"No, not fit."
"You said it first, remember? Maybe I'm a ghost. I can't remember anything but the war. I must have been killed driving that bus."
"No. Lan not killed in war. Lan born during war, grow up after. Mother teacher, taken away when Lan young. Lan live on street. Later, Lan taken to reeducation camp. Lan not die in war. Lan not die ever!"
Lan broke down sobbing. She fell to her knees and buried her face in the cool grass.
"Lan not die ever!" she repeated brokenly.
Remo knelt beside her. He brushed her long black hair away from her face.
"Maybe you're right," he said quietly. "I just can't figure it out."
"Remo think too much. Should be like Lan. Not think. Feel. Feel with heart."
"Yeah? What do you feel?"
Lan gathered her legs under her. She sat up. Her eyes were red around the edges.
"Lan feel sad. Feel ache. Lan think it love."
"Me?"
"Since Lan child, Lan's mother told her about American father. His name Bob. Bob come back someday, Lan's mother say. Come back and take us to America. But Bob not come. No American come. Then Lan's mother say Bob dead. Lan not believe. Bad things happen to Lan. Then you come. Lan like you because you American. Now Lan like you because you Remo."
"I like you too. But you're just a kid." Remo's face froze. "Funny. "
"Lan not funny."
"No, I didn't mean it like that. The last I remember, I was nineteen. You look about that. But somehow I think of you as a kid. Like somewhere in my head I know I'm older."
"Not understand."
"Me neither. And what was that old Oriental's problem? He knew my name. He said he was my father. I never knew my father, but there's no way my father was Vietnamese-or whatever he was."
"He very strong," Lan said.
"Yeah, but so am I." He looked at his fist. "I killed two guys with single punches. I don't ever remember being that strong."
"Lan tired of thinking."
Remo grinned suddenly. "Me too."
Lan smiled shyly. She touched his arm tentatively. "Remo like Lan?" she asked softly.
"Yeah, sure I do."
"Love Lan now?"
"What?"
"Love. Love Lan now?"
"I don't know. I'm just getting to know you. I do like you, though. "
"Love Lan later, then. Make boom-boom now?"
"Oh," said Remo, suddenly understanding.
"Okay?"
Lan peeled off her shirt. Her skin was pale in the moonlight, her breasts small but firm. She put her arms around Remo's neck and pushed him to the ground gently. Her little mouth took his hungrily.
When they broke apart, Remo whispered, "That was pretty good." He took her by her tawny waist.
"Maybe if Remo make boom-boom, Remo understand he is alive, not dead, not ghost. Maybe we both feel alive."
"It's worth trying," Remo said, pushing her down into the cool grass.
In his perch in a nearby tree, the Master of Sinanju made a disgusted sound. He turned around and faced the east, where the sun would soon rise. Without knowledge of who he was, Remo had reverted to his most base nature.
When the sounds coming to his fragile ears told him that Remo was actually enjoying himself, and therefore not employing correct Sinanju love techniques, Clriun knew for certain that Remo had lost his knowledge of Sinanju. He was actually performing sex as a pleasure, not a duty. Chiun clapped his hands over his ears to block out the animal moans of backsliding.
Chapter 18
Remo woke first. He woke instantly, some instinct pulling him from sleep. He raised himself up on one arm, listening.
Lan clung to him. He reached over and threw her shirt across her naked shoulders. Her mouth moved as if she were speaking to him. Remo bent an ear. Her words were vague mumbles, not English. Not even Vietnamese. But subvocal mutterings.
Remo decided that Lan wasn't making the sounds that woke him.
Then they came out of the north. First one. Then two more.
Helicopter gunships. They flashed overhead so fast there was almost no warning of their approach.
Remo shook Lan briskly. "Lan! Wake up."
"Remo?"
"Choppers. They probably spotted the tank. We gotta di-di out of here."
Lan quickly scooped up her clothes and followed Remo into the tank. They dressed frantically. Remo got the tank going. He sent it grumbling up onto the road.
The choppers came around on another searching pass. On the third pass, one cut loose with a rocket. It struck fifty yards up the road. Dirt and rocks mushroomed. Dust billowed into the periscope. When it cleared. Remo saw a gaping crater.
"Those are antitank rockets," he yelled as he sent the tank skittering around. "One direct hit and it's all over."
Lan grabbed up an AK-47 and popped the main hatch. She opened up into the sky. Her firing was wild and indiscriminate.
"Don't waste ammo," Remo yelled after her. He had the tank turned around. He hit the gas. Of course, it was hopeless. No way they could outrun three fast gunships.
"I keep them away," Lan called down between bursts.
"For how long? They're faster and more maneuverable."
"Have to try," Lan shouted down. Then she emptied another precious clip.
"Damn!" Remo said.
Then the gunships ripped across his line of sight again. One of them peeled off from the group and cut loose with another rocket. The whoosh sound made Remo's blood go cold.
Remo jumped up and pulled Lan down by the seat of her pants. They fell together in a tumble. Remo felt a bare breast under one hand. Lan hadn't had time to button her shirt. He pressed her to the floor, using his own body as a shield. No time to close the hatch. It wouldn't matter under a direct hit.
There was no direct hit. The concussion sound came from the front. Dust and grit rained down the turret hatch.
Remo got up. He scrawled forward into the cockpit. There he saw another crater ahead.
Lan joined him. "They miss again," she said.
"I think it was deliberate," Remo said. "They want to stop us here. Probably means reinforcements on the way. "
"We dead?"
"Maybe not. They might want us alive."
"Better off dead," Lan said, buttoning her shirt.
"Look, you stay with the tank."
Lan's eyes widened. "You leave Lan?"
"They're probably sending more tanks. I took over one. I can take over others."
"Okay," Lan said. "Hurry back. Do not get killed."
"It's not in my plans," Remo said. And he kissed her. Remo waited until the gunships dropped behind the trees before he slipped out the hatch. He jumped into the roadside bamboo. The sun was sending mists rising off the rice paddies. It was warming up. He found a sturdy tree and got into the high branches. He had a full clip in his rifle and three more in his pockets. He waited.
As Remo had guessed, the convoy came out of the north, as had the helicopters. There were three tanks, led by a Land Rover. Remo recognized the pockmarked face of the NVA officer he knew as Captain Spook in the back of the Land Rover.
Remo raised his rifle and got the man in his sights. But no, that would spoil the element of surprise. He lowered the rifle.
"You got more lives than a cat, pal. But today they run out. That's a promise."
Remo shouldered his rifle and crawled out on a limb as far as he could. He hung over the road. The tanks ran with their turrets open, soldiers manning swiveling .50-caliber machine guns. Remo waited until the first two tanks had passed. He dropped from his perch just as the third tank rolled under him.
Remo landed behind the turret. He landed clumsily. The boots. They felt wrong. He clung to a bulkhead to keep from falling off. When he regained his balance, he inched up toward the turret.
The machine-gunner never heard Remo's approach. Remo smashed him in the back of the head with a single blow. The soldier slumped over his weapon.