The Destroyer - 121 - The Destroyer 121 - A Pound of Prevention by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
ISBN: 9780373632367
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2000-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

"Who taught you?" Remo pressed.

The boy looked him deep in the eyes, tipping his head to one side. "Do you like toys?" he asked. "I wasn't allowed to have them. But sometimes I snuck away and made some with the other children. Like this." He picked from his small village one of the stone men he'd made.

When he held it out, Remo was impressed by the detail. The features on the toy man were Asian. "You can have it if you want," the boy said. When he pressed the figure into Remo's hand, Remo felt the same unnatural cold he'd experienced at the airport in New York and again on the sidewalk in Bachsburg. There was a total lack of warmth to the boy's body.

Once he'd closed Remo's fingers around the figure, he looked up. His eyes were bright. For the first time, Remo noticed flecks of hazel at the brown edges of his irises.

"Sometimes when you look at things, you don't see them, Remo," he said, with a wisdom older than his physical age. "Sometimes you have to look from the side to know what it is you've seen. It's almost your time. Be sure when you go to look that you see what you should, not what you want to see."

He seemed to want to smile. But the ability to do so had been trained out of him long before he'd shucked his corporeal form. Once he was through speaking, the little boy merely put his hands to the sides of his black tunic and allowed the growing night to claim him.

Remo was left alone in the endless soughing plain, a look of confusion seeping across his face. At his feet, the rocks and grass the boy had been playing with still sat. But the woven huts of a moment before were now simple piles of grass. The stone men, once more chunks of smooth gray rock. Remo opened his hand.

A carved Korean face looked up at him.

He slipped the figure into his pocket. Turning from the mashed-down field, he headed back down the path to the waiting Blazer, his face tight with silent reflection.

ON A HIGH BLUFF that looked out over the great, sweeping plains of the Luzu empire, a lone sentry stood.

Behind him, the dead rock mouth of a played-out diamond mine swallowed night shadows. Before him, the gods bled into the vast twilight sky.

Eyes trained keen watched the solitary truck as it traveled the off-road path from Bachsburg. When the vehicle stopped suddenly, the native grew more alert.

A dark figure emerged, vanishing into the tall grass. Dusk was nearly gone by the time he reappeared. After another minute, the truck resumed its stubborn path into the heart of Luzuland.

The sentry watched it come.

One truck. Only a handful of men.

The bright light of the rising moon found no expression on the native's features.

Spear in hand, the sentry slipped down the round rock face. On bare feet he ran back toward the main Luzu village.

NIGHT DESCENDED on Africa like a settling shroud.

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