It was a really good team, Remo estimated. They moved together. They obviously had worked together before. You could tell that by the coordination without many commands. New people were always shouting or signaling to each other or running off in different directions. Remo took a position on the roof so he could see how each group came on. A dark man wielding two heavy .44s stared nervously around. He didn't know who to defend against first. He cursed in Russian and backed off into a corner.
Remo saw two skimmered heads go into the front of the building while another pair threw a grappling ladder to the window sill of Chiun's room and two in the alley started up a fire escape.
"Just working," Remo said to the man with the two 44s. "You stay there."
Chiun had taught him that when working multiples it was always best to concentrate on something that had no direct relationship to the action of the multiples. Like breathing. Remo concentrated on the breathing and let his body take care of the other work. He was out over the ledge of the building and down along the side, slapping at each sill and keeping the rhythm of his inner lungs aligned with the breath
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itself, when lie met the two coming up the grappling hook line to Churn's window.
"Oh," said one, going back down to the dusty alley alongside the hotel. The other's Walther was rendered useless by going buttfirst through his own sternum, creating great problems for the heart, which found gun handles even more hazardous than cholesterol.
Across the street, peering out a slight crack in the Venetian bunds in one of the upper rooms, Generalissimo Sacristo Corazon saw the thin white man come down off the roof and knew, without anyone telling him, that his cousin Juanita had been telling the truth about a stronger power than his.
He had never seen a man drop like that. He had seen bodies fall from buildings. He had even seen divers jump off cliffs in Mexico. And once he had seen a plane blow up in the air.
But this white man. He dropped faster than someone falling. He dropped faster than someone in a dive. It looked as if he had harnessed gravity to enable himself to go down a wall faster than was normal.
The white man's body cleaned the rope of the two men like two exposed peas being nicked from an open pod.
"Who? Who that man?" demanded Corazon, pointing through the Venetian blind toward Remo.
"A white man," offered a major. He had a .44-cali-ber pistol in his holster, identical to Corazon's. His father had been in the hills with Corazon's father. When the senior Corazon had become President, the major's father had refused to be promoted to general. He died an old man. The lesson was not lost on his son, whose name was Manuel Estrada. When the young Corazon became El Presidente for life, Manuel
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Estrada also refused to be promoted to general. He also hoped to have a long life. But unlike his father, he planned one day to have everything.
The senior Estrada had had a family motto. It was "Nobody ever got shot for being a little thief." Manuel Estrada had a motto, too. It was "Wait your turn."
Major Estrada was just about the only man in the entourage whose hands did not sweat when Corazon was near. He had high cheekbones that showed his Indian blood and wine dark skin that showed his African. His nose was proud, a reminder of the night a. Castilian bedded a slave brought to work the sugar.
He heard Corazon scream at him that anyone could see it was a white man, but from what country was this white man?
"A white country," said Estrada.
"What white country? Find out. Find out now, Estrada, now."
Corazon watched Remo move along the front of the Astarse Hotel. His movements looked like a shuffle and appeared slow, until you realized the movement of the limbs might be slow but not of the body itself. It was moving almost in a blur. It went into the two Britishers like water through a ball of sand.
Remo's feet raised no dust. Corazon muttered. It was the strange power Juanita spoke of.
He uttered some prayers. "Lord, remove this evil thing from our blessed island. In your son's name, we humbly pray, so you do this little thing for us."
These words did the chief of state utter, looking down at Remo. He was still there. Well, if prayers to the Lord didn't work, a good holy man had other tricks.
"Power of darkness and stench of the devil, bring-
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ing down on men a curse eternal, land on that one there."
Corazon saw the white man take on two more Britishers. Looked like he could dodge bullets, too.
Corazon spat on the palace floor. "To hell with both of you," he said. It was like dealing with superpowers who were intent on ignoring him. What good were gods anyway if they didn't listen to you?
Suddenly the man stumbled. "Thank you, Beelzebub," said Corazon, but it wasn't a stumble. Remo had slid sideways to move off into the back of the alley. Corazon cursed his gods again.
That was the problem with too many people today, he thought. They were afraid to punish their gods. But he kept reminding them that if they messed around with Sacristo Corazon he wasn't going to fall down on his knees, saying, "I love you, anyhow." What was he supposed to be, some kind of Irishman? You messed with Corazon, god, forget it. You don't get so much as a candle.
But that was with Western gods. There was one god that Corazon did not call on. It was the god of the wind and the night and the cold and it lived in the hills and in its honor those voodoo drums beat twenty-four hours a day, and Corazon did not call on that god because he was afraid of it. Even more than he was afraid of this force . . . this white man across the street.
He had his own force. He had the machine. Like any commander, he knew his limits. Even with a great weapon. After a battle, everyone says you won because you had the great weapon. But before the battle, you must consider what happens if you use your great weapon and it does not work.
Nothing was worse than pointing a gun at some
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one's head and hearing a click because the chamber was empty.
What if his machine did not work against the new force?
Juanita had said the new force would triumph and bring kinghood to the holy man of the mountains.
And just that veiy day, the Umibian delegate had gotten two full doses from Corazon's machine before he had collapsed.
The machine was losing power, he had thought. But Juanita had gone quickly. Did the machine still work the way it should or not? Corazon had to think carefully before he used it. He could not afford to aim, fire, and leave someone standing. Then, even if he did live, which was doubtful, all the money would go. The embassies would return to lazy one-man operations. The ships would leave the harbor and Baqia would be almost as bad as before the Spanish came.
One did not use one's major weapon lightly. But how to use it? When Corazon was thinking, he liked to have a woman. When he was thinking deeply, he liked to have two women. Very deeply, three. And so on.
When the fifth woman had left his private rooms, which were a minifortress within the fortresslike presidential palace compound, Corazon knew what he would do.
Major Estrada had the Britisher, Dr. Jameson, in tow. Dr. Jameson was still in a state of shock.
"I don't believe it. I don't believe it," he gasped.
"Who was that man who did those awful things to your people?"
"I don't believe it," Jameson gasped. He sucked on the pipestem, which was now minus a bowl. He had lost his entire crew. It was impossible. No one man
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could do that. And besides, what would M.I.5 say about the lost instrumentation? This was hardly a neat operation.
"Who was that man?''
"American."
Corazon thought about this. With any other country that had a force like that, you would give respect. But Americans, he had learned, could be made ashamed of their force. They could be made helpless. Americans like to be abused. Quadruple the price of a raw material and they would hold conferences at their own expense to explain to the world that you had a God-given right to that raw material and so could set any price you wanted. They had forgotten what everyone else knew. Force gained you respect. America was insane.