Even more important, now she didn't care what happened. She just wanted more of Remo.
"Yes. I am sure of it. This does look like the right jungle. He had a magnificent hacienda."
"All these dictators down here have one," said Remo. "He had a high peaked hat."
"That's standard, too."
"He had a nose that didn't look like a balloon," said Kathy. "And hair that didn't look like it was manufactured in a Bayonne plastics factory."
"Might be Eckman-Ramirez," said Remo. He had seen his picture once in a magazine.
"He said he would pay well for my conducting the test. I didn't know there would be all that suffering. Those poor animals."
"Did you see the weapon?"
"He said he had it. He had it hidden. I should have known."
"Why?" said Remo. He noticed she was having difficulty moving along the path. The natives had looked at his wrists and trusted him immediately. Why, he wasn't sure. But he was sure that they were looking at his wrists when they told him not only where the Generalissimo lived, but that he was there now.
"All the news articles. I didn't believe them. I didn't believe they were telling the truth, and now you tell me this device can do harm to people."
"You didn't see the animals there?" said Remo.
"I saw them. I saw them suffer. Yes," said Kathy. She allowed her blouse to open, revealing a rising bosom glistening with San Gauta warmth. Ordinarily Kathy could allow her blouse to open with such artistry that she could play with almost any man's eyes, getting him to lean over a table, keep his head cocked at an awkward angle, and usually not think about what he was supposed to be thinking about. It was a lovely business tool. A properly opened blouse was as useful to her as a desktop computer.
But this man didn't seem to dwell on her body. He seemed to be involved with everything around them, knowing where the path went when of course he couldn't have known. He told her he felt it.
"Your blouse is open," said Remo.
Kathy let her chest rise and looked at him coyly.
"Is it really?" she said, letting him get the full magnificence of what was pressing up out of her bra.
"Yeah. Now, why didn't you believe you would be doing any harm?"
"I trust too much," she said. She felt the whole jungle slither with things she couldn't see. Things with hairy legs and little teeth that some television show had probably photographed laying eggs or eating some other thing with legs just as hairy and almost as many teeth.
The magazine article did not show the smells, or the fact that your feet sank into the jungle floor, into dark leafy substances that she was sure must have contained millions of those hairy-legged things.
"Are you married?" she said.
"I think I told you no. Don't walk so heavy," said Remo.
"I walk beautifully," said Kathy. Suddenly she didn't mind the jungle. She minded the insult.
"No you don't. Clunk clunk. Try not to crush the ground. Treat it like your friend. Walk with the ground. It'll be easier on you and the ground and we won't be announcing ourselves to whatever it is behind that hillock up ahead."
Kathy couldn't see anything beyond the dense green foliage. She couldn't even see the hillock.
"How do you know there's something there?"
"I know. C'mon. Walk with the ground, not on it." Exasperated, Kathy tried walking with the ground to prove to herself it didn't work. But she found that by watching Remo walking and trying to think as he had instructed, she was not so much pressing forward, as gliding forward. She shut her eyes. And stumbled. She had to watch him to do it.
"Where did you learn this?"
"I learned it," said Remo.
"It's wonderful," she said.
"It's all right. What is Eckman-Ramirez like?"
"He is a sociopath. They are the best liars in the world. After all, he convinced me. I should have believed the magazine articles. I thought they were propaganda."
"No. They just don't know what they're doing. No one knows what he is doing. Nobody. These yo-yos are going to fry the earth with that thing."
"Some people know," said Kathy. "Whoever taught you to walk like this knows. He must know something. Or was it a she?"
"A he."
"Your father?"
"Shhh."
"Who?"
"Someone, that's all," said Remo. He thought of Chiun going off for some old dusty pieces of gold and wood, the collection of centuries of tribute. Some of the stuff was almost worthless now, as modern man had learned to manufacture some of those materials once considered valuable. But even so. What was a ruby worth if there was no one left on earth to say it was valuable? And still Chiun had gone.
"I don't miss him, you know," said Remo.
"The one who taught you?"
"Crazy. That's all. He's got his ways. And that's it. You can't reason with him."
"The one who taught you?"
"Never could. Never will. I don't know why I bother."
"The one who taught you?" asked Kathy again.
"Watch how you walk," said Remo.
"That is the first time I have seen you angry about something. You don't ever seem to get angry."
"Try walking where you're told," said Remo.
That was the second time. It was clear there was someone he loved. But what sort of a relationship was it? Was there a reason he was not attracted to her? Was it all women he wasn't attracted to?
"Watch how you're walking," he said.
He turned out to be more than right. There was a hill up ahead. And just over it, set like a white jewel topped with red ceramic tile, was a classic hacienda surrounded by unclassic machine-gun nests. There were fierce-looking guards at the gates and enough antennas set into the tile roof to direct an air attack on the rest of South America. The land around the hacienda was cleared to prevent any possible hiding place.
"Oh, wow," said Kathy. "We'll never get in there."
"No. Those defenses are for bandits. Where did he put that device?"
"He would know," said Kathy.
"If you're frightened, you can wait here, and I'll come back for you."
"No. That's all right. I owe it to mankind to try to make up for any harm I've done," she said. She certainly wasn't going to waste this filthy walk through the jungle to miss all the crunching of bones and breaking of bodies. If she wanted safety she would have stayed somewhere in London and sent this one off to Tibet or someplace.
"Stay with me."
"I'll never leave you."
The thing about Remo; the thing she noticed most, was that he used people's reactions to operate. Like walking pleasantly up the road right past the machine-gun nests. He waved. They waved back. She realized that perhaps his greatest deception was that he was unarmed. He presented no threat of danger. It was as hidden as it was magnificent. Kathy could feel the sense of danger vibrate into her body. She wondered if he was going to kill a guard for her.
"Hi," said Remo. "I'm looking for the Generalissimo. I've got good news for him."
The guard did not speak English. Remo spoke in Spanish but it was the strangest Spanish Kathy had ever heard, more Latin than Spanish and strangely sing-song, as though an Oriental had taught him.
"The Generalissimo does not see everyone," said the guard, noticing Remo's wrists. There was no wristwatch, therefore the gringo was not a gringo, but a citizen of the country. The guard asked why Remo was not out in the fields working or in the hills with the bandits or in the army of the Generalissimo. Also, what was he doing with the beautiful gringo woman? Did Remo want to sell her?
Remo said he didn't want to sell her. But he was here to give the Generalissimo the best deal he could ever make for himself. He might let the Maximum Leader live to see the sunset. The guard laughed.