The colonel felt the sting of the converging hands on his gun hand, flinched and told his brain to tell his trigger finger to squeeze the trigger.
His finger refused. Then the pistol began falling apart in his hands as if every screw had melted.
When he was left with only the cartridge-packed handle, but no breech or barrel, his gun hand began turning red as if sunburned. He stared at it with wideeyed disbelief.
"Can you say 'vascular disintegration'?" asked Remo.
"I do not know those words."
"Think of the veins on your hand turning to mush and letting all the blood seep into your tissues."
The colonel suddenly screamed. Not from the realization of his maiming but from the pain signals that finally caught up with his brain.
Reaching for his neck, Remo squeezed a nerve that cut off the pain. He wasn't in a hurry; he let some pain seep through.
"I'm looking for Verapaz."
Through gritted teeth, the colonel said, "As am I! We are on the same side, yes?"
"We are on the same side, absolutely not, " Remo shot back. "I don't kill noncombatants."
"You are obviously American. CIA?'
"UNICEF."
"The children's fund?"
"That's right. We're looking after the welfare of children everywhere. We also take donations. Dollars, not pesos."
"You are loco."
"If loco means I'm mad enough to break your neck, I have no quarrel with loco. "
"Jou might have your wish, for I believe Verapaz to be in this very village." He gave the prostrate guerrilla a nudge with a black-booted toe. "This Naca, she knows."
Reaching down, Remo brought the guerrilla to her feet.
"Where's Verapaz?"
"I know not."
"She is obviously lying," said Chiun, who had materialized at their side.
"I have said this," Primitivo said.
"You stay out of this," Remo said.
The Master of Sinanju drifted up to the girl, making his voice sympathetic. "Poor child. They give you the tools of death when you should be the bearer of life."
"I do not need your advice, even if you saved my life," she spit.
Remo said, "Look, we have no problem with you. We just want Verapaz."
"I would sooner die than surrender him to you. Go ahead. Shoot me if you must."
Turning away in disgust, Chiun said, "Go ahead, Remo. Shoot her. Her milk has been soured by war. She is spoiled for motherhood."
"I'm shooting nobody." Remo faced her. "There's an easy way and a hard way. Which do you want?"
"The third way. The way out of this nightmare. How dare you come into my land to seek my Lord Verapaz? This is no affair of gringos. "
"That's another story. Look, we have a job to do and then we're out of here. I don't want to hurt you."
"I am not afraid of you."
"Damn," said Remo. Turning to Chiun, he said, "Your turn, Little Father."
"I am no harmer of females. That is your job."
Sighing, Remo told the girl, "This is going to hurt me as much as it hurts you."
"Hurt her as much as you wish," said Colonel Primitivo, dark eyes flashing with anticipation.
Remo took her left earlobe, where a sensitive nerve was located, and pinched it. The guerrilla seemed to surge up out of her boots and squeezed her tearing eyes shut even as she gnashed her lower lip to a crimson rag.
"I do not know!" she wailed.
"She lies," spat the colonel.
"She's telling the truth," said Remo, releasing the girl's earlobe.
Gasping for air, she shrank back into her uniform, saying, "Kill me now if you must."
"The next person who touches her," a cold voice said from the jungle thickness, "eats angry subsonic rounds!"
Chapter 37
The commanding crack of a voice came from the west.
Remo's gaze veered toward the sound.
The ranks of trees were clustered tightly, and clotting darkness held sway between them. The gathering clouds above had almost swallowed the last fading starlight before the approach of dawn.
But there was enough starlight for Remo's eyes to capture and magnify.
Deep in the murk, a figure in black resolved itself out of the shadows. The head was muffled except for a slash surrounding the eyes, which were darkened with burned cork.
Remo saw the eyes. Blue.
"Bingo!" he said. "There's our man, Chiun."
"The eyes should be green."
"Blue-green. They're close enough for government work."
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Chiun called.
"Step away from the girl!" the crack of a voice said.
"Make us," taunted Chiun.
"I'll wax you all."
"You wax us and the girl dies, too," Remo pointed out.
"That's a chance I'll take."
The guerrilla stiffened and held her breath. Otherwise, she didn't look very worried.
Remo lifted his voice again. "Sorry. No sale. She doesn't think you'll do it, and neither do we."
"You are finished, Verapaz," the Mexican colonel called out.
"Shut up, tostada face. I'm not Verapaz."
"Then who are you?" Chiun demanded.
"Ask your colonel."
Remo eyed the colonel.
Primitivo shrugged. "He claims to be El Extinguirador. "
"Who?"
"You might know him as Blaize Fury."
"Yeah, I know who Blaize Fury is. How come you do, too?"
"Because I have read many of his pulse-pounding adventures in my carefree jouth. "
"Same here."
Primitivo showed smiling teeth. "Then we are allies."
"Blaize Fury wouldn't shoot unarmed civilians in the face and neither would I. Sorry. Consider your fan-club membership permanently revoked."
To Remo's surprise the colonel looked completely crestfallen.
The commanding voice sounded again, a distinct whiplash of a sound. "The Extinguisher doesn't say things twice."
"The Extinguisher is a sissy," Chiun called out.
"Who are you calling a sissy?"
"The Extinguisher. The sissy who extinguishes."
Remo called out. "Look, we're not backing down, so you better come out so we can straighten this out."
A long silence developed. Remo had his eye on the shape in the forest murk. Abruptly it moved to one side.
The Extinguisher thought he was being stealthy, but Remo tracked him easily. He saw that Chiun had him fixed in his sights, too.
At a nod from Remo, the Master of Sinanju faded back into the jungle, his emerald-and-ocher kimono blending in with the vegetation.
After that, Remo folded his arms and waited.
The Extinguisher moved in a semicircle, keeping them in sight at all times. When he reached a tree, he unhooked a small folding grapnel from his web belt and affixed it to a black nylon line. Swinging it up, he snared an overhanging branch. Then like a nimble black spider, he went up, hand over hand.
His grip was not what it should have been. He slid down twice.
Floating across the space came a soft curse or two.
Finally he reached the branch and started to grab for it.
Perched directly above, the Master of Sinanju calmly reached down and sawed the nylon line with one swift fingernail swipe.
The man in black landed in the dirt like a sack of sausage.
Remo was on top of him seconds later. Reaching down, he pulled off his gear and threw it every which way.
"You can't do this to the Extinguisher!"
"Watch me," said Remo, flinging away the web belt and reaching for the black leather shoulder sling supporting a machine pistol.
It broke under the strength of his hard yank, and Remo prepared to toss it away, too, when he noticed amid all the projecting clips a Lucite ammo drum.
"What the hell is this?"
"My Hellfire pistol. It's the only one of its kind."
Remo's eyes looked strange. Dropping the weapon, holster and all, he took hold of the ski mask and yanked it straight up.
The last of the starlight disappeared then. But Remo didn't need it.