Tengu (33 page)

Rifle fire still exploded across the clearing. The attackers were slowing their rates of fire and moving occasionally to avoid the concentrated volleys from the Filipinos. Most of the terrorists had faded back into the tree line and I could hear them calling to each other occasionally. In the lull, they were regrouping. It was becoming obvious that the attackers were few in number. Time was short. I made my way toward the spot where I had last seen the Tengu.

In the brush, I tried not to focus on individual elements in the vegetation. You look instead for patterns, the shifting of visual fields that telegraph movement. There was still too much sporadic gunfire to hear the sound of anyone approaching. In some sense, I didn’t need the help: I could
feel
them moving toward me.

Even so, when someone exploded out of the brush, it caught me off-guard. I was scanning around me in a 180-degree arc and he waited for my head to turn away from him. Someone had trained him well, but his energy pushed out in an invisible arc that led him by a pace or two. I felt it and spun toward him. He was carrying one of those broad-bladed swords I had seen on the wall at Marangan’s training hall. His mouth was wide open as he swung at me, the skin around his eyes taut with excitement and effort. I followed the momentum of my turn toward the attack and threw myself down in an effort to get under the swipe of the sword. I tracked him with the AK, pointing in midair, and pulled off a short burst that took him in the groin. He collapsed, writhing as his blood soaked the front of his pants and began its osmotic climb up his shirtfront. The sword spilled from his grasp. I took it and hacked down at him. It wasn’t an act of mercy, just part of the brutal calculus of a fight: You never leave anyone alive behind you.

Then I dove into the underbrush, trying to get away, trying to make myself a moving target. I peered around, trying to read the hidden intent that could be contained in the green foliage and darker shadows of the mountain jungle. If the terrain were more open, they could rush me in a group or make better use of their firepower. But the trees broke up lines of attack and fields of fire. They were here, somewhere just out of sight—a pack of wolves roaming in slowly tightening circles, waiting for an opportunity.

The air exploded suddenly with the renewed sound of gunfire. It was off to my left in the direction of the clearing, and had a volume and intensity that was entirely different from the earlier start of the firefight. Grenades crumped and projectiles clipped through the undergrowth near me. I ducked down instinctively.

Off in the distance, someone defiantly shouted
Allahu akbar
, and the gunfire pulsed in response. There was a disciplined, methodical sound to the mayhem. Whoever was out there knew what they were doing. And they were moving closer—something tore a gash in the tree I was crouched by, the bark blown away to reveal the white of the inner wood.

It was the growing volume of fire that flushed them. I caught the shadow of movement in a few spots as the Tengu and his men began to pull back, away from the new attack. I crawled in the same direction, watching. A ray of sunlight drilled down through the forest canopy up ahead and I thought I caught the flash of a gray kimono—just a hint—moving through the bright beam of light and then back into the shadows of the trees.

Oh no. You’re not getting away
. I knew that the Tengu was too dangerous, too crazy, to let escape. If he somehow slipped through the trees to freedom, I knew he’d be back. I didn’t think
Sensei
could survive another attack.

I checked the AK I was carrying. I removed the magazine to check on what ammo I had left. But what do I know about guns? I could see a few rounds in the top of the magazine, but had no way of knowing how many were below them. And I wasn’t about to take them out—I had a mental image of me dropping the bright-jacketed bullets and then scrambling around in the undergrowth trying to find them. So I left the rifle and crawled over to the body of the man with the sword. He had a sidearm and an extra magazine on his belt. I took them.
Shoulda used the gun, pal
, I thought.
But you probably wanted to prove something to your teacher, didn’t
you
? I knew the feeling. It was a beginner’s mistake.

I scrambled away from the approaching gunfire, deeper into the jungle, trying to keep the Tengu and his people in sight. They had pushed through some brush and left a trace, a hole in the greenery. I plunged through the gap, eyes scanning for motion ahead and on each side, all the while moving forward.

They were headed west, downslope toward the coast. For a while, huge trees, their shoulder-high roots standing like buttresses against the trunks, dominated the forest. The going was easier here, but the trail they left was harder to see. I had to watch for the odd boot print or patch of disturbed leaves. It slowed me down and made the effort of tracking even more nerve-wracking—I had to stay hard on their heels, but at the same time was worried that the huge trees could harbor an ambush.

I was lucky, I thought. They seemed more interested in escaping than they were in getting me. But luck just means that the odds are in abeyance; it doesn’t mean that they won’t catch up with you later.

I led with the pistol, pointing it as I jerked around trees, alert to attackers who were never there.

After the gloom of the forest, the bamboo grove was bright with light. The shafts swayed gently, thick rows of plants that stretched out all around me. I could see the path that the Tengu and his men had trampled through the stand of giant grass and I was relieved to be on a definite trail again. I sped up.

They had to push through the bamboo stalks to get to me. The stand was so dense that they had hidden not ten feet off both sides of the trail. The sudden clatter of movement gave them away. Here, finally, was the ambush. Three of them.

They had knives, probably because you avoid guns in a multiple attacker scenario—bullets are idiot servants, a danger to friend and foe alike. And probably also because they were afraid that gunfire would draw attention to the direction of their escape route. They drove in on me in a classic pincer technique—one to attack and distract, a second to slice in on my blind side, the third to hang back and exploit any opening that develops.

The first Arab lunged at me, exploding through the bamboo on my right. I could hear the other two off to my left. They would expect me to jerk away from the initial attack, into the waiting blades of the other two.

I moved in toward the knife instead. I had the pistol in my right hand and tried to get my left up to parry the thrust of the attacker. But the interval was too tight. I had moved into the initial flow of a
kote gaeshi
wrist immobilization, but the bamboo inhibited my movement. My technique was off: I couldn’t get around to control his wrist. The knife blade sliced across my hand, laying it open at the base of the thumb. I pushed anyway, then brought the pistol up.

When dealing with multiple attackers, it is unwise to stay in one position too long so I slid to the right side of my attacker, turning to face the men behind me. My gun hand had stayed to track the first assailant, and I put two quick shots into him while pushing backward into the bamboo.

The second man’s knife lunged in after me. His momentum carried him in and he was on top of me before I could get the pistol to bear. I felt the knife tip prick my gut and I yanked my hips to the right to pull away. His knife caught my pelvic bone—I could feel the metal knifepoint grinding in through the electric jolt of pain. I clamped down on his knife hand.
Immobilize it! Don’t let
him move the blade or he’ll gut you
. Then I backhanded him with the pistol, whipping the gun around in a vicious blow that caught him across the temple and cheekbone. He grunted and sagged, and we tumbled backwards together in slow motion as the young bamboo gradually gave way beneath our weight.

I was on my back, the second guy sprawled out and draped over me. It was the only thing that saved me. The third guy had his pistol out and was trying to get a clear shot—the cat was out of the bag and one more report wasn’t going to change things any. I reached around the stunned man on top of me and shot the third guy. He sat down, looking stunned, and I shot him again.

By this time, the man laying on me had started to move. He reached up for my gun hand, forgetting the knife. I waved the pistol around, struggling to keep him focused on it. My left hand was slick with blood as I groped around for the knife. He realized what I was up to at the last moment and felt the shift in effort as he reached around, struggling to find the knife as well.

But I got to it first. His eyes changed; the fierce light of fury faded and his body grew limp and heavy. His last breath sighed out of him, a soft, hot puff against my face. I rolled over onto my knees, checking my stomach and hip. Blood, but I didn’t think he got the blade into any organs. I was more worried about my left hand.

I heard some voices back in the forest, faint calls, but couldn’t make them out.
Could be help. Could be more of these guys
. I tore a strip off one of the dead men’s shirt and bound my left hand. Then I went after the Tengu.

I slid and stumbled down through the grove of bamboo. The cut on my hip had probably done some muscle damage and I moved in a bent-over shuffle. My one leg wasn’t working too well and the slope was growing steeper. The trail was clear until the bamboo petered out and the denser jungle took over. I slid down an embankment, wincing at the impact, and noting that someone had done the same before me: the earth was slick with another’s passage. I ended up in a shallow ravine where water trickled in the direction of the sea. In the monsoon season, it must have been a greater flow: there were pieces of trees wedged along either side of the depression. I scanned around the steep walls and saw no sign of recent passage. I decided to follow the stream. The Tengu was heading to the sea and this seemed the shortest possible route.

I took stock as I went. The ragged bandage on my hand had soaked through and blood dripped off into the shallow water. I had dropped the knife somewhere back in the bamboo and now only had the pistol. I tried to remember how many times I had pulled the trigger. Four times? Six? How many slugs did this thing hold? It was the problem with guns; they ran out of bullets at critical junctures. I pulled out the current magazine and rammed the second one home. Better to start full. Reloading was difficult—none of that manly ramming of a new magazine home and looking around, steely jawed as I pulled the receiver back. The truth was, the dark, blood-soaked bandage on my left hand meant I fumbled around for a while.

But I got it done and continued to make my way down the ravine toward the brightness. The streambed twisted slightly here and there, studded with rocks and old branches, but never so much that you lost sight of the hint of sunshine at the end. Light at the end of a tunnel.

The streambed broadened out in a shallow fan and the foliage overhead gave way. A huge old tree had toppled backward from the edge of the water, its roots ripped up to face the air like so many frozen snakes, or fingers clenched in a final spasm of struggle. I stood for a moment, stunned by the suddenness of sun and the immensity of blue ocean that stretched out, far below the cliff I stood on. I gave a quick peek over the edge. Water trickled down, silver drops that seemed to drift briefly until gravity’s inexorable force dragged them downward to shatter on the rocky coast some seventy-five feet below. It may have been the blood loss, but I got a sudden surge of vertigo and jerked back from the edge, my heart jumping.

It was then that he struck. The weighted chain shot out, wrapped around my hand, and yanked the pistol free. I turned in alarm, and he came at me, swarming from among the roots, a gnarled thing emerging from earth and darkness like a troll. I braced for the impact, but wasn’t prepared for the force with which he hit me.

The Tengu flailed at me with his chain, whipping it across my face and laying open my brow and cheekbone. At the same time, his left fist slammed into my clavicle like a hammer and I felt the bone give way. Then I was struck with the full force of his body. We went flying backwards, locked together.
The cliff!
I thought, twisting and trying to keep away from the edge. I went down hard in the rocky streambed. Something caught me in the small of my back and the wind went out of me in a paralyzing
whoosh
. The water was shallow here, just enough to make the surface slick and to soak my back. My mind was making pointless observations as a futile defense mechanism.
At least you won’t drown
.

But he had me. The Tengu was much stronger than he appeared—the insane always are. He didn’t say a word, didn’t make a sound except for a faint grunt when we hit the ground together. And, even as I struggled to recover my breath, to move, to do
something
, he was methodically moving to pin my shoulders back, hitching his body forward so that his weight sat on my chest.

Once he got there, it was going to be all over. I looked into the gaping, wet mouth, studded with crooked, angled teeth. His eyes burned at me, like something through a mask. For a moment, I could swear that they glowed red, like a demon. My hands scrabbled around in the wet, seeking purchase, looking for a weapon—the helpless spasm of the doomed. Because once he had me pinned, this
thing
was going to snuff my life out.

I tried to escape his grasp and only inched myself closer to the edge of the cliff. My left shoulder was now actually hanging over the precipice. It made it harder for him to immobilize me, but also meant he could probably just keep working me right over the edge.
You go, make sure he goes with you
. But I had to keep struggling. He had immobilized my right hand—not much good with the clavicle snapped anyway—but my left slipped away from him—maybe the blood and water made me too slick to hold. In desperation, I struck at him, but the blows were ineffective—the angle was bad and my hand was too beat up.

I was grunting with effort, my breath finally coming back, moving, trying everything,
anything
I knew in an effort to escape. My left hand brushed against a hard shaft in the Tengu’s belt—the iron war fan stuck in his
obi
. I yanked it free and drove the
tessen
’s point into his armpit—there’s a nerve plexus in there and if you get it right, you can shock the heart enough to kill. But I didn’t drive deep enough.