Bamboo Bloodbath and Ninja's Revenge

  Ilunga and I jumped, alarmed. "They traced us here already!" I said. "God, they're efficient!"

  Tuh walked to the wall and took down a red silk kimono with mystical signs embroidered on it in gold, "I have been expecting them. I will delay them while you depart."

  "Sifu!" I protested. "This is not your concern. You said you take no joy in quarrels."

  Tuh, garbed; now took down two kung fu swords: one a long chien, the other a broad tao. I marveled privately that the same name applied to both a sword and a philosophy of peace. "True. But this quarrel is necessary, and it is to be my last. 'A brave man who dares to, will kill; a brave man who dares not, spares life; and from them both come good and ill.' If they will desist, there will be no bloodshed, and that is good. Otherwise, it is a fitting way for an old warrior to end."

  A brave man who dares not, spares life. An interesting thought. Sometimes it did take more courage not to kill.

  Yet it was preposterous, this ancient, ill bag of bones standing up to the brutal, armed thugs of the G-2! I had seen the sifu's demonstration of skills, and felt the power of his ch'i, but still...

  "Yes, the ch'i," he said. "Yours must be preserved, for it has not flowered yet." Startled, I looked at him. Could he read my mind? There was a loud banging on the wooden door, Ilunga and I drew back into shadowed recesses, unable to get away unseen, and uncertain whether it was honorable to flee. This was our fight. Tuh opened the door and stepped to one side. Four men charged in, carrying drawn metralletas, Czech 9mm submachine guns, faster but less accurate than the M-3. One carried a 9mm pistol. One man fired at a shadow; the bullet thudded into the wall near my head. Trigger-happy!

  Tuh's long sword danced in the air, coming at the last of the four as he crashed in. The man's head flew off, but the decapitated body remained upright, grotesquely spouting blood. The others turned as their comrade toppled, bringing their weapons to bear. The barrel of a submachine gun swung toward Tuh's torso. But it was toward this man that the awful corpse fell, and he pumped a dozen bullets into that body before realizing that it was not the enemy. Then Tuh's broadsword slashed across, sending sparks from the barrel as it struck, cutting into the man's raised forearm, and finally embedding itself in the man's side. His spinal column was severed; he too fell.

  Tuh was already hurdling the collapsing bodies, his free sword leading. The third man got the point directly in his solar plexus. The fourth was firing now, but he was already too late. Tuh's foot lashed out, tripping him. Tuh's razor-nailed fingers ripped into his crotch, emasculating him. No rice, this time...

  It had all taken perhaps twenty seconds. Four men were dead or incapacitated, by this tiny ill bag of bones! But that was pa-kua, the Taoist-derived boxing.

  Tuh looked back, spying us. "Now it is safe to go. There will be no pursuit."

  But coming down the hall from the staircase were two more men with guns drawn. Tuh took a pronged spear from the wall, the ko mo, with a second blade placed at right angles to the iron head. He hurled it with such force that it impaled both men.

  Through the open door behind him I saw the elevator rising with another load of troops. The gate opened, and the new men spied the carnage. Guns lifted, but the men were still jammed in the elevator, unable to take proper aim because of their own jostling. There were five of them.

  Tuh turned, ran to the door, and stooped momentarily over the bleeding bodies. His hand flashed—and a red spray of blood fanned out to strike the crowded men. The effect must have been more psychological than physical, for the spray was too thin to blind them. It was as if some unseen force had momentarily pushed them back. Could this be the fabulous "sand palm?" Hands toughened by immersion in sand...

  Tuh launched himself through the air in a prodigious leap. It was as though he were a great bright bird taking off, or a red kite, for his kung fu tunic fluttered. And in that instant I wondered: he had been able to make himself too heavy to lift by the power of his ch'i; could he also reverse that force, to make himself light enough to fly? The notion was fantastic, yet I could not entirely discount it.

  He hit the open cage of the elevator, not giving the men a chance to spread out. Yet the air was filled with bullets, forcing Ilunga and me to upend the table and hide behind it. I put my arm around her automatically, as though she were a frail girl, and she did not protest. Tuh must have been hit twenty times, but he never stopped. All the men went down, and he was in their midst, rolling on the floor. He was screaming, and they were screaming, but his was the scream of the predator, theirs the prey. Those deadly hands were doing their work, those rice-bag slicers. Like knives they flashed, going in and out of living flesh, cutting their way through. It was as if instead of muscle and bone they were meeting paper dolls. It was the terrible dragon's-claw effect, the result of decades of harsh training, of throwing empty jars up into the air and catching them with the fingers, and gradually filling the jars with more and more sand, increasing their weight. In the course of time, the hands became incredibly strong. And it was also his mastery of ch'in-na, the Chinese atemis, that enabled this wounded little man to inflict death so readily. Each of his opponents had been hit with at least two death-dealing blows; his fingers had terrible strength and were capable of snapping bones as if they were twigs. That, too, was the result of specialized exercise: twisting bamboo and similar finger drills. Each finger was as rigid as a little spear as it stabbed at vital spots. The long sharp nails passed right through eyeballs and into the brain.

  And it was over. Tuh expired as he completed his effort, and lay amid the corpses of his opponents.

  He had died as he wanted to die, in honorable combat. He had given his life to preserve ours. There was nothing we could do but accept.

  "I have an address," I said, remembering what Luis had said that evening at the restaurant. How could he have anticipated this? "La Experanza in Pinar del Rio. Tomas the Fisherman."

  "Pinar del Rio!" she exclaimed. "That's a hundred miles from Havana, over the mountains!"

  Geography was never my strong subject; I had somehow thought it was closer. "It's all I have," I said. "Havana's no good for us now, anyway."

  "Cuba's no good for us!" she agreed. "Well, we can walk. But if I run out of the drug, we're in trouble."

  I stared at her. "Kill-13?"

  She shook her head violently. "What am I thinking of! I'm off the Demon! I don't need the drug anymore."

  The habits of years were not simply forgotten. She might be off the drug, but she wasn't cured, yet. She had told me how she had eaten plastic explosive to fight off the addiction, and studied Tao. My ki had helped her, but drug addiction is no patsy. Only a long, consistent abstinence can truly break it. There are no miracle cures, no easy ways. The addict has to suffer the long, hard route to freedom.

  But I would knock her out and tie her up before I allowed her to take another sniff of Kill-13. If she could only resist the urge for it now, that urge would decrease with time, until the longings became phantoms and finally departed entirely. If I could get her to destroy her remaining supplies of the drug, it would be impossible for her ever to become re-addicted.

  We walked. We didn't dare solicit any rides, for we knew the efficiency of the G-2. We were both in good condition; even traveling cross-country and foraging for food, we figured we could do at least twenty miles a day, and make it to Pinar del Rio in five days.

  But we got a ride anyway. A friendly farmer stopped, and we were unable to decline without giving away our language handicap and betraying our origins. So we piled on the back of the truck with nods grunts of thanks, and piled off again two hours later when he slowed for a steep hill. It did give us a healthy start on our journey.

  The country was beautiful. We trekked through the Valle de Pinales, a big valley with small mountains covered by pine forest, called mogotes, full of caves. But daytime travel was no good; this was settled country, and the risk of discovery was too great. We hid in clumps of sugar cane or crawled under the ubiquitous spi
ny maribu bush.

  We slept together and fought off her sieges of withdrawal; when the pangs became intolerable I wrestled her down and made love to her instead, and, odd as it may seem, this therapy helped. Her need for the drug was partly based on her need for love, and sexual expression is a form of love.

  During the second day we crossed a chill river, and she suffered another pang of withdrawal. Her hand went to her hair. I leaped on her and shoved her head under the water while I clawed at her hair with the fingers of my other hand. A package of something was dislodged, and it floated away in the current.

  Ilunga fought her way to the surface and gave a single despairing cry, as though she had been stabbed. But I hung on to her, preventing her from going after the package. She could have crippled me with a blow but she did not; not one of her motions was directed at me personally. She knew what I was doing, and deep inside she really wanted me to prevail. And when she saw that there could be no recovery of the drug, she turned to me, and kissed me, and we made love there in the water, only our heads above it. The river was so cold my hands and feet were numb, but where we touched each other our skins were burning hot, and our kisses were desperately passionate. In the delirium of the climactic ecstasy, it seemed as if the water must boil away!

  That slow trek through the Valle de Pinales was as uplifting an experience as I can remember. But alas, it was not to endure. Next day we heard the baying of dogs, and knew the G-2 was on our trail again. It was the dread peinazo, a massive pursuit by hundreds of men, cutting off all escape, combing through every square yard of the terrain.

  "Maybe we can hide," I said without real hope "If we can fool the dogs..." I cast about. "It's the sweat-impregnated leather of our shoes they smell."

  We tried. We re-entered the river and swam downstream as far as we dared, then ditched our footgear and fashioned massive bandages of leaves and vine. With luck, the scent would be muted enough to lose the dogs, and the men would assume we had gone further down the river.

  We limped to a mogoto and entered a cave. There we hid, huddled in the deepest recess, listening to the milling of the throng. They had lost our trail!

  Once again we made love. It was as though we had a lot of catching up to do. The fading drug-hunger was no longer an excuse; proximity was enough. I had lost count of the times we had done it.

  Then, probably by accident, a dog sniffed at the entrance to our cave. Our sweaty odor had become intense in that confined space. I saw the hound's ears perking up; then he opened his mouth to give cry.

  One of Ilunga's stilettoes shot into that open mouth and the dog fell over backward, its palate and brain pierced. But now we had to move, for we would be rats in a trap. "I'd rather die fighting!" Ilunga muttered, and I agreed.

  We emerged, quickly scooped a grave with our hands, and buried the dog so as to hide the evidence. We climbed the hill. We could not risk that cave any more. What one dog could sniff, others would too.

  A man rose up out of the brush. I caught him with a fast whipping inverted uraken or back-fist to the pit of the stomach. He crumpled unconscious and we went on.

  At the top we looked out, and saw a veritable army surrounding us. There were at least five thousand men spread out below. The first in a row of five big mortars fired, and an incendiary shell, white phosphorus, exploded a hundred yards from us. It showered the surrounding area with its deadly beautiful spray, like falling stars—but stars that burned to the bone with a fire no water could quench.

  "God, I hate those!" I muttered. "I've seen what phosphorus can do to a man, burning the flesh right off his bone, and nothing in the world can stop it."

  Then a voice blared out, from a power megaphone. "Surrender, gringos!"

  "Gringos!" Ilunga snorted derisively. Perhaps this was the first time she had been seriously lumped with American whites.

  "We have your range," the voice cried. "Surrender, or we will blast you!"

  "They've got us," I said. "They could drop a round on our heads."

  "I always knew they would," Ilunga said. "But I wanted this time with you. It's been real nice, honky."

  I knew that she had never said that to a white man before, not without heavy sarcasm. "Yes, nice," I agreed. It had been more than nice. I felt a lump in my throat.

  And so we surrendered.

  We were taken by car to one of the suburbs of Havana. I expected interrogation and possibly execution, but we were not roughly treated. We were given a chance to clean up, then were taken to another house.

  There were men all over, armed and alert. This was a real center of activity, all right. We were brought to a large room ringed with guards, and I knew that it would be impossible to fight our way clear of this though we were not tied or drugged. What were they going to do with us?

  A large man sat in a Cuban sillon, a big rocking chair with a foam cushion, before a massive mahogany table. He was bearded, sweaty, and tired-looking, about forty-five years old. He had a big Havana cigar in his mouth, and beside him was a bottle of Spanish cognac. His unkempt appearance was in contrast to the military neatness of the guards. Some lesser interrogation officer, I judged; one day he would get himself canned for his failure to uphold military dignity of dress. But at the moment we were in his power.

  "Welcome, Jason Striker!" he exclaimed in passable English, putting forth one big hand. I considered rejecting it, but realized that the gesture would be futile. Little men had big egos, and we were in enough trouble already. So I played the game and took it. "And you, Black Mistress."

  Ilunga shrugged, not deigning to reply.

  The man laughed good-naturedly. "I see by your faces you do not know me. Ah, you gringos, for you the rest of the world does not exist!" He shook his head as in dismay. "Well, I know you! I watched you on TV, in that Nicaraguan tournament. I said to myself, 'Now there is one gringo I'd like to meet—but not in the arena!' And now, we meet."

  I nodded, noncommittally.

  "I am a great fan of the martial arts," he continued. "You cannot know what joy it has been to me to host the judo competition right here in Cuba. And your team did all right, eh? Since I took over, judo has prospered here like never before, and I am proud of it."

  Since he took over? What was this?

  "In fact, all Cuba has prospered!" he continued exuberantly. "We produce more sugar, more tobacco, meat, milk, oranges, cobalt, manganese, oil, cement, tungsten, nickel, copper. More and better housing, better education—everyone can read now!"

  He signaled, and an orderly brought a tray of food. I looked at the Cuban "hero" sandwich, with butter, ham, pierna sliced pork, cold cuts, cheese, pickles, and guava pastries, and suddenly I was aware that I had not eaten more than scraps for two days. To pitch into that repast...

  He took up a huge Cuban roll, bit off a jagged hunk, chewed, and belched. My own hunger intensified. But now I had no doubt. This was no underling; this was Fidel Castro himself, the ruler of Cuba! Why had he chosen to interrogate us personally?

  But there was no chance to ask. Fidel was talking. Despite his mouthful, he spoke well, with compelling interest, and we listened, fascinated. But we had to wait on his convenience. How I longed for a bite of that bread!

  "But you Americans don't believe that, how well we have done," he continued, drinking from a bottle of beer. Now I was thirsty, too. But I had heard he spiked his drinks with Benzedrine. Addiction of one kind or another was almost universal.

  "Your politicians lie to you, your newspapers prevaricate. Your free press is much less free than you believe, amigos! Half your foreign correspondents are in the pay of the CIA. Just think, but for the carelessness of one unbribed night watchman in one hotel, you would never have known of the complete corruption of your government! Watergate—there will never be a Watergate in Cuba!"

  Naturally not, I thought. There was no two-party system in Cuba, and all the spying was authorized by the government. Fidel gestured expansively under my nose with a chorizo, a Spanish sausage, before crammin
g it into his mouth. I could almost have taken a bite of it in passing. I swallowed the excess saliva in my mouth and paid attention to his words.

  "Once Cuba was like that, too, in the time of the Sergeant, that embezzler Batista. But we routed out those murderers and put in honest men. We eliminated crime. There is no drug addiction in all the country, except for a few opium smokers too old to cure. I can't abide addiction!" He took another swig of spiked beer, then puffed on his cigar. Some ash fell on his food, unnoticed. Probably true, I realized. To Fidel, Benzedrine, alcohol, and nicotine were not addictions—not in himself, at any rate. All hardcore addicts in Cuba were either dead or in prison. Totalitarian regimes could be very efficient with specific problems. But this did not preclude drugs for export, as we knew.

  My expression must have given me away, for he addressed himself directly to me now. "You think I am a hypocrite, Jason Striker! You found that heroin. Admit it—you suspect us of smuggling the drug into your country!"

  I nodded, for he did not pause long enough to permit a verbal reply. What a talker he was! "I know they call me the Horse—but I do not smuggle horse!" He laughed, but I noticed that not one of the guards cracked a smile. "No, that shipment was not of my doing." He blew a cloud of cigar smoke at us.

  I thought he was going to elaborate, but abruptly he was off on another tangent of oratory "We have done well, but we have had help. The Soviet socialists have made many loans." He paused, then added musingly: "Soon we shall have to repay them, with interest, and how we shall do that I do not know! You see, I admit my mistakes. Even I can commit a mistake!" This was obviously humor; he was the perfect megalomaniac. "But it takes more than money! I told Allende that; 'Chico,' I said, 'you can not make a revolution with democracy and without controlling the army. Those fascist officers will turn on you, they will destroy you!' I told him, 'They will betray you the moment you interfere with their comfort or their real sources of power. Do not trust them. You must take over the army yourself, or you are doomed!' But he would not listen." Fidel shook his head sadly, wisely. "The military mind is dangerous. It is paranoid. My friend Che discovered that in Bolivia. A hard lesson!"