lifted his voice again. "Sorry. No sale. She doesn't think you'll do it, and neither do we."
"You are finished, Verapaz," the Mexican colonel called out.
"Shut up, tostada face. I'm not Verapaz."
"Then who are you?" Chiun demanded.
"Ask your colonel."
Remo eyed the colonel.
Primitivo shrugged. "He claims to be El Extinguirador. "
"Who?"
"You might know him as Blaize Fury."
"Yeah, I know who Blaize Fury is. How come you do, too?"
"Because I have read many of his pulse-pounding adventures in my carefree jouth. "
"Same here."
Primitivo showed smiling teeth. "Then we are allies."
"Blaize Fury wouldn't shoot unarmed civilians in the face and neither would I. Sorry. Consider your fan-club membership permanently revoked."
To Remo's surprise the colonel looked completely crestfallen.
The commanding voice sounded again, a distinct whiplash of a sound. "The Extinguisher doesn't say things twice."
"The Extinguisher is a sissy," Chiun called out.
"Who are you calling a sissy?"
"The Extinguisher. The sissy who extinguishes."
Remo called out. "Look, we're not backing down, so you better come out so we can straighten this out."
A long silence developed. Remo had his eye on the shape in the forest murk. Abruptly it moved to one side.