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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
162
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
163
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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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