Voodoo Die td-33

by Warren Murphy

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  to remove the first dummy, had gotten to the base of the flagpole.

  Torrez was dead. His heart had been cut from his body.

  This time no one would go up the flagpole to remove the manikin.

  Estrada told this to Corazon, who came out onto the side steps of the palace and shouted:

  "Hey, you, up there in the guard tower. Climb up that pole and get that dummy down."

  The guard kept his back to Corazon and looked out over Ciudad Natividado.

  "Hey, I calling you. Don't you hear me?"

  The guard did not move a muscle to respond.

  Corazon yelled orders to three other guards.

  They ignored him.

  And silence hung over the courtyard as Corazon stopped yelling, silence made deeper by the throbbing of the drums.

  For the first time, Corazon looked at the dummy. It was another stuffed soldier's uniform, replete with medals imitating Corazon's fruit-salad chest.

  A banner was tacked to the chest of this dummy, too. A dark cloud passed overhead, carrying a hint of rain and a puff of wind. It unfurled the banner.

  The legend read:

  "I wait for you today. At the pits. My power against your power."

  Corazon screamed an anguished cry, compounded of hatred and annoyance and fear.

  He turned to Estrada.

  "Round up as many men as you can for this afternoon. We going up there to get rid of this man once and for all."

  "Right, El Presidente," said Estrada. "Right."

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  Corazon went inside to wait.

  When Remo awoke from his nap, he knew it was back. His breathing was low and slow, filling his lungs with air, and he could feel the oxygen coursing through his body, flooding his muscles with a quiet energy. His senses were sharp. As he had ever since arriving in Baqia he heard the drums, but he also heard children and an occasional vehicle and chickens. One chicken was having its neck wrung. A jeep went by, tapping the tune of a defective cylinder. Children were skipping rope nearby. The smell of vegetables was in the air, but Remo no longer had to wonder what Ruby had cooked for them. He smelled turnip greens and some kind of mustardy vegetable, and there was a faint cooking aroma of vinegar.

  "Chiun," Remo called as he hopped up off his cot, "I'm back together again."

  "Sheeit," came Ruby's voice. "Everybody watch theyselves now. He's back together again. As bad as new."

  Ruby was sitting on her stool in front of Chiun's cot. Chiun was seated. They were playing dice on the sheet.

  "Who's winning?" Remo asked.

  "I do not understand this game," Chiun said.

  "I'm winning," Ruby said. "Two hundred dollars."

  Chiun was shaking his head. "If she rolls a seven, she wins. I roll a seven and I lose. This I do not understand."

  "Just the way the rules are," Ruby said. "It's all right. I trust you for the money. Besides we got to stop now."

  She came to Remo and whispered, "How's he do that?"

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  "Do what?"

  "Roll a seven whenever he wants. They my dice, too."

  "That's our business," Remo said. "We're gambling experts for the U.S. government. We came down here to open a luxury hotel and casino. We were going to open one in Atlantic City but we couldn't figure out who to bribe."

  "Stop talking smart," Ruby said.

  "Got any more greens?" Remo asked.

  "You slept through lunch," Ruby said. "You slow, you blow."

  Til show you how to roll the dice if you feed me," Remo bribed.

  "We don't have time," Ruby said. "Besides, the greens all gone. Old gentlemans eat them all."

  "Too bad. I'll show you what you're missing. Chiun, toss me the dice, please."

  Ruby watched. Chiun held the two red dice in his right hand, looking at the white spots. He curled his long-nailed fingers, then propelled the dice from his palm. Faster than Ruby's eyes could follow, they sped across the ten feet of space between the two men, whirring.

  Remo plucked them out of the air between his fingers, like a magician materializing a back-palmed card.

  "Watch now," he said to Ruby. "I'll play you for ten dollars."

  He shook the dice, called "Nine" and dropped the pair on the dirt floor. They hit, rolled, and turned up six and three.

  Remo picked them up again. "Four," he said. "Hard way." He rolled the dice across the floor in a pair of twos.

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  He picked them up again. "Pick a number," he said. "Any number."

  "Twelve," Ruby said.

  Remo shook the dice and rolled a pair of sixes in the dirt.

  "Twelve," he said proudly.

  "Boxcars! You lose," Ruby shrieked. "Where's my ten dollars?"

  Remo looked at her in astonishment. "Chiun. I know how you lost."

  "How?"

  "She cheated."

  "You just a sore loser," Ruby said. "I collect later. Come on now, we got to go." As they went out the back door of the shack, Ruby told Remo, "I forget the ten dollars if you teach me to roll dice like that."

  "Anybody can learn," Remo said.

  "How long it taker

  "Average person, forty years, four hours a day. You, twenty years."

  "Then it took you sixty years and you ain't that old. How you do it?" Ruby demanded.

  She was leading them toward a pre-World War II green Plymouth that looked like a "speed kills" display by the National Safety Council.

  "It's all feel," Remo said. "You feel the dice."

  "I wanna know how you do it, not how you feel. You decide you going to tell me, you and me we can make a deal."

  "I'll think about it," Remo said.

  Ruby herded them into the car, started the motor, and drove off. She drove around the backs of shacks, avoiding children and chickens, until she was out of the main city. Then she cut through some barren flat-land to get onto the main road. Remo noted approv-

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  ingly that she drove the old car expertly, not riding the clutch, shifting smoothly and changing ,gears at the precise moment to get the maximum power out of the old wreck.

  "Mind telling us where we're going?" Remo asked. "We gonna finish this all up now, so I can get home," Ruby said. "By the time I get back to my wig factory, those damn 'Bamas, they have theyselves a union and everything. This trip be costing me money." Her tone left no doubt that Ruby thought losing money was important.

  "How are we going to finish it up?" Remo said. "Correction. I'm going to finish it up. You going to watch. This no job for a dice tosser." "How?" Remo insisted.

  "We gonna overthrow Corazon and we gonna put a new man in. And we gonna get that machine of his and you going to take it back to Washington with you."

  "You've got it all figured out," Remo said. "Trust your old Ruby. And stay outa the way if things hot up, 'cause I don't wanna have to explain how I lost you."

  "Are there any more home like you?" asked Remo. "Nine sisters. You wanna get married?" "Not unless they cook like you." Ruby shook her head. "They wouldn't have you, anway. Except one of 'em, she kinda stupid, she maybe would take you."

  "You know, you're the first CIA type I ever met who could cook," Remo said.

  "Stop talking stuff to me," Ruby said. "You know I'm the first CIA type you ever met who knew how to do anything. But they pav on time." "Hear, hear,'' called Chiun from the back seat. "You 171

  see, Remo. This young lady knows what is important."

  "You got trouble collecting from that Doctor Smith? He a tight and tired-ass-sounding old thing."

  "Actually," Chiun said, "only Remo works for Smith. I work for the President. But Smith is supposed to pay us. He is awful. If I were not on him constantly, we would never get our stipend. And it is not nearly what we are worth."

  "Well, maybe you," Ruby said, "but . . ." She nodded toward Remo.

  "Chiun, knock it off," Remo said. "You get your pay all the time. You have it delivered by special submarine, for God'
s sake. And I don't notice you wanting for anything."

  "Respect," Chiun said. "There are things, Remo, that money cannot buy. Respect."

  Remo could tell by the way Ruby set her lips that she did not agree with Chiun, but wasn't prepared to argue it with him.

  Ciudad Natividado was now far behind them. They were speeding along Route 1 toward the far-off hills. The dusty road was a meager two-lane strip cut through an overhang of jungle trees, so it seemed to Remo as if he were riding through a green tunnel. Even inside the car the sound of the drums was growing louder.

  Remo heard a faint tapping sound and realized a light shower was falling. He was protected from it by the overhang of the trees.

  Ruby noticed it, too. "Good," she said. "The old man told me it'd rain. We need that."

  "Will someone please tell me what you're up to?" Remo asked exasperatedly.

  "You'll see. We're almost there." She slowed down

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  and as she did she twisted in her seat to look behind her. Far behind were two cars.

  "'Less I miss my guess, that be Corazon," Ruby said. "Right on time."

  Ahead Remo saw the black pitch pit at the base of the hill. It seemed to be giving off steam. Ruby pulled the old Plymouth off the road through brush and past walls of vines and stumps until she was fifty feet from the road, as unseeable as an Alabama motorcycle cop hiding behind a billboard.

  "Now you two wait here. And keep your little lips still, you," she told Remo. "We don' want nothin' going wrong."

  She jumped from the car and a few moments later had vanished into the brush.

  "That woman thinks I'm an idiot," Remo groused to Chiun.

  "Hmmm," said Chiun. "The rain has stopped."

  "Well?"

  "Well, what?" asked Chiun.

  "What do you think about her thinking I'm an idiot?" Remo demanded.

  "Some are wise beyond their years."

  Ruby met Samedi walking slowly down the hillside toward the pitch pit. He wore the same shirtless black trousers and bare feet, but for the occasion he wore a top hat and a white collar around his bare neck. In his hand he carried a long bone that looked like the thighbone of a human being.

  "Hurry, holy one," Ruby said in Spanish. "Corazon is almost on us."

  He glanced up at the sky. The sun was moving out from behind a gray cloud.

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  "The sun will shine," he said. "It is a good day for doing good works."

  He followed Ruby down the hillside. She stopped ten feet from the tar pits, near a large rock outcropping.

  "Here you must sit," she said.

  He nodded and sank into a squatting position.

  "You know what to do?" she said.

  "Yes," he said. "I will know what to do to the murderer of my child and my land."

  "Fine," said Ruby. "I will be near."

  A few minutes later Ruby was back at the old Plymouth. The heavy roar of Corazon's limousine and a small backup jeep with four soldiers in it grew louder.

  "Want to watch the fun?" Ruby asked.

  "Wouldn't miss it," Remo said.

  He and Chiun followed her to a break in the foliage from which they could peer out over the tar pit.

  "Who's the old guy in the funny clothes?" asked Remo.

  "He is Samedi," said Chiun, cautiously.

  "How you know that?" piped Ruby. "I just found out yesterday his name's Sarnedi."

  "Samedi is not a name, young woman. It is a title. He is leader of the undead."

  "That mean zombies," Ruby explained to Remo.

  "I know what it means."

  "I see some of them walking around up there yesterday," she said, "and I don't know if they zombies or they just buzzing with something. But whatever they are, it was them that got you out of the cages."

  "The zombie need not be evil," Chiun said. "He does the bidding of Samedi, the master, and if the master be good, the works be good."

  "Well, this gonna be very good works. He gettin'

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  rid of Corazon for us," Ruby said. "Shush now, they here."

  The black presidential limousine rolled up and slid to a smooth halt only a few feet from the pit of pitch. The jeep stopped behind it and four soldiers got out of the jeep and stood with their rifles across their chests.

  Corazon got out the door of the limousine on Remo's side and hoisted the mung machine out in his big thick arms. His chauffeur and another guard, both carrying pistols, got out the front doors. After Corazon set the machine on the ground, Major Estrada slid across the seat and came out the same door.

  Corazon looked toward the tar pit. He saw the old man sitting on the rock, no more than one hundred feet away.

  A broad smile split Corazon's chocolate face.

  He pushed the mung machine in front of him. Its wheels were too small to roll smoothly over the rough road surface and the machine bumped and skidded as Corazon guided it toward the edge of the black lake. The pitch spit heavy fumes into the air. Heat shimmered from its surface as the hot afternoon sun dried the small shower sprinkle of a few minutes before.

  "Samedi, I am here," Corazon bellowed. "To match your magic against mine."

  "Your magic is no magic at all," Samedi called back. "It is the trickery of a fool, an evil fool. That trickery soon will be with us no more."

  "We will see," Corazon said. "We will see."

  The sound of the drums grew louder. It seemed to infuriate Corazon, who hoisted the mung machine into his arms. He aimed carefully at Samedi, who sat motionless on the stone, then pressed the button.

  There was a ripping sound and then a green dart of

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  light flashed out and splashed against the hill. But it missed Samedi by twenty feet.

  "Aaargghh," screamed Corazon in enraged fury. He aimed the machine and fired again. Again he missed.

  In the brush, Remo said, "He's taking dead aim. Why's he missing?"

  "He is not seeing Samedi," Chiun explained. 'The vapor from the tar is creating a mirage and he is firing at the vision he thinks he sees."

  "Thass right," Ruby said.

  Corazon took a deep breath. He aimed carefully and fired again. Behind him, his soldiers leaned on their rifles, watching. Major Estrada sat on the front fender of the limousine, his watchful eyes surveying everything.

  Corazon's shot missed and this time the green glow was a weak pale shimmer.

  "He's not giving it a chance to charge up," Remo said softly.

  Corazon shouted and in a mad rage raised the mung machine over his head and tried to throw it at Samedi. But the heavy machine sailed only ten feet through the air, then landed on the lake of pitch with a dull plop. It lay there like the hull of a wrecked ship half-buried in sand at low tide.

  "And now you have no magic at all," Samedi called out. He clapped his hands and rising from clumps of brush on the hillside as if they were instant blooming trees rose ten, twelve, twenty black men, wearing white trousers and no shirts, all with the glazed eyes that Remo had seen the night before in the two men who had walked down Giudad Natividado's main street and terrified the guards.

  "Attack," cried Samedi and the men raised their arms and began to shuffle down the hillside.

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  Corazon realized that he had thrown away his only true hope of staying in power. He grabbed a stick and leaned over the edge of the lake, trying to spear the mung machine and pull it back to him.

  As he teetered on the edge, Major Estrada tossed away his cigarette, took a deep breath, then charged forward. His outstretched arms hit Corazon midrump and El Presidente went tumbling forward into the lake of pitch. The black goo sucked at him, pulling him partly down, and he shouted, but he was stuck there, like a fossil embedded in amber. "I wasn't countin' on that," Ruby said. Estrada turned to the soldiers. "Now we return to the real island magic," he shouted. "Fire on them. Raise those rifles. If you want to live, fire." He pointed toward Samedi.

  The soldiers looked hesitant. The z
ombies now had split into two groups and were coming around the lake toward the soldiers.

  Estrada reached into a pocket of his tunic and pulled out a cloth bag of salt. He drew a large circle on the ground with the white powder and called the soldiers.

  "Come inside. The dupples cannot harm you here. And then we rid the island of this foolishness." He waved his arm and the soldiers moved up to join him. Ten feet out in the lake Corazon had wrapped his arms around the mung machine and was screaming for help.

  "Pull me out of here. Estrada, come get me." "Sorry, Generalissimo," Estrada called. "I've got Other things to do."

  He grabbed the rifle of the nearest soldier and pushed it up to the soldier's shoulder. "Fire that

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  weapon," he ordered. He pulled his automatic pistol from his holster.

  "They gonna get the old man," Ruby said.

  Remo looked at Chiun.

  "Since I don't work for the President and I'm only here as a spectator, Chiun, what do you think?" he said.

  "I think you are absolutely right," Chiun said.

  And before Ruby could speak, Chiun and Remo had leaped from the ground and sliced their way through the heavy brush as if it were not there.

  The soldiers had their rifles to their shoulders and were all aiming at Samedi. Estrada's finger was tightening on the trigger when Remo and Chiun hit the circle of salt.

  Before Ruby's wondering eyes the bodies of khaki-clad soldiers began flying through the air. She saw Remo and Chiun moving through the seven men so slowly that it looked as if any one of the soldiers could have felled them just by swinging; his rifle. But where the soldiers grabbed, Chiun and Remo had just vacated. They moved strangely, fast without seeming to hurry, intensely without seeming to strain for power, and the air was filled with the thwacks of blows and the cracking of bones and the screaming of soldiers. The two men's hands were blurs.

  In ten seconds it was over and the seven soldiers lay in the dirt, Major Estrada face-down, his hand still wrapped tightly around his pistol butt, but his trigger finger removed from his hand.

  Now the zombies were around the lake and moving toward Remo and Chiun.

  Remo saw them and said, "I wasn't exactly counting on this. Little Father. Quick. How do you kill the already dead?"