And the men who had seen him work answered, "Everything. "
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he couldn't count the number of men he had killed, nor did he want to start. Counting was for people who thought numbers meant something. Counting was for pepole who didn't understand what they were doing so they needed numbers to reassure themselves they were doing well.
Counting was for people who wouldn't know which side won if there wasn't a score. In Remo's game he always knew who won.
He was going to kill three men who could count. They could count transistors and microchips and all the electronic devices that kept them invulnerable to surveillance. They could count on their lawyers who had made them invulnerable to conviction. They could count on all the people they bought along their way, and they could count on the American drug users to make them rich.
Perhaps the only thing they couldn't count was all the money they had made, hundreds of millions of dollars. They controlled two or three South American governments where coca leaves grew and were made into the white crystals Americans liked to suck into their noses to rot out what was left of their brains after all the other chemicals had gotten to them.
Remo wasn't counting. He sensed the strong cold of the damp clouds and the harsh wind pressing his body against the metal. He could smell the special chemicals used to polish the metal he pressed his body into, could feel the metal carry the vibrations of the engine, and was prepared for the only real danger. If the pilot should dive suddenly and Remo allowed an air current between him and the roof of the plane, he would be sheared off like confetti and plunge thirteen thousand feet to the jungle floor below the luxury Lear jet.
The scant oxygen at those heights was more than enough for him, although if he needed to he could always put a hole in the airtight skin of the jet, forcing the pilot to dive lower, where his passengers could breathe without the use of oxygen masks.
That wasn't necessary. There was more than enough oxygen at these heights if the body used it properly, but people tended to use it like drunks, burning vast quantities in uncontrolled gulps. People did not know their bodies, did not understand the powers they were capable of but refused to allow to develop.
It was this loss of balanced use of oxygen that made people pant from running, come up after only a minute underwater, three at the most, and hold their breath when frightened.
Scientists had yet to discover that holding of the breath when frightened was a weak attempt to energize the body for flight. It didn't work because the only breathing that unlocked the power of humans was controlled breathing, giving the process up to the rhythms of the universe and in so doing becoming part of all its powers. One didn't fight gravity or wind or weight, one worked with them, like a piece pressured into the roof of the cabin of a Lear jet at thirteen thousand feet, closer than the paint that had only been sprayed on, closer than the wax that had only been spread on. The controlled body made itself one with the alloyed metal of the jet, and if Remo did not allow any air to disrupt the bond, he would remain attached tighter than a rivet.
It was the only way to break into the protected realm of Guenther Largos Diaz of Peru, Colombia, and Palm Beach.
Guenther had done wonderful things for himself with the profits from the coca plant. He had made friends everywhere, this man who could count. He helped supply the communist guerrillas, and in exchange they guarded his fields. He helped finance retirement programs for government troops and now they acted as his stevedores.
And in those American centers where cocaine was distributed, Guenther Largos Diaz had played havoc just as easily with the policemen earning twenty-five thousand dollars a year as he did with policemen earning five thousand dollars in pesos.
This handsome South American with a German mother and a Spanish father knew how to bribe, knew, as they said south of the border, how to reach a man's soul. He had every man's price, and so, after he had met the prices of many men, it was decided that it was no use losing more good men to Guenther Largos Diaz. He was so good, so competent, that he would have to die.
Remo felt the plane change pitch. It was going to land. It came down out of the sticky, wet, cold clouds into the sharp air of the Andes and continued to descend. At this height he could not tell what country was below them. He saw a river sparkling like tinsel under the sun off to the east, but he had no idea what river it was.
He didn't care. Of course, if he didn't know where he was, there might be a problem getting back. But he was sure someone in the plane would know. The trick was not to kill that person. Remo didn't want to be left with a bunch of peasants who thought wherever they were was the center of the world and knew only vaguely how to get outside. Also, he didn't want to walk through hundreds of miles of jungle.
He had to remind himself not to lose concentration, because the moment his mind and body separated, so would he, from the plane.
The airstrip was surprisingly modern for such a backward-looking area. There were no major roads leading to this strip, just small tree-lined single-lane asphalt strips. And yet the runway could accommodate big jets, and when the wheels touched down in that screaming burst of rubber, Remo could see sensors implanted into the strip every ten yards. Moreover, the runway was dyed a color that most human eyes would not recognize as asphalt from above, a dark color that sparkled in the sun so the landing strip looked like part of a river that began nowhere and ended in a bunch of trees. The control tower looked like a pile of rocks.
Remo did not know how upstairs knew this was headquarters. He didn't understand how computers worked or how the minds of people who understood computers worked.
But when someone went to the trouble of disguising the place, someone who was vastly shrewd, then the place had to be his real home.
As it was said in the histories of Sinanju, home is where a person feels safe, and a man like Guenther Largos Diaz could never feel safe in one of his exposed mansions.
From the disguised control tower, people came running, pointing guns and yelling. The door to the jet swung open and someone beneath Remo waved the guards back.
"What's going on?" came a voice from inside the cabin.
"I don't know, they're crazy. They've been radioing that someone is on top of the plane."
"Are they using the product? If they are, we've got to stop it now."
"There's no product allowed in here, sir."
"Then why do they claim they see someone on top of the plane? We just landed. We were flying at thirteen thousand feet."
"They're aiming their guns, sir."
"Cut them down," came the calm voice from inside the cabin, and suddenly bright yellow flames danced from the door of the plane. Remo saw the light first, heard the shots second, felt the slight impact of the backfire third, and finally saw each bullet land on its target on the runway, sending shiny bursts of reflective coloration dancing along the landing material designed to imitate a river to nowhere. On the open landing strip, the men from the tower were easy game. The slugs dropped them like laundry sacks. Apparently the marksmen inside were competent because there was not the wild, continuous fire one saw in soldiers who would use a machine gun when a slap would do, and artillery when a gun would do, and a bomb when artillery would do until they earned a reputation as a professional army.
"Has someone taken over?" came a voice from inside.
"They're reporting everything is all right," answered another voice. "They say there really is a man on the top of the cabin."