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.He was asked thirteen times what he was doing thereand showed identification from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.He found the entrance to the gas-storage area, two plain steel doors set intoa hill that looked like a bunker.Two guards at the entrance checked hispapers."Some Army guys go in yesterday, they don't come out on their feet," said oneof the guards."I'm not Army," Remo said."They plenty tough.""It's not toughness that counts," Remo said with a little smile."It'ssweetness.""Hey, where's your flashlight?""Don't need one.""You want to leave your money with me?" the guard asked."Why?""You ain't coming out again and I can use it," the guard said."I'm coming out," Remo said.Inside, he let the darkness fill him.The normal response of a person to darkwas anxiety, which strained the nervous system.Fear made the dark darker.Indim light, Remo could adjust his eyes so that he could see normally.But intotal darkness, he did a different kind of seeing.It wasn't normal visionwith colors and outlines; it was more of a knowing.The drums were stacked neatly, stretched out in square formations.Remo stayedstill and heard a small scurrying sound, probably a hundred yards away.Good,he thought.No gas is escaping because the mice are alive.Of course, some ofthis gas manufactured in the fifties could attack through the skin.There wasWorld War I and II gas, Korean gas, cold-war gas, Vietnam gas.Better dyingthrough chemistry.There was moisture here under the earth and there was a certain heaviness inthe darkness.Remo tasted the air as he breathed.It was rich as it always wasunderground.He moved between the drums according to the map and got lost.The map wasuseless.But the areas of drums did have borders and they were not that vast,so Remo began cutting the place up in squares, examining each square with eyesand hands, feeling for anything that might be a bomb, anything to indicatethat he had reached that drum with sections sawn out, the sections that hadkilled the people in the government mailrooms.Page 33ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlIt was slow.He stayed there two days.Four times the doors opened showingpainfully white light, and voices called out asking Remo if he was all right."Yeah, I'm okay.Shut the door."The Bureau of Indian Affairs said he didn't have to be there."It's Armyresponsibility.""Shut the door," Remo said.He had once been a soldier himself, long agobefore his training, and he thought of the dependence on tools that most menhad.Man first used a club, then a sharpened stone, and now he was usinglasers from space.And every tool man used made him use his own abilitiesless, so that now most of his senses and muscles were as useless as hisappendix.Using what you had: that was the secret of Sinanju.He found where the Rangers had died.He could feel in the earth where heelshad dug in, that desperate strong throb of muscles fighting for life, suddenlyhaving to be used when they had never been used before.And then suddenly the air was delicate again, not heavy.Another passagewayhad been opened.Remo was still.He heard them breathing; he heard theirfingers work their way along barrels, fingers that were sure of where theywere going.They knew this place underground, for people did not move that quickly in thedark without having been there before.Then they stopped.They were waitingfor him, waiting for him to make a sound.In the dark, the Rangers had been at an awesome disadvantage against these menwho knew their way.Remo heard them whisper."I don't hear him.""Shhhhh.""He still here?""Here? How's he gonna get out?""So why don't he make no sound?""Maybe he's sleeping."And so, very clearly, Remo said: "Not sleeping, sweetheart.Come and get me."He heard them move along the ground.They were quieter than most men.Indiansprobably.Indians could move well, even though most of them were too heavy.Remo moved himself with their rhythms so that they could not possibly hearhim.He moved behind one and ever so gently pushed the third rib up into theaorta.Hearts did not pump efficiently with bone jamming into them.Remo putdown the first one with smooth quiet in that dark chamber.Then he followed the other.The other stopped every few steps and listened forhis victim.Remo stopped with him.Finally, Remo whispered, "Guess who?" The Indian stalking in the dark suddenlyscreamed and tried to run for the exit.But he was caught by the neck andpressed into the ground."Hi.I am the great white spirit, come to break your skull," said Remo."But Iwill make you a promise.Tell me who paid you, tell me who told you to dothese things and I will let you live forever in a land where the water flowsfree and the skies are pure.""Hey, man, we just needed the dough.Coke costs.We don't know who is behindit.We just got told there would be Army people coming in and we should killthem and then there would be a guy here and we should get him if we could.""Who told you?""Crazy guy.Said that we would get paid ten grand to kill you and a hundredgrand to describe exactly how we did it.""What did he look like?" Remo asked."I don't know.We got an overnight delivery of cash with a phone number.Wekind of advertise as guides to this place.Well, we had this phoneconversation and he told us the Rangers or somebody was going to come and toldus to be ready for them, and hell, when you get seventy-five hundred throughEasy Express in the mail, you do tend to give a man service.""You must remember more," Remo said."That's it.You know, we're Indian guides to the public.We don't ask too manyquestions [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]