"A big gringo, savvy?"
"Savvy, si," said the officer, whose coffee-colored skin began oozing sweat.
"Take me to him."
"Si, si."
The Mexican didn't act as if he understood every word, but he turned and led Remo to the cluster of cells beyond a foyer and office space.
All the cells were empty. Including the one at the end where the man stopped, turned pale and threw out his already raised hands as if to say to Remo, "No comprende."
"Where is he?" Remo demanded.
"No, no, señor. Do not shoot. Do not shoot me, por favor."
"I broke your gun, remember?"
The guard looked at Remo's empty hands and decided to take a chance.
He threw a punch. Remo saw it coming before the guard had made the decision. The fist landed in Remo's waiting hand with a meaty smack. Remo began squeezing. The man grunted. Remo squeezed harder.
The crackle of cartilage gave way to the gritty powdering of finger bones as the magnitude of his mistake dawned on the Mexican guard.
"No, no por favor," he squealed.
"Where's my father?"
"No, no. I do not know. He—he was there."
"Tell the truth and you keep your hand."
"No, I do tell the truth. I do!"
The words lifted into a tortured scream that brought the pounding of feet from the outer rooms. Remo put the guard down with the heel of his hand to the point of the man's jaw and turned to meet the newcomers.
Soldiers. They came in with rifles and side arms, muzzles up and questing. They took all of three seconds to scrutinize the room, and in those three seconds Remo was among them.
His palm connected with one face with a splat that left eggshell fractures behind the skin. Eyes rolling up to see oblivion, the soldier dropped.
Two bayonet-tipped muzzles drove for his stomach. Remo snapped the blades cleanly with chops of his hands and took hold of the muzzles. They came together with an abrupt force that cold-welded them into a long sealed pipe.
Remo stepped back as fingers squeezed triggers.
The bullets met head-on in a sealed tunnel of bored steel. And the results were catastrophic. Blow-back gases shattered the breeches and sent cold steel ripping into soft tissues.
The two trigger-happy soldiers made a drab rag pile on the floor.
With a look of fierce concentration on his face, the last standing soldier was busy trying to fix Remo in his gun sights.
Every time the trigger started back, Remo slithered out of the way with practiced ease. Each maneuver brought Remo closer to his target. The target, thinking his weapon gave him the clear advantage over an unarmed man, never realized that. Not even when it was too late.
Stepping left, then right one last time, Remo froze in place. The trigger finger whitened. The hammer drew back. And fell.
The soldier lost the top of his head when his own bullet came out of the muzzle that was suddenly tucked under his hard jaw. He dropped, still clutching the weapon with which he had committed inadvertent suicide.
Remo spun and went to the cell, smacking the lock with the heel of his hand. The old mechanism shattered, and the barred door came open.
The cell was empty. Just a hard cot and cracked porcelain toilet. But the air held a scent he had come to know. His father's leathery odor.
From the street he heard a familiar engine roar. The Humvee. His Humvee.
Jumping into the street, Remo was just in time to catch a glimpse of someone very tall driving his Humvee, dragging a funnel of arid dust behind.
Through the dust he thought he recognized a thick head of lustrous black hair.
"Sunny Joe?" he said blankly.
Then Remo was in motion. The Humvee was accelerating, but so was Remo. His feet dug into the dirt of the road, propelling him forward with graceful pumping steps.
A soldier jumped out into the street, took aim at Sunny Joe and Remo made a detour that brought him within head-harvesting reach of the oblivious marksman.
The side of Remo's hand went through the man's neck, and when the head jumped off the newly created stump, the rest of the soldier lost all interest in working his rifle.
Remo raced on. If there were any more soldiers intent on trying their luck, they developed other plans as Remo caught up with the Humvee.
"Hey, wait up," Remo called.
At the wheel Sunny Joe said, "What're you doing here?"
"I came to bail you out."
"Bailed myself out, damn it."
"You stopping?"
"If you can run this fast, just circle around. Door's open."
"Damn." Remo hung back, came around the other side and pulled even with the front passenger's seat. "It'll be a whole lot easier if you stop."
"Those are live rounds they're slinging."
"They stopped shooting."
"And they'll start right up again once they get a stationary target. Now, hop on!"
Remo skipped, bounced off one foot and plopped into the passenger's seat. The cushions met his back, and there was a brief sensation of about 2 Gs as his decelerating inertia and the Humvee's accelerating momentum met, strained, then fell into perfect synchronization.
"Head for the border," Remo said.
"What the hell do you think I'm doing?"
"What's got into you?"
"I was doing fine until you busted in," Sunny Joe commented.
"Hey, I just wasted a bunch of people to save your skin."
"And I saved my own skin without any killing. I saw what you did to that poor soldado back there. His neck's probably still pumping blood."
"He would have shot you," Remo argued.
"The bullet was never cast that could bring down a Sunny Joe. No arrow, either."
"There's always a first time," Remo said defensively. "And why'd you take off without telling me?"
"Since when do I have to check in with you or anybody before I light out?"
Remo started to speak but found he had no answer to that.
They drove in a strained silence until they cleared the border.
Then Sunny Joe let out a sigh of relief. His voice turned brittle. "Ko Jong Oh used to say a warrior's worth is not measured in scalps or trophies or booty, but in his ability to be like the wind. Everyone feels the wind on his skin, but no man can see it. The wind can sculpt sandstone into any shape it sees fit to. But nothing can stop the wind. Not even the spirit of the mountain, whom we call Sanshin. A strong wind will flow over a tall peak or cut a small one down to size. Be like the wind, Ko Jong Oh told his sons, and the sons of the sons of Ko Jong Oh have ever since emulated the winds."
Remo said nothing.
"How many men you kill back there, Remo?"
"I wasn't counting."
"Comes that easy to you, does it?"
Remo opened his mouth, then shut it so hard his teeth clicked.
"Was that you making all the commotion out in the outer jail rooms?"
"Yeah," Remo answered.
"I had two window bars loose. Figured if nothing broke by nightfall, I'd just slip out. When I heard all your racket, I knew I'd better make my break now or it might be never."
"The bars were still in the window."
"Sure. I turned them around in their mortar till they were good and loose. When I got out, I stuck 'em back in. With luck they might not have missed me till tomorrow morning."
"For all I knew, you were dead."
"You don't have much faith in your old man, now do you, son?"
"Am I supposed to say I'm sorry?"
"Are you?"
"No."
"You did what you do, is that right?"
"I did what I do," Remo agreed.
"What you were trained to do?"
"That's right."
"Then you got your answer."
"To what?" Remo asked.
"Your future. Your ways are the ways of violence and death. The ways of the Sun On Jo are the ways of peace. We don't kill except as a last resort. And we don't die except in our hogans in our old age."