"That's all right, corporal."
Dexter's haggard face relaxed. "Thank you, sir."
Bauer took out his revolver, a Colt Magnum. "Think nothing of it," he said, and fired point blank into the man's face.
When his body with its still-surprised eyes hit the floor, Bauer kicked it toward Kains. "See that this doesn't happen again," the major said in a quiet voice before he left.
Kains felt the blood drain from his face. As he followed Bauer and his men out, he stole a glance at Consuela. She was on her hands and knees on the floor beside Dexter's body. Her head sagged as she tried to raise herself up, Kains wished he could help her. But he knew he was no match for Deke Bauer.
A half-hour later, Bauer sat with his feet propped up on a paper-littered rolltop desk. He took a long pull at his dappled green cigar while, in the distance, the sharp explosive bark of a machine gun punctuated the still afternoon.
His men hadn't caught up with the Lockwood girl yet, but it wouldn't be long. No unarmed female could hide in these mountains for long. Her escape was a minor slipup, nothing to worry about. He blew a spiral of smoke toward the ceiling. A smile played at the corners of his hard-set mouth. Only a very few things elicited a smile from him. The sound of gunfire was one of them.
Swinging his legs off the desk, he crossed to where a fire of piñon logs blazed in the fieldstone hearth. He picked up a poker and idly probed the blaze, setting off a shower of sparks. The sight reminded him of artillery flares. The corners of his mouth went up. Artillery flares were another thing that made the major smile.
On the whole, he felt damn good about having his own command again. True, it was only fifty men, but among them were some of the best combat soldiers to come out of Nam. Bauer himself had whipped them back into shape with an entire month of intensive retraining. They were well armed, well paid, and ready for anything that might come their way.
So far nothing had. The girl's feeble attempt at escape wasn't even worth a thought, as far as Bauer was concerned. His men would test themselves against real fighting men when the time came. Miles Quantril had promised him that chance, and Bauer trusted him, in a perverse kind of way. Despite Quantril's cruelty, there was something, almost military in the man's bearing and in the way his voice carried the weight of authority.
Bauer turned away from the fireplace and ran his hand along a shelf of war mementos near his desk. There were his medals, of course. Twelve of them in two neat rows, pinned on a field of deep blue velvet. Next to them was an assortment of newspaper clippings and telegrams, yellowing now in their carefully dusted frames. The clippings were all about the war. He'd thrown out all the stories about his trial, treating them like the garbage they were. Candy-ass civilians, he'd thought. They don't know what war's like.
Deke Bauer knew. War was excitement. It was challenge. It was the only real test of a man's worth. War was life.
The last item on the shelf was a fading snapshot of a much younger Bauer, standing in a jungle clearing with three other men, all in uniform. He couldn't remember the occasion for the picture, but it must have been something special, because all three of the men in the photo were enlisted men under him, and he'd never particularly liked any of them. Still, it was the only picture of Bauer from the war that had survived, and so it had taken on a special importance for him.
"Tabert, Hancock, and Williams," the major muttered to himself. Hancock had bought the farm three days after the picture had been taken. Bauer had no idea what had happened to Tabert. He'd read something about Williams years ago. He'd become a cop or something. Then he went bad and ended up going to the electric chair.
It came as no surprise to Bauer. There'd always been something not quite right about Williams.
There was a sharp rap at the door. Like everyone else in Bauer's outfit, the sergeant at the threshold was dressed in black. An Uzi submachine gun was slung over his shoulder.
"We've spotted the prisoner, sir," he said.
"Has she been stopped?"
"No, sir. She's keeping close to rocks and vegetation, sir. But she's headed down the south side of the mountain. It looks like she's going to run right into a carload of intruders, sir."
"Intruders?"
"Three men, sir. One of them's an old Oriental. They're about halfway up the mountain."
"Campers?"
"Probably, sir."
The major nodded thoughtfully. "Take a team of eight men and eliminate them. And the girl. Bring the bodies back here. Understand, Sergeant Brickell?"
Brickell understood. He understood that if he didn't bring the bodies back, he didn't have to bother to come back himself.
As he hurried out of the room, Bauer smiled again. Death was one of those things that always made him smile.
?CHAPTER SIX
At 6,000 feet, the juniper and sagebrush of the Sangre de Cristos gave way to towering Douglas firs and thick stands of ponderosa pine.
Sam Wolfshy gunned the jeep's engine, but the wheels only spun helplessly on the steep, rocky incline.
"It's no use," Remo said. "We'd better get out and walk."
"Walk? What'll happen to my jeep if we leave it here?" Wolfshy protested.
"This is the middle of nowhere. Besides, you said yourself that we'd have to leave it."
"Not in the middle of nowhere! How'll we ever find it again?"
"That's your problem," Remo said irritably. "You're supposed to be the great Indian guide."
"I am," Sam protested. "I am a full-blooded Kanton." His eyes hardened with inner conviction. "These mountains are the hunting grounds of my ancestors. Through my veins—"
"Oh, bulldookey," Remo said. "Since we left Harry's gas station, we've gotten lost eight times."
"I can't help if it the moss grows on the wrong side of the trees here."
"Moss always grows on the north side."
"Only white man's moss," Wolfshy said with dignity.
Remo sighed and started up the hill. It was nearly sunset, and the shadows were deepening. The temperature at the high elevation was considerably colder than it had been in the sun-washed foothills.
Behind him Chiun walked regally through the dense forest, his blue robe fluttering in the breeze. Sam Wolfshy was still back at the car, struggling to strap a knapsack full of provisions onto his back.
"Which path do we take?" Remo called from a granite outcropping beside a fork in the trail.
"Uh, left," Sam said. "No, I think we ought to go right. Well, actually there's something to be said for both directions."
"You're the most indecisive human being I've ever met!" Remo exploded.
"I'm just open-minded," the Indian said, hurt.
"Don't you have a map?"
"I don't need a map. I'm a full-blooded Kanton."
Remo sputtered, then forced himself to calm down. "All right, Sam. Have it your way. But if we get lost again, I'm going to see to it that you're not a full-blooded anything, got it?"
"Well, I do happen to have a little map," Wolfshy said, reaching into his coat. "Harry was kind enough to loan it to me."
Remo snatched it from him. "This is a road map," he yelled. "What good is this going to do us? The nearest road is twenty miles away."
"There are things on here besides roads. Look." Wolfshy pointed to a pink splotch. "Here are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. That's where we are."
"No kidding," Remo said, crumpling the map into a ball and throwing it as far as he could. "It's already getting dark. We'll never find our way to the monastery before tomorrow."
"Look, why don't we just make the best of things?" Wolfshy suggested. "We're in a kind of clearing here. I'll build a fire and cook up some supper. Then, after a good night's rest, we can make our way to the top of the range tomorrow. We won't have to go up much farther before we can see the mission." He smiled. "How does that sound?"