He came down like a pendulum hitting dominoes. The first soldier never knew what hit him. Neither did the one next to him, who was thrown into the man beside him, who in turn clanged helmets with his comrade. The chain reaction of falling soldiers would have been comical had it not been for the sporadic eruption of automatic-weapons fire as frantic fingers tightened on triggers. Rubber-tree leaves were sickled off. Thick tree boles shattered, spewing milky sap. The Vietnamese cackled profanity. None of it did them any good.
Once they were tangled up on the road, Remo put the still-conscious ones to sleep with a series of butterfly jabs. He motioned for help, and several Amerasians dragged the soldiers off to the side of the road and confiscated their rifles. Remo had moved the Land Rovers close to the bus and started siphoning gas into jerricans bolted to the back of the bus when the Amerasians wandered out of the dark bush. They were wiping blood stains off confiscated bayonets.
Remo shrugged. War was war.
He finished siphoning off the last of the gas, hurried everyone aboard, and climbed back in. "Next stop, Cambodia---or whatever they call it now," he announced.
In the back, they giggled nervously. They were quite a mix. American faces with almond eyes. Asian faces with Western eyes. Some were white, some brown, others black. They looked lost.
A rusting road sign told Remo he was on Route Thirteen-what used to be known as the Road to Peace. If memory served, it went directly to the Cambodian border. He settled down for the long haul.
Hours later, a military Land Rover appeared in the rearview mirror and Remo again called for everyone to get onto the floor. They obeyed instantly and yelled, "Go, American!" Remo liked that.
The Land Rover drew abreast like a speedy cockroach and Remo waited until someone in a uniform stood up and shouted for him to pull over.
Remo did. In the Land Rover's direction. The vehicle swerved, precipitating the officer onto the macadam roadway. He rolled several times, his clothes coming off as if he were a shucked ear of corn: The Land Rover spun out of control and piled into a tree.
"Yay, American! Go, GI!" The Amerasians were shouting at the top of their lungs.
They weren't disturbed again until the low wop-wop-wop sound of an approaching helicopter intruded over the engine's rackety roar.
Remo held the wheel while he searched the sky. "Anybody see a chopper?"
All over the bus, the windows shot up and heads poked out, twisting faces craned to the sky.
The helicopter's wop-wop-wop changed to a whut-whut-whut and then became a clattering pocketa-pocketa noise, and Remo knew it was closing hard. But from where?
The helicopter-Remo recognized it as a Russian Hind gunship camouflaged green and brown jumped up from behind a grassy hill and the Amerasians in the right row called that they had spotted it.
"Thanks a lot," Remo muttered. Loudly he said, "Can anyone hit it?"
They tried. AK-47's erupted at the weapons-heavy gunship. It passed overhead, its racket deafening, and vanished from sight.
"Any luck?" Remo called.
"No," someone with a high-pitched voice told him. "We try again."
"Better get it on the next pass because that's when they're going to start shooting," Remo warned.
The Amerasians with weapons piled over to the opposite side of the bus, pushed the others to the floor, and stuck their muzzles into the sky. Remo noticed the freckle-faced young girl lying on her stomach, hands tented, her lips moving silently as she prayed to her ancestors.
Remo listened to the fading helicopter rotors. Then they changed pitch.
"Okay, listen up. It's coming back now. I'm going to hit the brakes. That'll give us a clean shot at them. But they'll have a better shot at us too. Don't blow it."
"Okay," he was told. It was weird to hear Vietnamese voices coming from such American faces.
The gunship was a blot in the night-blue of the sky. It grew, bearing down on them. Remo hit the brakes. The riflemen opened up. They fired sporadically.
"Let them get into range!" Remo warned. "Don't waste ammo."
"We trying!"
"Damn," Remo said. His foot poised over the accelerator. They were sitting ducks, but if he started up, they'd never get that gunship.
Then he noticed the AK-47 he'd set beside the driver's seat. Let Chiun get as upset as he wanted.
Remo hit the door handle as he scooped up the AK-47. He set it for single shot and raised the muzzle sight to eye level. The weapon felt strange and clumsy, like a railroad tie. It'd been so long since he'd used a rifle. He made the gun sight describe slow circles in the air around the looming Hind. He tightened the circle until he could feel the gunship's rotors vibrating the barrel and transmitting the vibration down his arm. Tighter and tighter until he found the center of the gunship. When he could see the pilot's dark glasses clearly, he fired. Once. Then he lowered the rifle confidently.
Nothing happened for several minutes. The others continued to fire raggedly, but Remo knew they wouldn't affect what was about to happen.
The pilot still clutched his stick, but his chin was tilted up. The helicopter started to dance in place. It wobbled, then its tail boom suddenly swung around as the pilot's feet ceased to work the stabilizing rotor pedals.
The gunship reeled, pitched, and suddenly nosed to the earth. It exploded in a spectacular orange fireball. Sooty smoke billowed up after the dissipating flames. The gunship was lost in the smoke. There were screams.
"Okay, let's go!" Remo said, returning to the wheel. He sent the bus careening down the road as his passengers happily congratulated themselves on their combined marksmanship.
Remo rolled his eyes. "This is going to be a long ride," he muttered.
The sun rose on his impassive countenance, and though he welcomed its warmth after the chill of evening, the Master of Sinanju refused to open his hazel eyes.
Harold Smith's footsteps approached, the slightly arthritic creaking of his right knee sounding louder to Chiun than it ever had before. But even for his emperor, the Master of Sinanju did not open his eyes.
"Er, Master of Sinanju?" Smith's voice was hesitant.
"I am awake."
"Good. "
"But I have not moved since last we spoke. I have slept all night like this."
"That is your right."
"No," Chiun's parchment lips intoned, "it is my shame, my responsibility, my atonement. But not my right. Never my right."
"Yes," said Smith. He looked at the frail figure of the Master of Sinanju seated on the gravel roof of Folcroft Sanitarium. Chiun wore a thin white kimono, completely without decoration or adornment, the blouse rent so that his hairless chest was bared to the elements. He sat in a lotus position, his tiny feet unshod and his hands held palm-up and loose-fingered in his lap. He faced the rising sun. A chill breeze off nearby Long Island Sound played with the wisps of hair over his ears. His beard hairs danced like wafting smoke.
"I will remain here until my son returns," Chiun said.
"That could be a long time," Smith pointed out.
"If it takes the rest of my life, then so be it. I gave my word that Remo would return and he has not. My word has been violated. Until Remo does return, I will stay here, not eating, not drinking, my flesh exposed to the cruel elements. But I do not worry about the cruelty of the elements. Neither bitter wind nor lashing rain could sting so deep as the indifference of my adopted son, who would allow my promise to be broken."
"Is that your final word?"
"Inviolate word. Absolute word. My word given in Remo's name has been shattered, but the word of a Master of Sinanju, given of his own actions, cannot be broken. Will not be broken," Chiun said emphatically, raising a long-nailed finger. "I have spoken."