?CHAPTER ELEVEN
"You're really something," Sam Wolfshy said for the hundredth time as they neared the peak of the mountain.
Since their escape from being buried alive, Chiun had become even more of a hero to the Indian than he had been before. "I can't get over it," Wolfshy said. "That Sinanju stuff is the greatest. You got to teach it to me, Chiun, okay?"
"Do not insult the sun source of the martial arts by associating yourself with it," the old man said crankily.
The Indian was undaunted. "If you'll give me lessons, I'll pay you for them later," he said. "It'll be sort of like borrowing a little information."
"The art of Sinanju requires more than a little information, O lard brain," Chiun said. He cocked his head. "Although you are correct. I was quite remarkable. To hold up the boulder as I did is a feat of extraordinary discipline, both mental and physical. Without my perfect breathing and impeccable timing, we would never have escaped from the bowels of the earth alive." He polished his fingernails on the sleeve of his robe.
"Hey, wait a minute. I'm the one that got you out," Remo groused.
"Oh, yes," Chiun conceded. "You performed quite adequately— for a white thing."
"For a—"
"Look at my robe. It is in tatters. Remo, remind me to get some others on our next trip to Sinanju."
"You mean there really is such a place?" Wolfshy asked. "Can I go?"
"Certainly not," Chiun said. "I would be laughed out of my village if I were to take you. Besides, you would manage to get us lost on the way."
For the first time, the Indian showed dismay. "I found the path, didn't I?" His head hung low.
"Cheer up, Sam," Remo said. "Sinanju isn't exactly the garden spot of the world."
"But I want to see it. I want to learn what you guys do. I know—"
"Hold it. Look over that rise."
Over a grass-covered knoll rose the bell tower of the monastery. In the center of the crumbling outer wall were twin gates of rough-hewn timber bound together by thick bands of iron. Even though the place had housed an order of holy men, it looked like a fort. The analogy became even more pronounced as the three men watched a dozen black-clad soldiers spread along the top of the wall. Their gun barrels caught and reflected the late-morning sunlight.
And there was something else up there, too. Remo squinted to look into the light. "I think there's a woman standing on the wall."
The small nude figure crouched, holding onto her elbows.
"Huh? Where?" Wolfshy asked, straining unsuccessfully to see.
"She has been beaten," Chiun observed. "This must be the place you seek."
From the deep grass on the valley floor came a low groan.
"Try to get into the monastery," Remo told Chiun. "Sam, you take cover. I think we've been spotted."
He waded into the deep grass, searching for the source of the sound. He almost gasped when he saw Kains, or what was left of him. His arms and legs lay immobile in unnatural positions. Bones in his chest and arms jutted brokenly through his black uniform. Kains coughed, and a fountain of blood spurted from his lips.
"Jesus," Remo whispered.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned." The words came out in a feeble whisper.
Remo tried to dredge in the faraway corners of his memory for some words of comfort. He had been raised as a Catholic in the orphanage, but he could remember nothing that would make death easier for this or any other man.
"He forgives you," Remo said. He was not a religious man, but he couldn't believe that God could look at a man as mangled as Kains and turn His back on him.
"Thank you," Kains mumbled. Blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth. "I did it for Consuela."
"Sure, kid," Remo said. He arranged the young soldier's limbs into a more normal appearance.
"But Quantril's going to kill her all the same."
Remo's ears prickled at the name. It was too uncommon and too famous. "Who's Quantril?"
Kains's lips quivered in an effort to speak. "Quantril's the boss. Rich man."
"Miles Quantril? The big business type?"
"He's a killer, mister. You got to stop him. Oh, Consuela…."
"Take it easy," Remo said.
"She was so pretty."
"Yeah. Try not to talk."
"It was all I could do."
Remo looked over the dying man. "It was enough," he said. "You kept her alive."
Kains smiled once, as if he were watching something far away. Then a low, gurgling sound bubbled up out of his throat. The soldier tensed in one weak spasm and then died. Remo closed the man's eyes.
Before he could rise, a grenade exploding at his feet knocked him over in a violent somersault.
He dived for cover in a grove of piñon trees. A bullet cracked the air and kicked up a cloud of dust near his face. Five more shots were fired in rapid sequence, splintering a large tree nearby. On the monastery wall, the lone naked woman was replaced by a swarm of men in black moving like spiders along the fortification's outer edge.
Ducking the gunfire, Remo peered out to spot Chiun. The old Oriental was near the front gates of the monastery, walking forward with great dignity and ceremony. Behind him Wolfshy slinked, crouching in the shadow of Chiun's tiny frame.
He's drawing the fire away from me, Remo thought. It was the right thing to do. Remo needed a clear path.
Like dying crows, a rain of black hand grenades fell from the monastery wall onto Chiun and the Indian. Effortlessly, Chiun snapped them out of the air as quickly as they fell and lobbed them back to the other side with a flick of his finger.
It was Remo's cue. He aimed himself for the wall and barreled for it at full speed. As he neared the fortress, he felt the force of gravity pulling at his cheeks and lips.
Above him on the roof of the building could be heard the sound of women screaming. But they were screams of fear, not of pain, and the voices came from the opposite side of the roof from where Chiun had returned the grenades.
The old man had taken it all into consideration, Remo thought. By the time Remo reached the wall, he was almost flying. His legs kept moving at exactly the same pace as he ran out of ground and into a vertical stone wall, but because of his momentum, there was no difference in his stride.
Remo could climb walls from a dead halt, but it required delicate balance, and the act could only be performed slowly, by easing his feet and fingers along the surface. Moving so slowly, he would have made too easy a target. The way he scaled it now, the soldiers standing on the edge of the parapets saw little more than a blur as Remo vaulted over the top. Even before he landed, he was slashing with both hands, feeling two necks unjoint under his knuckles.
Remo did not need to see. From the moment he started his run in the valley, all of his normal sensations were blocked out, replaced by a feeling of occupied space. He himself was an object in that space, and so were the soldiers around him. They were all units of weight, and Remo could feel that weight as it shifted and turned around him. He kicked out behind him, not because he heard the soldier's stealthy tread or the whoosh of the weapon as it scraped softly against the man's uniform to rest in firing position, but because Remo felt the space behind him as the soldier occupied it. His foot struck the soldier in the abdomen. From the muted crack of vertebrae, which Remo felt on the sole of his foot, he knew the soldier's back was broken.
Effortlessly, without thought, he raised his elbow in a lightning-quick movement. It caught another black-garbed soldier in the jaw, spinning the man's head around with a sharp crack. Remo's arms moved continuously. As the space around him began to open up, he heard the throaty gurgles of the dying and the rapid tattoo of a man's boots on the tile roof of the monastery as he convulsed with his last breath.
Then the gunfire began. He had only, he realized, gone through the first line of defense. Forcing his eyes to work, he now saw a group of soldiers, armed with submachine weapons, lined along the wall on three sides. On the fourth side, behind Remo, huddled the screaming, naked women.