Remo said, "Listen, this is all some kind of bullshit about nuclear weapons in Hispania being aimed at the U.S."
"Who is behind it?" Smith asked.
"Estomago," Remo said.
"Find Estomago," Smith said coldly. "Find out if an attack is planned. If so, when. And then remove Estomago."
"Got it," Remo said. "You know something?"
"What?" asked Smith.
"This whole deal is all screwy as a can of worms," Remo said, "twisting and turning. I don't really understand it all."
"You don't have to," Smith said. "It's enough that I do."
"Gloria admitted that Daniels had been drugged by them in Hispania."
"Oh," Smith said. "What else did she say?"
"She said she could fly," Remo said.
"Could she?"
"No," Remo said as he hung up.
When Remo and Chiun reached the Hispanian embassy, a row of ambulances was lined up in front of the building.
Remo flashed a state department card and asked a police officer: "What's going on?"
"Don't know. Whole staff is dead or injured. Estomago's secretary is screaming some shit about a madman who tore in and took the ambassador, hollering something about a bat in the park."
Remo turned to Chiun and shrugged his shoulders. Making sure no one else could hear, Chiun whispered to Remo, "It is the ritual of the bat. A way of dueling practiced by many of the Spanish tongue. Daniels is no common killer."
"Daniels is in Doc Jackson's clinic," Remo said.
"Not any longer," Chiun said. "We will go to whatever park is nearest. When you find this Estomucko person, you will find Daniels."
The clearing in the wooded area near one of the smaller ponds in Central Park bore a resemblance to the Hispanian camp from which the young boy had helped Barney escape. It was nearly the same size. The shape of the clearing was identical. It was all back in Barney's head now, all the memories, the murders, the tortures, the jungle, the young bride who had gone out to buy her man coffee and never came back.
And Estomago, this savage, who had killed her and Barney's unborn child.
Doc Jackson waited for Daniels and Estomago in the clearing, the bag of supplies on the ground beside him.
"You've been followed," Jackson said, as Barney shoved Estomago into the dirt. "His goons are right behind you."
"I know," Daniels said. "Tie us up and then clear out. They won't fire with him in the way."
"We can use him as a shield and get out of here," Jackson said.
"I'm staying," Barney said. "Get out that rope."
Jackson bound the wrists of the two men together with the length of rope. He blindfolded Estomago, then Barney, and placed a long knife in each of their hands.
"Leave now, Doc," Barney said. "Use us for cover."
Doc didn't answer.
"Don't try any heroics. Just get out. And Doc."
"What, fool?"
"Thanks for saving my life. I needed it for this."
Barney began to stalk Estomago in a slow circle around the clearing, listening for his footfalls and frightened breathing.
"You will not live through this," Estomago shouted, his voice trembling. "My men have instructions to follow me wherever I go. Half the Hispanian embassy is waiting nearby to slay you."
The slash of a blade sang past Estomago's ear. He would not let the sound of his voice betray him again.
The two men circled. And Barney Daniels in his baggy clothes, his belly aching for food, heard once again the slippery animal noises of the jungle, smelled the lush tropical greenery. He was back outside the hut, fighting again for his life. Only this time he was not drugged, and he was not fighting a boy who had saved him from dying of thirst, and the crowd of spectators was not cheering.
This time he had to win.
Estomago stepped and thrust like a fencer, then jumped back and slashed around him. Barney heard the knife cutting through the air. He attacked from the other side, but Estomago was ready. He whirled out of the way with the grace of a bullfighter.
Robar Estomago had grown up fighting with knives. Despite his fear, he knew that the American was not accustomed to the blind fighting used in the ritual of the bat.
And Daniels was sickly. The past year, the constant abuse, the continuous consumption of tequila to satisfy the drug craving in his body, had all done their work.
Estomago breathed easier. He moved quickly on the balls of his feet, his poise returning.
Barney swung at him with the knife but the attack was slow and Estomago dodged easily.
"You have made a mistake," he hissed. "You know nothing of the ritual. I will kill you like a fly on the wall." With that, he lunged forward with a low thrust. It caught the edge of Barney's left side. Estomago ripped outward.
Barney suppressed a scream and only grunted with the pain.
Doc turned to see Remo and Chiun standing alongside him, watching the battle. Across the clearing stood eight men, Hispanians, also watching.
"I can't help, can I?" Remo asked Chiun.
"No. It would be a dishonor to Daniels to be aided. We must wait," said Chiun.
Doc Jackson shook his head. Softly, he said, "He can't win. He's too weak. Too sick."
Chiun touched the big black man on the shoulder. "You forget," he said, "that there are such things as character and cause. He rights now for something besides alcohol poisons. Watch. He fights like the man he once must have been."
Across the clearing, Remo could hear the breathing of men waiting, their sweat sour with anticipation. He looked at Daniels, blood flowing from the wound beneath his ribs.
"Come, drunkard," Estomago said, a smile on his lips. "Permit me to kill you quickly before you bleed to death. It is more respectable, although why a whore's husband would care about respectability, I would not know."
He laughed as he parried again. His knife nicked Barney's shoulder. The rope tightened as Barney recoiled from the second blow. Estomago moved in quickly, preparing to slit Barney's stomach agape with one long slash.
He missed. As Barney ducked and rolled, coating the grass with his blood, he yanked on the rope and sent Estomago sprawling to the ground.
"Pig," the ambassador spat, bringing himself slowly to his feet. "Now I kill you. For myself and for El Presidente." He threw himself at Daniels.
He held the knife overhead, then slammed it down toward Daniels's face. At the last moment, Barney turned his head and the knife slid alongside his cheek, burying itself into the ground.
Estomago reached behind him to remove the blindfold.
As he did, Barney's right hand reached over and his knife cut cleanly across Estomago's throat. The ambassador's last vision was of a wounded specter of a man watching him with hate-filled eyes, his blindfold pressed to the cut in his arm, standing in front of a pulsing fountain of bubbling blood. He heard Daniels say: "For Denise."
The knife dropped from Estomago's hand as he began to choke on his own blood, spurting with each heartbeat and staining the ground dark. His eyes rolled back in his head as he withered to the earth. Then, one quick convulsion, and the general lay still, the gash in his throat smiling upward like a giant red mouth.
And then the men came from across the clearing, armed with knives, stripped ceremonially for jungle fighting.
With a wave of the knife, Barney slashed the rope, freeing his wrist from Estomago's, Then he went into a crouch, holding the knife in front of him in his right hand. His left hand gestured toward the Hispanians, taunting them, urging them to come on, to join battle with him.
Remo looked at the gray-haired man in his dirty bloodstained clothes and knew this was someone he had never seen before. The Barney Daniels he had known had been a worthless drunk, done, washed out, finished with life.