Bamboo Dragon td-108

by Warren Murphy

  The uranium was down there, somewhere underneath this city of grotesque inhabitants. Her contact with the rebels had been broken permanently, thanks to Renton Ward, but there was nothing to prevent her passing map coordinates along to the Chinese, fulfilling her part of the contract to ensure that she received the second payment of five hundred thousand dollars. She would walk into the Chinese embassy in broad daylight, if necessary, and concern herself with consequences afterward.

  When she was wealthy and retired.

  It crossed her mind that there might even be a bonus in the deal if she could block the Malay government from finding out about the lode before her Chinese sponsors had a chance to make their move. As far as she could make out, only Renton and herself knew anything about the city's radioactive foundation so far. Dear old Safford was off in a dreamworld, watching the ceratosaurus like a child with a new toy on Christmas morning. Sibu Sandakan might work it out if he had time, but it was still a long way back to Kuala Lumpur. Anything could happen on a trip like that—assuming Sandakan escaped the ancient city with his life.

  And that left Renton Ward. From what she had already seen, there would be no point trying to surprise him or knock him on the head. Some kind of kung fu expert, for heaven's sake, from the damned New Orleans Serpentarium! That cover wouldn't hold for long, once he got home and started spouting off about their find.

  If he got home.

  She might get lucky, see an elephant or dinosaur step on him yet. It would be quite a waste, considering his talents in the sex department, but a million dollars would ensure that Audrey Moreland never lacked for male companionship again. Not that she couldn't find a man these days, but something told her she would meet a better class of lover on the Riviera, maybe down in Rio de Janeiro—or Tahiti. Sure, why not?

  The first step was to get away from her companions, find a decent place to hide. And with the contest going on in front of them, she knew that there would never be a better time to make her exit.

  Next stop, Audrey thought, the land of milk and honey.

  Remo marked a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned in time to catch a glimpse of Audrey running toward the wall that marked the ancient city's boundary line. The massive gates were sixty yards to her right, but she didn't veer off in that direction. Rather, she appeared intent on getting to a kind of lean-to shed that stood against the inside of the wall, its wooden door ajar.

  "Stay here!" he told the others, hoping they would follow his instruction, less concerned about their fate just then than with the prospect of the ringer making good her getaway.

  He spared a glance for the immense combatants, ducked a spray of blood as the ceratosaurus raked the elephant across one ear with four sharp claws. It left the ear in tatters, but the elephant wouldn't back down. If anything, the sudden pain appeared to galvanize the pachyderm, propelled it forward, slashing with its tusks. The reptile scuttled backward, snarling, but a long gash opened on its flank before it hopped out of range.

  Remo was in full motion now. On the far side of the jade arena, he saw Chiun, a tiny, black-clad witness to the clash of titans. Chiun saw Remo, too, and raised an open hand. From the expression on his face, they might have met by accident, outside a restaurant in downtown Seoul, instead of on some blood-smeared battleground where living nightmares dined on human flesh.

  He kept on after Audrey, knowing Chiun could take care of himself in any given situation. Remo didn't have a clue as to where Chiun had found an elephant, but from the trail of broken corpses leading to the open gates, he knew the beast had paid its way before it ever caught a glimpse of old Nagaq.

  As for the outcome of the present contest, Remo figured it was still too close to call.

  Across the courtyard, Audrey was within a few strides of the lean-to, gaining fast, when she stopped short, recoiling in apparent fear. The door flew open, and a hulking, mud-caked tribesman leaped out to confront her, brandishing a spear. Her scream was audible above the snarling, grunting sounds of mortal combat at his back as Remo poured on speed.

  Chiun was humming softly as he watched the contest that no living man had witnessed heretofore. Brute creatures lacked finesse, of course, but it was still an honor to observe their efforts from a ringside seat. His sympathy lay with the elephant, since it had served him well with no reward, but it was difficult to see the dragon as a loser, with its nimble sidesteps, wicked claws and flashing fangs.

  Still, it was something of a disappointment when he thought about the great scrolls of Sinanju. Chiun had hoped the dragon would have wings, perhaps breathe fire—in short, put on a better show. It would have made the combat hopeless, stolen any chance the elephant might have, but there was something in the preservation of tradition that appealed to him.

  Chiun doubted whether this big lizard even had an eye for gold and gems.

  A sudden jabbering of voices from his flank distracted Chiun, and he was turning to confront the natives when the first spear whispered past him, struck the elephant and pierced its shoulder. Two more lances followed swiftly, striking home, and while they were no mortal threat to the behemoth, it was clear they irritated him. He shook himself, dislodged one spear, but the other two held fast.

  Chiun was not amused.

  He counted seven natives—three of whom had foolishly disarmed themselves—with two more poised to hurl their spears. They shouted for Nagaq as if they were a group of drunken white men watching football on a Sunday afternoon and rooting for the quarterback.

  The Master of Sinanju moved against them, killing two before they seemed to recognize the threat. Nagaq's surviving acolytes turned their attention to Chiun, but it was already too late for them to save themselves.

  Too easy, thought Chiun as he swept through their ranks without resistance, cleaving flesh and bone the way a butcher opens lifeless carcasses. There was no contest, and he finished swiftly, picking up one of their fallen spears and hefting it, considering its usefulness before he frowned and cast it to the side.

  Chiun did not feel pity for his enemies. It had been their choice to attack, when they could just as easily have run into the jungle and concealed themselves. If they elected to do battle with the Master of Sinanju, it was understood—by Chiun, at least—that they would die in sundry violent and humiliating ways. There was no dignity in foolishness, and Chiun felt nothing but contempt for those who threw their lives away in hopeless causes.

  He returned his full attention to the clash of giants in the courtyard. It wouldn't be long, pure logic said, before a winner was revealed.

  His heart was with the elephant, but if he had been forced to bet, Chiun would have put his money on the reptile.

  Remo was a dozen paces from the lean-to when the tribesman drove his spear through Audrey's abdomen, below the ribs, and hoisted her as if she were a fish, still wriggling on the tip of his harpoon. She screamed—a wild, unearthly sound, half pain, half disbelief—and Remo saw the warrior tilt his head back, opening his mouth to catch the first warm drops of blood that showered on his face.

  It was the moment something snapped inside him, and a red haze blurred his vision for perhaps two heartbeats. Remo had been sent to kill this woman, and he would have done the job without complaint, but there was something so barbaric in the act of her impalement, something so inhuman in that thirst for blood, that Remo voluntarily let go of his reserve, felt fury energize him as he closed the final distance to his prey.

  The tribesman saw Death coming through his one good eye, but there was little he could do about it. The man's first instinct was to drop the spear, drop Audrey and retreat in the direction of the lean-to.

  He never made it. Remo caught him by the nape and hauled him back before the tribesman reached the threshold of his sanctuary. Simple pressure at the point where skull met spine would do the trick, but Remo didn't let his adversary off that easily. Instead, he hauled the native back and set him on his big, splayed feet, stood waiting for the guy to make his move.

>   The cyclops blinked twice, muttered something in his native tongue and threw a roundhouse punch at Remo's head. It was the final voluntary move his body ever made. His arm was snapped like kindling at wrist and elbow, twisted from the shoulder socket with a gruesome sucking sound. Before the native even knew he was disarmed, before the agony could register, his own arm whipped around and struck him in the face with force enough to crush his nose and cheekbones, shearing off his front teeth at the gum line. One more stroke before he fell, and that was all it took to split his skull, the lifeless body falling next to Audrey.

  Remo knelt beside the woman, cradling her head without a sudden motion that would fire new jolts of pain off through her body. He didn't remove the spear or otherwise disturb it, understanding that her wound was hopeless from the dark blood soaking through her denim shirt in front and back. A modern hospital with trauma surgeons standing by might just have saved her, but there was a shortage of facilities in the Malaysian jungle. Even with a helicopter on the scene right now, she would have bled to death or died from shock within the first few minutes, miles away from any kind of help.

  So Remo, helpless, brushed the hair back from her face and asked her how she felt.

  "Like shit," she told him honestly. "It isn't fair."

  "What is?"

  "Goddamned philosophy." She grimaced, fighting with the pain. "I don't suppose you've got a neat trick up your sleeve for this?"

  "'Fraid not," he said.

  "I didn't think so. Shit! Don't leave me like this, Renton."

  "No."

  She forced a smile in spite of everything. "I guess this means you win."

  "Two different games," he said. "I won't be getting rich and fat, if it's a consolation."

  "Screw your consolation," Audrey hissed. "Somebody ought to make a dollar off this deal."

  "I have a feeling someone will."

  "Not Beijing, though."

  He shook his head. "Not this time."

  "Just as well. You need five hundred thousand dollars, Renton?"

  Remo didn't have to think about it. "No," he said.

  "You sure? I'll tell you where it is, how you can get it, if you promise—"

  "Never mind," he interrupted her. "It's on the house. Just close your eyes now."

  Audrey Moreland did as she was told, and Remo finished it, a light stroke to the temple, blotting out her pain, replacing it with darkness.

  Remo hoped that she was warm.

  Across the courtyard, primal sounds of pain and fury snapped him out of it. He rose and turned back toward the huge combatants, saw them lurching in a grim ballet of death.

  And Remo left the newly dead blonde behind him as he went to join Chiun.

  It was the greatest battle of the century, of any century, thought Stockwell. You could keep Jurassic Park, with all its clever animation and effects. The scene in front of him was real, no miniatures, stage blood, blue screens or stop-motion photography involved.

  So real that he could smell it. The metallic scent of blood was overwhelming; some of it had even spattered Stockwell's face, run down his cheeks and neck into the open collar of his shirt. A musky odor from the great ceratosaurus, doubtless similar to odors certain snakes produced when caught or taken by surprise. The elephant had urinated sometime in the early moments of the fight, and the ammonia smell was strong enough to open up a dead man's sinuses.

  It was illusory, thought Stockwell, but he could have sworn he felt the earth tilt underneath his feet. No man on earth had ever witnessed anything like this before—except, perhaps, some member of the local tribe—and he, Professor Safford Stockwell, would be first to share the story with the outside world.

  Then it struck him that their gear—the cameras, everything—had been stripped from them by the natives when they reached the city. Christ, had it been only hours earlier? He didn't have a single photograph or videocassette to document what he was seeing, nothing that would prove his case once they escaped.

  If they escaped.

  There would be witnesses, of course. Poor Chalmers was a write-off, but he still had Sibu Sandakan and the amazing Dr. Renton Ward.

  And Audrey. Where in God's name had she gotten to this time?

  There was no time to search for her just now. He was preoccupied to the exclusion of all else with the display of sheer brute force in front of him. Each move of the ceratosaurus felt like poetry, his dusty textbooks with their sketches come to life upon command.

  He saw the elephant lunge forward, jabbing with its tusks, but the ceratosaurus sidestepped, bobbed its head and clamped down on its adversary's back with jaws agape. Blood fountained from the new wounds, streaking dusty hide and pooling on the ground, producing rust-colored mud as it was trampled under massive feet.

  The elephant was lurching, bucking almost like a horse, to shake its ancient foe. The reptile lost its grip, but kept a ragged hunk of flesh clenched in its jaws as it fell over sideways, sprawling in the dirt. Before it sprang erect once more, the elephant closed in and hooked the carnivore with one long tusk, a piercing wound beneath its left arm, through the ribs.

  Ceratosaurus shrieked in pain and rage, leaped backward, leaving bloodstains on the elephant's right tusk. Instead of hesitating, though, it circled to the left, then doubled back, the change-up smooth enough to be a practiced move. The elephant was forced to follow, facing toward its enemy, but dizziness and steady loss of blood combined to make its steps unsteady, tremulous.

  The reptile saw its opening, rushed in and dodged the flashing tusks to clamp its jaws behind the elephant's great skull. Ceratosaurus gave a stiff shake of its head, teeth grinding into flesh and bone, blood streaming, and the elephant began to squeal, a weird, almost unearthly sound. Its trunk thrashed helplessly as it dug in with all four feet, but weight and bulk alone were not enough to save it. With its enemy beyond the reach of either tusk, the elephant could only lurch from side to side and try to pull away.

  Too late.

  The snap of separating vertebrae was loud enough that Stockwell had no trouble hearing it above the other noises of the two combatants. Instantly, it was as if someone had punctured an immense balloon, as the elephant collapsed, its tree-trunk legs giving way. It landed belly down, with the ceratosaurus still on top, still clinging to its neck, but in another moment, even a diminutive reptile brain could tell the fight was over.

  Grudgingly, the dinosaur released its grip and tottered backward, favoring its injured side. The puncture wound was bleeding freely, with no way to determine from a distance whether it was mortal. It was obviously painful, though, since the Jurassic predator didn't take time to sample so much as a mouthful from its latest kill.

  In fact, as Stockwell watched, the ceratosaurus turned back toward the gates and the darkness of the rain forest outside the city walls. It was escaping! In a few more seconds, it would be beyond his reach forever!

  Safford Stockwell moved like someone caught up in a dream. He scarcely realized that he was stepping forward, rushing toward the giant prehistoric reptile as it turned away from him. He felt hands clutching at his sleeve and threw them off, determined. If he could not photograph the reptile, could not cage a specimen, the very least that he could do was touch it, for his own sake.

  Now!

  He reached out for the flicking tail and saw it coming back to meet him. The ceratosaurus never saw him—or if so, it paid no more attention to him than a grizzly bear might pay a gnat. In retrospect, what happened next was probably an accident, more Stockwell's fault than anything.

  He tried to duck at the last instant, raise a hand to save himself, but it was already too late. The hard tip of the reptile's tail struck him a glancing blow, peeled back a six-inch strip of scalp and knocked him sprawling to the ground.

  His world was reeling, upside down, and it was difficult to see with fresh blood in his eyes, the night stained crimson. Even so, Professor Stockwell saw the creature of his dreams lurch out of sight, away beyond the massive open gates.


  And something else.

  Behind it, running like the wind, he could have sworn he saw a frail old man, dressed all in black.

  "We need to leave right now," said Remo, "or we won't get out of here at all."

  Their Malay chaperon had Stockwell on his feet, and while the scalp wound bled as if there were no tomorrow, Stockwell seemed to be in no real danger. He would slow them down, of course, but that was nothing new.

  "And Dr. Moreland?" Sibu Sandakan inquired, voice trembling as he spoke.

  "She won't be coming."

  "Audrey?" Stockwell had enough sense left to recognize the name, but he had trouble focusing his eyes.

  "We'll see her later," Remo lied. "This way."

  A handful of the locals had begun to gather near the fallen elephant, some of them prodding it with spears, while others watched the strangers, pointing, mouthing threats, and Remo swore softly under his breath.

  It would be pointless, running, with the natives primed to follow them. While he could give them the slip or double back to kill them in the dark, he would be gravely handicapped by Sandakan and Stockwell. Better, he decided, if they finished it right here. It could mean wiping out the tribe, but Remo didn't plan to spend the next few days in hiding, dodging spears.

  A group of six or seven tribesmen was advancing, muttering among themselves, and Remo was prepared to meet them, when an arrow sprouted from the leader's chest and dropped him in his tracks. At once, a second shaft cut down the warrior on his left, and then a third picked off the gangly cyclops standing just behind the fallen leader.

  It was all they needed, sending up a frightened shout in unison and taking to their heels. In seconds, Remo and his traveling companions were alone with one dead elephant and several dozen mutilated corpses.

  "Fairly decent shooting," Remo told Chiun. "You took your time, though."

  "I was otherwise engaged," the Master of Sinanju answered, "with a dragon."

  "Oh?"

  "I did not kill it," said Chiun. "It had no magic and no treasure. There was nothing for Sinanju."