The Destroyer - 74 - The Destroyer 074 - Walking Wounded by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:51:55+00:00

Chapter 12

Re­mo Williams didn’t no­tice he was run­ning out of gas un­til the en­gine start­ed miss­ing. He looked down at the fu­el gauge. The red point­er was bounc­ing off the emp­ty pin.

Re­mo wres­tled the bus over to the shoul­der of the high­way and braked. He turned in his seat. A score of un­blink­ing eyes looked back at him, like ba­by owls in a for­est.

“Lis­ten up, ev­ery­one,” Re­mo told them. “This is just a pit stop. I want ev­ery­one who has a ri­fle to de­ploy around the bus and stand guard. I hear run­ning wa­ter. Prob­ably a stream near­by. Two armed peo­ple will es­cort those who want to drink. Ev­ery­one else stay close to the bus. Got that?”

Their ex­ot­ic faces bobbed in un­der­stand­ing.

“Then let’s go,” Re­mo said, jump­ing out. The AK-47 went over his shoul­der with­out con­scious thought. Re­mo re­moved the last re­main­ing jer­ri­can and un­screwed the gas cap. As he poured the evil-​smelling gas in­to the tank, he tried to dig in­to long-​buried mem­ories. He’d been driv­ing all night, and had no idea where he was, or how far it was to the Cam­bo­di­an bor­der.

One of the Am­erasians hov­ered near him. Re­mo crooked a fin­ger for him to step in­to talk­ing range. “Yes?”

“What’s your name, pal?”

“Nguyen. “

“How far to the Cam­bo­di­an bor­der, Nguyen?”

The man scratched his head and stared down the road ap­prais­ing­ly. “Forty kilo­me­ters,” he said, point­ing back in the di­rec­tion they had come.

“You mean that way,” Re­mo said, emp­ty­ing the last of the jer­ri­can and nod­ding in the west­er­ly di­rec­tion. Nguyen shook his head.

“No,” he in­sist­ed, point­ing east. “That way.”

“That’s the road back to Saigon,” Re­mo said. “Cam­bo­dia is the oth­er way.”

“That road back to Viet­nam,” the man dis­agreed. “We in Cam­bo­dia now.”

Re­mo dropped the jer­ri­can in sur­prise. “When did we cross the bor­der?”

“Hour ago. When we pass that moun­tain.”

Re­mo fol­lowed Nguyen’s point­ing fin­ger. Low on the hori­zon was a steep, forest­ed sum­mit. Re­mo had paid it no at­ten­tion be­fore. Sud­den­ly he rec­og­nized it. It was the moun­tain known as the Black Vir­gin. It strad­dled the bor­der of Viet­nam and Cam­bo­dia. It was many kilo­me­ters back.

“Great,” Re­mo said. “Why didn’t some­body tell me?”

“No one want you to stop. This dan­ger­ous area. Khmer Rouge here. Much fight­ing.”

The oth­ers re­turned from the bush at that mo­ment, some of them wip­ing cool wa­ter off their mouths. They looked re­freshed.

Re­mo went around to the front of the bus, turned on the head­lights, and gath­ered them to­geth­er in the light. “This is it, ev­ery­one. Cam­bo­dia. Last stop. You’re on your own now. You have weapons, so you can take care of your­selves. “

“You take bus?” asked Nguyen.

“Yes,” Re­mo said. “I’ll need it if I’m go­ing to res­cue my friend. Sor­ry.”

The green-​eyed girl pushed out of the hud­dled group.

“Please not go, Amer­ican. Stay with us. Help us reach U.S.”

“I wish I could,” Re­mo said sin­cere­ly. “But I have a mis­sion.”

“We go with you. Help you. Fight fierce­ly. Not like old ARVN troops. Kill many gook for you.”

The oth­ers took up her call to ac­tion, promis­ing to fight brave­ly for the Amer­ican and his friend.

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