“That I don’t even understand. They weren’t in your town and why do you care if they’re in your country when you want out of the country? But, okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Foreigners are bad. Fine. Even so, killing families of foreigners at the mosque is definitely wrong. If you don’t think it is wrong, you’re a dope. An imbecile.”
The drunk muttered into his metal cup, and a silent figure at the bar spoke up. “You wouldn’t say that to Martin Copa if he were here.”
“Sure, I would. Who is Martin Copa?”
“He is the leader of the freedom fighters. He is the one called Basque Burner.”
“You mean the loser who torched those innocent people? I’d tell him to his face that he’s a loser and the stupidest piece of trash in these here hills.”
The tavern owner stepped in nervously. “American, you go home now. You drink too much.” He snatched Remo’s beer mug, only to find it was still full.
“You really want to meet Copa?” asked the quiet man at the bar.
“Yeah, sure, but I heard he’s a puss-boy who hides in the mountains. Only comes out to burn up little girls and old ladies.”
“Maybe I could put you in touch with him,” the man taunted.
Remo shrugged, attempting to look as if he was trying to look tough. “I’m game.”
That was how he ended up strolling alone on a dirt road in the foothills of the Pyrenees at dusk. If he were anyone else, he would have been walking to his death.
When the sun set behind the mountains, dark closed in quickly and Remo was in the cool stillness of night. The forests around him were still, and before long, he was miles away from anywhere.
Any other man would have been afraid for his life and rightly so. Remo wasn’t. What concerned him was his acting ability. Had he been convincing? Would he really make contact with the Basque Burner, Martin Copa? If his blind date stood him up, he might end up wandering the hills for days looking for Copa. France, even this part of France, wasn’t Remo’s favorite place.
“Thank goodness,” Remo said when someone shot at him.
It was a single round from a big rifle, and it was a shot intended to provoke, not kill. Remo didn’t even flinch.
“That’s just what I expected from Martin Copa and his band of pansy-asses,” Remo said, projecting his voice so that it carried into the hills. “If you don’t have the balls to show your face when you incinerate women and children, there’s no way you’d expose yourself to an unarmed American.”
More rifle shots echoed among the hills, and they pocked the crust of the earth around him. Only one was on target. Remo felt the approaching pressure waves of the bullet and dodged it by rotating his body just enough so that the round missed. Then he announced to the Pyrenees foothills that Martin Copa was a female cat.
“Does that mean the same thing here as in America?” Remo called.
He heard someone uphill reloading urgently, then begin firing again. Remo slipped aside of a few on- target rounds.
“Yawn. You’ve proved your point, Martin. You’re a coward. Everybody sees that now.”
Vehicles and men began coming down the hill and Remo’s spirits improved as gunmen closed in around him.
“Man, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s pushing buttons. Which one of you is Copa?”
There was a flurry of conversation. Remo didn’t catch much of it.
“Who are you, American? Why did you come out here all alone?”
‘I’m traveling with my crippled grandmother, and I knew if I brought her with me then you all would be too afraid to show your faces.”
“What did you say?” the English-speaking man demanded threateningly.
“Hey, back off,” Remo said. “Pee-yew. You sure you people aren’t French? ’Cause you smell French.”
The English speaker swore and moved in close, delivering his rifle muzzle into Remo’s stomach. He was wearing only a beige T-shirt, and the rifle muzzle should have bruised his guts, maybe even done some internal damage.
“Oops. You slipped.” Remo was now holding the rifle by the muzzle in two fingers, as if it were a ripe fish. “Jeez, even your gun has BO.”
The English speaker snatched it back and rammed it at Remo’s gut again, only this time he threw all his weight into it. Somehow, the English speaker’s feet were flying out from under him. He landed flat on his face in the dirt.
“Oops. I can see you’re an amateur with firearms,” Remo said, offering the man a hand, which spurred laughter from the others.
The English speaker jumped to his feet in a red rage, raised his rifle and fired as his companions shouted for him to stop.
Too late. The rifle boomed—but it blew back into him, removing the flesh from his chest and throat down to the bone. The wounded man crawled around the dirt making horrible noises out of the hole where his esophagus had been, then died with a rattling breath.
“Now that’s funny!” Remo said. “Who am I?” He pretended to be crawling around on all fours, wheezing noisily. “Aw, come on, guys, you gotta admit, it’s funny. Stupid man go boom?”
The others were amazed, not amused. One of them inspected the exploded gun and quickly found the crimped end of the barrel. They looked at Remo suspiciously, then herded him up the road.
“Guess that wasn’t Marty Copa,” he commented.
Nobody answered him.
They reached a dark farmhouse after a two-mile walk. Even in the dim forested foothills, Remo easily made out the scorch marks around the windows. Remo read volumes in it. Martin Copa found an ideal base of operations and convinced the previous owners that living here was no longer a good idea.
They found an authority figure in the basement at the end of a rough-hewn wooden table.
“I hope you’re really Martin Copa,” Remo said, “’cause I’m fed up with all these French ticklers he sends out to do his dirty work.”
Remo was ignored. The man at the table conversed anxiously with Remo’s captors, and stood up to briefly inspect the mutilated corpse, which had been carried with them.
“Wait, let me tell it,” Remo said. “It went like this—you’re gonna love it.” He growled and acted out the foot-stomping rage of the rifleman and pantomimed triggering the gun, then stretched the skin of his face back and did the crawling around and wheezing act again.
“These guys didn’t laugh, either,” Remo said. “Boy, you all need to lighten up.”
The leader took his seat again and stared at Remo from the blackness, agitated but trying hard to remain threateningly still. Remo stared back. What the leader didn’t know was that Remo Williams could pierce the blackness and see his consternation.
“Who are you?” the leader demanded at last.
“No, who are you? I’m done talking to peons. I want that chickenshit Copa to show his face for once. Or is he too—?”
“I am Copa.”
“You’re lying. Know how I know? Because I’m a grown man and everybody knows—and I mean everybody knows—that Martin Copa wouldn’t face a grown man even if he did have fifteen armed bodyguards. Hell, he wouldn’t face a grammar-school bully with only fifteen men to protect him.”
The ranks of gunmen understood enough English to get Remo’s drift. They muttered angrily.
“I am Martin Copa. Who are you and why do you wish me to kill you?”
“If you’re Martin Copa you won’t kill me. You’ll have one of your stinky petes do it for you.”
“Are you a fool?”
“You don’t know how often I get that.” Remo, smiled. “You sure you’re Martin Copa? The Martin Copa? The guy who murders innocent children?”
“I am Martin Copa and I slay the fascists who exert their will over the Basque people!”