As quickly as their interest in the distant battle was piqued, it evaporated.
Both men felt their guns being yanked from their grimy hands. They spun back to the man they had discovered lurking above the hut of their precious alien.
Remo was tossing the M-16s into the shadows. Soaring unseen, they flew over the side of the cliff, plummeting through the empty space to the Rio Grande far below.
"Hey, what'd you do with my gun?" one man complained.
"This," Remo replied.
Grabbing a handful of grubby shirt, Remo repeated the action he'd performed with the rifle. Screaming all the way, the Camp Earther arced out over the side of the mountain and plunged through the night air. The man's cry for help ended in a distant splash.
After witnessing the fate of his companion, the second man decided to take his chances on land. Without a word to Remo, he turned and flung himself over the edge of the hill, crashing down through rock and brush until he struck the plateau below. Once he hit, he did not move again.
"My life would be a heck of a lot easier if they all did that," Remo commented as he looked down at the body.
In the distant camp, guns still blazed. Chiun could take care of himself.
Senses straining alertness, Remo began picking his careful way down the hill to the shack.
CHIUN SWIRLED through the mob of Camp Earthers, an angry silver dervish.
Guns were wrenched from their owners, tearing arms from sockets in the process. Both rifles and appendages were flung aside.
"You dare!" Chiun raged.
Two Camp Earthers leaned against a pathetic tin shed, thinking that by bracing their backs they could get a steadier shot. But although they tried to track the movements of the tiny figure who flounced and spun within their midst, they failed to score a single hit.
Chiun suddenly whirled on the two men. Framed by campfire, he was like some demon cast up from the very bowels of hell itself.
Panicked, the pair unloaded everything in their magazines. It was not enough. As bullets sang out into the dark night, Chiun flew at the two men.
As he was airborne, nary a bullet kissed a single silk kimono thread.
Sandaled feet caught two brittle sternums, crushing them to splinters. The men exploded backward, crumpling the flimsy shed wall. Even as the dust began to collect on the thin film of blood that gurgled up between their dead lips, the roof of the shack was tumbling downward. It formed a makeshift coffin lid.
Chiun twirled from the collapsed corrugated tin.
The steady pop-pop of automatic-weapons fire had dwindled rapidly since its start mere moments before. The Master of Sinanju spun through the last four firing Camp Earthers.
Toes lashed out; hands were flung in seemingly wild gestures. Fingers clasping guns were shattered to jelly. Blood erupted from throats and chests. The gunmen fell to the dirt.
Chiun wheeled, narrowed eyes searching. He found Beta RAM cowering behind a pile of crates that the residents of Camp Earth had been breaking up for firewood.
Whirling over to the wooden boxes, Chiun brought his hands down in furious slashing movements. The wood shattered to kindling beneath his vengeful fists.
With one hand, Chiun lifted Beta into the air. "Where is the one called Roote?" the Master of Sinanju demanded hotly.
Beta extended a single, shaking hand. He was like a palsy victim. "There," he gasped, pointing to the far end of the encampment.
With a look of disgust on his wrinkled parchment features, Chiun flung Beta into the ruins of one of the Camp Earth shacks. Spinning on his heel, he marched from the scene of carnage, toward Roote's shack.
Even as Chiun was storming across the camp, Beta was pulling himself to his feet.
He didn't give Chiun's back a second glance. Heart thudding madly, Beta RAM ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
Chapter 28
Chiun's hooded eyes were knots of vellum mistrust as he watched the familiar figure running toward him.
Arthur Ford ran, stumbling, across the camp, away from the sand-covered promontory on which Elizu Roote's tin shack rested. Eyes wild, he flung himself desperately at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun grabbed the ufologist by the shoulders, holding him at an annoyed distance.
"You've got to save us!" Ford begged. "He's crazy!"
"You aided his escape," Chiun said levelly.
"That's because I didn't know what he was," Ford pleaded desperately. "You've got to believe me. He's dangerous. He has to be stopped."
Chiun released the UFO enthusiast. "This creature. It lurks within?" the old Korean asked.
Ford nodded. "He knows you're here, but he's weak. I don't think he has much power left." Eyes directed at the shack, the Master of Sinanju nodded crisply. He sensed both truth and deception coming from Ford. Without another word, he turned and crossed the small space to Roote's hut. Behind him a tiny smile broke out across Ford's face as Chiun ducked through the metal door. There was a moment of frightening silence.
All at once, a massive thumping noise erupted from the tin shed. And as Ford watched with nervous glee, the entire shack was engulfed in a pulse of electric blue.
HE WAS TOO SLOW!
Halfway up the hill, Remo watched in horror as the massive surge of electrical energy coursed around the exterior of the tiny metal hut. The hum that permeated the night air was that of a million insects' fluttering wings in one horrible instant.
Remo had only seen Chiun at the last moment. Too late to even shout a warning as the old Korean ducked inside the shed.
Now, as he watched the arcs of high voltage leap from one side of the frame to the other at the mouth of the shack, the dreadful truth could not be denied.
Roote was far more powerful than he had been during his encounter with Remo. There was no way Chiun could have survived such a massive burst of electricity.
It was Remo's fault.
This did Remo lament as he scurried the rest of the way down the hill, as he raced over to the shack.
His fault.
If he had been able to stop Roote the first time... If he had been able to convince Chiun of the seriousness of Roote's abilities...
If, if, if...
At the open door, he couldn't see through the blinding arcs of bluish electrical energy. It didn't matter. His senses already told him the awful truth. There were no life signs inside.
Chiun was dead.
All of the weakness he had been feeling since his original encounter with the killer drained away. Decades of exacting Sinanju training reasserted itself in one glorious, horrible instant. His heart rate quickened, then leveled.
A world of sensation exploded like a supernova out around the perfectly attuned body of Remo Williams.
Breathing the night air deeply, Remo broadened the focus of his senses to encompass the entire area around the bluff.
He found Roote.
The soldier was behind the shed. Directing his energy toward the rear wall. Frying whoever was hapless enough to step inside the deadly trap.
Remo channeled all of the swirling emotions he was feeling into a single, violent pit of white-hot rage.
Centering himself, he stepped around the side of the shack.
Elizu Roote was leaning casually against a boulder that jutted out of the outcropping of rock above the Rio Grande.
The killer seemed almost bored as he funneled streams of directed electrical energy into the rear of the shack.
A look of great surprise spread across Roote's pale features as Remo stepped around the building. The expression changed to one of satisfaction. He instantly cut the power flowing from his fingertips.
"Old geezer should be barbecued by now, what do you think?" he drawled happily. A smile creased his face.
"I think you're dead," Remo replied coldly. He walked slowly toward the killer.