JASON STRIKER 
MARTIAL ARTS 
SERIES VOLUME III 

JASON STRIKER 
MARTIAL ARTS 
SERIES VOLUME III 
Amazon Slaughter and Curse of the Ninja 
Piers Anthony and 
Roberto Fuentes 

Copyright (c) 1976, 2001 by Piers Anthony and Roberto Fuentes. 
Library of Congress Number: 
ISBN #: Softcover 
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in writing from the copyright owner. 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the 
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance 
to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 
This book was printed in the United States of America. 
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CONTENTS 
AMAZON SLAUGHTER 9 
Chapter 1: 
Feeding the Fish .....................................................11 
Chapter 2: 
Fun in Rio .............................................................25 
Chapter 3: 
Gift of Tongues ......................................................40 
Chapter 4: 
Mirabal's Entertainments .......................................54 
Chapter 5: 
Spear in the Rear ...................................................74 
Chapter 6: 
Wrath of the God ..................................................92 
Chapter 7: 
March on the Black Castle ...................................131 
Chapter 8: 
The Love of Oba..................................................150 
Chapter 9: 
Animation of the Curse ........................................182 
Chapter 10: 
City of the Future ................................................197 

CURSE OF THE NINJA 
and others 221 
INTRODUCTION: ................................................223 
Chapter 1: 
Dream of Red and White .....................................225 
Chapter 2: 
Strange Conquests ...............................................243 
Chapter 3: 
Sword and Stone ..................................................257 
Chapter 4: 
Roofer's Affair ......................................................271 
Chapter 5: 
EIGHTY PER CENT .........................................290 
Chapter 6: 
TWO PICTURES ...............................................310 
SUMMARY OF THE REMAINDER:......................315 
Author's Note: ...........................................................319 
KI 323 
BEAST OF BETELGEUSE 324 
KIAI!-HOW IT BEGAN 361
WINDBREAKER 371 
Chapter 1: 
Cry For Help .......................................................373 
Chapter 2: 
Assignment ..........................................................378 
Summary of remainder: .............................................385 
SORCEX 391 
BIOGRAPHY 
OF A TERRORIST 401 
Introduction..............................................................403 
Chapter 1: 
Return .................................................................413 
Chapter 2: 
Three Misses ........................................................427 

AMAZON 
SLAUGHTER 

Chapter 1: 
Feeding the Fish 
They hung the captive ninja on a wooden frame in the jungle. 
He was stripped to the waist, his arms spread-eagled, his legs securely 
fastened. All he could do was scream-and he would not. 
"Where is your leader?" the big bald giant demanded. He spoke 
in Portuguese. He was six and a half feet tall, with the physique of 
a weight lifter, and an ugly scar ran down his face. His neck was so 
thick it made his head look shrunken. His whole aspect suggested 
brutal and fanatical strength. 
The crucified ninja did not answer. 
"I hoped that would be your attitude," the interrogator said. 
"I've never had the chance to flay a Jap." He gestured. His assistants 
took small wooden mallets and pounded on the ninja's skin. 
This was obviously painful, but hardly excruciating, and the victim 
did not cry out. Instead, his face assumed an expression of 
repose: he had invoked his ability to turn off pain no matter what 
was done to him. 
"Now while we undergo our preparatory massage," the giant 

12 
said with a twisted smile, "let us review the manner of our acquaintance. 
You will correct me when I make an error in fact or 
speculation?" 
Still the ninja ignored him. The men pounded the captive's 
skin all over, methodically, going over each area again and again so 
as to miss no portion. After a time they took him down and rehung 
him so as to have access to his backside too. Then they proceeded 
to his legs, stripping off his remaining clothing. The job took some 
time, but the interrogator merely paused in his monologue to smoke 
an occasional cigarette and observe. 
Eventually the skin had been so thoroughly pounded that it 
was bruised purple, with blackish glints. The small blood vessels 
within it had been broken. The entire body gradually became a 
single extensive bruise. 
"First the introduction. I am Fernando Mirabal, of Spanish 
descent, but quite satisfied to settle here in Brazil. In fact I am a 
member of the Brazilian diplomatic corps, and my brother Ramiro 
is the Director of Petrobas, the Brazilian Petroleum Company. You 
are an agent of the notorious Japanese outlaw Fu Antos." He paused 
as though expecting agreement, but the ninja gave no sign. 
Now the blades came into play. The instruments used were 
not knives, but fine steel scalpels honed razor sharp. They sliced 
easily into the flesh. 
"Thus it is scarcely surprising that we should meet," Mirabal 
continued pleasantly. "When my brother asked my help in investigating 
the disturbances occurring in our newly discovered oil 
fields, I thought at once of Fu Antos-and I am pleased to verify 
that your ninja chief-scoundrel thought as readily of me." He contemplated 
the victim, as though fascinated by every stage of the 
slow torture. "I understand Fu Antos is old, extremely old. Four 
centuries, some sources claim. Oh, yes, I have researched the matter; 
that is my job! And I admit to being intrigued by the supernatural, 
though I can't claim to be able to practice magic myself." 
He chuckled. "I hope Fu is not so ancient as to be an inadequate 
adversary. I much prefer a genuine challenge."
13 
They started on the extremities, slitting the softened skin carefully 
at the ends of the fingers, proceeding down across the hands. 
They loosened the skin at the base of each finger and pulled toward 
the ends, as though removing tight gloves. Care had been 
taken that no bones were broken and no vital organs damaged, so 
that the victim would not expire prematurely. The individual cuts 
were shallow, performed with surgical precision, so that there would 
not be a disastrous amount of bleeding. It was a bit like peeling an 
orange without letting any juice leak. 
The undersurfaces were raw, like hamburger, bleeding slowly. 
They applied a special mixture of salt and vinegar to slow the 
bleeding further, rubbing it in. The man's body writhed and 
strained at its restraining straps in these moments, seeming almost 
ready to break its bonds. The pain was evidently excruciating, despite 
the victim's self-control. 
"But I digress. I came to the oil camp, then visited the nearby 
Pacifico, the pacified Indian village." He laughed. "Not pacified 
enough, it seems! So I made a token demonstration. The usual: 
shooting a few natives, taking some hostages, borrowing a couple 
of the prettier maidens for passing entertainment, explaining how 
readily such a village might burn if some accident occurred. I had 
hoped someone would carry word to old Fu, and it seems I was 
not disappointed." 
After the fingers, they turned the ninja over and worked on his 
back, the easiest place. They tore great sheets of skin away, slowly, 
carefully. Then they returned to the front, flaying the chest and 
abdomen. They did not touch his face or neck, afraid he might 
die; instead they moved down. They stripped his arms and legs, 
finally coming to the buttocks. 
"Except in this: my little welcome was intended for the old 
Jap himself, not his hireling. Oh, you sneaked in cleverly enough; 
had it not been for our special American starlight amplifiers we 
would not have seen you in your black suit. But I hardly expected 
you to be so readily deceived by the ploy of placing an aide in my 
own bunk. You stabbed your knife into an innocent employee! 

14 
But his death was not in vain, for we surrounded that tent, employed 
the floodlights, and now we have you. Beg pardon?" 
For now at last the ninja screamed, as they skinned his penis 
and testicles, by applying a combination pull and slice. 
Mirabal smiled, seeing the victim's amazing control breaking 
down at last. "It was touchy for a moment, I admit. You very 
nearly did succeed in killing yourself, after you disemboweled one 
of mine and split the throat of another. But again, you had not 
anticipated our anesthetic dart-guns. And the delay entailed in 
cutting off the victim's head-that was foolish. I realize old Fu has 
a fetish about collecting the heads of his enemies, but you had the 
wrong head." Mirabal touched his own head with a gesture of pride. 
"No, I'm afraid you were a disappointment to me. I expected more 
subtlety." 
The ninja subsided as the flaying was completed. He was now 
a strange looking creature, but still alive and conscious. 
"Now I can still kill you quickly," the torturer said. He held 
up his pistol, a Spanish Astra 8-shot 9mm able to fire every type of 
9mm and 38 automatic round. He aimed it at the victim's head. 
"Your pain will be over, if you talk. Otherwise-well, I think we 
have several hours work, yet. There is still the head: a more delicate 
operation, fraught with risks to your sensory apparatus, but 
surely worth the effort. After that we might begin to disconnect 
the muscles. I have always been a student of anatomy, and there 
are distinct advantages in working with living material. Don't you 
agree?" 
Suddenly an arrow swished over Mirabal's shoulder and struck 
the ninja in the chest. He was dead instantly; the shot was through 
the heart. 
Mirabal whirled and dropped to the ground, pointing his Astra 
back the way the arrow had come. But there was nothing. His 
three cohorts scrambled for cover. 
There was silence. "Bugger must have slipped out while his 
arrow was airborne," Mirabal said disgustedly. "Wonder why he
15 
didn't aim for me?" He got up, brushing himself off. The others 
rose with him. 
Then one screamed and fell forward. An arrow protruded from 
his back. It was a very fine bamboo shaft a yard long with a stone 
arrowhead and black feathers. Mirabal whirled again, getting off a 
shot, but again there was nothing. 
"Get under cover, and stay there!" Mirabal rasped. "It's an 
ambush, and the bastard wants to play. I'll signal the camp for 
reinforcements." 
He reached for his walkie-talkie-and a third arrow struck it 
just as his hand touched it. He jerked his arm back. 
"Cono!" he swore. "We're exposed here; they can pick us off at 
will." He reached out and snatched the third arrow. "Black obsidian 
head with a glasslike edge," he murmured. "Excellent craftsmanship, 
not local. It seems our ninja villain has arrived." Then he 
raised his voice: "When I give the signal, we'll make a break for 
better cover. Right?" 
There was no answer. Irritated, he looked across, and saw the 
reason. His companion had an arrow sticking out of his eye. He 
was dead. The third man had disappeared, and was presumably 
dead too. 
Now Mirabal was alone. He jumped up, grabbed the other 
man's body, and slung it over himself as a shield. He had a limp, 
but was so powerful that the added weight was unimportant. He 
ran for cover. 
Panting, he flung himself behind a huge rubber tree. "Made 
it!" he gasped. 
"Congratulations." 
Mirabal whirled again, dropping his burden as he raised his 
gun. But all he saw was a boy. "Who the hell are you?" 
"I am he whom you seek." 
Mirabal's bark of laughter resounded through the jungle. "Well, 
then; here's death for you!" He pointed his gun-and stopped. 
The boy wasn't there. 
Mirabal strode forward, peering around the tree. Suddenly a 

16 
cord looped his hand, jerking the gun away. The boy stood behind 
him, holding the weapon. "As you have done to my man, so shall 
I do to you," the lad said. 
The man aimed a mighty kick at him, a savage shot to the 
head. But suddenly the boy was gone again. The foot passed 
through empty air, and then the lad's hands caught the heel of the 
boot and pushed upwards. Mirabal, off-balance, tried to hop back, 
but the boy's toe snaked forward and hooked that other ankle, 
anchoring the foot. The torturer took a brutal fall on his back. The 
air whooshed out of him and for a moment his consciousness faded. 
When he opened his eyes, the boy was staring down at him. 
"Now," the boy said, "I will question you." His eyes seemed to 
become huge, and his fingers moved in a disconcerting way. Suddenly 
Mirabal recognized the pattern: it was the notorious ninja 
kuji-kiri finger-hypnosis. 
Mirabal tried to get up, but his body was frozen in place. 
Those eyes, those devil fingers were sapping his willpower, taking 
over his mind. Now he believed: this was indeed Fu Antos, lord of 
the ninjas! 
Fernando Mirabal tried to fight. He concentrated in an effort 
to break the hypnotic hold. Sweat ran in rivulets down his body, 
and he felt he was winning. He moved his head a fraction of an 
inch, slowly tearing his eyes away from that devil's gaze. Now he 
knew his antagonist, and was on guard; once he regained his feet . . . 
The sound of gunshots passed through the jungle. The distant 
birds became quiet, the wild animals paused. Even the river 
alligators and caimans seemed to listen. What was happening? 
Fu Antos clenched his small fist and bared his teeth in a momentary 
display of fury. "I told them to wait!" he gritted. 
Mirabal was abruptly freed from the compulsion. "You were 
going to ambush our camp, and those rascally Indians attacked 
prematurely!" he said gleefully. "I could have told you that would 
happen. Those savages have no discipline at all." 
But he was speaking to air. Fu Antos was gone. 
*
17 
It galled Fu Antos to leave the butcher, but it would take time 
to deal with him properly, and right now he had to get to the 
camp and untangle the mess the Indians had made. The situation 
was certain to deteriorate in minutes without his guidance. 
He should have used his skilled ninjas for the job, instead of 
the poorly organized Indians. Well, those Indians would very 
quickly learn the meaning of their exuberance. Firearms were tough 
opponents. 
Meanwhile, he would have to see the chore through himself, 
using what he had. There was no time to fetch his ninjas, who 
were widely scattered on other missions. Maybe the first shock of 
failure would make the Indians realize the importance of timing 
and caution. 
Too bad he had not arrived in time to save his advance scout. 
But of course the man had not talked, and at least he was out of his 
pain. Actually, he could have killed his ninja earlier, or rescued 
him after only partial flaying. But he could not abide carelessness 
or a bungled job, and so the ninja had deserved the agony he had 
suffered. Had the man talked, Fu Antos would have tortured him 
himself. And Mirabal's monologue had been of interest, as well as 
his skinning technique. Fu Antos possessed a superior technique, 
but it was good to compare styles. 
He had been moving rapidly through the overflow forest, a 
region near the river that became seasonally flooded. Here the trees 
were of medium size: palms and wild rubber trees, with massive 
drooping vines that rooted in the ground to become new trunks. 
His fast passage startled a flock of macaws that flew screeching 
with their brightly colored plumage flashing. He breathed the 
ambient odor of the jungle, savoring its naturalness. Once Japan 
had been primitive like this, pleasant. Alas, no more. 
Now he came to a bluff overlooking the camp. It was in a 
clearing beside the great river: a cluster of tents, with a few palmthatched 
and board-sided dwellings. Separate shacks for radio and 
equipment stood a little apart. There was also a wooden tower for 
test drilling, flanked by a jeep and a heavy truck. 

18 
The Indians' wildcat attack had been repulsed. Several dead 
braves were sprawled about, along with two white men. Now the 
remaining Indians were in hiding at the edge of the forest, while 
the surviving government men were holed up inside the main tent. 
They kept up a steady rifle fire, preventing any safe approach. 
No question about it: the damage had been done. What could 
have been an easy, virtually bloodless takeover, was now a difficult 
problem. The element of surprise was gone. 
Yet Fu Antos smiled. The camp was vulnerable; he could redeem 
the situation. His eyes traveled on to the river. A boat was 
there, tied at an improvised dock: a fast launch guarded by two 
sharp-shooting crewmen. 
Yes, he would put the fear of the ninja into these people! It 
would be long before another such party intruded in this territory. 
And now two of his ninjas arrived, attracted to the commotion. 
They had been reconnoitering nearby, and their prompt presence 
showed they had been sufficiently alert. Excellent; he had 
need of them. 
He summoned the Indian subchief. "Maintain harassment," 
he said in the native tongue, for he readily mastered any language 
he needed to. "Delegate two men to me for special instruction." 
The chief frowned. "Many are already dead. We can not go 
against the guns." 
The Indians, downtrodden for centuries, had been eager to 
cooperate with anyone who promised to lead them out of their 
repression and misery. But they hardly trusted the ninjas yet. They 
had been deceived and defrauded by outsiders too often. But Fu 
Antos was different; so far they believed in his magical-seeming 
powers, if not in his age or motive. And his skin was yellow, not 
white. So the relation between ninja and Indian was as yet juryrigged; 
it needed strengthening every so often, especially at stress 
points. In time it would become so firm as to be unbreakable. 
Fu Antos started to twine his fingers in the kuji-kiri pattern, 
but stopped. He wanted to build a more enduring affiliation, not 
one based on temporary compulsion. He seized the chief 's wrist,
19 
and though he looked like a mere stripling his fingers were like 
steel pins driving in. "Do you question me?" He twisted, making 
the chief lean forward involuntarily. "I will lead your braves to 
great victory." 
Cowed by the ninja lord's power, and the stares of the two 
other ninjas, the chief saved face by acceding. Two Indians were 
delegated, while the rest kept up a barrage of arrows and stones. 
"You two," Fu Antos said, gesturing with one hand to his 
ninjas. "Go upriver, swim underwater with the current to the bottom 
of the boat, using hollow reeds for snorkels. Use your knives 
silently to make holes in the hull. Do not let the water enter. Stuff 
those holes immediately with this." He showed them a concoction 
he mixed from clay and red powder he took from a vial at his waist. 
"But the water devils-" one protested. 
"That substance dissolves in water," the other said. 
Fu Antos gestured, compelling them as he spoke. Now his 
own ninjas were questioning him. "Dung of monkeys!" he swore 
gently in Japanese, smiling pleasantly so the Indians would not 
catch on. "Have I trained you these last twenty years only to have 
you grow feeble when there is work to be done?" But he knew 
what was bothering them: though they well knew of his transformation 
from decrepit hulk to childlike youth, they had trouble 
really believing that he was the same man. They had not known 
him in his vigorous manhood, for they lacked the secret of immediate 
reincarnation. So they wavered. "Smear this salve on your 
bodies; the water devils will not molest you. Do not be concerned 
about the boat: it will sink-when the time is appropriate." 
They looked at him, comprehending his meaning. This was 
the old Fu Antos, master strategist, talking! He gestured again, 
and they went. 
He turned to the two Indians. "Fetch arrows," he told them. 
"And fine cord." 
Fu Antos took from another pocket a package wrapped in cloth. 
Very carefully he unwrapped it. Inside were several small glass 
vials containing an opaque substance. "Tie one vial to the shaft of 

20 
each arrow," he told the arrow-Indians. "Handle them carefully- 
there are demons inside." Actually it was a secret ninja concoction, 
akin to the old Greek fire, but more virulent. The vials would 
break on impact, releasing and spreading their contents, and once 
the stuff caught fire there would be no stopping it. 
Confused but amenable, the two Indians obeyed. They prepared 
the arrows. 
Fu Antos walked down to the river. He threw in a small packet 
of herbs. The packet fell apart as the water suffused it, and the 
herbs spread through the water in a murky cloud. 
Soon there was an odd rippling across the water, as though 
great numbers of small fish were converging. He nodded, and 
turned away with a small smile of satisfaction. 
By this time the boat saboteurs would be completing their 
job. They were ninjas; no need to be concerned about their competence. 
In a few more minutes they would swim on downstream, 
leaving the boat apparently unchanged. 
He returned to the bluff. Their chore completed, the two Indians 
looked at Fu Antos. Unconcerned, he took his bow from the 
Japanese quiver slung at his side. The quiver was made of ornate 
lacquered woven rattan, obviously a fine old possession. His bow 
differed from those of the Indians: its shape was peculiar to Japan, 
with its hand grip about a third of the way from the bottom. 
There was a small arc of the lower limb and a large arc of the upper 
limb. 
The Indian arrows were not made for the ninja bow, but Fu 
Antos made do. He fitted one of the special arrows to the bow and 
loosed it, so quickly that the Indians were amazed. It flew high 
and far, and plunged into the roof of the larger tent. There was a 
loud explosion, and a fountain of white fire leaped from the point 
of impact, quickly igniting the canvas. 
The two Indians were silent, genuinely impressed by the competence 
of the shot, for Fu Antos looked like a child incapable of a 
man's effort. And the explosion strengthened their faith in his magic. 
Indians knew about fire, of course, but these arrows had not been
21 
tarred or lit before being loosed. There must have been demons in 
the bottles, as the ninja leader had said. Impressive, yes! 
Fu Antos loosed another fire arrow. It struck the radio shack, 
setting fire to the thatch. Smoke curled up from the roof as the 
blaze spread. The occupants did not realize the hazard yet, but 
they were doomed. 
In moments he had fired the other buildings. As the flames 
shot up, the doors burst open. The men charged out, guns blazing.
Now they had to run the gantlet of arrows between the houses 
and the boat. The men made an orderly trek. But now they were 
exposed, while the Indians were under cover. That went far to 
equalize the disadvantage of bows against guns. 
Fu Antos thought briefly of Fernando Mirabal, who should 
have arrived here by now. But of course the man would not care 
about his workers; he would have made directly for a larger town, 
seeking reinforcements. It was no sign of cowardice to stay clear of 
an adverse situation; Fu Antos would have done the same, in 
Mirabal's position. Meanwhile, the workers were leaderless, and 
that would only hasten their doom. The doom that Mirabal himself 
would be the first to confirm, as the only escapee. There always 
had to be an escapee, to establish exactly who was responsible, 
to spread the warning far more effectively than the perpetrators 
could. 
However, the workers were better disciplined than the Indians. 
There were about twenty Indians against fifteen workers, but 
the Indians' marksmanship was appalling. Fu Antos realized that 
he had miscalculated: at short range the Indians could bring down 
a running animal unerringly, but their bows and arrows and skills 
were not geared for long range accuracy. The workers, perhaps 
aware of this, maintained their fire from their American carbines 
and M-2 automatic rifles, with occasional blasts from a shotgun. 
Even though they were firing more or less blind, the sheer volume 
of lead was enough to score randomly, killing several more Indians. 
The two ninjas could have eliminated the entire formation, 

22 
but Fu Antos had wanted to test out his allies in combat. They 
had a long way to go. 
A dozen workers made it to the boat despite the best efforts of 
the Indians. "Why didn't we cut it adrift!" groaned the chief. 
"Because then they would not have run the gantlet," Fu Antos 
responded, as though he were the man and the chief the child, 
which was true enough in its fashion. "Had they charged the jungle, 
we could not have contained them." 
"But now they escape!" 
Fu Antos smiled. "Many will." He watched the boat's engine 
start. The craft nosed out into the rippling river. 
Then it began to sink, as the plugs dissolved and popped out 
of their holes, letting the water pour in. Perfect timing! 
The men tried to bail it out, but the task was useless. The 
launch was overloaded, and there were too many leaks. 
They swam for it-and suddenly the water was alive. The men 
screamed and flailed madly and went under the seething surface. 
White froth danced above the surface. One man jumped high in 
the water, exposing half his torso. Already, white bones were visible 
where parts of his face had been. A writhing tail projected 
from one socket where his eyeball had been eaten. 
"The water devils!" the chief exclaimed gleefully. "I have never 
seen them like this!" 
"I summoned them," Fu Antos said. "Demons of fire, water, 
trees-all answer to me." 
And the chief looked at him, believing. 
Two men made it to shore. Small silver fish clung to them: 
piranha. One man's leg was a solid mass of them. He fell, unable 
to walk, for much of the flesh was already gone. 
"Salvage those two-alive," Fu Antos said. 
The chief started to protest, then reconsidered. He saw how 
brutally effective the ninja lord's campaign had been. Few Indians 
had been lost since Fu Antos took over, and the enemy had been 
wiped out. This man who controlled demons was a valuable ally 
indeed. He dispatched two warriors.
23 
The two prisoners were brought to Fu Antos. One was unharmed 
except for the small bites of the piranha attack. The other 
had to be carried, as his leg was useless. 
Fu Amos surveyed them coolly. "Your companions escaped," 
he said. 
"They're all dead!" one of the prisoners cried. Then his mouth 
tightened as the implication of the ninja's words sank in. If death 
were escape, what was waiting for the living? 
"Food for the fish," the chief murmured appreciatively. 
"This is not your land," Fu Antos said to the government man. 
The prisoner looked down at him. "A mere boy!" he exclaimed. 
"You directed this unprovoked massacre?" 
"You do not deem the live flaying of a ninja as provocation?" 
"We know nothing of that!" But it was apparent the man did 
know. Mirabal's expertise had not developed without practice. 
"Or the flaying of the land?" Fu Antos persisted. 
The man shook his head, uncomprehendingly. "We're only 
prospecting for oil. Setting up to drill a test well-" 
"On Indian territory?" 
The man looked nervous. "We have a permit!" 
Fu Antos turned to the chief. "Did your people approve any 
permit?" 
"No! We approved none of this. They come in, scare our animals 
off, kill the fish, take our lands, our women, our lives-" 
"Not us!" the oil man cried. "We're looking for oil, nothing 
else. I wouldn't touch a dirty squaw." 
The denial was confirmation enough. "Why oil?" Fu Antos 
asked. 
"Why! The world is desperately short of oil. Its value has multiplied." 
"So it is for money," Fu Antos said. 
"More than that! Without oil, modern industry will grind to a 
halt. It's a vital resource." 
"Modern industry," Fu Antos said. "This is what pollutes the 
rivers and the air, making villagers die of mercury poisoning, of 

24 
cancer, of lung disease. You do this for money, so that your people 
may exist like emperors while the world starves." 
"You're crazy!" the man exclaimed. "We need that oil!" 
"I am sane. Your culture is crazy," Fu Antos said. "I employ 
my skills for moral reasons, especially my tortures. You destroy 
wantonly, for greed." Then, meditatively: "And if you are denied 
oil, your culture will collapse." 
Another ninja appeared, running smoothly. The man was in 
full uniform: reddish-black baggy jacket and trousers, split canvas 
shoes, and a hood that partially masked his face. 
"Master!" the newcomer cried in Japanese. "A message from 
Kan-Sen by carrier pigeon." 
Fu Antos accepted the paper. The message was in Japanese 
symbols. Kan-Sen was Chinese, but the written language was the 
same. WEAPONS EN ROUTE BY WATER. JASON STRIKER 
DISPATCHED AS COURIER. 
Fu Antos smiled. He needed those modern weapons, for there 
were limits to what spears and arrows could do, as this engagement 
had shown. As for Jason Striker-he had special reason to 
bring the man here. Kan-Sen was performing well. 
Jason Striker should perform even better.
Chapter 2: 
Fun in Rio 
The plane started in Miami, with a stopover in Caracas, then 
over the great Amazon basin and very briefly over the sea again. It 
circled the city of Rio de Janeiro, on a bay surrounded by mountains. 
There was a lovely white sand beach right along the waterfront. 
I like white beaches; they remind me of pretty girls in bikinis. 
As we came closer I could see that the sidewalks were gaily 
painted in stripes and patterns. I got a good view of the 130-foot 
statue Christ of Corcovado atop Hunchback Mountain, itself over 
2,000 feet high. It loomed out of the shantytown that I understood 
housed a million people. Rio, squeezed between the ocean 
and the mountains, had no urban planning; it just sprawled. A 
solid wall of apartment houses and hotels marched right up to the 
sand. I had been told by tourist publicity that Rio had been 
founded in 1567 as a fort and naval base. It had grown! 
We had to circle over the field for an hour before landing. At 
last I stepped down onto the tarmac of Rio's obsolescent Gale�o 

26 
airport. There were no enclosed ramps or other modern comforts; 
I was no longer in rich USA. 
I caught a cab that took me right to my hotel, "La Estrella," 
which translated as "The Star." It was right on Avenida Atlantica, 
on the beach: a huge Hilton-style edifice, with hot running water, 
a huge bed, and a tremendous color TV set in my room. A sight 
more than I had expected, after the airport. 
There was a balcony on Atlantic Avenue, with a view of the 
Guanabara Bay, the dazzling white sand, tall buildings and clean 
blue sea. Just as in my fond imagination, the area was full of beautiful 
young women in bikinis, yet nearby were also several fishing 
boats getting their nets ready. 
Kan-Sen, my enemy collaborator, would contact me here. 
I was not familiar with Brazilian social etiquette and did not 
speak Portuguese, so I took the coward's way and stayed in my 
room. I wished I had a telescope to help view the lithe creatures of 
the beach. I'm not really a voyeur; there just wasn't much to do. 
The hotel personnel spoke English, so I was able to have supper 
via room service. Then I took a long steamy bath, watched parts of 
shows on each of the five local TV stations, and fell asleep. 
Next morning I felt rested and restless. What about Kan-Sen? 
I had found no message, received no call. He was supposed to 
provide me with all the information I needed: where to go, what 
to do, and what my mission was. Without him I was completely 
in the dark, wasting my time. 
I was hardly cut out to be a secretive agent, and it galled me 
tremendously to have to take orders, as it were, from my bitterest 
enemy. But Fu Antos needed me. 
I couldn't stay in my room all day. That would look suspicious, 
and bore me to the explosion point. I should be at my dojo, 
teaching my judo classes. So I acted like the tourist I was beginning 
to wish I was, and went out on the beach. 
It was early, with the dawn sun just flashing off the water, so 
there were not many people. And I still didn't speak their language, 
except in the sense that appreciation for the splendor of the
27 
sunrise is universal. I'd picked up a smattering of Spanish over the 
years, but Brazil is a Portuguese-speaking country. Has to do with 
a Papal decision, some time back: Portugal colonized to the east of 
a line through South America, Spain to the west. The east became 
Brazil. 
Then I saw a language that is unfortunately as universal as 
beauty: violence. A buxom girl had been walking along the beach, 
looking for shells or something. I was dawdling nearer the water, 
half-hoping to run into her "accidentally." Two cars drove up and 
parked beyond her. Two men got out of one and approached the 
girl. One of them told her to come-even I could grasp that 
much-and she straightened up, brushing the sand off her voluptuous 
body. They talked briefly-I assumed at first he was a relative
-but then her tone became more doubtful, his more peremptory. 
She started to turn away from him, and he grabbed her behind 
the head with one hand and pulled her in to him. That was 
the point my interest shifted from the casual to the concerned. 
She did not appear to put up resistance, but drew in quite 
close to him, her bosom touching his chest. They were spectacular 
breasts, and he was understandably distracted as she put an arm 
behind his back. Suddenly she spun into a left o goshi hip throw, 
and he was flying through the air to land hard on his back. 
"Beautiful!" I breathed appreciatively. To me, the elegance of a 
perfectly executed judo throw is the prettiest sight of all. In theory, 
a person thrown with the force upon his back will not be inclined 
to renew hostilities, and the theory became fact on this occasion. 
The other man made the mistake of grabbing her from behind 
with arms around her waist. She bent and caught hold of one of 
his feet, lifting it. He had to fall on his back. She dropped heavily 
on his knee, breaking it. He screamed. 
The first man had by now recovered somewhat. He tried to 
hit her with his fist, a blow to the face. She blocked it with her 
hand, striking the outside of his wrist and weaving her face aside. 
She went in behind him and put a hadaka jime standing naked 
strangle on him, bending down her face and pushing against his 

28 
shoulder. Unable to believe that a mere woman could choke him 
out, he resisted. He was turning purple. 
But then three more men from the second car charged up. 
One caught her with a kick to the rib cage just under her left 
breast. Ouch-I knew that hurt, if it hadn't broken her ribs. 
By this time I was on my feet and rushing into the fray. I had 
not chosen to get involved before; the girl had seemed able to 
handle herself, and I knew nothing of the situation. But there are 
limits. Still, it took me a few minutes to get there. You can't make 
good time in loose sand when you want to. 
She rolled with the kick and turned to face this new antagonist, 
but the next man slapped her hard across the face. Now it 
was three against one, and the man she had been strangling was 
recovering. Evidently they didn't see me, since I was between them 
and the sun. She fell down, and one of them kicked her hard in the 
buttocks. 
Then I arrived. Faster than a speeding bullet, et cetera: say 
what you will, but a lady in distress sets me in motion about as 
rapidly as anything. I kicked the recently strangled man hard on 
the shoulder from behind, probably breaking it and putting him 
out for the duration. Not very sporting, but this was not a sportive 
matter. If the girl had thrown him just a bit harder the first time, 
she would have been in less trouble than she was now. 
That left three active men. The one who had just kicked the 
prone girl's bottom tried the same on me. But I had less of a target, 
and I was on my feet. He came at me from the side, and I put 
one hand on his upper thigh, the other on the ankle, and moved 
up on him so that his kick did not have much force. I did a sasaetsuri-
komi-ashi lifting-pull throw on his supporting foot. That is, I 
propped my right foot against his left ankle and levered him over 
by his raised right foot. As he fell on his back I finished him off 
with a straight punch to the middle of his face that smashed his 
nose.
Two to go. One tried an uppercut, but I moved my head back, 
grabbed his hand at the wrist with both of mine, and pushed it
29 
upward. That continued its natural motion, making his effort work 
for me. Then I turned and put it under my armpit in the wakigatame 
armpit hold. This is a submission lock that puts pressure 
on the captive elbow, and the only sensible thing for the man 
caught in it is to yield immediately. But the fool tried to resist, so 
I increased my force. In the excitement of the fray, and nervous 
about the last man who was charging me, I misjudged it. His arm 
snapped, and he screamed in agony. I let him go; that fight was 
through. 
The third man looked like an ex-football linesman. He weighed 
all of three hundred pounds, and he tried a hard tackle. He rushed 
in low, first attempting to butt me in the stomach. It could have 
been most effective against an unprepared man. But I took both 
his arms from above and snaked my hands over his shoulders and 
under his chest, linking my own fingers. Then I threw myself backwards, 
again utilizing my opponent's impetus. My head pressed 
into his upper back, serving as a fulcrum, and he flew over my 
back to land with terrific force on the sand. Fortunately for him, 
he knew how to take a fall, but he had lost much of his incentive. 
A three-hundred-pound landing is a rough one, no matter how 
experienced the man is. He got up and staggered back toward the 
cars.
Now, for the first time, I got a good look at the girl's face- 
and suddenly I knew why she had seemed familiar. "Dulce!" I 
exclaimed. 
I had visited Cuba once, in my capacity as trainer of the American 
judo team competing in Havana. I had met Dulce on the 
beach, seemingly by accident. She was a militiawoman, perhaps 
assigned to keep an eye on me, but she was also great company. 
She was fascinated by judo and judokas, and by me too, if I had 
not misread the signals. I knew she was a dedicated Communist, 
but she had never imposed her political views on me, and I liked 
her too. Not merely for her appearance; she was a smart, competent 
woman with a good personality and a flair for language. She 
could speak English like a native, as well as French and Spanish 

30 
and Portuguese and for all I knew several others. I could see that 
she had also been working on her judo, for she had put it to good 
use. Actually, I think judo is good for any woman. Maybe some 
day the world will be completely safe, with no violence anywhere; 
meanwhile it is smart to know self-defense. 
Dulce and I had not had any love affair. Perhaps it would have 
come to that, but our acquaintance had been abruptly terminated 
by events not of our making. I had not seen her again-until now. 
Male that I am, I immediately saw the potential for converting 
my idle waiting time into real pleasure. But I approached the 
matter with a bit of natural caution. After all, her interest in me 
could have faded; my removal from the scene had been abrupt and 
unexplained, and she might have harbored a natural resentment. 
"Should we make a report to the police? An unprovoked attack like 
this-" 
"No-no police!" she said quickly. "These men are the police."
My jaw dropped. "What?" 
"I will explain another time," she said. "Now I am afraid to 
return to my room." 
My face must have shown my too-good-to-be-true excitement, 
for she took my arm, laughing. "You disappeared in a street brawl, 
and you reappeared in one, like a genie of violence. It is coincidence, 
our meeting here, but how glad I am to see you! I know you 
would not deceive me." 
"Never!" I agreed. "Our politics may differ, but-" 
"I am on a private mission for my government, nothing to do 
with you." She glanced sidelong at me. "Unless you were sent to 
intercept me?" 
"No," I said. "I'm here on business of my own, helping a-a 
friend." Fu Antos was not exactly my friend, at any rate not in the 
usual sense, but that was too complicated to explain. "I had no 
notion you were here." 
"I believe you. So we trust each other." 
"Yes." And I did trust her. She would not be mixed up in dirty
31 
politics-not the lying, killing kind-even though she did work 
for the Communist government of Cuba. She would not lie to me, 
because she was not that type of person. "About the manner we 
parted, before-" 
"Do not be concerned. Fidel told me you were breaking up an 
international drug-smuggling operation, and could not blow your 
cover." 
Just like that, the Communists had covered for me! But I suppose 
the cat will cover for the mouse, if the cat has reason. I knew 
Fidel would as readily send an assassin after me, if it suited his 
convenience. But we had no quarrel at the moment. So I took 
Dulce to my room. No one seemed to notice or care. And it was a 
real pleasure to speak English freely again. 
But caution did not desert me. I knew she had a mission to 
accomplish, and she knew I had one too. These missions obviously 
could get us killed. It was just possible-not likely, but possible- 
that my room was bugged. I didn't know how such things were in 
Brazil, and could not openly inquire. So we had to pretend that 
this was merely a pickup: girl is mugged on beach, man who once 
knew her rescues her, man gets reward. 
The irony was that I would gladly have settled for the script as 
reality, and looking at her, I knew she felt the same. We would 
have to do what we both desired-and thereby cheapen it distressingly. 
What a waste! 
But she was injured. There was the saving grace. A valid pretext 
not to perform-until the time was right. 
"Let me help you," I said. 
"No-it is not bad," she demurred. 
I drew her into the bathroom. "Come on. I'll take care of it." 
The bathroom was huge, with a sunken black marble tub like 
a small swimming pool and a deep orange rug on the floor and a 
monstrous wall mirror. Last night all this opulence had embarrassed 
me; now I was glad for it. 
"I think I got hit here," she admitted, pointing to her left 
breast. 

32 
"Brute kicked you; I saw it," I said. "Any ribs broken?" 
"I don't think so," she said. But she winced as I touched the 
place. Then I saw a small stain of blood seeping through. 
She stood unresisting as I undid her bathing suit. It was one of 
those tight one-piece affairs, so I had to peel it off her upper torso. 
Her breasts were exposed, and as I had strongly suspected, they 
were completely authentic. I favor breasts of any size, but these 
were classics. 
The bruise was on the left side just below the breast. 
"You're lucky," I said. "His foot bounced off your rib, just 
breaking the skin. A little higher and to the front-" I paused, for 
this reminded me of a real breast injury I had once seen, a brokenbottle 
savage, and that reminded me of Chiyako, the love that 
would always be with me. 
I shook off that memory. I could not bring the dead back to 
life. I soaked a towel in hot water and sponged off the bruise. It 
was ugly but not bad. To clean around it sufficiently, I had to wipe 
off some of Dulce's breast, too, a necessary but delightful task. 
She might have pulled away, expressing affront. She didn't. 
She made a little sound that might have been pain but wasn't. "I 
am here to contact the urban guerrillas," she murmured in my ear 
as though they were words of love. 
"You don't have to tell me," I whispered back. "In fact, I don't 
want to know." 
She shook her head, while her hands drew me down to the rug 
with her. I realized that she was undressing me, and it had an 
electrifying effect. This was hardly the ideal spot, but if that was 
what she wanted-! "I must tell you, for now you have helped me, 
and they will never believe you are not my contact." 
"Mmmm," I agreed. I had become involved with her, in more 
than one sense. Apparently she did not hold my sudden prior 
absence against me, and was quite ready to pick up where we had 
left off. Marvelous! 
"I brought much money-half a million American dollars," 
she said, indicating her handbag, that I had not noticed before.
33 
All women had handbags; why notice them? Especially when there 
was so much else about a woman to notice. 
"Half a what?" I yelped, abruptly realizing what she had said. 
"Make love, not noise," she said, putting her forefinger across 
my lips. We were both pretty well undressed now. In one way I 
was surprised that she came on so warmly, so fast; in another way 
I wasn't. She had thought a lot of me, in Cuba, and now we would 
be together only briefly before our separate missions carried us 
away as carelessly as they had brought us together. So she was 
taking immediate advantage of the opportunity, as was I. 
"Yes, that was what they were after," she said. "They must 
have ransacked my room, looking for it, then come after me directly. 
I was supposed to meet my contact on the beach, give him 
the money, help the local group get properly organized. But he 
was late, or maybe they got him before coming after me." 
I saw it now. Pretty girl collecting shells on beach, young man 
strikes up conversation. Only he hadn't showed. The police, evidently 
tipped off by some informer, had come instead. I wasn't 
really sorry to see the Communist plot broken up; Latin America 
already had too much violence. But I had gotten involved. 
"But if those were the police," I asked, "why didn't they just 
arrest you? These things happen all the time. International incidents, 
spying, deals. Don't they usually just usher the agent out 
quietly?" 
"Perhaps. But they wanted the money. If I were dead, they 
could deny there ever was any money, and who should know otherwise? 
My government would never admit to it, of course. It is in 
American dollars so that they cannot be traced; they incriminate 
no one, and can be spent easily. So the Death Squad-" 
"Death Squad?" I whispered in her delicate ear as I slid my 
knee along her smooth thigh. "What's that?" 
Now her lips caressed my ear lobe. "You do not know about 
them?" 
I shifted position, kissed her on the mouth en route, and found 
her other ear. If this were a game, I liked it; if it were only a cover 

34 
for shop talk, I still liked it. "All I know is that five thugs attacked 
you, tried to kill you, or at least beat you up. You say they were 
police." 
She smiled, stretched, winced as she felt her bruises, then slid 
her body across mine in amazing stages. First her leg twined over 
mine like the lead-in for the yoko guruma sacrifice throw; then her 
warm hips and abdomen rolled on mine in a simulated uki-goshi 
hip throw (though that is normally initiated from a vertical position!); 
then one breast followed the other in a pneumatic dance 
across my chest like a tate shiho gatame four-quarter holddown. At 
last her lips commenced their electrifying trek, kissing their way 
from one side of my neck to the other in the most stimulating 
strangle I ever experienced. 
When she reached my ear, she let the rest of her body subside. 
My own could hardly be described as doing the same. She snuggled 
in for a paragraph-sized explanation. I tried-I really tried!-to 
pay attention. To her words. 
"Here in Brazil, many people commit crimes yet escape punishment. 
Notorious gangsters get off because no one dares testify 
against them. Corrupt politicians use their leverage to cover up 
their foul dealings. Businessmen cheat the public and hire highpriced 
lawyers to keep the law off. Everyone knows these things, 
yet no one acts. Except the Death Squad. They-" 
I heaved, unable to lie still any longer lest I burst. My mouth 
caught her ear as another organ found other lodging. "Vigilantes! 
Now I understand. They take the law into their own-" 
But now she was moving too. Conversation ceased as our torsos 
interlocked ecstatically. There was an obstruction, and I had 
my verification that despite Dulce's proficiency and enthusiasm I 
was the first to proceed this far with her. She was a "Senorita," a 
maiden, and she had evidently saved it for me: a signal compliment, 
considering she could not have known whether we would 
ever meet again. She was so hot inside it was as though my member 
were burning. "Wait! Wait!" she breathed. "Not now." But it 
was now, and the barrier was down.
35 
Her legs crossed over the small of my back as we rolled over, as 
if she were trying a do-jime scissors strangle, and her heels kicked 
an erotic tatoo over my kidneys. My eye caught the action in the 
mirror, and it was some effect. 
Deeper, deeper. I buried my face in her brown hair, so silky 
and clean smelling, and wondered irrelevantly why she wasn't wearing 
her glasses. She had always worn them, in Cuba. My mind 
does that: summoning inconsequential distractions at times I least 
wish it. "I never dreamed it could be so good," she said, and I felt 
like a heel for my wandering thoughts. 
Well, if this bathroom were bugged, I hoped the bugs were 
getting a good eyeful. There was nothing fake about this. "It's 
good, all right," I mumbled somewhat awkwardly, sounding insincere 
when I damn well was sincere. 
She blinked her eyes several times, and I thought she was starting 
to cry. Had I blown it? 
"Can you see if my contact lenses are in place?" she asked me. 
"I haven't used them long, and this excitement-" 
So that explained the glasses. I looked into her eyes. "I see a 
little edge of something, transparent," I said. 
"That's it. Just slipped aside." She laughed-which was quite 
an effect, since I had not yet withdrawn. "In all that battle with 
the death squad they stayed in place, but you were so energetic 
that-" 
"All right!" I mumbled, embarrassed. 
In due course we dressed. Dulce rang room service and ordered 
a meal for us both, since she spoke the language. Of course 
it could have been done in English, but I was sure the food would 
be better in Portuguese, if that makes any sense. 
I was not mistaken. Dulce did it up proper. We started with a 
plate of Brazilian appetizers: garlicky unshelled fried shrimps, white 
hearts of palm, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, Portuguese sardines 
and sausages. I nibbled, knowing that I could stuff myself without 
ever getting past the appetizers. 
Then an entree of bossa nova crisp deep-fried chicken loaded 

36 
with garlic and served with flavorful white rice and a bowl of delicious 
purplish black beans resting in their own souplike sauce. 
There was also wine. I'm not a drinker, but at social events like 
this I find it hard to decline. So I accepted what Dulce offered: 
Portuguese Casals Garcia Vinto Verde, a clear, almost astringent 
green wine. And of course black coffee, so popular in Latin American 
countries. 
For dessert we had guava paste with hard white cheese and 
some fruit I didn't recognize. 
Then Dulce clapped her hand to her forehead. "I forgot the 
ice cream!" she cried. 
I kneaded my full stomach. "Don't worry about it. I couldn't 
eat another bite of anything." 
"That's the problem!" she said, genuinely upset. "You love ice 
cream, and now you can't eat any, even if I order it." 
She remembered our days in Cuba, where my sinful weakness 
for ice cream had manifested. They had had such good ice cream! 
But it hardly seemed worth such fretting now. Then I realized 
what was really bothering her. 
Dulce didn't say so directly, but we both knew that our impromptu 
date was ending. She was grateful for my help against 
the Death Squad thugs, and glad for the chance to entertain me 
her way, but she had a mission. She would have to try again to 
make contact with her guerrilla group. And of course I was still 
waiting for Kan-Sen's call. So this was it: we would finish our meal, 
and perhaps spend the afternoon together, but that was all. Sad, 
but necessary. But we couldn't talk about it openly, so we talked 
about ice cream. Psychologically, I believe this is called transfer. 
Now I felt dejected about missing that ice cream. 
Dulce got up to go to the bathroom, and abruptly sat down. 
"What's the matter?" I asked. 
She passed her hand over her face. "Maybe I ate too much, or 
drank too much. We don't get wine like this in Cuba, anymore." 
"Here, I'll help you," I said, standing. 
Then I felt it. An incipient dizziness, not that of wine. Some
37 
sort of drug. It had hit me later than her, because I was larger; we 
had eaten the same meal. 
There was a forceful rapping on the door. 
Dulce looked at me, realizing. "The Death Squad!" 
"We don't know that!" I said, moving unsteadily to the door. 
"Probably just a routine-" 
The rapping came again, loud, peremptory. "Open up! It's 
the police!" a voice called. 
Suddenly I was nervous. Police-Death Squad. Much the same, 
here.
"Don't open it!" Dulce cried, rising-and fell on her face on 
the table, spilling her remaining coffee. 
But in my drug-muddled state I felt it better to answer the 
summons. If it were innocent, good; if not, I wanted to fight before 
I passed out. I had no weapon, and surely they were armed. I 
cast about, and spied a spray bottle of deodorant. Hmm-if it 
worked for James Bond . . . I picked it up. 
I steeled myself against the drug and opened the door. I half 
hoped I would find Kan-Sen outside, or even Fu Antos, masquerading 
as police. I was disappointed. 
There were four men in police uniforms. They had drawn guns. 
They did not stand on ceremony. "You are under arrest," one said 
in passable English, and grabbed my wrist. He brought out a set 
of handcuffs. 
I was hardly in condition to resist effectively, but this did not 
strike me as normal procedure. They hadn't even asked my name! 
Then I got a look at the last man in line, and recognized him. He 
was huge, with a scar on his face; I had fought him once before, in 
New York City, and knew him for my enemy. I don't have such 
sharp memory for faces, ordinarily, but he was something special. 
The sight of him temporarily cleared my head; I knew my life was 
in peril. 
The bracelet locked in place about my left wrist. I grabbed 
that wrist with my right hand, jerked it out of the man's grasp, 
and struck upward with my elbow. I augmented the blow by push- 

38 
ing against my own closed fist, transmitting extra power to the 
elbow. His chin received a considerable jolt. 
Then I swung the loose handcuff like a flail across the second 
man's head, making him drop the pistol. And up against the third 
man's face. They had given me quite a close-quarters weapon. 
Ordinarily I wouldn't try combat against armed men, knowing 
the odds were greatly against me. But in this case I knew I was 
in trouble, and the snapping of the handcuff on my wrist had 
caused them to relax. Thus my instant, explosive action caught 
them by surprise. 
Now I came up against the giant, and I knew he was more 
formidable than the other three combined. I discovered I still held 
the spray bottle in my left hand; in fact I had pushed against it, 
not my fist. Well- 
I depressed the stud on top, aiming it at the giant's face. A 
thin mist spurted out. In a Bond movie it would have blasted 
forth to blind him; with me it merely made a small sweet-smelling 
cloud that bothered no one. The pressure was low. Just my luck; as 
a weapon it was ludicrous. 
The giant looked at the feeble spray. His mouth cracked open. 
Laughter erupted like gas from a volcano. Then he raised his gun. 
I had no choice. I attacked. I feinted with the handcuff, so 
that he jerked the weapon out of position, then I clipped him on 
the chin with my open right palm. The slap was not hard enough 
to do him damage. That put me in position, and I did an o soto 
gari leg sweep on him. He stepped back, resisting-but he was on 
the landing at the top of the stairs, and his foot came down on air. 
He had to fall. 
I had been lucky; I knew it. Probably the man had known I 
was drugged, and had not anticipated effective action. He would 
have been correct, had I not been galvanized by my sudden recognition 
of him. 
He cracked his head on the wall as he landed, and lay still, 
strewn across the stairs. 
My dizziness returned full force as the excitement of combat
39 
abated. I staggered along the landing. I started to fall, saw the 
deep well of the staircase before me, clutched at the rail. I started 
down, missed a step-and the giant's leg tripped me. I twisted as 
though brought down by a leg throw myself. But below me was 
no practice mat. Just a fuzzy descent. 
I saw the steps come at my face. I ducked my head, taking a 
roll. It was an automatic reflex, a good one. 
I never felt the impact. 

Chapter 3: 
Gift of Tongues 
Dulce woke with a splitting headache. Her tongue felt so swollen 
that there was hardly room for it in her mouth, and there was 
a metallic taste. Her awareness was fuzzy, her muscles leaden, and 
she could not coordinate well. 
A man was slapping her in the face with a wet towel, bringing 
her to. He was thin, pockmarked by smallpox, and wiry. His skin 
was very dark; he was a Caboclo or copper-colored mulatto derived 
from white, black and Indian ancestry. Probably a peasant from 
the interior, she judged; illiterate, come to the more progressive 
coast to make his fortune. And winding up as a typical Death 
Squad thug. 
"Wake up, bitch!" the man said in Portuguese. "I want you 
alert and squealing for this." 
She understood him. She had a certain gift of tongues, and 
spoke and read English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, some Japanese 
and some Russian. But she didn't care to advertise this ability 
at the moment.
41 
She looked about. She was in a modern wooden house, on a 
big old wooden bed. This was evidently a domicile of the upper 
middle class; the room was big and airy, but a bit rundown in the 
furnishings. There was a window, and through it she could see the 
branches of a tree, so she knew she was on the second floor. No 
doubt this was a liberated house whose former owner had died of 
indigestion: a mixture of too much anti-government politics and 
lead. This was part of an estate; had there been near neighbors, she 
would have been gagged so as not to alert them. 
She was in the clothing she had worn while dining with Jason, 
but now it was soiled and torn. A summer outfit: black skirt reaching 
to her knees, white off-the-shoulder blouse. Not much protection.
The thug's hands were pawing over her body, tugging at her 
waistband. "God, what boobs!" he panted, his breath hot upon 
her face, smelling of Cachaca, cheap rum. His intent was obvious; 
he meant to take what had been put in reach. 
Dulce remained woozy from the drug despite her mental awareness. 
She lacked physical strength; she would not be able to handle 
him unless she could score a kick to the groin, and that was problematical 
because her feet were tied. A rope bound her ankles together, 
and another her wrists before her. It was a signal of her 
drugged confusion that she had not noticed this before. She was in 
a Death Squad stronghold, and she would be lucky if only one or 
two men raped her and let her live. Yet she was so dopey that all 
she wanted to do was go back to sleep. Every time she tried to 
move her head she suffered the waves of pain of a migraine headache. 
She could neither coordinate nor think straight. 
The thug jammed one sweaty hand on her knee, forcing her 
legs apart. She tried to bring them together again, levering against 
the rope on her ankles, but he already had his knee there like a 
doorstop. Her reactions were so slow! If only the lingering traces of 
the drug weren't so debilitating! 
She concentrated, trying to clear her head so that she could at 
least consider alternatives. There seemed to be only two: relax and 

42 
accept it, or try to fight and get it the hard way. It was an even bet 
that this man would prefer the latter. How could she struggle, 
except by thrashing about, in the process making her breasts bounce 
and her knees spread wide and her torso move against him? He 
might hurt her to make her scream even if she tried to accommodate 
him. Or rape her, then torture her, trying to get as many 
kinds of kicks as he could. 
Of course she could try to turn him, off by belching, blowing 
snot out of her nose and wetting her skirt; some anti-rape authorities 
(men, naturally!) recommended that. But the kind of man 
who would rape a drugged and bound woman would be likely to 
have other kinky notions, and might well be doubly excited by her 
incontinence. In fact, the authorities who advised such things might 
actually be catering to their own suppressed fantasies: the voyeurism 
of the printed page, the scatological image. 
In which case she might do best to take it easy, letting him do 
with her as he would, hoping he took enough time so that her 
body could throw off the remaining effect of the drug. She did not 
want to get raped, but it was not, in the ultimate analysis, a fate 
worse than death. She had accommodated a masculine member 
before, a much better one than this lout's. 
Jason, what have I brought upon you? she thought, knowing that 
he too had been drugged and captured. She should have cussed 
him out and sent him away, rather than betray him into the hands 
of the Death Squad like this. 
"Liven it up, bitch!" the man said, shaking her again. He was 
frustrated because the rope that tied her hands prevented him 
from getting her clothes off readily. He had her blouse ripped 
open in the front and her skirt hiked up to her waist, but her 
panties and bra resisted his clumsy, overeager fingers. He yanked 
again at the bra, and this time it slid up so that her breasts popped 
out below it, making him suck in his breath in awe. "Scream! 
Fight! Think I want Alberto to think I'm a pantywaist, a Maricon?" 
Unless there were after all a third alternative- 
Now his sweaty fingers caught inside her panties and ripped
43 
them open at the crotch, giving her a rasping goose in the process. 
Too bad she had no teeth down there, she thought. But she forced 
a smile to her face. 
"What's your hurry, mister?" she murmured in Portuguese. "A 
strong, handsome man like you . . ." 
The man paused. Sometimes those least deserving of praise 
were most susceptible to it. This ugly bastard was quite ready to 
believe that he was God's gift to womankind, and that every vagina 
longed to have his penis lodged in it. Still, he was naturally 
suspicious of her sincerity. "So?" 
He ran one callused palm up inside her thigh. Dulce writhed 
and moaned in simulated pleasure. Her head was clearing nicely; 
she was almost ready to act. "If you would only let my arms go so 
I could hold you." 
He brought out his hunting knife and brought it toward her 
hands. But then he stopped. "You think to make a fool of me!" he 
snapped. "You don't need arms for love. Legs, maybe, but not 
arms." 
Scratch one ploy. If he had released her arms-but perhaps 
something could still be salvaged. "Legs, yes," she agreed. 
But, canny still, he refused. "Just spread your knees; that is 
enough." 
Dulce spread her knees wide. His eyes almost popped as he 
peered through her ripped panties. He poked his finger in as if to 
see whether it was real. 
"Kiss me, lover," she said, beckoning him down with her eyes. 
He was happy to oblige. A kiss, at least, was no risk. Now he 
had access to her crotch and breasts and mouth, all at once, and 
she was still safely tied. A rapist's dream! His beard-stubbled face 
dived onto hers for a hungry, smeary contact. His suddenly-heavy 
body almost crushed out her breath. 
"Hurry it up in there, Claudio!" a voice called from outside. 
So there was another thug in range. 
Prodded by that, Claudio took down his trousers and shorts 
and dropped down to embrace her more fully. But her bound 

44 
hands got in his way, by no coincidence, half masking her breasts. 
He got up angrily, drawing his knife again. "You Cuban bitch, 
you are going to feel what a real man feels like! Your Cuban males 
are way overrated as lovers." And he cut the rope between her 
hands, freeing them. 
He was of course a fool, but she could understand it. These 
Macho Brazilians were tough men who did not believe any woman 
could handle one of them. Obviously the ones she had fought at 
the beach had not wanted to lose face by admitting her combative 
skills; they would have laid the blame on Jason Striker, a known 
martial artist. So this man had no warning, and the irony was that 
the drug made her almost as helpless as he thought her to be. Even 
with her hands free, she could not resist him very effectively. He 
had been remarkably cautious until now, but the sheer lure of her 
body had overwhelmed him. 
What was it about men that made them such suckers for female 
flesh? No woman would have acted this way. Well, at least it 
was an equalizing force. She would play it for all it was worth. 
"Call that a kiss?" Dulce demanded as she caught her gasping 
breath. It was his weight, not his sex appeal, that made her breath 
short, but she didn't say that. "Where's your tongue?" She wrapped 
her weak arms about his neck. 
"So you want it that way!" Claudio said. "I'll show you my 
tongue!" And he thrust the slimy tobacco-stained thing deep into 
her mouth. 
Dulce's jaws closed. With all her strength she clamped her 
teeth down on that tongue, savagely grinding them together as 
though severing a chunk of raw meat. Which was exactly what she 
was doing. 
The man screamed: a strangled, stifled sound from the depths 
of his body. He jerked back his head, but Dulce held fast, her 
fingers locked together behind his head, holding it down while 
she chewed remorselessly through that living morsel. His struggles 
only magnified his agony. Blood welled from the expanding wound,
45 
its warm and salty thickness passing into her mouth, forcing her 
to swallow. 
Claudio grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled desperately 
off the bed. They both fell to the floor, but Dulce was on top of 
him now, still crunching away at his tongue. With her hands weak 
and her feet tied, it was the only effective hold she had, and she 
dared not let it go. Now the blood was leaking down into Claudio's 
own throat, choking him. He tried to scream again, but it was 
hardly more than a bubbly gurgle. 
"Hey, do not damage her too badly," Alberto called from below. 
He thought the stifled screaming was Dulce's. "The boss wants 
to interrogate her. You'll get us both in trouble." 
She would be glad to give the boss a similar turn, if she could 
arrange it, only hoping the boss's tongue tasted better. At last 
Claudio's organ severed all the way. Dulce's head snapped back as 
the strands of flesh parted. She spat out the tongue. 
Claudio, half delirious with pain, got one hand up and hit her 
in the face. He was too close, and his eyes were screwed closed 
against his agony; he could not generate enough aim or momentum 
to really hurt her. He grabbed, and caught her by one elbow. 
He hauled her down, his eyes now opening, blazing with murder. 
She was still too weak and hampered to balk him. She had hoped 
he would lose consciousness so that she could get at his knife and 
cut herself loose. No such luck. He got his hands around her throat 
and squeezed savagely. The grip was so fierce that it cut off air and 
blood together; in seconds she would succumb. 
She drew back her hips, bending her knees so that her heels 
touched her buttocks. Then she bucked her hips forward with all 
the force she could muster. Her bony structure smashed against 
his crotch. Because he was poised, now, half above her, having 
wrestled her around while choking her, his genitals hung forward, 
exposed. The impact felt like the flattening of eggs. 
Claudio emitted one final scream of doubled agony and collapsed, 
his hands falling away from her neck. He was unconscious, 
finally. 

46 
His pants were draped across a chair. His gun was with them. 
But right now she needed the knife, to free her legs. 
"You've had enough time, Claudio!" the other yelled from outside 
the door. "I'm coming in!" 
Oh, God! If Alberto caught her now, she would be helpless! 
No time to get the knife and cut herself loose; she had to have that 
gun now. 
She pushed herself to her feet and lunged for the chair. But 
her dazed reactions betrayed her; she forgot her feet would not 
separate. She crashed headlong into the chair, sending pants and 
gun flying. She scrambled on hands and knees, pawing through 
the tangle. Where was that gun? 
The door burst open, showing a gross fat Branco da terra, a 
dark-faced mulatto. He was proud and vain, with curly black hair 
slicked down with perfumed pomade. He wore an open-necked 
shirt with a golden Figa: a little model of a human left hand closed 
into a fist, the thumb sticking up between the first and second 
fingers. A good-luck charm. 
He blinked; it was dark in here, and the sunlight outside was 
bright. This was a break for her, but it would grant her only seconds. 
Now her fingers found the metal, but she still had to get it 
out of the holster, with her hands not cooperating, and then how 
could she aim it? She had to steady herself. 
"We are down here," she called. "I have a gift for you. Right 
there on the floor before you." 
Alberto did not know his companion was unconscious; he 
thought this was merely the conclusion of a love scene so violent it 
had finished on the floor. He stooped to pick up the object. 
It was the bloody tongue. 
"What is this?" he demanded, casting it aside and wiping his 
hand off on his shirt. 
"The tongue of an ass," she said. "See, your friend is dead." 
"What!" He strode forward, his eyes adjusting. He caught hold 
of Dulce and rolled her off Claudio's clothing, realizing the situation. 
"Bitch, I'll kill-"
47 
But as she rolled, the pistol she gripped came up. She pulled 
the trigger. It fired. The bullet struck him in the leg, and he dropped 
to his knee, cursing. 
She was cursing too, inwardly. Damn this inadequacy of her 
body! She had always been a dead shot, and now she was firing like 
a duffer. She fired again, and this one caught him in the thigh. He 
fell almost on top of her, and the third bullet plowed through his 
stomach. Then his collapsing weight shoved the gun out of her 
hands. 
But the job had been done. Dulce squirmed around until she 
got the knife. Then she severed her ankle bonds. She stepped over 
the bleeding, writhing body of the mulatto to freedom. 
What now? Her cover had been blown and her money was 
gone. Not all of it, fortunately; half a million dollars was quite a 
stack, even in twenty dollar bills. She had carried fifty packs of 
fifty bills each with her, or $50,000. The rest was safe with a friend 
who thought it was feminine baggage. But still, a formidable loss. 
And because of her, her friend and lover Jason Striker had been 
captured or killed by the Death Squad. 
Dulce was not easily defeated. She did not collapse in tears. 
She put herself together as well as she could, putting on Claudio's 
pants and finding an unbloody man's shirt in the closet. Not a 
good fit at all, especially across the hips, but it would have to do. 
It wasn't as if she were in any fashion show. 
The Brazilian Revolutionary Movement had never made contact 
with her, but she still had a backup name. Maybe that too 
had been betrayed to the Death Squad thugs, but she had to risk 
it. Why would they have saved her for interrogation, if they had all 
the answers already? And it was the only way she could help Jason
-if it were not already too late. 
She headed for an address within one of the city's favelas, not 
far from the Copacabana Beach where she had met Jason Striker. 
The Revolutionists had been supposed to send a representative 
from the urban guerrilla unit to the beach to pick her up, but the 

48 
Death Squad had stopped that. Now she would have to take the 
initiative, and that was less pleasant. 
Brazil was a marvelous land, and Rio de Janeiro was a lovely 
city. But the striking contrasts in the country's geography, that 
ranged from the magnificent mountain peaks to the burning deserts 
to the rain forests of the Amazon Basin were mirrored in the stark 
economic contrasts of its peoples. Brazil was a country of the very 
rich and the very poor, and they were often in close proximity. 
The favelas were the slums. They had begun around the turn 
of the century when soldiers had found themselves without employment. 
So they camped on a hill covered with the favela wildflowers. 
When they came to Rio, these original "flower" soldiers 
took over any land that wasn't occupied and settled in dense shack 
colonies, bringing the name with them. Through the decades, the 
vicissitudes of economics caused alarming growth in these slums. 
In some cities, half the population lived in the sprawling favela 
colonies. Even in new Brasilia, the fabulous capital city, slum 
shantytowns developed faster than the ultra-modern buildings. 
The poor workers could not afford to commute from distant suburbs 
to their jobs in the center cities, so had to squat wherever 
they could. 
What Brazil needed, Dulce thought as she moved along, was a 
People's Revolution, as in China and Cuba. Only then would the 
wealth be redistributed, this abject squalor abolished. No longer 
would starving children beg in the streets outside churches glittering 
with gold. And of course this was her mission: to bring salvation 
to Brazil, and eventually to all Latin America. One glorious 
year, perhaps soon, Communism would dominate the Western 
Hemisphere, as it did the East. 
She smiled. Of course her friend Jason Striker might have a 
different view. He was politically naive. So many western men were 
like him, basically amateur in sex and economics. She had a certain 
nostalgic fondness for that innocence. Well, when things were 
finally righted in the Colossus of the North, the U.S. of A., she
49 
would take care of Jason, and he would be happier and better 
informed in both areas than ever before. 
But first she had to save him from the much more immediate 
threat posed by the ruthless contemporary capitalism. He was likely 
to be tortured, and probably he would not even see the connection 
between that and her mission: her cause would abolish torture 
too. (Well, all but necessary torture.) But it was a lesson that 
was all too likely to cost him his life, and she couldn't allow that. 
Jason was ignorant, but he was a good man. 
She came to the park in the southern section of the city, appreciating 
its beauty. This was Rodigo de Freitas lake. Once this 
very region had supported Rio's most notorious Favela of 
Catacumba, where some five thousand poor families had lived. 
Twenty percent of the residents had had criminal records, half of 
all dope peddlers arrested lived there, and more children under 
one year of age died in that single slum than in all the rest of Rio. 
Yet many of the denizens had refrigerators and television sets. 
Catacumba was cleared by the authorities in 1970-but though 
some better housing was provided, it was up to 25 miles out of 
town, making it impossible for the people to get to work in the 
city. Thus they were unemployed, and had to be evicted, and new 
favelas replaced the old ones, sprouting up like mushrooms. Nearly 
a quarter of Rio's population still lived in them. The main difference 
was that the favelas were no longer along tourist routes. 
Dulce shook her head. The Capitalists simply refused to admit 
the magnitude of the problem, or to do anything about it. It 
was no answer to bulldoze a slum without providing a better and 
realistic alternative lifestyle for the inhabitants. What was needed 
was an entirely new social structure, as in Cuba. 
She scouted the area carefully, decided she was not being 
watched, and made an unobtrusive detour to her friend's house. 
There she picked up another $50,000 in a shopping bag. She 
spread some ripe fruit on top to conceal it. Her friend, having no 
knowledge of Dulce's mission, insisted that she get better clothing, 
and so she donned a conservative dress and bound her hair 

50 
into an almost masculine effect. She could not afford conspicuous 
femininity, where she was going. 
Now on to the favela. At first glance, from a distance, it was 
like a pastel-painted jewel nestled into the mountainside, an enchanted 
subcity; but as she got closer, the enchantment vanished. 
It was a densely packed mass of hovels carrying the effluvium of 
raw garbage. As she entered it she tried to avoid glancing up nervously 
to spy advance warning of the slops that were tossed out the 
windows. There was no sanitation here. Children played barefoot 
amid the rubbish, stirring up great clouds of flies. Dogs and pigs 
rooted through the mess, adding their dung to it. Women carried 
cans of water on their heads from the single pump, much as in 
Biblical days. Not that Dulce had any fondness for the Bible, being 
a good Communist atheist, and if there were a God, how could 
He have tolerated this human degradation? 
"Well, now!" a voice exclaimed beside her. Dulce jumped nervously, 
conscious of her bag of money. It was a man leaning in a 
ramshackle doorway. He wore a big-brimmed hat, an oversized 
sport coat, and he was cleaning his nails with a gleaming knife. 
It was a Malandro, the favela's special breed of sharpie. Tough, 
cynical, and completely unscrupulous, this type was sheer trouble. 
Dulce went on without comment, affecting not to have noticed 
him. But she couldn't get away with that; the man stepped 
out, caught up, and reached one dirty arm around to block her 
passage. "I don't know you, pretty doll; give me a kiss." 
He thought she would be flattered by his pass. Many hovelwomen 
were, knowing nothing better. It would be impossible to 
turn him off gently. 
She kicked backward, spiking his shin, then turned to catch 
his black hair under the hat. She hauled his head down to meet 
her rising knee with a hard crack. Then she shoved him back against 
the shack and walked on as if nothing had happened, her bag of 
money undisturbed. He would not follow her soon. 
She'd better find her address quickly, or she'd be mobbed. 
Nothing like this could remain secret very long in the favela. She
51 
approached a little boy who was chewing on a stick as though to 
extract some nourishment from it. 
"Please, do you know where is the house of Maria Carolina?" 
That was the code name for the contact, to protect her from the 
authorities. Not that they were likely to be fooled long. 
The boy merely stared. 
Dulce took out a banana from her bag and proffered it. "It is 
at the bottom of the hill, near the well, painted red," she said, 
dangling the fruit before him. "Surely you know?" 
The boy snatched the fruit and pointed. Dulce thanked him 
and proceeded. She hoped she had enough fruit to get her there. 
Sometimes food was more precious than money. 
She did manage to find it, thanks to the color. Maria Carolina 
was a Santauro, a female witch doctor, and her house was bright 
red in honor of Santa Barbara. 
Dulce hailed the occupant. "Yes?" a resigned woman's voice 
answered. Dulce stepped through the filthy door curtain. 
It was a typical slum residence: a one-room shack with a packed 
dirt floor and a tiny wood-burning stove in the center. Light spilled 
through the cracks in walls and roof. Flattened tin cans were tacked 
over the worst of the gaps, but this was inadequate protection 
from the weather. A naked child lay sleeping on a roach-infested 
mattress in the corner, while two others stared at the intruder. 
There were open sores on their legs. A bag in one corner probably 
contained the woman's voodoo materials. It bothered Dulce to 
think that money desperately needed for food for these children 
was going to voodoo artifacts instead, but she was not here to 
criticize her contacts. 
"Yes?" the standing brown-skinned woman repeated. She was 
dressed in rags, her feet bare. She was about 60, her hair gray, 
steely-eyed. She had seen hard times. 
Dulce could not speak at once. She had known it was bad in 
the slums, but this was worse than she had thought. She was reminded 
strongly of a remarkable literary event a decade or two 
before: an uneducated Negress with three children to support had 

52 
made notes concerning her life. By day she rummaged in garbage 
for food, and cruised the streets for wastepaper to sell, while carrying 
her youngest child strapped on her back. By night she had 
compiled her manuscript of horror, using the light of a candle. 
Then, miraculously, her account was published, and became Brazil's 
best seller. It was translated into English, too, and had more effect 
on the favelas than an atomic bomb-burst. Suddenly concerned 
citizens eliminated the pest-hole and retrained the people. But 
the woman herself, unschooled in the use of her windfall income, 
in due course was back in the street as before. 
Then, with a start, Dulce realized: of course! That was the 
origin of the code name: Maria Carolina, the authoress. 
No, it would be pointless to give this woman, so like the illfated 
namesake, this bag of money. Money was illusion, not the 
real answer to this grinding poverty. Only a complete restructuring 
of the society . . . But first she had to save Jason. 
"I came for MR-26," Dulce said. 
"If you are from the government, you are dead," a man said 
behind her. 
For a moment Dulce thought it was the Malandro who had 
accosted her on the way in. But it was another man. "I am from, 
but not of the government," she said. "I left two men of the Death 
Squad lying in their own blood. No one followed me here. And I 
brought-this." She reached into the bag and brought out a pack 
of bills. 
The man looked at them. "Counterfeit!" he snarled. 
Dulce shrugged, knowing they would soon verify the legitimacy 
of the money. "And I have information: a cache of weapons. 
But first you must help me." 
The children were looking into the bag now, more fascinated 
be,. fruit than the money. They were starving, literally: pipestem 
arms and legs, bloated bellies. 
"What do you want?" the woman asked grimly. 
"A jailbreak. My friend-"
53 
The woman laughed harshly. "You dream, voluptuous foreigner! 
My son is in jail." 
Dulce realized that this was actually an asset. If this justifiably 
bitter woman's son happened to be incarcerated in the same institution 
as Jason-for Jason had to be there, or she would never 
locate him. "Are many of your number there? Then we can free 
them all. With C-3 plastic explosive, machine guns, we can fill an 
ambulance, drive it in near the wall-" 
"Where are these weapons from?" the man asked, still suspicious, 
but with growing interest. 
"They are safe. They were captured in Cuba from CIA agents; 
they can be traced only back to America. Grenades, pistols, rifles- 
but we must act soon. Tonight." Before they torture Jason, she 
added mentally. 
"We will alert our men, and the other groups," the man said, 
obviously hungry for the weapons. "But it cannot be tonight; there 
is no time to organize." 
Dulce nodded. He was right; they dared not go into this raid 
unprepared, or the guards and soldiers would tear them up. "Then 
tomorrow-" 
"No. Two days from now, when the festival is on." 
She smiled, seeing his logic. They were in business. 

Chapter 4: 
Mirabal's Entertainments 
I came to in a dungeon. That was the best description of it. It 
was a huge cell lined with brick walls, and the ceiling was high. 
My first impression was of a multitude of people, white, black, 
and in between, most wearing shorts or cut-off pants and nothing 
else. It was hot, and the ventilation was poor, and the stink of 
sweat and grime and urine was intense. 
There was a long line of three-decker bunks. The top beds 
were close to the bright light bulbs, so that the men on them had 
to shield their heads by spreading their shorts over them. 
I sat up. The lingering effects of the drug made my head swim. 
I was not in top condition anyway. I had taken a bad tumble down 
the stairs. My automatic forward roll had alleviated the effect, but 
there is no soft landing down a flight of steps! There were numerous 
abrasions on my back, and bruises on my arms. 
I stood, and cracked my head on the metal structure of the 
bunk above mine. In my disorientation, I had not noticed it. I sat 
down heavily. I felt about as bad as a man can feel who isn't sick or
55 
badly injured. Probably the wine I had taken combined with the 
drug to give me a real hangover. Alcohol: never again! I always 
regretted it when I broke training. 
Especially the morning after. Especially when I woke in jail. 
A high-pitched torrent of Portuguese, or what I assumed was 
that language, emerged from the upper bunk. Two thin brown 
legs, barefooted and scarred, appeared over the edge. They dropped 
down, followed by a lean, dirty body. It was a boy, perhaps fourteen 
years old. It was hard to tell, as I knew many children went 
hungry in Brazil; he could be older with retarded growth. His 
sharp, wary eyes hinted as much. 
The gist of his message needed no translation. I was an incompetent 
fool who should watch where he put his stupid head, lest 
he disturb the repose of his betters. 
I made a gesture of conciliation. "Sorry. I don't speak Portuguese." 
I didn't expect him to respond intelligently, but he did. His 
barrage cut off. "You-'Merican?" 
Well, well! "Yes, American." 
"You have dollar?" 
So that was it. He begged money from tourists, so had picked 
up a smattering of the language-probably of many languages. I 
patted my pockets, finding them empty, of course. My abductors 
had cleaned me out. "No dollar." 
"You smuggler?" 
"You pickpocket?" I retorted. 
He laughed. "Me thief. Hungry." 
That I could believe. "Me fight. Death Squad." 
His eyes went round. "Big trouble!" 
I rubbed my head. "Right!" I decided to treat him as an equal, 
and thrust out my hand. "I'm Jason Striker, victim of circumstance." 
He took it. "Filho, of the favela." 
"Favela?" 
"My home," he said simply. 

56 
Oh. No doubt one of the residential sections of Rio. 
A bell rang somewhere. The prisoners piled off their bunks 
and began moving. "C'mon," Filho said. "Food." 
Food. I wasn't hungry, but didn't know how regular meals 
would be around here. "Thanks." 
The boy led me out of the cell and into a central courtyard. 
Apparently the cells were normally locked, so this represented an 
extension of freedom I'd better appreciate. 
We came to the end of the chow line. It was along one, as there 
turned out to be a number of huge cells similar to ours, each with 
over a hundred prisoners. 
The food, when we finally got it, was bean soup, over which a 
thick whitish powder had been sprinkled to give it the consistency 
of thick gruel, ladled from a huge vat into dirty bowls. There were 
also a couple of pieces of some kind of white hard tuber, and a cup 
of thick black sugarless coffee. I tasted some and had to spit it out; 
Brazil might be the land of coffee, but this was too strong for me. 
Not a very tasty meal, and not enough; if I were to be here long, 
I'd better eat it all, for I'd soon be hungry. 
The bathroom, it turned out, was a bricklined trench at the 
far end of the courtyard. The men stood or squatted over it as 
necessary. The stench was horrible. A single tap in the corner provided 
water for drinking; the prisoners took turns at it. "I get," 
Filho said to me. He had already gulped down his meal. He went 
to stand in the water line while I finished my tuber. But in a 
moment he was back. "You keep eye on me?" he inquired. "Some 
men, they-" He made a face. 
I didn't know what that face signified, but could appreciate 
that life could be rough for a lad like this in a place like this. "I'll 
keep an eye on you," I agreed, and he went back. 
How was I going to get out of here? I had no notion of the 
charges against me, assuming the Death Squad had bothered with 
any. I had merely been entertaining my girl friend in my room, 
surely no crime. No doubt in due course there would be an inquiry, 
since I was an American, but I doubted much would come
57 
of that soon. Bureaucracy moved slowly the world over. I was on 
my own for the time being, but probably not in any serious trouble. 
Maybe I was lucky they hadn't killed me. 
The water Filho brought was dirty, and I was not that thirsty; 
instead I used it for washing. The other prisoners stared at me 
curiously, and I could fathom their thoughts: see the mad Americano 
taking his daily bath! None of them bothered, obviously. 
In due course we were herded back into our cells for the evening. 
The men did not settle down right away, but milled about, conversing 
in Portuguese. Since I had no way to share this dialogue, I 
lay down on my bunk. After a time, in the night, the food I had 
eaten had its natural effect, and I went to the smaller hole that 
served as the cell's private bathroom to relieve myself. Again the 
men stared from their bunks; did they expect my refuse to be 
white, like my skin? 
There was a commotion as I pulled up my pants. I looked up 
and saw that Filho was in trouble. Two men had grabbed him; one 
held his arms while the other hauled down his ragged shorts. 
What were they doing? The boy was struggling and yelling in 
Portuguese, but the men did not seem to be actually hurting him. 
They were hauling him to another bunk. Then Filho's eye caught 
mine. "Rape!" he screamed. 
Then, shocked, I understood. They were yelling in Portuguese 
and wrestling Filho face-down on the bunk. One of the men had 
bared his member and was moving in on the boy's posterior. Here 
in the tropics I had heard homosexuality was more common than 
in the colder climes, and to some men a young boy was a more 
tempting target than a beautiful woman. I don't claim to understand 
it, and am not certain it is true; I just happened to read 
about it once in Burton's Arabian Nights. 
The other prisoners, amazingly, were taking no notice. Like 
the residents of an American city, they preferred to ignore crime- 
so long as it was not being practiced on them. To avoid involvement. 
Well, I wasn't going to ignore it! This was blatant homosexual 

58 
rape, in public yet. I charged across the cell, swung around the tier 
of bunks, and barreled into the trio. 
First I took out the would-be rapist. I grabbed him by the 
shirt, forced him off-balance, blocked his right knee with the sole 
of my left foot, and threw him past me with a beautiful (if I do say 
so myself ) Hiza-guruma knee-wheel throw. I knew he would not 
get up in a hurry. Especially since he slid across the damp floor to 
sprawl halfway in the privy-pit, his outflung hand involuntarily 
grasping a handful of that brown slush. 
Then I turned on the other. He had thrown the boy aside the 
moment I attacked, and now faced me. He was a huge coal-black 
Negro with shaved head, six and a half feet tall, and weighing 
something like 240 pounds. No starving chronic inmate, this! 
And he was ready to fight. I would have eased off once Filho 
was safe, but it was obvious that this man would not let me go. I 
was hardly in top condition, but as a fifth degree black belt in 
judo with additional expertise in karate and kung fu I was well 
able to take care of myself. So I waited for his attack, while the 
other prisoners forsook their sleep to form a huge spectators' circle 
around us. They hadn't wanted to get involved when a boy was 
being attacked, but now they were happy to watch the fight. 
Suddenly he moved. His right foot swept up and around in 
hard kick. I shifted my weight to absorb it harmlessly on my left 
thigh; kicks are fairly easy to counter if you anticipate them. Their 
relative slowness is offset by their power when they score. Still, his 
kick was fast and sure; he was a trained fighter. 
Then I became aware of pain: not the ordinary bruise of a 
kick, but the sharper sensation of a cut. I glanced at my hip-and 
saw blood flowing. The kick must have opened a sore. 
Sore? Immediately I realized it was more than that. I was wearing 
my trousers, and the cloth had been ripped open. 
Sensation and realization occurred quickly, for thought and 
action are almost simultaneous during combat. They have to be, if 
one wishes to survive. 
My opponent skipped to the side and kicked again. This time
59 
I jumped back. I caught a glimpse of the sole of his foot: small 
shards of broken glass were taped there. 
No wonder I was hurting! He had obviously come prepared- 
and he was out for my blood. Literally. Any of these kicks would 
have wounded me grievously, had they scored cleanly. 
He kicked yet again, very fast. This time I managed to hook a 
hand under his foot, catching him off-balance. With my free hand 
I grabbed his calloused toes, lifted, and shoved him back hard. 
The problem with kicking is that it restricts mobility at critical 
times, especially when the opponent knows what he is doing. He 
had to fall. 
Thank God for the hours I had put in practicing the new 
Kodokan self-defense kata! The katas are like little judo plays, emulating 
street-fight situations. Now when I needed it, I had done it 
without thinking. 
I did not let go of that dangerous foot. This was no amateur! 
And how had he arranged this trick-in prison? Surely he did not 
walk on broken glass all the time. This thing smelled of a set-up. 
So I bore down hard while I had the advantage. I twisted him onto 
his stomach by using the leverage of the captive leg. Then I hooked 
my own leg over his knee and tilted forward, putting pressure on 
his leg and knee with my chest, using a forbidden (in contest 
judo) Kawaishi submission hold, Hiza-hishigi. "Had enough?" I 
inquired as I leaned into it. 
But he was tough. He tried to escape. I increased the pressure, 
knowing the agony would have to make him capitulate. I wasn't 
doing this from sadism; I wanted to know why he had girded 
himself for such combat and made a scene that would surely draw 
me in. If he were an agent of the Death Squad sent to kill me, why 
hadn't he simply done the job while I was still unconscious? It 
seemed to make no sense to do it this way. 
Unless the Death Squad wanted its hands to appear clean . . . 
Now there was a commotion. Prison guards, conspicuously 
absent until I gained the advantage, charged in. Not eager to be 
caught fighting, for surely there were rules, against it, I started to 

60 
ease up. But a guard slammed into me, hurling me forward. That 
impetus translated into pressure on the black man's knee, and it 
snapped as I fell. 
Then the guards laid hands on me, and I knew better than to 
resist. The black man was writhing in agony; screams of pure anguish 
wrenching out of him. There is no worse pain than that of a 
broken knee. It would be long before he fought again. 
I was surely in for it now! How could I convince the guards I 
had stepped in only to rescue a youthful friend from rape? Especially 
when I didn't speak the language? 
The boy! "Filho!" I called. "Tell them-" 
Filho appeared. He spouted a fluid stream of Portuguese. Thank 
God I had a witness! 
The guard-captain turned on me. "So you try to rape this 
poor child, and beat up his friends who help him!" 
What? "No, no! I tried to help him!" 
But then I saw the boy's expression. His accusing finger pointed 
directly at me. He was part of this ugly little trap. He was the 
shill.
I looked desperately around at the other prisoners. They had 
all been witnesses. But they had somehow returned to their bunks 
and were sound asleep; obviously none of them wasted any love on 
the Gringo, and they would not speak on my behalf. 
I had been had. No doubt of it. But why? 
Too late I saw the rifle butt coming at my head. I tried to duck 
out of the way, but there was solid contact. The lights went out. 
*
This time my awakening was less gentle than before. A bucket 
of icewater drenched my head, making me choke. I was sitting in 
a chair with my hands tied behind me and my ankles hobbled 
with a short length of rope. I could tell by the feel that I was 
expertly restrained; no use straining against the bonds. 
A face loomed before me. It had a dramatic scar running down 
from the short stiff crew-cut to the bull-massive neck. The man 
had icy blue eyes and a big, reddish, square strong face, thick lips,
61 
a bullet-shaped head, an irregularly set nose, a cauliflower ear, big 
hamlike fists-in short he reminded me of a Nazi pugilist. 
It was the man I had encountered on the stairs, the leader of 
the Death Squad. But more than that, it was the man I had fought 
in the Brazilian embassy in New York, when Hiroshi and I had 
come to recover our diamonds. He was as tough as they come, but 
I had bashed him pretty badly. Now he had me in his power, and 
he wanted revenge. 
"I see you know me, Jason Striker," he said. "By sight, at least. 
I am Don Fernando Mirabal, Colonel of Army Intelligence. You 
may call me Colonel. And it seems you are in trouble with the law, 
now." 
I didn't answer. It had already been apparent that the Death 
Squad had connections with the police. They had been after Dulce, 
and my involvement was coincidental-but I had given this man 
Mirabal some lumps, and he certainly wasn't going to let me off 
gently now. 
"Why didn't you kill me?" I asked. It was not bravado so much 
as resignation-and apart from everything else, I was curious. 
"I had thought you would be more intelligent," Mirabal said 
with satisfaction. "But I shall explain. We caught you in our net, 
but unlike the girl, you are an American citizen, of some repute. 
In fact, we anticipate demands for your release from both your 
country and the girl's." 
Why would Cuba demand my release? I had done Fidel a favor 
once, through no particular choice of my own, and apparently he 
had a long memory and good information. Better than his cigars, 
certainly. Of course I had helped Dulce this time, and she was on 
a mission for her country. Well, that was a complication that was 
hardly going to do me much good here. 
"But we had no reason to hold you. You had broken no law 
here. Yet it was necessary to hold you." Mirabal smiled. "So we 
turned you loose in temporary detention-and it seems you attempted 
a beastly act and provoked a near riot. That is against the 
laws of Brazil! Now we can keep you, and no other government 

62 
can object. You really were very foolish; did you not know we 
frown on the raping of small boys?" 
So that was it. I had been foolish; I should have smelled a rat, 
and stayed out of trouble. 
"Very clever," I agreed morosely. 
"Now I would like the answers to certain questions, some very 
simple questions," Mirabal continued. "But I hope you won't provide 
them right away. I really would like to get to know you better 
first. I am very curious to discover, for example, your tolerance to 
pain. But I am a fair man; I will first give you a chance to answer." 
I believed him: he'd rather have me balky, so he had a pretext 
to torture me. Now that he could legally do so. Or maybe it wasn't 
legal, technically, but I was sure he had ways to get around such 
technicalities. I was already branded a troublemaker and a homosexual 
rapist in prison, thanks to his cute little trap, so my interrogation 
could be called legitimate. If I hadn't fallen into that snare, 
there would have been something else; Mirabal was not about to 
let me slip through unscathed. 
"What mission brings you to Brazil?" he inquired politely. 
I kept my mouth closed. I was not free to tell him my real 
mission for Fu Antos, and the truth was, I had never found out 
what that mission was. Thanks to Mirabal himself, I had gone to 
jail before Kan-Sen had contacted me. Mirabal would never believe 
that, though. So it was pointless even to try explaining. In 
addition, the longer I kept him guessing, the better it would be 
for Dulce, who I was sure was also in his power. Let him conjecture 
at what complexities we were engaged in. 
"You are silent," Mirabal observed mildly. "Good, good. I am 
not disappointed." He rubbed his knee, the one I had crippled in 
New York. He had evidently had surgery to repair the torn meniscus 
ligament, for there was a big scar there, but the leg seemed to 
be about as good as ever. He still limped a bit. "We have so much 
to do together, you and I." He paused, considering. "But first, a 
little tour. I know you will enjoy this." 
He put out one hand and lifted me to my feet. I am not a
63 
small man, but he hefted my weight as if I were a child. What 
tremendous power! My bindings were really not unduly confining, 
but the moment I was on my feet I felt woozy. The drug 
followed by that crack on the head-I was in no condition to put 
up a fight at this stage. 
We walked to another cell. Here a pretty young woman in a 
tight red print dress was strapped to what looked like a dentist's 
chair, her head tied back to the headrest, clamped between metal 
clamps, immobile, so that her mouth tried to pull open. Nevertheless 
she kept it tightly shut. Beside her was a tray of metal 
instruments. I did not like the look of this. 
"Do you know her?" Mirabal inquired. Obviously he thought 
I did. That gave me a clue: she must be a captive member of the 
group Dulce was supposed to contact. If I had been associated 
with them, I would probably have met her. It could have been a 
nice meeting. She looked about eighteen and had a rather appealing 
figure. Slender, but with well developed breasts and thighs, 
and thick curly red hair falling down behind the chair. Her face 
was quite freckled, and there was a gold Star of David hanging 
from her neck. I concluded she was Jewish, perhaps a student who 
had gotten involved with the Communist Revolutionary movement 
that Dulce was trying to contact. What attraction did 
Communism have for these pretty girls? 
"Never saw her before in my life," I said honestly. And felt like 
a liar, for I knew he would not believe me. Maybe I should have 
shut my mouth grimly and refused to answer, so as to lead my 
interrogator on a false trail. But that, too, would have been in 
effect a lie. Too bad I wasn't a philosopher, to unravel these fine 
points of ethics. 
"Then you will not object to what happens," Mirabal said. He 
made a gesture, and a man came forward. "One extraction for Ester, 
for now," Mirabal told him. Then, to me. again: "Make yourself 
comfortable." 
Some humor! There was no other chair in the room, and if 
there had been, I would have been hard put to it to sit without 

64 
assistance. Mirabal was not about to offer help, and I was not 
about to ask for it. 
The other man put on a white apron like a dentist's smock. 
He picked up a pair of fancy pliers from the table. He moved to 
the girl. 
Then I caught on. "Now wait," I said. "You're not going to-?" 
"So you do know the Jewess?" Mirabal inquired. 
"I don't know her! But that doesn't mean I want to see her-" 
I broke off, afraid I was only putting notions in his head, though 
obviously Mirabal had plenty of notions on his own. His resemblance 
to a Nazi now seemed stronger, for he even proposed to 
torture a Jew. I didn't have to be Jewish to consider that an abomination. 
"Proceed, Laureano," Mirabal said to the man. The assistant 
was a cadaverous but evidently wiry-strong fanatic. His skin had 
been burned by the sun to a leathery texture. I was sure he was a 
virtual arm of Mirabal, never questioning his master's will. 
Laureano put his left hand over the girl's mouth, pressing with 
thumb and forefinger on the nerve complex on either side of her 
bunched jaw. The immediate pain of that pressure forced her mouth 
open. He then inserted the pliers into that open mouth, placing 
his left hand against her forehead. Now she whimpered, knowing 
what was coming, but unable to move. I saw the muscles of her 
arms tighten, and the nipples of her breasts quivered under the 
taut dress with her ragged breathing. 
Laureano took hold of one of her back teeth and pulled. Ester 
screamed piercingly, for of course she had had no anesthetic. Dentistry 
is enough of a torture in the best of circumstances, and this 
was the worst. A healthy tooth. 
The muscles of the man's arms strained, hauling brutally at 
that tooth, and the sound from the woman was appalling. The 
tendons of her neck stood out and the force of her futile struggles 
caused her dress to half-tear and pull open and drop down, exposing 
her right breast. The purple nipple became big and bright
65 
against the white. Her whole torso shook with the force of her 
agony. 
I launched myself at the beast-but Mirabal intercepted me 
with a football-type straight-arm push that hurled me over against 
the wall. My head cracked back, and for a moment I saw a field of 
twinkling stars. My head still hurt from the bruise the gun butt 
had made, and this aggravated it. 
But the continued screaming of the girl brought me alert again 
quickly. I tried again to reach her, but Mirabal's powerful fingers 
caught my hair and twisted my head painfully, bringing me down 
once more against the wall. Oh, the butcher was enjoying this, yet 
I was helpless. 
Then Laureano gave a final heave and jerked out the tooth. 
Triumphantly he brought it up, blood dripping from its surface. 
"Loosen her head, fool!" Mirabal snapped. "We don't want her 
to choke on her own blood!" 
No personal concern, this. He was just making certain the 
poor girl didn't die before he was through torturing her. It was also 
for my benefit, for he had spoken in English so I would be sure to 
understand. 
Her head was released and pulled forward. Blood and saliva 
drooled from her lips and over her chin, to drip onto her pale right 
breast. Her screams had stopped; now she was merely sobbing. 
No, not even that; she had, mercifully, lost consciousness. 
I sobbed for her, inside. This whole brutal scene had been 
unnecessary, pointless, since I knew nothing that could benefit 
Mirabal and the girl had not even been questioned. If Mirabal had 
sought to show me that he was ruthless and depraved, he had 
succeeded admirably. 
"You see, that was not so bad," Mirabal said in a conversational 
tone. "She still has twenty-seven teeth left." 
I would have killed him in that moment, had I been able. But 
I kept my face straight, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my 
impotent rage. 

66 
"Now we shall visit with another anonymous outlaw," Mirabal 
said, drawing me along with one hand. I had to move as he urged, 
or fall on my face. 
In the next chamber was an old man, naked, bound face up on 
a table. He was shaking with fear; the girl's screams would have 
been loud and clear here. As Mirabal had surely planned; he obviously 
was expert at his specialty of torture, both physical and psychological. 
"Another stranger?" Mirabal inquired, shoving me up for a 
good view. The man was around sixty, with well-manicured, longfingered 
pianist hands: evidently a white-collar worker, a cultured 
man, one of the intellectuals one might expect to find supporting 
the opposition to tyranny. I'm no Communist and never will be, 
but if anyone offered me a way to fight tyrants like Mirabal, I'd ask 
few questions. 
Communism thrives where there is poverty and repression, 
and it is easy to see why. What have the downtrodden masses got 
to lose? Abolish the Mirabals and the Laureanos, and you are halfway 
to abolishing Communism. Or so it seems to me. 
I contemplated the white hair growing out from the onceshaved 
head of the victim, and his silver whiskers. He had a strong 
intelligent face, though his body was thin. Was there any way I 
could spare this victim whatever torture was planned? Only if I 
could convince Mirabal of the truth: that I knew nothing of the 
prisoner. And how could I do that? "Does it make any difference?" 
I asked. 
"He looks thirsty," Mirabal said. He turned to Laureano, who 
had followed us in. "Give the poor man a drink." 
A drink? What kind of torture was that? 
Laureano smiled, showing a row of gold teeth. The effect was 
startling: on the one hand it suggested incredible poverty or debauchery 
to have cost him all his natural teeth, and on the other 
hand it showed equally incredible wealth to have them replaced in 
gold. The man with the golden mouth. 
He brought out a gallon jug of water and a kind of funnel. He
67 
put the funnel in the prisoner's mouth and poured. The man 
choked and spluttered, but the water kept coming; he had to swallow 
or drown. 
When about a quart was down, the torturer eased up enough 
to let the victim catch his breath. "I think he is still thirsty," Mirabal 
remarked. 
Back went the funnel. This time the victim tried to clench his 
teeth, but Laureano hit him in the belly and jammed the funnel 
in as his mouth popped open to gasp. Then the victim tried to 
refuse to swallow, but Laureano pinched his nostrils until he had 
to breathe through his mouth-and then the water choked him 
again. He had to swallow. The water was mercilessly forced, until 
the man's stomach bulged like an unholy pregnancy. I had no idea 
how much water the human torso could accommodate, but evidently 
it was considerable, if health and survival was no consideration. 
But soon no more would go; it just poured out of his mouth as 
fast as it went in. It was evident the man was full; he was physically 
unable to take any more, though he drown in the attempt. 
His stomach was distended grotesquely, as though ready to burst 
like a pricked balloon. I could not even contemplate what was 
happening to his internal tissues and vital organs. 
"Strange," Mirabal remarked as the torturer looked at him for 
instructions. "I am sure he is not yet satisfied. Let us try another 
aperture." 
They released the clamps that held the prisoner's arms and 
legs to the table and levered him over onto his stomach. I thought 
the pressure of his own body on that distended stomach would 
kill him, but somehow he was still breathing. Laureano attached a 
longer segment of hose to a water tap, then forced the end into the 
man's rectum and ran it far into the body, so that neither sphincter 
nor stomach muscle could stop it or force it out again. Then he 
opened the valve, letting the city water pressure ram the fluid into 
the victim's posterior. There was no way to tell how much it was; I 

68 
could only watch with mounting horror. But at last the limit came; 
water squirted out and around the tube and no more would go. 
Laureano jerked out the tube. The poor man was like a paper 
water bomb. He belched fluid weakly from his mouth, and it 
squirted out of his anus with every shallow, shuddering breath he 
took. The sheer compression of his lungs and innards could kill 
him at any moment. The water torture was not as dramatic as the 
tooth pulling, but actually it was worse. 
Then he shuddered. His muscles strained as though he were 
making a superhuman effort to break free of his restraints, though 
at this stage the pressure within was far worse than that without. 
But this was no conscious effort; he was going into convulsions. 
The water that leaked from him now was turning red; it had burst 
his intestinal wall, and he was dying. 
"Shall we see the next?" Mirabal inquired with a pleasant smile. 
I stared at him. He was completely unmoved by this horrible 
death. What punishment, in this world or the next, could possibly 
atone for the things he had done? But expression of my sentiment 
was pointless. "You're wasting your time," I said. "I don't 
know any of these people. I don't know anyone in Brazil. I can't 
tell you anything." 
"Now you know that is not true," he said. "I can name three 
people you know. I am one, and Miss Planas is another." 
Dulce! Oh, no! They had her too, and I knew this monster was 
saving her for last. What would I do when he started pulling her 
teeth and filling her gut with water? 
"You will really appreciate the third room," Mirabal said. 
The sadist! 
But the next room was empty. What did this mean? 
"Have a seat," Mirabal suggested, ever the perfect host. 
Then I understood. I was the third person I knew in Brazil. 
This torture was for me. 
Such was my mood, I was actually relieved. They weren't going 
to torture Dulce. 
But they could still torture her anytime. Maybe they would
69 
make her watch me, and when that didn't work, I'd have to watch 
her. Yet there was nothing I could do. 
Mirabal was watching me closely. He had certainly softened 
me for this. I now had no shadow of a doubt that he would work 
me over until he was satisfied, and that would mean a fiendish 
death. And I had no way out. 
"You think I am stupid," Mirabal said. "That I do this merely 
to repay you for our prior encounter, or to wrest information from 
you about connections you do not know." 
"Yes," I agreed. 
"But you do know the third person-the one whose place is 
here in this chair." Now his face twisted into a grimace of hate. 
"Fu Antos, boy master of ninjas." 
My mouth dropped open. I had indeed underestimated 
Mirabal; I had been sure he knew nothing of Fu Antos and wasn't 
searching for such information. 
"Tell me where he can be found, and you are spared this." 
Fu Antos-who had cured me of the effect of the delayedaction 
death blow, and thus saved my life when no one else could. 
Who now required my service. Was I to betray him? I had no 
notion where the Black Castle was, but if I gave away the nature of 
my expected contact, Mirabal might be able to use that to trace 
down the ninja master. 
I hobbled over to the chair and tipped myself into it. My aim 
was off, but Mirabal, still gracious, caught me and set me down 
gently. No, he didn't want me getting bruised or knocked out on 
my own; he had to do it his way. My only satisfaction was that I 
hadn't groveled; I had taken the seat myself, or tried to. 
Mirabal did not remonstrate with me. He was not about to 
plead with a helpless victim for information. He was certain that 
his technique would bring it spewing forth. And I was not at all 
certain he was mistaken; I'm not good at this sort of thing. Once 
Kan-Sen had tortured me with a thumbscrew-that same Kan- 
Sen who was now my ally, to my shame. 
They stripped off my shirt. This was some job, since they 

70 
wouldn't untie me-a nice compliment to my defensive skills- 
they had to cut it away with a sharp knife. Then Laureano trundled 
in a squat machine. It seemed to consist of a series of standard 
automobile batteries, with wires running to a generator. There was 
a black control box with dials on it, and long cords and clips attached. 
The thing gave me the shivers. 
"Are you sure you will not tell us what we wish to know?" 
"You already know what I think of you." I had a little gas in 
my bowel, and I forced it out with a loud ripping noise to emphasize 
my point. 
"If you maintain that attitude half an hour from now, I shall 
be surprised," Mirabal said mildly. 
That gaAftee a new set of shivers. He was so certain, and he 
was not the kind to bluff. But even if I told him what little I knew, 
he would still torture me. As he had candidly said, he had a grudge, 
and didn't want me to capitulate too rapidly. And I would not 
betray Fu Antos-I hoped. 
Laureano put little metal discs on the nipples of my chest. 
Wires trailed to the machine. He taped the disks in place so they 
would stay. Then he turned a dial. 
I lurched, straining against my bonds. A terrible electric current 
was passing from one terminal to the other, wracking my 
chest. 
"I see the system is operative," Mirabal said. "Now do you 
care to talk?" 
Talk? I could hardly get my breath! I slumped, gasping, as the 
current abated. What appalling pain! 
"Turn it up a notch," Mirabal told Laureano. "And hold it for 
a few more seconds." 
The agony wracked me again. I jumped like a bucking bronco, 
straining against my bonds. A hoarse scream tore from my throat. 
My chest was on fire, my lungs fast becoming paralyzed. Like a 
red-hot rod, the current seared through me. Could tooth extraction 
be worse than this? Water torture? 
"You respond very well," Mirabal remarked as the power sub-
71 
sided again. "I shall be most interested to see how far your threshold 
extends. We'll just try another intensification." 
I couldn't take much more of this. Had the electrodes been 
attached to some more vital region of my body, the surges would 
have knocked me unconscious or even killed me, and it would 
have been over. But Mirabal's torturer knew his business; this 
machine merely caused intolerable pain. 
Yet I had no choice. I had to endure this torture, or somehow 
escape it. And not by turning traitor to Fu Antos. 
"Perhaps we should attach an electrode to his genital," Mirabal 
said musingly. "This has always been effective in the past." 
God, no! I remembered now. I had heard of this. Pulverizing 
shocks run through the victim's privates, not only wracking him 
with ultimate pain but destroying his masculinity forever. No, 
that was probably an exaggeration. The awful beauty of this electric 
torture was that it left no telltale signs, no raw tooth-sockets or 
ruptured guts. There would be no proof that I had been tortured. 
No proof except my word-the word of an accused pederast. Electric 
interrogation was a Latin American specialty. 
But the bastard was only teasing me. He made no motion to 
strip me further. Maybe he didn't want to abort my masculinity 
until he had made me watch what he did to Dulce. It was enough 
for the present that I realized the possibilities, and knew what 
would be employed-at his convenience. Psychological torture 
augmenting the physical torture, again, and a very effective job of 
it. 
I had to get out of this! But how? 
Then I remembered a way. 
I could not escape physically-but I had mental resources that 
Mirabal was hardly in a position to comprehend. I could control 
the pain my body suffered, to a certain extent. Pain, after all, is 
self-generated; it is the system's warning that the body is being 
damaged, and it is a strong inducement to stop. But when the 
damage cannot be stopped, pain is superfluous, a counterproductive 
effort. Then it has to be blocked out. 

72 
The current flowed again. I stiffened. But I fought to achieve 
dominance of mind over matter. I can not feel it! I told myself. It is 
only an irritation. 
It didn't work. I knew the pain was real. Anything else was a 
delusion. Yet I still had to resist it somehow. 
Then I remembered the ki, that mysterious force that lay within 
my body, more powerful than anything else I knew. It was not 
under my conscious control, but was there when I needed it. 
I needed it now! I willed it forth, hoping it would come. The 
torture current flowed again. The pain was excruciating; they had 
stepped it up another notch or two. I tried to scream, but my 
chest muscles were knotted, cutting off my very breath. 
Then the ki cut in. From my hara, my abdomen, the seat of 
my being, it expanded-and where it went, pain abated. It crossed 
the area of the electrodes on my chest, and the muscles relaxed. I 
could breathe again, and my head was clear. It did not completely 
eliminate the pain, but it was as though a powerful sedative had 
been administered. Now I could tolerate it, as I did the pain of a 
back wrenched in judo practice. 
"Something's wrong," Mirabal said. "The current's not-" 
Laureano checked. "It is going through; see the dials." 
"I see him. He's not suffering. Look how he's relaxed." 
"Maybe he is dead." 
"No. He's breathing normally. Check the generator." 
"I tell you, the current is there! Check it yourself." 
Mirabal was evidently from Missouri, in the United States of 
Brazil: he had to be shown. He put his hand on my chest, letting 
the fingers touch the two taped terminals. He jerked it away, cursing 
as the current pulsed through. He shook his hand. "It's there, 
all right!" 
Now he glared at me. I gave him a level gaze back. "Give it up, 
Mirabal," I said. "You can't hurt me." 
"Turn it up to maximum!" he snapped. 
Laureano turned up the dial. I was aware of the increased power,
73 
but it passed through me harmlessly. My ki had nullified it. Not 
completely, but enough so I could stand it, smiling. 
Mirabal stared at me, baffled. "He must have lost his feeling! 
No one could withstand that current." 
I shook my head, affecting sorrow. "I feel it; I just don't suffer 
from it. Too bad you can't understand. You should meet my friend 
Fu Antos; he really knows about ki." 
"Fu Antos!" Mirabal grated. "So you do know him, just as I 
suspected! You're one of his minions!" 
Oh-oh! I had really spilled the beans, right when I thought I'd 
won. Treachery of overconfidence. I had to distract Mirabal, before 
he found a way to pry what little I knew of the ninja's situation out 
of me. So I pursed my lips and wafted a shimmering globule of 
spit at him. 
It scored, right in the middle of his gloatingly open mouth. 
Mirabal lost control, just as I had hoped he would. His fist 
lashed out to strike my cheek. The blow didn't hurt me, for the ki 
made me well-nigh invulnerable. But he had carelessly let his other 
arm brush against the metal frame of the machine, and as his fist 
made contact with me the current grounded through his body. 
For a moment he stood transfixed as the full power of his devil 
machine paralyzed him, his eyes staring in agony. Physical strength 
is no hedge against electricity. Then the contact was broken, and 
he fell back. 
Quickly, horrified, Laureano turned off the machine. "Colonel, 
are you all right?" 
Mirabal had to maintain a front; I understood that, without 
having to like the man at all. "I'm all right!" he snapped. "Get him 
out of here!" 
And so my siege of torture ended, thanks to the ki. I was hardly 
conscious of being led back to the main prison cell, to be stared at 
by my fellow inmates. The ki had drained from me when the threat 
ended, and I was virtually unconscious on my feet. 
They unbound me, and I fell on my bunk, too weak to do 
more. 

Chapter 5: 
Spear in the Rear 
The forest of the Amazon basin in South America is one of the 
largest in the world, and it covers almost half of Brazil. The trees 
grow close together: chestnut, mahogany, cedar, rosewood, kapok, 
wild rubber trees, many varieties of palm, and of course Brazil 
nuts. Hundreds of species can be found within a few square miles, 
and many trees are over two hundred feet tall. They are overgrown 
with lichens and vines, so that the deep jungle becomes a tangled 
mass. 
Through it all twines the Amazon River, largest (not longest) 
in the world, with its myriad tributaries. It is the only feasible 
access to much of the backwoods. Roads can quickly be overgrown 
by the living carpet of foliage, so only the water remains clear. 
Thus a watch on the rivers gives an insight into much of the human 
activity of the region. 
It was technically illegal to molest the jungle natives of Brazil, 
but few of the authorities paid attention to this. If the Indians had 
land that "civilized" men wanted, it was a simple matter to kill or
75 
drive off the primitives. Professional Indian-killers were available 
for hire at reasonable rates. 
But this time the Indians, stirred up by intruders from Japan, 
had had the audacity to strike back. A prospector's camp had been 
wiped out, and Fernando Mirabal himself had barely escaped with 
his life. Such a demonstration had to be dealt with. 
Actually, Mirabal was sure the ninja camp was not here; Fu 
Antos was too smart to give away his location so readily. But with 
luck a ninja might be captured, and then perhaps truth serum or 
a lie detector would bring forth the necessary information. No 
more crudities like flaying; that took too much time, and was too 
risky. Torture was ineffective against ninjas. But drugs-maybe. 
Possibly some of the Indians knew where the ninjas were; for them 
torture would be in order. 
Colonel Mirabal himself was not along on this expedition; he 
had business in Rio de Janeiro, following up another lead. But he 
had given the task force leader specific instructions. The job would 
be accomplished. 
There were about 50 policemen collected from all the towns 
of the neighborhood, and about a hundred volunteers. It was an 
ill-matched, motley crew, in it strictly for the money and the chance 
to indulge in a little harmless bloodletting. But they were well 
armed and eager to collect the bounty on every dead Indian, plus 
whatever pillage was available for free enterprise. 
On the way upstream they had a little practice mission, nothing 
serious. They encountered a small village of pacifico, pacified 
Indians. About 25 old men, women and children were taking their 
morning bath in the shallow waters. They stared at the convoy, 
not knowing its purpose. 
The lead craft went on upstream, machine-gunned some tapirs 
drinking at the edge, hacked them into great chunks and threw 
the bloody pieces into the center current. The blood suffused the 
water, arousing the crocodiles and piranhas. Then a small party 
went ashore and cut behind the Indian village. 
When all was ready, a couple of launches came close and sprayed 

76 
the Indians with rock salt from sawed-off shotguns. The stuff did 
not kill outright, but made numerous small wounds that bled and 
hurt. 
The Indians scrambled for the shore, terrified, uncomprehending, 
helpless-and were met by the machine guns of the land 
party. They could not escape, so had to stay in the water, and now 
the killer fish attacked savagely, incited to a frenzy by the new 
blood. 
The two prettiest Indian women were hauled onto the boats, 
mass-raped, and tossed back in for the crocodiles. 
Temporarily sated, the men re-formed their convoy and pressed 
onward. It had been fun, but it wasn't as though they had killed 
any real men. The hunters' appetite, like that of the piranha fish, 
had only been whetted for the real mayhem. 
But Fu Antos, Lord of the Ninjas, had profited from his experience 
with the oil-prospecting camp. He knew that the presence 
of men from the coast meant trouble. Had they been content to 
leave him alone, he would not have fought them; but he could not 
tolerate a direct invasion of his territory, and he had promised the 
Indians protection. So he kept his spies out, though this meant 
slowed construction of the Black Castle, and he was well informed 
of this expedition. The village massacre had caught him by surprise; 
he had thought the Indians would be ignored. But the episode 
had given him time to prepare, and a ninja did not need 
much time, ever. 
The lead boat was a modern police launch. It passed a bend in 
the river near where the prior oil group had its doom, and entered 
a narrow section. Suddenly it shuddered and halted, and began to 
sink. Its bottom had been ripped open by submerged stakes, sharply 
pointed and angled to pierce the hull of a fast-moving craft. Overloaded 
by the number of men on its deck, it was helpless. Men 
dived off from either side. 
Immediately there was a stir in the water. From one side electric 
eels approached, released from underwater cages by the shock
77 
of the boat's collision with the stakes. From the other converged 
caimans, reptiles related to the crocodile. The action was violent. 
The second launch rounded the bend in time to see the last of 
the first. It slowed, its .30 caliber machine gun coming to life, 
raking the shore on either side. But there was only silence from the 
jungle. 
Then something arced high over the trees and fell on the deck 
of the boat. It exploded into flame. It was a homemade thermite 
bomb, a ninja formula like Greek fire. It spread across the deck, 
burning relentlessly. The men dipped buckets of water from the 
river to douse it, but the flame only spread faster. In moments it 
had eaten through the deck and was taking over the boat, its terrible 
heat driving back the men. 
The remainder of the expedition now arrived. Six smaller boats, 
bristling with armed men. Too many to nail with the thermite 
catapult, they moved to the banks of the river, firing at anything. 
They did not dare remain exposed on the water, and the caimans 
prevented swimming. But they could take over the shores, and 
now they knew the enemy was near. This was what they had come 
for! 
There was no resistance. All the boats beached without loss. A 
hundred and twenty men spread out, beating the brush, firing up 
into the trees, making sure there were no men in the area. 
Then someone screamed. He had been bitten by a tarantula, 
the huge hairy tropical spider. Such bites are seldom fatal, but 
attack by such creatures can be terrifying. And suddenly there 
were spiders all around, dropping silently from the trees. Not only 
tarantulas, but also black spiders, larger than the black widow and 
with a more poisonous bite. They had been cleverly anesthetized, 
awakened by the commotion below, still too drugged to hide. So 
they attacked. 
The men charged screaming from the area, losing all semblance 
of discipline. And as they dispersed, and became separated 
from each other, and lost sight of their boats and officers, the silent 
arrows began to fly. One by one the men fell, firing wildly into the 

78 
brush before their struggles were ended by well-placed ninja arrows, 
nooses and spears. Some put their feet into miniature covered 
pits filled with sharpened sticks smeared with human excrement. 
Painful, disgusting, but not serious wounds, except that the 
chance of serious infection was excellent. Others tripped over cords 
stretched near the ground, releasing sprung saplings that hurled 
spears forward. Or were caught in loops that lifted them high into 
the air where they were easy targets. One man, lifted by such a 
snare, whipped out his hunting knife and cut the rope-only to 
land on his head, splitting his skull open. 
Fu Antos was unsatisfied. He had organized the ambush so 
that no ninja would be seen, and none killed. That caution had 
prevented him from carrying through the eradication of the invading 
party. The secret of the Black Castle was in danger of becoming 
known, and therefore was in peril of complete destruction; 
secrecy and security were virtually identical. He had to take immediate 
steps to stop future excursions. Simple defense of the jungle 
area would no longer suffice. 
* 
He was very high up in Petrobas, the Brazilian Oil Company, 
literally. He was on the thirtieth floor of the modern skyscraper 
that housed the oil bureaucracy in Brasilia, the futuristic capital of 
the United States of Brazil. He was a highly paid executive in charge 
of locating potential oil fields in the central Amazonian wilderness. 
He was one of the few really intelligent bureaucrats. Given 
the mere hint of oil in a given region, he would sniff it out relentlessly. 
And he had the hint: special purchases of equipment, shipped 
up the Amazon River. Someone was drilling for oil-not a mere 
test well, but a producing one. Somewhere in the jungle of the 
Amazon. 
There were other evidences. An oil prospecting unit had been 
attacked and wiped out by formerly acquiescent Indians. That suggested 
that some private enterprise was operating in that region,
79 
stirring up the natives with promises of wealth or whatever, acting 
to keep their discovery secret. Fernando Mirabal, brother to the 
Director himself, had narrowly missed being killed in that action. 
The Mirabals were bad enemies to have; those Indians would be 
sorry. 
If he, Gal Costa, could locate that strike and verify it, he could 
arrange to expropriate the site for the government petroleum company. 
There were certain complexities involved, but that was his 
business: to comprehend and manipulate the jungle of economics 
and regulations so as to bring maximum profit to his company. He 
did the brainwork, then turned the matter over to Ramiro Mirabal, 
the Director, for the action. It was a good working arrangement. 
Fu Antos, hidden in his half-built, largely underground Black 
Castle in the jungle, thought so too. There was much dead-wood 
in Petrobas, as there was in any government enterprise. But some 
branches were live wood. It was necessary to prune those branches, 
so as to render the giant oil company inactive, at least as far as new 
oil fields research went. So a few select assassinations would alleviate 
the problem with minimum fuss; there need be no more bloody 
excursions up the river. The Mirabal brothers had proved more 
formidable than anticipated. Fu Antos had hoped to nab Fernando 
during the police raid up the tributary, but the man, wary of such 
traps, had not come. It had been a bad mistake to let that man live 
after their first encounter. But the lesser actions could not wait; if 
he held them up pending the death of Mirabal, he could lose the 
war.
This sort of thing was far from the mind of the executive Gal 
Costa, high in his air-conditioned office in the capital city. Never 
in his life had he been physically threatened. His concern, as he 
stood hands linked behind him looking out the immense picture 
window at the magnificent skyline, the almost purple sky above 
the red earth beyond the modern building-his concern was only 
with the evidence on paper. No one else had fathomed the pattern; 
no one but he knew where the secret oil field was. There were 
elaborate maps on his wall, and hefty tomes of statistics on his 

80 
shelf. By a process of perceptive elimination he had narrowed down 
the possibilities to three, and two of these were questionable for 
devious but convincing reasons. In the third there was probably 
an extremely rich oil field awaiting exploitation. Now it was time 
to make his report, significant not so much for its factual information 
but, like a lawyer's summation, for its clear rationale and the 
specific thrust of its recommendations. Costa was in his fashion a 
creative artist; he could perceive and document that obvious possibility 
that all others missed. Ramiro Mirabal would read this report, 
act on it, and strike oil, and there would be a new world 
power nexus right here in Brazil. This was potentially more significant 
than the Mexican strike. And Costa would be well rewarded. 
Ramiro was very good about things like that; he helped 
those who helped him, so long as they were loyal. 
Costa buzzed for his secretary. She entered, carrying her 
notepad. She was a Meztiza, half-Indian-a small mousy-looking 
girl, dark of skin and hair. No office ornament; he had chosen her 
for her discretion, competence, and loyalty. She was an excellent 
stenographer, and never spoke of company matters outside the 
office. She lived in one of the favelas near the city, supporting her 
aging parents and feebleminded brother. She was not well paid, 
for then she might have become independent; as it was, she knew 
that only absolute loyalty to the company would preserve her job 
and therefore her livelihood. For if she were fired, she would be 
blackballed, and her half-caste family would starve unless she turned 
to drug traffic or prostitution-and she lacked the nerve for the 
first and the figure for the second. Costa knew his employees well. 
"Put a hold on all incoming calls, Candelaria," Costa snapped. 
"Notify the switchboard that I am not to be disturbed for any 
reason for the next two hours. Lock the door. I'm ready to dictate." 
She returned to her desk to make the necessary calls. But the 
first one was to an outside number. The phone was lifted at the 
other end, but no one answered. "Time," she said, and broke the 
connection. Then she took care of the other matters and returned 
to her employer.
81 
For an hour she took dictation. Then Costa grew hungry, as he 
generally did when in the throes of creativity. "Fetch me a candy 
bar," he said. "Quickly." It was not that his hunger was that urgent, 
it was that he wanted the surge of food energy to guarantee 
the continued high output of his brain, so that he could birth the 
brilliant report at one sitting. Every minute's delay threatened to 
dull the fine cutting edge. 
Candelaria unlocked the door, went into her office and thence 
to the hall with money from the petty change box. A man stepped 
silently forward to meet her. He handed her a wooden box. She 
accepted it with hardly a pause and carried it on down to the 
candy machine, feeling a slight vibration within it. Perhaps it was 
merely her nervousness. 
The man stood waiting for the elevator down to the ground 
floor. Modern as this building was, it still suffered delays. The 
indicator showed the elevator was stationary on the second floor; 
something was holding it up. After a moment the man moved to 
the stairwell and started down. Thirty stories was a long way, but 
he preferred not to wait. 
Candelaria carried box and Hershey bar into her office. She 
brought both all the way into the executive's office. She handed 
him the candy, went back to the door, set down the box and opened 
it. 
"Candelaria!" Costa said, irritated. "What are you doing?" 
"It will only take a minute," she said, drawing out a plastic 
bag filled with something that quivered and hummed. 
"I'm in the middle of dictation!" he protested. 
"Dictate to this," she said, flinging the bag toward him. It 
burst open, releasing a dark cloud that buzzed angrily. She stepped 
quickly out the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. 
"What on earth-" Costa exclaimed, furious at this unexpected 
insolence. That girl had just lost her livelihood! Then he saw the 
cloud and recognized it. "Bees?" 
Years before, an enterprising beekeeper had imported small 
honeybees from Africa, in order to crossbreed them with local, 

82 
strains and develop superior honey producers. The African bees 
made half again as much honey as American bees. But they were 
also ten times as fierce. The individual sting of a bee was no worse 
than average, but these Africans were much more eager to sting. 
Where a person might blunder into a nest and receive two or three 
stings ordinarily, he would receive twenty or thirty from an African 
swarm in the same time, and when he ran, they would follow 
for as much as a mile. 
In 1957 some of these killer bees were accidentally let loose 
near the city of S�o Paulo, Brazil. Since then they had spread relentlessly, 
killing or mating with local queen bees. Their vitality 
and aggressiveness gave them a competitive edge against the natives. 
Every year they increased the radius of their territory another 
hundred miles or so, until they covered all South America. 
The North Americans were viewing the approaching invasion of 
their continent with growing alarm, unable to do much about it. 
As with the stinging fire-ants, that flourished despite all the efforts 
of modern technology, the bees progressed. 
All this flashed through the executive's mind in an instant, for 
he well knew the history and nature of the bees. It would take 
perhaps 500 stings to be lethal to a man-but this confined swarm 
could deliver that. There was no other living target in the room. 
He hurdled the bag and charged for the door-and found it 
locked. Fernando Mirabal could have bashed it down with his 
mighty shoulder; he was a fantastic brute of a man. But not Costa; 
he was soft and paunchy from years of desk work. 
Now the bees were on him, striking like miniature dive-bombers. 
Sting! Sting! Sting! Faster than he could perceive, let alone 
avoid, they scored on his bare arms and face and neck. He shut his 
eyes, but they stung through his eyelids. He screamed-and they 
stung his lips and tongue. They were all over him, in his clothing, 
crawling up inside the legs of his pants, through the sleeves to his 
armpits, from his shirt collar down his back, stinging everywhere. 
Maddened by the continuing pain, he picked up his heavy 
swivel chair with hysterical strength and smashed it through the
83 
picture window. Now there was an escape! He flung himself out 
through the jagged gap and sailed through the air, knowing that 
relief was at hand at last. 
Costa's descent was more efficient than that of the ninja who 
had brought the bees. By the time the ninja reached the ground 
floor, a guard was there. The building was already being sealed off, 
with all occupants suspect. "Stop!" the guard cried, aiming his 
handgun. 
The ninja walked quickly up to him. His lips parted lightly, 
revealing a small wooden tube. From this tiny blowgun emerged a 
poison-tipped needle, Fukumi-Bari , a special ninja dart. It pierced 
the guard's right eyeball, carrying its serum directly into his brain, 
and the man fell dead. 
The ninja departed the building and the city swiftly, mission 
accomplished. If Candelaria were lucky, she too would escape to 
find sanctuary at the Black Castle; but even if she failed, she had 
the satisfaction of avenging her situation. 
* 
The dwarf-ninja stood only three and a half feet tall, but size 
was no indication of his prowess. He was, after all, one of the 
original Japanese minions of Fu Antos. 
He moved down the river in his miniature canoe, paddling 
swiftly and silently until he spied the night lights of the town. 
This was where the oil company troops were garrisoned. The town 
itself had a population of about 5,000, and was the nearest substantial 
settlement to the ninja camp: useful for minor supplies 
and contacts. So normally the ninjas had left it alone. Now it had 
become a liability, to an extent. The capitalist forces were moving 
in, and it was necessary to blunt their encroachment by selective 
pruning, as at Brasilia. 
The dwarf beached his boat silently and tied it within the 
high foliage of a tall overhanging tree: the last place a soldier would 
think to look. In addition he left a band of poison on the handle of 

84 
its paddle, just in case a stranger did discover it and try to use it. 
Stealing ninja equipment was hazardous business. 
Now he slunk around the backs of the buildings, seeking the 
army unit's temporary barracks. A battalion of troops had arrived 
in the past week, some five hundred men under the command of 
Major Albuquerque Lima. 
The major was not the run-of-the-mill army man. He was 
Nordic, of German lineage, his parents having settled in Brazil 
and changed their name after World War II. His father had been a 
career officer in the German military machine, one of the thoroughly 
professional soldiers that had made the Wehrmacht the 
finest fighting force in the world despite Nazi interference. He was 
tough, fair, and tactically brilliant, prevented from rising to higher 
rank solely by the conspiring jealousy of his less-qualified colleagues. 
He had made a specialty of jungle warfare and felt quite capable of 
handling a band of renegade Indians and any outside collaborators 
who were stirring them up. 
Fu Antos concurred with that assessment. Major Lima was 
dangerous, and would become more dangerous as his successes in 
the field forced his unwilling superiors to yield him increasing 
authority. Without him, his battalion was merely another unit, its 
guiding genius gone. 
The town, like many in the central Brazilian wilderness, was 
fairly new. It was near the river but not on it; instead it perched on 
a small rise of the ground, built there because of the periodic river 
floods. There were no paved streets; yellow dirt roads and crude 
wooden houses served the people adequately. Few people lived in 
central Brazil from preference; could they but afford it, virtually 
all would inhabit the pleasure city of Rio. 
The normal police post was small, about fifty men augmented 
in times of crisis by volunteers. However, the local police had been 
wiped out in the prior excursion upstream, and the army camp 
had been constructed on the outskirts of town. 
It was patrolled by armed guards, of course, but passing through 
this perimeter was child's play to the ninja dwarf. He skirted the
85 
main barracks, going instead to the Letrina. This was a simple 
wooden housing constructed over a big hole in the ground. The 
army was efficient about such things; no fooling with expensive 
and water-wasteful flush toilet facilities. When the hole was filled, 
dirt would be shoveled over the refuse and the shit-house moved 
to a new pit. 
There were two sections: one for officers, the other for men. 
The dwarf observed the privy for some time, waiting until it was 
empty, then entered the men's room. Here there was a board-seat 
with four holes. A thin partition separated this from the officers' 
facility. 
He donned his tekaki, metal claws fastened to both hands and 
feet, enabling him to climb vertical surfaces. He arranged a rope 
and little screw-in hooks about his body for ready access, and fastened 
his specialized weapons on his back. Then he mounted the 
seat nearest to the officers' partition, put his hands down on either 
side, lifted up his feet, and swung them back and down into the 
hole. He let his body drop silently, performing an acrobatic feat 
that would have been impossible for a larger or flabbier man. 
The pit was deep, but even in a few days a battalion of five 
hundred men can generate a lot of fecal matter. There was only 
four feet clearance between the seat-board and the semi-liquid mass 
of substance below. Since the seats were raised two and a half feet 
above ground level, the pit was getting full, and the structure would 
have to be moved in a few more days. The stench was intense. 
The ninja clung to the wooden ceiling by means of his tekaki, 
moving like a human fly toward the officers' section. One mishold 
and he would fall, suffering a fate a good deal worse than 
cleanliness. The partition extended down part way, terminating at 
ground level, eighteen inches above the smelly stew. The dwarf 
descended this, then froze as two enlisted men entered their section. 
He watched, clinging to the wall as their meaty posteriors 
plunked down on the seats and disgorged their contents. 
The troopers, their rounds expended, departed. The ninja resumed 
his journey. He brought his head down beneath the parti- 

86 
tion, so that he could see up into the officers' twin-holed evacuation 
center. All was clear. He passed one arm through and jabbed 
his claws into the wood, then followed with the other arm. Like a 
snake, he completed the contortion, his forepart ascending the 
wall while his hindpart descended on the far side. Somehow he 
performed the maneuver noiselessly and faultlessly, never touching 
the refuse below. 
Now he mounted to the seat-board. There were fewer officers 
than men, so that the twin seats represented much more adequate 
accommodations than the four. But officers always had the best of 
it; that was what they were paid for, even though their refuse stank 
as bad as that of the common herd. 
The ninja emplaced himself between the two holes, which 
were more widely spaced as though to accommodate broader beams. 
He hooked on firmly with both feet and one hand, then used the 
free hand to bring up one of his screw-hooks. Carefully, laboriously, 
he drove this into the wood. Silence was more important 
than speed. Then he screwed in a second hook, and strung his 
musubinawa, a special rope fashioned from woman's hair, between 
them. At last he rested his back within the loop of this fine, light, 
strong rope, and let go with his other hand. He unlimbered his 
small, sharp, barbed spear and held it in his right hand. Now at 
last he was ready for business. 
This procedure had taken well over an hour, and it was now 
two in the morning. He had a prospective wait of several hours. 
No normal man could have stood it, suspended uncomfortably 
above a pit full of shit-but this was a ninja. In perfect silence he 
waited. The atmosphere infused his being and caused him an imperative 
need to defecate-and, ironically, he was in no position to 
do so. 
Reveille sounded just before dawn, and the army camp came 
abruptly to life. The troops piled into the men's section, dropping 
an irregular avalanche of manure into the four mouths of the privy 
and letting loose an exuberant fusillage of wind. In minutes the 
level of odor rose appreciably, slopping under the partition in slow
87 
waves to displace the lesser offerings of the officers. As though to 
combat this intrusion, an officer came to make his own discharge. 
Now came the ticklish part. The dwarf had placed himself so 
that he could cover either hole, since he could not anticipate which 
one his prey might use. But there were a number of officers, and 
only one-Major Lima-was his assignment. There would be no 
second chance; he had to be sure he scored on the major, not a 
lesser man. 
He had to look. The posterior that covered the right hole gave 
no clues as to the rank of its owner. From this vantage, all men 
were equal. Well, not precisely equal; General Napoleon of France 
had spent so long wrestling with an evacuation complicated by 
piles that he had been unable to commence the battle of Waterloo 
advantageously. More of history was written in the outhouse than 
all the texts cared to admit. At any rate, the ninja had a problem. 
Had he been able to study photographs of the major's rear, he 
could have identified it now, but there was little light, and no 
such pictures had been available. Too bad that anal divination was 
not a contemporary practice, like palmistry or forehead divination. 
So he had to risk a peek through the left-hand hole. 
He did this cautiously, not poking his head through but angling 
his body so that he could glance slantwise through it and up 
at the officer's insignia of rank. To do this he had to slide his legs 
almost directly under the occupied hole-and they were quickly 
soaked by the flowing urine. He paid no attention. His gaze traveled 
up the sleeve, up the arm to the shoulder as he twisted about 
in his sling, to command a view of the insignia of rank on the 
collar. 
At last he saw it: a simple single star of a second lieutenant. 
Not his man. He swung smoothly back to his hiding place between 
the holes as the stream abated and the man stood up, not 
offering any solids to the pot this time. 
A few minutes later a second officer entered. This one took the 
left seat, and the dwarf swung the other way to spy his rank. 
There it was: the three five-pointed stars, one with golden 

88 
sunbursts between the points. The major! 
Now the dwarf hefted his spear, braced himself, and aimed it 
at the anus opening like a black flower. Gas blasted out from that 
orifice, like the firing of a blank-and the point of the barbed 
spear thrust directly into that fart and up into the intestine, driven 
by all the convulsed power of trained ninja muscles. The major 
lurched up, but the shaft followed, and as gravity brought the 
torso down again the tip pierced the beating heart and killed him. 
The man slumped on the seat, his career over. The dwarf snapped 
off the protruding shaft of the spear, leaving no visible cause of 
death, not even flowing blood, then proceeded to make his getaway, 
mission accomplished. 
He clung to the seat-board with his claws, unhooked the support 
cord, unscrewed the hooks, and let go. He dropped straight 
into the septic pool below. As he slowly sank into the brown slush, 
he placed a hollow reed in his mouth. Then he moved his arms 
and legs to draw himself down under the surface. Soon only the 
tip of the reed projected above, as the thick lumpy stew closed in. 
It was several minutes before another officer entered the privy. 
Then there was a commotion, audible to the dwarf despite the 
insulation of substance. He was sure the leaderless troops would 
not suspect the cause of the major's demise-not until the surgical 
post-mortem was performed. By that time it would be night again, 
and the ninja would silently emerge from his camouflage and make 
his way to the river. 
Quite possibly the soldiers would never catch on to the precise 
mechanism of the assassination. 
Ass-ass-in. Under his mask of shit, the dwarf smiled briefly, for 
he knew the term for his act in many languages. An ass had received 
a spear in the ass. 
But he had reckoned without knowing the cadre of officers 
and noncoms the major had assembled. In minutes these superior 
men had deduced the nature and timing of the event. Preferring 
not to wait on the tedious and uncertain process of formal justice, 
they took direct and immediate action. A sergeant made a charge
89 
out of three blocks of eight-pound military TNT, equivalent to 
over fifty pounds of commercial dynamite. He cut off a five-second 
length of fuse, dropped the mass through the privy-hole like a 
huge turd, and ran outside. 
There followed a spectacularly ugly and smelly scene. The explosion 
blew the privy apart, followed by a rain of wood, dirt, 
urine, feces, and fragments of the dwarf ninja. 
* 
Fu Antos learned of this vengeance very quickly. It made him 
angry, for the dwarf had been one of the most valuable of his agents. 
It also suggested that this army battalion was more formidable 
than anticipated, for the cadre had reacted with very nearly the 
insight and decision of a ninja. Simple elimination of its commander 
would not suffice; the entire unit had to be destroyed. 
But the battalion was now fully alert. Soldiers patrolled the 
perimeter of the entire town, challenging all strangers, and troops 
occupied many of the houses. The town was now under martial 
law. The dwarf 's canoe had been found and burned; machine-gun 
nests now overlooked the river. There was no way to infiltrate this 
area without the risk of substantial losses, and the ninjas could not 
afford further casualties. 
Fu Antos chose a subtler approach. He waited until the major's 
corpse had been put aboard a police craft with its honor guard for 
transport to civilization, then sent another ninja to swim the river. 
All eyes were dutifully on the funeral craft, making it easy; but the 
ninja stroked well beneath the muddy surface anyway, breathing 
through a tube to the air. The projecting part was concealed by a 
small tangle of floating debris. There were many such items in the 
river, so even the soldiers whose eyes strayed were not suspicious. 
At the appropriate point the ninja held his breath and swam underwater 
to the big pipe inlet where the river water was drawn into 
the town's supply system. Well water was not good in this swampy 
area, so the river was the cleanest source, bad as it was. The water 

90 
was pumped to a big tank where it was allowed to stand, so that 
much of the sediment settled out and floating particles could be 
skimmed off the top. It was passed through filters and piped to 
the army camp and many of the houses, now fairly clean and safe 
to drink. 
The swimming ninja opened a packet of powder, carefully 
kneading it so that it mixed with the water as it emerged. This 
solution was sucked into the supply pipe. 
The action took only a few seconds. The ninja swam back to 
his drifting debris, now further downstream, and applied his mouth 
to the tube embedded there. He continued on down the river 
unobserved, following the major. 
There was no immediate result of this mission. But the deed 
was done. The powder was a secret ninja formula derived from 
crushed mushrooms: a hallucinogen similar to LSD but more potent 
because there were no safety standards. In short, a drug of 
madness. 
All day the dissolved drug sat in the tank, spreading through 
the water. It was so powerful that even diluted thousands of times 
it still was dangerously potent. It neither floated nor settled out; it 
permeated the tank, being further thinned by incoming replacement 
water. Its effect was thus diminishing, and would vanish in a 
few days without trace. But that one day would be all that was 
necessary. 
Hallucinogenic mushrooms such as peyote have been used in 
many parts of the world. In some cases their essence passes through 
the human system without chemical change. Thus the shaman or 
medicine man may take a potent dosage, and the tribesmen drink 
his urine and suffer similar effects. 
The ninja drug intensified the natural, usually-suppressed propensities 
of people. A moody person would become so depressed 
as to sink into catatonia or commit suicide. A violent one would 
become a raving maniac, destroying everything around him. A 
strongly sexed one would become a literal satyr, indulging in re-
91 
peated and grotesque sexual acts, raping women and buggering 
men. 
A few hours after the ninja's passage, it began. Not all the 
people drank from the tank; many poorer ones had to dip directly 
from the river, and wealthier ones drank milk, wines and fruit 
juices in lieu of water. But they were in the minority, and because 
there were so many armed soldiers in the town, in such an atmosphere 
of alarm, the sane people were swamped in the rising tide 
of madness. 
No ninjas or other outsiders were near to report on that awful 
night. In the morning a river boat discovered the town burned to 
the ground, its inhabitants strewn all about: some shot, some 
stabbed to death, many strangled or clubbed. The women lay naked, 
evidently sexually molested, and many children too. The few 
survivors could offer no explanation; inexplicable madness had suddenly 
descended on the population, and the town had become a 
gruesome battlefield. 
Only the sergeant who had blown up the privy had a reasonable 
insight into the rationale of that destruction-and he had not 
been there. He had been a member of the major's honor guard, 
cruising down the river as the ninja swam in. 

Chapter 6: 
Wrath of the God 
I don't know how long I slept. Maybe a couple of days, for 
when I finally came to I was ravenous. In fact, it was the dinner 
bell that woke me. I needed no shill of a boy to guide me to the 
chow line this time, which was just as well, because Filho was 
gone. 
I fell in at the end of the long queue; it had taken me just 
enough time to get my bearings to make the last. My shoes were 
gone, and I was now in baggy prison pants with no belt, so that I 
had to hold them up with one hand. So when I made it to the 
front, I'd have trouble holding my meal. 
But the man on the end protested. He spoke no English, but 
pointed toward the head of the line. "Por favor. Almoco." 
"Uh-uh," I said. "I don't believe in crashing. I'll wait my turn." 
But now others saw me. Two men came back toward me. I 
thought it was going to be more trouble, but they were smiling. 
"Please, Mr. Jason," one said in recognizable English. "I am Honorio 
Chagas. No one will eat until you do."
93 
My brow wrinkled. "What's this all about?" 
"It is all over the prison. How they put you under the shock 
treatment, and you just laughed and told them nothing. And the 
butcher Mirabal got burned by his own machine and had to have 
a doctor come. And you never betrayed your comrades even though 
they were tortured before your eyes." 
"I had no comrades," I said. "Those were innocent strangers." 
But I wished he hadn't reminded me of that lovely girl and that 
poor old man, so brutally treated because of me. Mirabal was a 
butcher! 
"Just so," Honorio agreed approvingly. "You had no comrades, 
and so the lives of many in the movement were saved. It is unfortunate 
that brave old Carlos died, but at least he did not talk. And 
you beat up the informers. Here is your food." For he had brought 
me to the head of the line, and they were serving me. I decided to 
go along with this; they were determined and I was hungry. 
But now I had another problem. I couldn't take the food without 
letting go of my baggy pants, and then they would fall, and 
after what had happened before I was damned if I was going to 
bare my rear. Accused of pederasty, indeed! 
My new friend saw the problem. "Here-some string," he 
said. He looped the twine about my waist and tied it with a bow. 
"Thanks," I mumbled, accepting the food. It was a special 
treat, my friend informed me: Picadinho, or ground meat with 
okra and pimentos. Inpame and Xuxu, a pale green squash. Jilo, a 
delicate variety of eggplant. And so on, an astonishing variety for 
prison fare, I thought. Of course not everyone had every type; 
there was not enough. But the fact that there was any choice at all 
was remarkable. "What's the occasion?" I asked. 
"Did you not know? It is the Carnival," he explained. "Even in 
prison, we must celebrate, and we honor you especially, for your 
courage." 
"I was only trying to stop Filho from getting raped," I said. I 
don't like rape, and the involvement of a child or young person 
makes it worse, and homosexual rape of a boy-but it had all been 

94 
a setup, unreal. Someone had figured my reactions very carefully! 
"Why didn't anyone speak up then? You all saw what happened." 
"We did not trust you, sir," he explained. "We thought you 
were another shill, that we would only betray ourselves by speaking 
out. As for the boy-" and here he spat eloquently to the 
side- "impossible to rape that kind." 
That set me back. The clear implication was that Filho was 
himself a homosexual, used to the act. A male whore. I had heard 
somewhere that boys of a certain age were highly prized for this 
purpose; indeed, that they had erotic nerves in the anus that-or 
maybe it was a conditioned response-and I had charged to this 
one's rescue! No wonder the other prisoners had been suspicious! 
"I see you did not know," Honorio said. "We Latins hate sodomy 
worse than you do, but this was a trap, and it smelled. We are 
sorry we misjudged you; we apologize." 
"First you thought I was a shill," I said. "Now you think I'm 
one of the urban guerrillas. I'm neither. I really did not know 
those poor people who were tortured. If I had known them, I probably 
would have admitted it, to save them from-you know what 
Mirabal did to them?" 
"We know," Honorio said. He opened his mouth wide, to show 
two teeth missing. "But even if you know nothing, you are still 
Jason Striker. You would not come here to betray us." 
Was he trying to pump me for information about my mission? 
I could not afford to trust him. "I didn't want to come to Brazil at 
all," I said. "As soon as I get out of here, I'm going straight home." 
He nodded, not questioning me further. I finished my meal. 
It wasn't enough; it left me still hungry. But I knew I had a generous 
portion, and I was not about to complain. 
The whole of the prison had changed. Now everyone was 
friendly. I went for a drink of water at the lone tap, and someone 
warned me to beware of the worms. I had not been able to read the 
sign, in Portuguese. I didn't know what kind of worms were in 
that water, but I was good and thirsty this time, and there was 
nothing else. I drank.
95 
I returned to my bunk, feeling better. The long rest had done 
me good, and the improved mood of my fellow prisoners helped a 
lot. I lay down to rest some more. 
Several gunshots woke me. Honorio was with me almost immediately. 
"Down, friend!" he exclaimed. "Take cover." We cowered 
down by the bunk. 
Then all hell broke loose. There was a terrific explosion, and 
all the prisoners started running around and screaming. It was an 
instant, full-scale riot! 
Honori� grabbed my hand. "Follow me, Striker; it is for you 
they come." 
"What?" I was confused. 
"The MR-26 blew up the wall of the infirmary. Now we all 
escape, but especially you." 
Still I resisted. "I don't know anything about the Mister Twenty 
Six! It has to be a mistake!" Later I was to learn that it had been no 
mistake. Dulce had escaped, made contact with the Communist 
MR-26 Revolutionary Movement, organized them together with 
the MR-8 and several other similar groups, and planned a fullscale 
attack on the jail-all to free me. It was quite an irony, these 
Communist revolutionary groups coming to spring a complete 
capitalist like me. 
They had filled a fake ambulance with C-3 plastic explosive 
and TNT and driven it to the prison infirmary, telling the guards 
they were coming to pick up a sick prisoner. The guards, celebrating 
the carnival by imbibing 100-proof Cachaca, the colorless alcohol 
that was Brazil's national drink, had not been suspicious, 
and had let the ambulance into the inner courtyard, separated 
from the prisoners' court by a fence of iron bars. The plan was to 
explode the ambulance there, then charge in with a panel truck 
filled with men and wipe out the surviving guards. Then they 
would pick me up and their friends and scorch rubber getting out. 
But, as with so many straightforward efforts, the actual attempt 
had complications. The two men driving the ambulance 
had faked papers; the idea was for them to enter the prisoners' 

96 
courtyard so that they would not be harmed when the ambulance 
exploded in the guard's court. But one man lost his nerve and 
started running when a guard challenged him. That had triggered 
the exchange of shots that woke me. Then another guard had tried 
to open the back of the ambulance. Booby-trapped, it had exploded 
far more violently than the guerrillas, unsophisticated in 
such matters, had anticipated. The bombing was heard all over 
Rio, and a huge black cloud of smoke rose into the air above the 
prison, signaling the location plainly. This meant that help for the 
guards would be on the way much sooner than planned. The panel 
truck, charging in, rammed into the wall and got stuck in the 
gat asit was out of commission; and now it was every man for 
himself. The MR-26 people tried to rescue their own number 
from the cells, and the MR-8 theirs, forgetting any unified effort. 
This was the chaos I now found myself in. No wonder I balked! 
"Dulce," Honorio said. 
Then I decided to go along. How she could have become involved 
in any of this I could not guess, then, but no one in this 
prison should know of my connection with her, unless she had 
told him. Maybe this was another trap-but she did have something 
to do with the guerrillas, and the explosion and riot were 
real enough. 
Honorio led me to the gate between the prisoners' and the 
guards' compounds. Acrid smoke filled the area, and there was a 
wrecked panel truck to the side, partially blocking the way. Bodies 
were lying around. The explosion had blown the gate off its hinges, 
but some guards had rallied and were trying to stem the breakout. 
In the confusion we made it through the bedlam to the infirmary. 
There was a smoking hole in the wall. Guards were trying to close 
it off, but were held back by snipers firing from the buildings 
beyond. 
"We can't go there!" I protested. "We'll be shot too!" Honorio 
raised his hand and yelled something in Portuguese. Prisoners 
turned to look at him. Then they charged the guards near the 
wall. There was shooting and a brief struggle; then the guards
97 
were dead or unconscious. I was astonished at the number of homemade 
weapons I saw the prisoners use. The helpless guards were 
literally hacked to death by spoons honed razor-sharp, fragments 
of broken glass, razor blades embedded in potatoes, homemade 
blackjacks, even knives fashioned from metal from the bunks. 
"Come!" Honorio called to me. 
"What did you say to them?" I demanded, hanging back. 
"I said, 'Here is Jason Striker whom you let go to the torture 
on a false charge, and now his friends from the MR-26 Movement 
have come to free him, and all of you can go too-if you only get 
rid of those guards. This man whom you wronged so villainously 
forgives you and gives you your freedom, for this one small favor!'" 
"You didn't!" I said, aghast. 
He smiled. "No. I said 'Kill the bastards and get the hell out 
before the army comes!'" 
I saw the girl Ester, her of the lost tooth, running with several 
other female prisoners, apparently quite recovered from her ordeal. 
Her plump buttocks jiggled with every stride she took. I was 
glad to know she was free. Too bad the old man had died. 
And then I wondered: how had Honorio known about the 
death? Surely Mirabal would not have advertised the news over 
the loudspeaker. But there was no time to conjecture about such 
moot points. 
Now we passed on through the hole. I was afraid the underground 
Revolution snipers would fire on us, but they didn't. Instead 
someone called: "Jason!" 
I looked up-and there on the roof of the building across from 
the prison was Dulce, waving. What a wonderful sight! She had 
already been freed. That made my day complete-or so I thought. 
I charged down the street and around the corner of the building, 
hoping to meet her at the entrance. But I was one of a ragtag 
band of hundreds of escapees. The other prisoners, wisely, were 
eager to get as far away from the prison as possible, with no delay. 
My bare feet were vulnerable; I had to watch my step, lest my 
tender toes get trampled in the stampede. And my damned pants 

98 
kept falling down; somewhere in the rush the string had snapped 
and been lost. I had no underpants, and-well, it was awkward. 
So we swept pell-mell around the corner-and suddenly the 
crowd was ten times the size. We were like a rivulet joining a stream, 
our impetus merged with the larger body. A stream? Nay, this 
crowd was the mighty Amazon! I tried to get to the door of the 
building, but it was upstream and manifestly impossible in my 
present state. I was carried along the opposite way, down the street 
amidst the crocodiles, I mean the cheering throng. 
What was this? It seemed as though the entire population of 
Rio had disgorged into this one channel. Furthermore, the people 
weren't walking, they were dancing, despite the press of bodies, 
and they had a tremendous variety of weird costumes. Had the 
city gone crazy? No, of course it was the Carnival. 
I finally fought my way to the fringe and flattened myself 
against a building, letting the main current flow past me. Then I 
gripped myself, especially my sagging trousers, and forged upstream 
toward the key building. I took advantage of momentary 
eddies in the human stream, and clung to the wall when the tide 
became too strong, making erratic but inevitable progress. Soon I 
would recover Dulce! 
But abruptly I stopped. 
Because I saw two real predators on my trail, as crocodilian as 
men could get: Laureano the torturer and the three-hundred-pound 
football linesman of the original Death Squad that I had flipped 
on the beach when I rescued Dulce. 
I was in trouble. I might ambush them and knock them out, 
but I couldn't be sure how the crowd would react. They might 
turn against me, as had the prisoners during the homo episode. 
Sure, the prisoners had had reason to be suspicious, but maybe 
this crowd did, too. I was hardly a promising looking specimen, 
with my sprouting beard stubble, sagging pants and bare feet. I 
might be mistaken for a mugger or killer. Anyway, the last thing I 
wanted was to make a big scene. Better simply to lose them. One
99 
thing I dared not do was lead them toward Dulce; maybe that was 
what they really wanted. 
So I merged with the flowing crowd again, this time drifting 
with the current, ducking my head to reduce my height. I was 
taller than most of the natives, and it was a distinct disadvantage 
now.
My strategy seemed to work. Not because I had any real expertise 
at losing a tail, but because the surging and varied crowd 
made keeping track of anyone practically impossible. I lost the 
Death Squadders-but I also lost myself. Yes, I know that would 
never happen to James Bond-but I was stuck. Wherever I looked, 
there was a sea of gyrating bodies, gaudy costumes, smiling faces. 
What an extravaganza! It was like being caught in an ocean storm, 
as though I had now been washed all the way out to sea, with 
dancing human flesh in lieu of the raging elements. 
I fought my way to the fringe of the crowd again. And grabbed 
for my pants again. Too late. They dropped down to my knees, 
and passersby chuckled at my bare buttocks. If only the bastards 
hadn't taken my belt, and if only I hadn't lost Honorio's string. 
I bent over to get hold of my pants, and someone pinched my 
buttock. I whirled around, but I couldn't tell who in that mass of 
jiggling people had done it. What really got me was the fact that 
the only ones within range were women. I guess the ladies like to 
turn the tables when they have the chance. Can't really blame 
them. But I got my pants back up in a hurry. 
I struggled into a broad central avenue. Here there was a snarl 
of traffic, and I do mean a snarl, because I saw what had to be the 
mechanized units of the Brazilian Army on their way up the street. 
Stalled. Several tanks were unable to move through the jam, and 
just had to wait, while their crews smiled and waved at the passing 
people and watched the slow-moving floats. No doubt these units 
had been summoned to deal with the prison break. Fat lot of good 
they'd do. 
It was the carnival, all right. I saw floats very much like those 
in American pageants, filled with pretty girls-and let me tell 

100 
you, the pretty girls of Brazil are just as shapely as anywhere else. 
I'm sort of a voyeur; I admit it. In fact I'm even a bit proud of it. 
One striking exhibit was like a giant beer bottle, with an almostnaked 
girl sitting on the neck, and others dancing all around it to 
Latin rhythms. I really enjoy this sort of thing, but would have 
liked it even better if I weren't a hunted prisoner. 
One strange thing I observed: there were quite a number of 
men dressed up as women. There was no question of their sex; 
some were big and muscular, and one had a mustache. After my 
recent homosexual accusation-I just couldn't get that indignity 
off my mind!-I found this transvestitism a queasy matter. Did 
these men have repressed homosexual desires? I saw no, er, hankypanky 
going on, though. Well, it wasn't anything I understood. 
I forgot to hang on, and my pants dropped again. Damn! I 
grabbed for them-and leaped as I felt a sudden burst of extreme 
coldness, as if I'd sat down bare in a snowbank. Someone had 
squirted a shot of ether between my legs, the rapid evaporation 
making it icy. Another damned practical joke! 
Actually, this was evidently the season of pranks. I saw people 
pelting each other with confetti, serpentines, rotten eggs, flour 
from bags, and something I learned later was called bombitas de 
peo, literally translated as "little fart bombs"-filled, of course, 
with the most appalling stench. 
The afternoon was wearing on, and I was wearing out. The 
scant prison lunch seemed far in the past, and my stomach was 
growling. I felt like a fart bomb myself. I stumbled into an alcove 
where, oddly, there were no people, and paused, getting my bearings.
I saw a little roadside shrine, evidently a monument to one of 
the voodoo gods. It was a lump of brownish stone or clay or packed 
dirt streaked with grease, formed into the shape of a grotesque 
head whose eyes and mouth were formed with small seashells. A 
parody, surely, a joke, like a gargoyle; it reminded me of the time 
years ago when both Huntley and Brinkley broke down in chuckles 
on the evening news, telling how people were sending gar-
101 
goyles to friends for Saint Valentine's Day. Yet somehow this was 
real and malignant, unnerving. Probably it was my guilty conscience 
stirring for what I was about to do. The thing was on some 
sort of wooden platform, covered by a cloth, with burning candles 
set around it, and several big, beautiful conch shells, and some 
dried-out pieces of coconut. 
I had heard something about these. (I have a lot of funny bits 
of information jumbled about in my head.) People left offerings of 
food and clothing, much as they burned candles to saints. Apparently 
the food just sat there until it spoiled, or some hungry animal 
got to it. 
Well, I was a hungry animal! I hoped the voodoo god would 
not strike me down for my sacrilege, but hunger would certainly 
get me otherwise. I picked up a huge banana and peeled it, or 
tried to. I was so weak I had trouble even with that; the thing 
resisted my efforts as though possessed. By the god, maybe. I finally 
tore it open and took a bite-and it was so hard and fibrous 
I had to spit it out. 
No wonder. This was no banana, it was a plantain. The huge 
cousin to the banana, so tough it had to be cooked. Served me 
right. 
I ate some stale bread, and an overripe mango, and they really 
were good. There was also a little bottle of Cachaca, the ubiquitous 
alcoholic beverage of Brazil. I was thirsty, so I picked it up, 
considered the pale liquid inside, remembered my inevitable regrets 
over alcohol, felt a redoubled thirst, opened it and took a 
swig. And fired it back out in a blast like that of a blowtorch. It 
seemed like almost pure alcohol. If the voodoo god drank that 
firewater, no wonder he was such a grouch! I recapped it with my 
eyes streaming and put it back. Instead I pocketed the handkerchief 
full of black American pennies that also sat there. No kidding; 
they were genuine Lincoln-heads, anomalous here in Brazil. 
Genuine money, and I might need it. Not merely for money, but 
for self-defense. The fact is, a stocking filled with coins is one of 
the best blackjacks available. Hoods used this kind, and when the 

102 
police search all they find is loose change. I dare say it would be a 
dandy way to dispose of a weapon, too: drop the stocking in the 
trash, spend the money, and how would it ever be recovered or 
identified? For that matter, a sack full of sand is pretty good too. 
Anyone can arm himself if he really wants to. Anyway, there were 
seventy-seven pennies-yes, I counted them as I ate-and I presumed 
this was a magic number. A good mass. 
There was a large floppy battered peasant hat beside the food, 
another offering. I put it on my head. Finally I took a long red 
scarf and wrapped it around my waist. That served in lieu of a belt, 
and was a godsend. A voodoo godsend. Now I could keep my 
white rear hidden as well as my face. "Thank you, voodoo god," I 
said sincerely. "If I ever have a chance to return the favor . . ." And 
it seemed to me that there was a momentary glint in the eye of the 
grim statue. I shuddered. 
I started to rejoin the throng, then had another thought; I 
picked up the bottle of Cachaca and held it in my left hand. I had 
no intention of drinking it, but it would do nicely for camouflage. 
Now I looked just like a peasant on a spree; the Death Squad 
would never identify me. 
Well, there was one other thing. I squatted, scooped up a handful 
of dirt, and smeared it over my hands and arms. This darkened 
my skin and gave me that unwashed look of the illiterate farmer. 
For good measure I put some in my hair too. Now at last my 
costume was complete. 
I merged with the crowd again, feeling better. I had little reason, 
for I had no idea where I was. Even if I found my way back to 
the hotel, I would not be safe, for the Death Squad thugs would 
surely be watching it. That meant I had no way to get Kan-Sen's 
message, and could not proceed with my mission. Dulce was my 
only hope-and where was she now? 
Somehow I would just have to get some more money and locate 
the airport and take a plane home. Then I could check directly 
with Kan-Sen, and start over. 
Only two or three things wrong with that notion. First, how
103 
could I locate the airport, let alone obtain the money for passage? 
Seventy-seven cents would hardly cover it. Second, where would 
that leave Dulce? Alone and hungry in these teeming streets? Third, 
with no proper clothing and no identification, how could I get 
back into my country? And wouldn't the Death Squad be watching 
the airport and the other routes out of the country? 
In short, I was nowhere. So why the hell did I feel so good? 
I looked about, more or less free now from the pangs of hunger, 
embarrassment over my bare-assment, and apprehension about 
the pursuing Squad. So I could better assimilate my surroundings. 
And they were impressive. 
Brazil I had heard was as large and populous as all the other 
South American countries combined. I could believe it! I had never 
seen so many people, so packed, so hurried, going nowhere I could 
fathom, but going there fast. Cars plunged through the multitude: 
Volkswagens, Simcas, Mercedes, and big American cars, zooming 
by each other, through red lights, squealing around corners 
while the pedestrians drew aside just barely enough to avoid disaster. 
Why hadn't I been aware of this suicidal streak in the natives? 
Maybe prison had sharpened my sensitivities. Or, riding a taxi 
and dining with Dulce, I hadn't paid proper attention. 
Dulce, somewhere in this incredible city. I'd never find her! 
A group of blue-faced, white-nosed-and I mean poster-paint 
white, baboon-bottom blue!-black-foreheaded clowns went by. 
They had huge bouffants of orange fuzz in lieu of hair. There was 
a jangle of music, one might say tintinnabulation, as the pace of 
frolic intensified. Children paraded by, their bare feet dancing in 
the dust in rapid-Samba patterns. They carried drums, whistles, 
musical triangles, and the cuica, a weird wheezing instrument. 
Many adults wore brightly colored masks. 
There were also elaborate costumes emulating the colonial rule 
of the past: fancy laces, expensive satins, powdered curly wigs, 
billowing hoop-skirts. Many outfits looked quite expensive, and I 
wondered how the poor people could afford them. In contrast, 

104 
there were also a number of formal European suits, and near-naked 
young women. And Egyptian slaves in short white tunics and 
silver chains. Alpine peasants in thin white blouses and brief green 
shorts. Sultans' concubines in gold brassieres and flimsy silk trousers 
through which the panties showed. And so on; myriad and 
delightful were the ways in which the girls showed off their unquestionable 
charms. Anything, it seemed, went. 
I passed a girl dancing on a bandstand. "Oba! Oba!" she squealed 
as she gyrated. This was one of the words I was catching on to; it 
meant "Wow!" 
And suddenly I realized: the jailbreak must have been timed 
for this carnival-time, so that the escaping prisoners could lose themselves 
in the milling throng, just as I had done. Those army tanks, 
bogged down in the mire of holiday traffic-beautiful! 
Now the crowd parted to let a parade squeeze by with its 
accompanying band and costumed dancers. They seemed tireless, 
like the Oba-girl I had passed before, but my bare feet were hurting. 
I wedged back against a shop window with its big sign saying 
LIQUIDACAO-apparently a big sale. 
A blowzy woman clutched my arm. "Boa tarde!" she cried exuberantly. 
Evidently a salutation. 
I looked at her, repelled by her fat, flushed, coarse face, and 
tried to pull away. "I don't speak Portu-" 
"Seu nome?" she inquired, tightening her hold. 
Nome? Ah: Name. "Jason," I said. "But I don't-" 
"Nao compreendo," she said. "Voce doente?" 
I glanced back-and saw Mr. 300-lb. Football Linesman cruising 
down the wide street, peering this way and that through the 
crowd. I couldn't stay here; I was right in his path. Those Death 
Squadders sure were after me. 
I tried again to draw away from the woman, but she held my 
arm in a grip like that of a wrestler. Suddenly I realized I was going 
at it wrong; I could use her for camouflage. My pursuers obviously 
were searching for a tall lone foreigner. 
"Have a drink!" I said, offering her the bottle of Cachaca.
105 
Her eyes lighted, and that was a good trick, considering how 
bloodshot they were. She grabbed the bottle and popped the cork 
with her teeth. She was obviously expert at this sort of thing; I had 
twisted it off like a screw-on cap, in my ignorance. She tilted the 
bottle to her mouth and gulped the firewater down. Then she 
paused, with a half-glazed look of contentment, politely proffering 
it to me. 
Her slobber was on the rim, and I didn't want to touch any 
more of that paint-dissolver anyway. But the Squad player was 
closer yet, and now he seemed to have a couple of henchmen. I 
became very uncertain of my camouflage; how could dirt and a hat 
convert me into a native? So I had to do it: the smell of liquor on 
my breath would be the finishing touch, for they surely knew I 
didn't drink. I gulped a gulp, knowing that this time I had to 
swallow, not spit. 
And gulped. A river of fire coursed down my throat. I coughed, 
my eyes smarting. The woman whacked me on the back helpfully. 
"Oba!" I gasped. 
When my eyes cleared and normal breathing was restored, I 
spied the Squad leader almost on top of us. I had to hide my face. 
I took the woman in my arms as though she were my girlfriend. 
She giggled, pleased, jiggling all the way from her double chin to 
her double kneecaps, while the D.S. man squinted suspiciously. 
Did he recognize me? I had flipped him on the beach, and that's 
the sort of thing a man remembers. 
The woman was fifty years old, dirty, and sweaty from her 
dancing. Not that I was in any position to comment, with my 
own dirt and sweat and feet. Her hair straggled in sodden banks, 
looking like a frizzy fright-wig. From her mouth came a strong, 
bad odor; in fact her teeth were no more than rotten stumps. Her 
breasts must have been marvels in her time, but now resembled 
cow udders. She was some sort of mulatto with dark bronze skin, a 
huge waist and a very wide mouth. But the Squadder was still 
watching. So I nerved myself and kissed her. I had to squat down 

106 
somewhat to embrace her, as she barely came to my collarbone; 
this added awkwardness to indignity. 
Her lips were like liquor-spiked mush. Her huge breasts and 
belly shoved into me like inflated cushions, reminding me distressingly 
of the water-tortured man. What brutish things people 
did to their own bodies, in the name of uncontrolled appetite! I 
heard demonic laughter, and imagined for a moment it was that of 
the voodoo god whose chapel I had robbed, but it was the D.S. 
man, as he turned away. He couldn't see why anyone would want 
to kiss such a monstrosity. If only he knew! 
The crisis was over. I came up for air, and tried once more to 
disengage, but now the bitch was hauling me into an alley. With 
the sausage-thick fingers of one hand she was unbuttoning her 
blouse, showing her ponderous mammaries jiggling on her barrelbelly. 
Good God-she wanted the finale! 
I remembered what Hiroshi had told me of Fu Antos's early 
days: how he had made love to an ugly feebleminded woman, 
before an audience. But I was not Fu Antos, and I had had enough. 
I had to apply a simple wrist lock to free myself of her hold, and 
even then she resisted determinedly. I broke away, dragging her 
roughly forward in the process. She fell to elbows and knees, her 
exposed breasts almost dragging in the dirt. 
Her manner changed abruptly. She cursed me in Portuguese- 
I could tell it was profanity by the pistol-shot explosion of syllables
-and swept up a broken fragment of a brick. 
I turned and ran. The brick caught me between the shoulder 
blades and fell down, split in half. What aim that woman had! 
Then I was out in the crowd again, and safe; I would have a bruise, 
but nothing bad. 
The Oba girl was still dancing. I made my way toward her 
merely because she served as an attractive landmark. She was petite 
with a plump face, lovely red lips, and jet-black hair reaching 
down to her buttocks. Her waist and hips were small but well 
formed. Her handsome thighs flashed under her skirt and her neck-
107 
lace of seashells bounced on her bosom. She had half the age of my 
alley-bitch, but ten times the sex appeal; it was fun to watch her. I 
really had nothing better to do. 
Abruptly the girl stumbled and pitched forward off her stand. 
I dived to catch her before she hit the pavement. I made it; she 
landed neatly in my arms. A lithe, light morsel. 
"You're okay, I think," I murmured, setting her on her feet. 
"Just tired. Take a rest." 
But she stared wildly around. "Umbanda!" she exclaimed. 
"I'm sorry. I don't speak-" 
"Umbanda!" she repeated. She started to walk, and stumbled 
again. A second time I caught her. It was not a chore I objected to. 
"Look-your legs are dead," I said. "Don't get me wrong- 
they're beautiful legs! But how long have you been dancing here? 
Two hours? You can't go-go forever. You've got to rest." 
She looked at me with seeming comprehension, while the crowd 
cruised by obliviously. Then she gestured toward the row of shops 
fronting the street. "Umbanda!" 
It must be a place, I decided. Maybe a hotel where she was 
staying. She wanted to go there so she could rest and eat. "Okay, 
I'll take you there," I said. Fickle as I am, I'll do anything for a 
young pretty woman, and nothing for an old ugly one. 
I picked her up by knees and shoulders and carried her through 
the throng like a bride. It took time and effort, but every wave of 
the crowd shoved that pleasant torso against me, and that was 
fine. We made it to the edge, and I followed her gestures until we 
came to the place she wanted. 
It was a little shop with the word UMBANDA. A family business?
We entered. The shop was crowded with statues of Catholic 
saints as well as voodoo replicas. The shelves were full of a variety 
of herbs, powders, lotions, essences-as well as more modern aerosol 
cans with printed labels. 
The proprietor came forward. He was an old Negro at least 
seventy, bowed down with those years, with frizzled white hair. 

108 
The girl spoke unintelligibly, and he nodded. He went to a shelf 
and brought down a small package of powder. 
I looked around and saw a voodoo statue just like the one in 
the alcove whose offerings I had borrowed. This was a voodoo store! 
The shell-eyes of the figurine seemed to be watching me. I 
had taken its offerings; did it mean to punish me? 
The proprietor said something, the girl answered-and I became 
aware that something was amiss between them. Something 
to do with the purchase. Haggling over the price? 
The girl turned to me. "Por favor," she said pleadingly. 
So she was out of cash. Inflation was rampant here, I knew; 
prices could double in a few months. But of course that could 
happen back home too. If I could put a strangle on inflation and 
wipe it out-but no judo hold could do that, unfortunately. 
I turned out my pocket and produced the seventy-seven black 
pennies. "That's all I have-but if it'll help . . ." 
The proprietor shook his head. Not enough. Not surprising. 
The girl gave a little sigh of resignation. She picked up her 
money, returned my pennies to me, and turned to go. 
"Esperar!" the proprietor said. He held out the package. He 
was agreeing to the price after all. 
We paid our money and accepted the package. On the way 
out, my eye caught that of the idol again, and it gave me the 
shivers all over again. I was acutely conscious of the source of my 
limited wealth. The voodoo god did know! 
The girl saw my glance, and nodded knowingly. "Umbanda," 
she repeated. 
Oh. Maybe that was the name of the voodoo god, my benefactor. 
Ah, well. "Umbanda," I agreed. "Where to now, Oba?" I expected 
her to return to her bandstand. It had been a pleasant little 
interlude, and I was glad to have helped her, but I had other concerns 
to attend to. Such as finding Dulce before the D.S. found 
me. 
The girl gave a start and glanced at me as if I'd goosed her. She 
stood at the edge of the throng, looking across it at her stand. I saw
109 
that another girl had taken it over. She looked down at her package, 
then again at me. She shrugged, making a decision. "Vir," she 
said, taking my hand. 
It looked as though she had adopted me. Well . . . 
We sidled along between the stores and the crowd. Now it was 
dusk, and the lights were coming on. I had spent the whole afternoon 
in my wandering. 
The carnival showed no sign of abating. If anything, it intensified 
into a seeming frenzy as the darkness enveloped the city. 
Colored lanterns bobbed in bright waves, swung by dancers. Many 
were on tall poles, and looked heavy, so the dancers had to be 
strong and skilled. Down the street was a whole group of lights, an 
organized band of dancers twirling them. Each person had a sort 
of leather belt like an apron, with a place to catch the bottom of 
the pole, and they swung it with their hands to make it twirl and 
wave. Very pretty, singly and in concert. Despite my predicament, 
I was getting to like Rio. But now my Oba-girl seemed to have lost 
interest. 
She led me through side streets, out of the noise of the crowd, 
and finally into a dark building. I thought I was in for a private 
tryst, and I was not loath. I'm a bit like the man in the musical 
Finian's Rainbow who sings: "When I'm not near the girl I love, I 
love the girl I'm near." I realize this makes me seem less heroic 
than I'd like, but I'm really not a hero, just a judo instructor gone 
astray, never cut out for the high life. Only one girl ever evoked my 
outright love, and she died, and no woman since was able to touch 
me deeply. It would have dishonored the memory of Chiyako for 
me to love another woman, or so it seemed. So I took love where I 
found it, not wanting any more lasting commitment. In judo I 
was a yudanshai, a master; in love a mudansha, a dilettante. I followed 
her into a gloomy passage, then into a dimly illuminated 
room crowded with people. Not a tryst, but a meeting-or a mass 
orgy.
I looked around the circle of faces, actually an oblong of faces, 
as the people sat on benches near the walls. They were mixed, 

110 
ranging from white to black, and solemn: neither hostile nor happy. 
They shared a common passive intensity, as though in meditation. 
Many wore gaudily colored medals with mystic inscriptions, and 
bright plastic-beaded necklaces of the sort I had seen at the store. 
Some wore jewelry made of shells, animal teeth, tusks and ornately 
carved wood. 
Pottery burners set around the room contained fragrant incense; 
some of it merely charred, but some of it sported colorchanging 
flames. 
Now I became aware of sound: weird chanting with an indefinable 
melody and strong tom-tom beat. It was soft, not loud, 
but the base harmonies had a compelling effect, like the massed 
heartbeat of a sleeping giant. I spied the source of it: an old-fashioned 
phonograph. Was this a fancy dance, after all? 
Around the room, set in alcoves, and on tables in the center, 
were painted plaster figurines-many strange, some shockingly 
familiar. I recognized St. George on a white horse, a Buddha, and 
Jesus Christ himself. But then I remembered: modern Latin mysticism 
combined voodoo with Roman Catholicism, using the Saints 
and conventions of both. 
I had been brought to something very like a Black Mass. 
Oba led me around the edge to a gap in the seating, and we 
sat down on the end of a bench. Now I saw hooded objects in the 
center, on the tables, hazy behind smoking incense. These shapes 
were somehow menacing in their somber outlines, like malignant 
ghosts. I don't consider myself superstitious, but there are times 
when I get distinctly nervous about the supernatural, and this was 
such a time. Something was brooding, menacing, unnatural, in 
this room. 
I don't know how long we sat there, with me trying to get up 
nerve to walk out and never quite making it. Probably only a few 
minutes, though even that was far too long for comfort. Why had 
Oba brought me here? I had only tried to help her when she fell. 
That damned music kept insinuating itself into the crevices in my 
civilized armor, undermining my certainty that black magic had
111 
gone out with the onset of the twentieth century. My eyes darted 
guiltily around as if seeking some escape. Now it seemed that we 
sat in some kind of pavilion, with hand-hewn poles supporting a 
palm-thatched canopy. I had not noticed that when we entered, 
but it must have been here, perhaps concealed by the gloom. It 
now seemed as though we were in an isolated jungle temple rather 
than a city building. I was reminded vaguely of Halloween. I 
counted some fifty or sixty people and knew there were more I 
could not see without making myself too obvious. All silent, all 
somber. 
The music stopped. Apparently that had been merely the introductory 
piece; now the live show was to begin. A figure entered 
and marched to the center. It was obviously the man in charge. He 
wore a white suit, white shoes, white socks, white hat, and looked 
like a businessman, except for the multiple rattling bone and shell 
necklaces he sported. He was dark-skinned. Actually, three quarters 
of the people in Brazil were some shade of dark, ranging from 
off-white to solid black. He had short, dark, greasy hair that looked 
as though it wanted to curl but couldn't. His face was pockmarked 
from acne or smallpox and he had a gold tooth in front, but his 
eyes were bright and compelling. He was neither tall nor young, 
being forty-five or fifty and standing about five-two, and he was 
thin-yet he had the subtle mannerisms of good breeding and 
education. I was struck again by the contrast the largest necklace 
made: it had a large crystal bead, followed by white, blue, red, 
yellow, black, green and brown beads. Tasteless-I thought then. 
The man spoke, and now seven young women traipsed in, 
scantily clad in robes of many colors. So there was after all to be 
entertainment of some sort; every time I thought I had it straight, 
something happened to change the picture. 
The girls formed a circle around the man. He went to the 
tables and struck a wooden match. The sulfurous flare of light was 
eye-stabbing in the gloom, making me wince. The master-of-ceremonies 
touched it to a candle on the main table, pronouncing 
strange-sounding words. I mean these didn't even sound like Por- 

112 
tuguese, but some litany from the hidden heart of the Dark Continent. 
Then he brought out from a cabinet below another hooded 
object and set it on the table beside the candle. He took a small 
pitcher of water and poured some on the floor before the table, 
three times. 
Suddenly the candle was snuffed out as if by an unseen hand. 
I jumped, though of course this was merely some magic trick or a 
random draft of air. There was a general murmur of alarm; evidently 
the spectators did not view this as coincidence. 
The man lit the candle again, bowed his head reverently before 
the covered figure, and spoke in that strange tongue again: 
Ala le ele cupas ofago meco Eleggua ake boro ake boye, tori toru la ya fi 
yoroure. Or something like that; I really did not catch it. 
And the candle went out again. 
Now there was a fair commotion in the room. Something was 
definitely wrong. 
The master-of-ceremonies seemed to realize it too. He whipped 
off the hood-and there was the cement head of the god whose 
offerings I had raided. 
"Eleggua," the girl beside me murmured. 
So that was the name of the god, my nemesis. I had misunderstood 
when she said "Umbanda" before; the one was the cult, the 
other the god. This was no entertainment, it was a genuine voodoo 
ceremony. And why did that make me so nervous? 
The witch doctor-for so I knew him to be now, despite his 
mostly modern dress-spoke to the idol. He brought out a fat 
cigar, lit it, puffed, and blew the smoke at the head. No insult, I 
realized; evidently the god liked good cigars, and this was its way 
of experiencing them. Then the man set the cigar still burning, 
down beside the image as an offering. 
Once more he lit the candle. But somehow his sleeve caught 
it, and the candle tipped over to fail against the head. The grease 
flared up, producing copious smoke, while the witch doctor stepped 
back in alarm. Ignorant as I was, I knew that this was entirely 
unorthodox, in fact, a sacrilege.
113 
The blazing head exploded. Fragments of pottery, cement and 
hard dirt fell to the floor. And underneath that heat-shattered visage 
was revealed-a human skull. 
"Exu!" many voices cried, shocked. And somehow I understood 
that this was a new and terrible aspect of the god. This was, 
in fact, Satan. 
And the awful square hollows of those two eye-sockets stared 
straight at me. 
The witch doctor was quick to notice this fact. He pointed to 
me. "Who are you?" he cried, whether in Portuguese, African or 
English I could not tell in my confusion, but I understood him 
well enough. "Who are you who has enraged our God?" 
Now Oba was staring at me with horror. She had never suspected 
she was harboring such a criminal. 
There was nothing for it but to face the music. I stood up. "I 
am Jason Striker of America. I took food and clothing and money 
from this god's shrine in the city because I needed them. I faced 
death otherwise, and did not know he would object so strongly." I 
was really saying I did not know I would get caught. 
Now all the people were staring at me as though I had broken 
wind in church-as perhaps I had. 
Suddenly I was on trial. Yet the witch doctor was fair. "Evidently 
you do not know our customs," he said in English. "You 
have insulted the most savage aspect of one of our most powerful 
gods, and he will have his reckoning. Thieves are legion in Rio; 
nothing is safe, especially during the carnival. But no one, no one 
steals from the gods! Especially not savage Exu." And he looked 
grim. 
So that was why those items had remained untouched beside 
the idol. I should have known that anything stealable would have 
been stolen long before I got there. I looked around, bracing myself 
for action, going down instinctively into a basic defensive position: 
legs slightly spread for good balance, one arm high and the 
other low for defense or attack. I was sorry I had offended these 
people, but I wasn't going to submit myself to primitive voodoo 

114 
vengeance without a fight. I had already had my fill of Brazilian 
custom in prison. 
"Peace," the witch doctor said. "We shall not hurt you. Exu 
himself will secure his reckoning in his own fashion. You cannot 
escape it." 
Oh. They believed, of course. Primitivism extended right into 
the present, here in Brazil. Yet I was nervous. The way the god had 
seemed to reject the offering, and changed its aspect to orient on 
me-the witch doctor could not have known beforehand. 
"I must ask the god what he wishes," the witch doctor said. 
"We cannot proceed with our mass without the despacho, the ritual 
offering to Exu. He must accept it, or we are lost. We must appease 
him." 
I didn't want any more trouble if I could avoid it. There were 
too many people here for me to overcome; certainly I could not 
escape without hurting someone. Besides that, I was in the wrong. 
If the witch doctor was willing to be reasonable, I would have to 
go along. 
"I shall use the shells," he said. "The Table of Ifa is infallible." 
He took sixteen small shells in both hands, rubbed them together, 
then threw them on a straw mat. He studied the configuration, 
then threw them again. Some landed on their "top", sides, 
the serrations like little mouths, while others showed their hollows. 
I was reminded of the I Ching of the Chinese, in which 
yarrow sticks are thrown into patterns and interpreted by the books; 
my friend Kobi Chija had used that method on occasion. Kobi, 
the father of Chiyako, my lost fiancee. 
That memory was painful, as always, and I concentrated on 
what the witch doctor was doing. He threw the shells four times, 
then looked at me. 
"On the first throw of the caracoles only two shells were upright," 
he said. "This would be Exu speaking, and the proverb he 
invokes is 'There is an arrow between brothers.' It is possible that 
this is a warning, a curse he has placed on you, fomenting trouble 
between you and-"
115 
"I have no brother," I said. 
"Or one close to you. The god does not choose to express his 
sentiment in a single phrase, and we would not understand it if he 
did, for we are merely mortals. The second throw showed nine 
shells upright; this is a clarification by one of the other gods: 'Your 
best friend is your worst enemy.' This strengthens the first warning."
"If that's the curse, it's a bad one," I agreed, uncertain how to 
react. The man seemed perfectly sincere, explaining this to me as I 
would explain a fundamental judo point to a new student. Why 
did he bother? He could hardly have any good feeling for me. 
Later I was to learn that in fact Santerios, as they are known in 
Spanish, often do maintain a doctor-patient relationship, having 
genuine interest in the welfare of their clients. A few are avaricious 
and some are frauds, as with any profession, but most are honest 
and competent. So this was in character for the man. This adventure 
was to give me a lot more respect for the witch doctor. Once I 
would have sneered at the very notion of voodoo. Not any more. 
"You could not have chosen a worse god to offend," he agreed. 
"I have been pai-de-Santo for many years, and I have never before 
seen Exu so angry. We must resolve this crisis, or there will be 
terrible trouble." 
"For you as well as me?" I inquired, perplexed. I had the growing 
feeling that I was dealing with a sincere man; he had a manner 
about him that compelled respect. 
"For us all," he said. "Your offense was from ignorance, but it 
can be no accident that you came here. Exu summoned you, to 
call you to account. Therefore we are obliged to work with you, to 
help you expiate his anger. If we fail, that wrath. will fall on us, for 
we are not ignorant." 
I felt more and more like a heel. At the same time I wondered: 
Oba had fallen at precisely the time I was there to catch her; could 
the god have stricken her at his convenience? Then Oba had changed 
her mind, as though guided by some voice in her head, and brought 
me here, and that decision had happened under the eye of the 

116 
god, in the store. I preferred to call my presence coincidence, but 
I had to admit there was a pretty strong case to be made the other 
way. The way Eleggua had refused the candle and manifested as 
Exu-well, there's a bit of the primitive in every man, and the 
primitive in me was ready to believe. "I don't suppose just apologizing 
and giving back the things I took would suffice?" 
"I do not know," he said. "But I suspect it would not suffice, 
for then others might have the notion that they could take Exu's 
things and return them only when challenged. More likely he 
seeks to make an example of you, so that never again will his chapels 
be profaned. Exu may even have directed your initial offense 
with that in mind; we can not yet know." If this complication 
upset him, he gave no sign. "The third throw showed eleven shells 
upright. This is Exu speaking again: 'Be distrustful; carry water in 
a straw basket.'" 
"Can't carry much water that way," I remarked. "Even I know 
that!" 
"Precisely. Do not depend on what you see, for it will slip 
away like water through straw. The fourth throw showed twelve 
shells upright: 'You are defeated through your own fault.'" 
"But why should Exu curse me?" I asked. "I'm ready to make 
amends. In fact, I planned to return the things when I had a chance; 
I'm sure I said as much at the time. I never sought any quarrel 
with him. It doesn't make much sense." 
"Not immediately; not to you," he said. "Let us see whether 
Exu's ire has abated." 
I sat down again, and the ceremony resumed. This time there 
were no hitches. Exu accepted the cigar and candy. There was a 
sigh of relief through the hail. My own sigh was among the others. 
Now the three drums started, making an intricate syncopation. 
The seven girls danced. Their movements were symbolic, not 
erotic; I soon felt myself swept up in the ascending beat of it. My 
feet moved; my hands tapped. But I kept my seat, not wanting 
any more trouble. Oba, beside me, had relaxed; I was no longer an 
albatross.
117 
On and on it went, the beat louder, more insistent, the girls 
moving faster, their beads and shell-necklaces rattling rhythmically. 
The others in the mass were as rapt as I. Voodoo this might 
be, but it had its compulsion. 
Suddenly one of the girls screamed and fell. She writhed on 
the floor, but the others kept on dancing, as if hypnotized by the 
drums. The fallen one wore black, and her necklace had triplets of 
red beads alternating with triplets of black ones. From her mouth 
poured a chanting stream of unintelligible sounds, out of which 
leaped the electrifying words "Jason Striker!" 
The witch doctor-or more correctly, pai-de-Santo- when in 
Brazil, speak as the Brazilians do, I always say-listened intently. I 
realized that the dancer had been possessed by the god she represented, 
Exu, and that that god was not finished with me. And in 
the throbbing pulse of the dance and the flow of the girl's words, 
I felt an awful chill. I had entered this place an innocent skeptic; 
now I was becoming a guilty believer. What a mouthful the god 
had to say about me! 
At last it stopped. The girl lay still for perhaps thirty seconds, 
then climbed to her feet a bit shakily and resumed her dance. I 
was sorry for her, for the brutish possession she had had to suffer 
on my account; it had surely not been pleasant for her. Now flecks 
of blood were on her costume where the spittle of her seizure had 
landed. 
The pai-de-Santo came to me, frowning. "It is very bad," he 
said. "Exu accepted the dispacho only to enable the ceremony to 
proceed, that he might make his ire properly known." 
"Uh-oh," I said, and I was not being facetious. 
"He has put a terrible curse on you. You will be slain by your 
best friend, at the time you least suspect. Exu has spoken, and will 
not be appeased." 
So it was only a voodoo curse, by a god I didn't believe in. 
Nothing to alarm me, yet I was alarmed. The drums, the dance, 
the divination by shells, the speaking with tongues-there was an 
authenticity and authority about all this that forced my unwilling 

118 
acceptance. I knew voodoo had an appalling hold over illiterate 
superstitious peasants, yet this was a bustling big city, and many 
in the audience wore expensive clothing. This Umbanda evidently 
had an aducated clientele. They believed, but I was a more civilized 
modern man-wasn't I? 
"You may not believe," the pai-de-Santo said without rancor. 
"But Exu is all-powerful. He can strike you anywhere in Brazil; 
only by returning quickly to your homeland, where your own god 
is strong, can you hope to escape him." 
"I'd like to," I said. "But I couldn't stay out of Brazil. I have a 
mission here." 
"Then perform it quickly, if you value your life," he said. "Dead 
men accomplish few missions." 
"I can't promise to do it quickly," I said. "I'll just have to take 
my chances." 
"Chance is not a factor, with Exu," he warned. "He will manifest 
his will despite all you can do." 
I shrugged. "I appreciate your sincerity. But I must do what I 
must do." Even though I had no idea what I had to do. 
He shook his head. "You are like the man who does not believe 
a car can hurt him, so he walks without regard to traffic. He is a 
fool." 
"I'd like nothing better than to leave Brazil forever," I said, 
nettled. "But I have unfinished business, people I can not abandon. 
I have never run from anybody, and I'm not starting now." 
Not quite true, as I was fleeing from the Death Squad-but that 
was a special situation. I could have doubled back and ambushed 
the Squad any time-but what point, more killing? 
He shook his head. "I admire your courage." 
A small man came over. "Pardon my interruption," he said in 
a husky voice. "But are you not, under all that dirt, Jason Striker, 
who broke from prison?" 
Trouble already! I tensed, ready to move the moment he did. 
"Yes. And I know the Death Squad is after me. And now Exu has 
cursed me, but I'm going to hell in my own fashion, if you please."
119 
But he broke into a smile. "Do you not recognize me?" He 
removed his hat-and lo, it was a girl, with a freckled face and 
thick curly red hair. In fact, it was- 
"Ester Behar, whom you tried to help," she said, poking one 
finger into her mouth to draw the lip aside and reveal the clotted 
socket of the back tooth that had been extracted. "I saw you when 
Mirabal the butcher tried to make you recognize me, and I heard 
you fight him and get knocked down. I heard your screams as they 
tortured you, and when they stopped I thought you were dead, 
and I was very sorry. Then the explosion, and my friends from 
MR-8 came to free me, and I learned it was because of you. I owe 
you my freedom, perhaps even my life. I came here to seek peace 
for my soul, and only now entered the mass. I am Jewish, but so 
many of my friends come here that I-" She paused, embarrassed. 
I understood that her rabbi would frown on her attendance here, 
but she had been through a truly horrible experience, and perhaps 
her faith had been shaken. In times of severe stress, beliefs can 
change. I knew! "And lo, you are here, as if the gods summoned 
you," she concluded. "Now maybe I can repay you personally." 
"Thanks," I said, relieved. "It's enough that you're free. But I 
doubt you can do much about a god's curse." 
"So? I regret I was not on hand to see what happened. Which 
god-?" 
"Exu," I said. "My best friend will kill me, because I robbed 
the god's offerings." 
Ester made a silent whistle. "Exu's like that! He is Satan in our 
pantheon, you know. The literal devil. Another god might have 
shrugged it off, comprehending your need, but not Exu. He'll 
have your hide, if not your very soul." 
"So I'm told. But I was hungry, and my pants were falling 
down. The things were just going to waste, or so it seemed at the 
time. I used the money to help this girl buy something at a voodoo 
store, and she brought me here." I spread my hands. 
Now Oba spoke in Portuguese. Apparently she had grasped 
enough of the exchange so that she was able to verify my story. 

120 
The pai-de-Santo nodded. "She says she lost strength suddenly 
after dancing six hours, and you helped her, and then she bought 
an elixir of strength so as to dance some more, but was moved 
instead to bring you here. She does not know why she decided 
this, but it is evident the god cast his net for you. Does this not 
seem beyond coincidence, even to a skeptic?" 
"The god could have punished me better by poisoning the 
food I took," I said. 
"Strange that Exu should punish this man," Ester remarked to 
the pai-de-Santo. "We know that sometimes ignorant foreigners 
rob the gods, especially with things of value for their museums, 
yet they are not punished." 
"They are punished by being foreigners," the pai-de-Santo said. 
Ester nodded dubiously. "This man has already been punished 
much. He is marked, because he resisted the torture and 
helped us all get free. He is a friend to the freedom fighters and an 
enemy to Mirabal the butcher. He did not mean to insult the god. 
We were all so desperate to get away before the army came-" 
The pai-de-Santo raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender
-curiously modern, in this setting-and nodded. "Enough. 
It is evident that Exu's wrath is poorly chosen. Perhaps another 
god will abate the spell." 
He gave directions, and the dance changed. Six of the girls 
retired to the sidelines, and one took the floor alone. She wore 
white, with white beads, and carried a little white cotton flag, and 
to my eyes was the most elegant of the group. 
Ester sat down beside me on the right, while Oba remained 
on the left, seemingly oblivious to our dialogue. The pai-de-Santo 
moved back to the center tables. 
"That is the dancer for Oxala, called Obatala in the Spanishlanguage 
regions," she said. "I was raised across the border, and 
this really isn't my religion, so sometimes I get the forms confused, 
but the essence is the same." She hardly needed to make such 
apology; I would never know the difference, and I was glad to have 
her explanations. "Oxala is the chief of the gods, and his color is
121 
white, signifying purity. If he helps you, you are saved, for he 
alone is stronger than Exu." 
"I had no idea there was such a hierarchy," I murmured. "It's 
almost like an ancient religion." 
She snorted. "Almost? Umbanda is a modern religion! It's one of 
the Brazilian forms of Santeria, which is an amalgam of Black African 
voodoo and Roman Catholicism." As I had recollected on my 
own-but she evidently had much more specific information. "The 
very term 'Santeria' means the worship of Saints. The voodoo gods 
are really the same as the Saints. Santeria as a whole has more 
actual devotees than any other religion in the Western Hemisphere. 
Many people profess Christianity, but they practice Santeria." She 
said this with a certain smug emphasis. She, of Jewish background, 
could afford to sneer at the Christian foibles, of course. Yet she 
herself was a kind of devotee, and she had evidently studied this 
Santeria, or Umbanda, more than merely casually. 
"But black magic-" I protested, upset that someone as intelligent 
as Ester was should believe such nonsense. 
"It is more than magic," she assured me. Then: "Look-Oxala 
has rejected the appeal. It is not wise to express skepticism when 
making such an appeal for help from the god." 
Good point! Either I wanted voodoo help, or I didn't. A bad 
attitude would get me nowhere. I couldn't see that any signal had 
been made by the god, but maybe that was the point. No action 
on an appeal is the same as negative action. Had I thrown away my 
best chance? 
Now the second dancer came forth. Her gown was red, and 
her necklace was red and white. While Oxala's girl had been serene 
and pure, this one was passionate. She carried a small doubleedged 
axe in her right hand, and she waved it about with such 
animation that I was afraid it would fly loose and hurt someone. 
"That's Xango," Ester said. "Known in Spanish as Chango, 
the most popular and colorful god of fire and thunder. There are 
many fascinating legends about him; he is quite a lady's god, with 

122 
one wife and two mistresses for a start, and a roving eye. Perhaps 
that is why he is known in the Catholic system as Saint Barbara." 
"Saint Barbara!" I exclaimed. "A female saint?" 
"Xango sometimes dresses as a woman," Ester said with a smile. 
"It is to honor his sister and mistress Oya, who saved him from 
prison. Actually, a number of men dress as women during festivals. 
Haven't you seen them?" 
I had, but that was not my immediate concern. "But a legitimate 
Catholic saint," I protested. "And female, at that! Is nothing 
sacred?" 
"All is sacred," she assured me. "Haven't you noticed that Saint 
Barbara has a small castle at her feet, and in her hands holds a 
sword and cup? All these objects are sacred to Xango. And red is 
the color of both saint and god. They say the castle is where Saint 
Barbara was killed for her Christian belief, but still-" 
"But a saint-" the enormity of it overwhelmed me. 
"I see you still do not understand. The gods of Santeria came 
with the slaves from Africa. At first these were suppressed by the 
Christian masters, but then the slaves recognized behind the facades 
of the saints their true identities, the ancient and venerable 
voodoo pantheon of gods. And so their faith was restored, stronger 
than before. They had the best of both religions. Is it any wonder 
they have such conviction?" 
"I suppose not," I said, shaking my head. Voodoo and Catholic 
saints! Then something else occurred to me. "A castle." For I 
remembered the Black Castle that Fu Antos was building deep in 
the Amazon jungle; my mission was surely intimately linked with 
this. Xango-Saint Barbara-Fu Antos-I knew so little, yet already 
the network of intrigue embraced gods and saints. 
The sound of the drums rolled forth like thunder, deafening 
in this hall, and the candles flared high like flickers of lightning. 
God of thunder, yes! 
But like a storm that passes over with no more than gusts of 
cold air, the dance crescendoed without response from the god. 
Xango would not help.
123 
The third girl came out, garbed in green with a brown and 
black beaded necklace. She wore bright metal bracelets, anklets, 
and headdress, with a polished steel girdle. Knives flashed in her 
hands. The first dancer had been serene, the second passionate; 
this one was militant, like an Amazon in her armor. 
"Oggun, god of war and metals, especially iron," Ester said. 
"He is Saint Peter in the Catholic pantheon. Very powerful in the 
hunt. But he is a very close friend of Elegguo, whose aspect Exu 
you angered." 
"So he won't help me either," I said, disappointed. 
"That is not certain. He is a bitter enemy of Xango, who took 
away his wife Oya to be a concubine, and was not even faithful to 
her. Thus his metal iron is a constant target of Xango's lightning 
bolts." 
"You really have these things worked out!" I exclaimed. "Adultery 
and quarrels between gods." 
But Oggun, too, declined to help. No one, it seemed, wanted 
to go against the terrible Exu. Not for a mere gringo. I was getting 
worried. Sure I was a skeptic, but I didn't want that curse hanging 
over my head if I could avoid it. 
The dancer retired, and the next came forth. She wore a yellow 
and green costume with a golden necklace. She carried a mirror 
in one hand and an elegant comb made of shells in the other, 
and as she danced she ran that comb constantly through her flowing 
blond tresses. 
"Oshun, goddess of love, marriage, and gold-your Venus," 
Ester murmured. "She controls river waters, so if you plan to sail 
on fresh water, her blessing would be invaluable. She loves to dance, 
and is always much fun." 
I could believe it. Despite her manifest vanity, preening and 
combing her hair and constantly checking her face in the mirror, 
this dancer exuded pure sex appeal. She had hips of perfect rondure 
and she flung them about in a manner calculated to inflame the 
masculine passion. Her large breasts seemed about to pop out of 

124 
her halter, and her gaze, seemed to fix directly on me with a "come 
hither" appeal. She flirted shamelessly with the audience. 
"Do not expect too much of her," Ester warned me. "She is 
Xango's sister and his mistress. She once freed Xango from confinement 
by flirting with the skeleton that stood guard. While she 
aroused it, Xango escaped." 
"She aroused a skeleton? Sex-uh, romantically?" 
"That she did. She is remarkably desirable. But she is terrible 
when angry." 
"Women are," I agreed, remembering certain experiences. 
"She is the goddess of money and all things yellow. If you 
need money, do not eat a pumpkin, for that is sacred to Oshun. 
She made the first lamp by hollowing out a pumpkin and placing 
a candle inside it." 
"A jack-o-lantern!" I exclaimed. 
She shrugged. "At any rate, she also declines." 
"Too bad," I agreed as the dancer retired. I was really disappointed, 
and not just because of her beauty. My inconsequential 
remarks were only glossing over my deepening conviction that there 
was, indeed, something to this voodoo. Those people were too 
serious, their ceremonies too well worked out. Their gods were 
too-human. 
The next dancer wore green and yellow, and her beads were 
the same. She was neither serene nor passionate, neither warlike 
nor sexy. She was intense, with staring eyes that seemed to see 
entirely through me. My nervousness increased. 
"Orunla, god of divination," Ester said. "Master of the past, 
present, and future, owner of the Table of Ifa." 
"The Table of Ifa," I repeated. "The shells-" 
"Yes, the caracoles apply to the Table of Ifa. Orunla governs all 
time. He alone can tell you your fate, and thereby enable you to 
ameliorate the curse." 
"Orunla, give me a sign!" I breathed prayerfully. 
"That is the first step," Ester said approvingly. "When you 
begin to believe in the gods, the gods begin to believe in you.
125 
Perhaps it is your North American arrogance of skepticism that 
really bothers Exu. When he has humbled you, he will be merciful."
"In a pig's eye!" I snapped, abruptly revolted at my descent 
into superstition. 
And the dancer returned, without any signal of aid. And I felt 
sudden loss, as though salvation had been near at hand, but lost 
because of my foolish obstinacy. 
"Exu will never forgive you now," Ester said sadly. "When will 
you Americans learn? There is more to life than hot dogs and big 
new cars. The almighty dollar is powerless against the wrath of a 
god." 
"Sorry," I said contritely. This was these people's religion, and 
I owed it the same respect I had for any religion. A little respect 
could certainly do me no harm. 
The sixth dancer came forth. She wore a blue robe, with a blue 
and white necklace. She was older than the others, mature, yet 
possessed of such sheer beauty and aplomb that all the others 
seemed like mere children in comparison. They were girls; this 
was a woman. 
"Yemanja," Ester said appreciatively. "Goddess of the moon, 
and of the sea. See how she moves her canoe." 
Indeed, the dancer's hips swayed like rolling waves, the blue 
of her costume rippling with a frill of white, like whitecaps. She 
was a stately queen. 
"Pray to her," Ester suggested. "In your heart as well as your 
head. Abase yourself before her. She is your last hope; the minor 
gods can not help you against Exu." 
And I believed her. "Help me, Queen-Goddess Yemanja!" I 
whispered. 
The dance continued, and I knew with a sinking certainty 
that my plea had not been heard. There was no way to balk the 
curse of Exu. But it was almost worth a curse to watch the unearthly 
beauty of Yemanja's ritual. 
Then something dark crept out from under the table. It was a 

126 
huge black roach. It moved toward the dancing woman. 
I lurched to my feet with an inarticulate cry like a kiai! yell. I 
dived for that roach as if it were Mirabal himself, seeking to crush 
it before it brought its hideous ugliness to soil the elegance of the 
Queen. But the thing skittered sidewise, perhaps blown by the 
force of my rush, and I rolled ignominiously on the floor. I was 
aware that my antic had probably wiped out my last chance for 
godly aid; I heard the shocked murmuring of the crowd. At that 
moment the drums stopped. 
In the sudden silence I lay on my back, looking up. It was 
quite an experience, for my head was almost under the dancer's 
skirts where she stood frozen, and I saw her marvelously well-formed 
legs right up to their juncture, and that wondrous bush of golden 
curls. I stiffened-and I don't mean sexually, though maybe that 
was also the cause-for the roach was now climbing her left leg. 
She stooped, reached around and under with one hand, and 
caught the roach neatly between her fingers. She brought it struggling 
to her round face, peered at it with her large, long-lashed 
eyes-and popped it into her expressive mouth. She chewed, savoring 
it. 
There was a gasp from the audience. "It is the sign!" the paide-
Santo cried, in what language I knew not, cared not. "Yemanja 
grants her favor!" 
Suddenly the drums resumed. The dancer stepped out again. 
I rolled giddily to my feet, my mind's eye still seeing that lovely 
mouth consuming that horrible cockroach, but also seeing those 
magnificent thighs beneath the skirt-no panties. What horror 
melded to what bliss! 
"The cockroach is sacred to the goddess, you see," Ester explained 
as I approached the bench. She acted as if nothing special 
had happened, which should have given me pause for thought. 
Just what did they expect at these shindigs? "A person possessed 
by the goddess will consume any roaches she finds, and they are 
considered to be messengers." 
The dancer whirled and gestured, and swooped near to me as
127 
I started to sit, a bit dazed. She wiggled her fingers in a little 
"Come hither" gesture, and I had to respond. I stepped toward 
her again, and now the beat caught hold of my soul as though I 
had stepped into the strong central current of a deep river, not a 
river of carnival celebrants, but something much more vital and 
subtle. I danced too, spinning and raising my bare feet in a crude 
approximation of her movements. I could not help myself, though 
a part of me felt like a complete buffoon. In her devious, horrible 
fashion a goddess had smiled on me, showing me heaven where I 
expected hell and vice versa, and I had to worship her. 
Yet it was only the beginning. There was a cry, and the girl I 
had dubbed Oba jumped to her feet, chanting. After her followed 
others, until it seemed the whole congregation was dancing to 
that compelling beat. Like the ponderous waves of the ocean it 
swelled and faded, making us twitch in harmony with its devious 
syncopations. On and on we danced, tirelessly, now in silence, 
now crying out. 
Again, how much later I do not know, the drums stopped. 
The dance subsided. The pai-de-Santo occupied the center of the 
floor. "Yemanja, mother of gods, shows her favor to this man," he 
announced. "But we must ascertain the nature of that favor." 
He brought out the divination shells again, and cast them. 
After several throws he announced. "Yemanja will accept sacrifice. 
But we must learn what type." 
He brought out a coconut, set it on the table, and broke the 
hard shell with one strike of a special hammer. There was no milk; 
the coconut had evidently been dried so that the pulp was hard 
and white. He broke it into four equal parts, inspected them carefully, 
washed them in water, and tore seven bits off each. He 
sprinkled these bits over the image of Our Lady of Regla. 
"Seven bits, to invoke Yemanja," Ester explained. "It is different 
for each god." 
How nice: like dialing a telephone. Each god had his number. 
The pai-de-Santo chanted strange words as he did this. Talking 
to the operator? Then he held the four pieces of coconut in his 

128 
left hand. With his right hand he touched the floor three times, 
and the image three times. Then he prayed, and the congregation 
spoke in unison at certain intervals, as in a responsive reading. He 
made the sign of the cross and finished the invocation. Finally he 
threw the four pieces on the floor. 
Each piece was white on the inside and brown outside, so 
when they fell they showed white or brown. In this case, three 
were brown and one white. 
There was an immediate reaction among the spectators. All 
around, people pulled at the lobes of their ears and opened their 
eyes wide. 
"Ocana-Sode, that cast is called, where I come from," Ester 
said. "In any language, it means evil for you. The people are trying 
to dispel that evil-but this is a bad sign." And she pulled delicately 
at her own lobe. 
"The goddess changed her mind?" I asked worriedly, and caught 
my own hand going to my ear. 
"Perhaps. Or maybe she is powerless to abate the spell of Exu, 
who is stronger than she." 
The pai-de-Santo looked up. "We must now make sacrifice," 
he said. "Only this can bring us help." 
Now he fetched a live duck from an adjacent room. My skin 
tightened, for I suspected what was coming and did not like it. 
But Ester put a restraining hand on my arm. "It is necessary," she 
said. "Do not, in your ignorance, insult another god." 
Good advice! I kept silent. 
The pai-de-Santo smeared honey and lard over the hapless bird, 
then poured rum over it. He then used the coconut fragments to 
inquire whether the goddess required the actual blood of the duck. 
I chewed on my tongue, hoping she would decline, but the fall of 
the throw was one brown and three white: a qualified yes. He 
verified it with another throw. 
Now he got a good grip on the duck's head, took out the 
sacrificial knife, and cut that head off with a violent slash. I felt as 
if my own head were coming loose. As a judo instructor I deal in
129 
violence, but also in fair play; the notion of an innocent bird giving 
its life without even a chance to fight back appalled me. Was I 
myself a similar victim? 
"Oggun killed it!" he stated loudly. 
"Now that's a lie," I protested. 
Again Ester restrained me. "Part of the ritual. All killing is 
done in the name of the god of war, so that no blame will attach 
for the act. Oggun doesn't mind, and it saves a lot of trouble." 
I shut up. After all, I was the cause of all this. 
The pai-de-Santo held the bleeding carcass before the image, 
letting the blood drip to the floor. Then he wiped it up with a 
handful of the bird's own feathers. Finally he placed the bird in a 
burner and started it roasting. I thought of the ovens of Nazi Germany, 
cremating innocents. 
The dance resumed, and while it continued the fire consumed 
the body of the sacrificial duck, until it was nothing but ashes. 
And then, as if it were an instant, it was morning. The beat 
stopped and the congregation dispersed. Ester had disappeared, 
somewhat to my disappointment; she must have figured she had 
thanked me enough by explaining everything. We had danced all 
night! 
The pai-de-Santo caught me aside for a private conference. "You 
may not have understood everything," he said. "Exu laid a curse 
on you, and Yemanja has abated it, but she could not nullify it 
entirely. So she sends her daughter to protect you; as long as she is 
with you, the thrust of the spell will be blunted. But if she becomes 
separated from you, only the willing sacrifice of a loved one 
will save you from death at the hands of your friend, and even 
then, it is not certain. This is as far as the goddess can go." 
"Tell her thank you," I said, and I meant it. I was too tired to 
be very expressive. Then my brow furrowed. "Her daughter?" 
"Goddess of an African river and wife of Xango," he explained. 
"You have found favor with her-I do not profess to know why- 
and so she cooperates with her mother to animate a human body, 
and to guard you from evil." He winked. "Do not be concerned 

130 
about her married state; Xango has nothing to do with her, instead 
preferring her sisters Oya and Oshun. He will not be jealous."
"Oshun?" I repeated. "Isn't she-?" 
"Yes, she is the goddess of love and gold, whose dance you saw. 
Perhaps it is because she turned you down that her sister helps 
you. Oba was always jealous of her husband's mistresses, and perhaps 
wishes to give him a certain taste of his own medicine." 
Oshun-Miss Sex Appeal! I could see why a god would prefer 
her to his homebody wife, and why that wife would be resentful. 
Then I did a doubletake. "Who?" 
"Oba," he repeated, gesturing. And now the girl I had called 
Oba came forward and took my hand, leading me out of the building.
Stunned but hardly dismayed, I went with her.
Chapter 7: 
March on the Black Castle 
"Well, my dear," Mirabal said, smiling like Frankenstein's monster, 
"you caused us much trouble. You made so neat an escape 
from our private detention center that I am surprised we recaptured 
you so readily. Why didn't you vacate the area immediately, 
once you saw the prison break was successful?" 
Dulce didn't answer. This was her first meeting with this man, 
and she was apprehensive. The leader of the Death Squads-what 
could she expect at his hands but torture? 
"It could not be that you are stupid, for you are not," he continued 
imperturbably. "You are one of the most brilliant and talented 
of the Horse's spies." This was an unsubtle slur on the head 
of the government of her own country; Fidel Castro was said by his 
enemies-and some of his friends-to smell like a sweaty horse, 
owing to his laxity about personal hygiene. But Dulce did not 
react. "Yet I doubt it could be a plot to assassinate me or any high 
ranking member of our government, for you are known to us, and 
would never be given the chance to act. Of course you are very 

132 
capable with your bare hands, but you would require more than 
that to overcome me." 
Still she did not reply. Mirabal so far had been completely 
accurate; Dulce was a trained fighter, but so was he, and he had 
monstrous layers of muscle she lacked, as well as being completely 
ruthless. Few, very few human beings could overcome Fernando 
Mirabal in honest barehanded combat, and he was not one to 
confine himself to honest methods. 
"You could not have had anything to do with certain recent 
assassinations," he continued. "You had already been taken into 
custody when they occurred, and they were far away. Do bees 
mean anything to you? Spiders? Privies?" Her gaze was blank. "No, 
I thought not. So it would appear you have no connection to those 
activities. You are a leftist agent, not a ninja." 
He walked around the room, pondering aloud. "I always like 
to know the truth," he said. "Illusion can be costly to those engaged 
in counterespionage. We have already lost an entire town by 
underestimating our opposition. So I ask myself why this luscious 
Cuban plum, so difficult to grasp and hold, should now fall so 
easily into my hand, and I must have an answer. Why should you 
merely wait in a building facing the prison, until it was too late to 
escape the tightening police cordon? One might postulate all manner 
of reasons, but overcomplexity is treacherous. Better to explore 
the simplest: that it was an accident, unintentional on your part. 
Then why should you be so careless? And I have only one answer: 
love." 
Now her pert nose wrinkled as she made an inaudible sniff of 
derision. She was absolutely lovely in that pose, though her hands 
and feet were tied. 
"Ah, my dear, do not disdain that tender passion," he chided 
her, his soft words incongruous, coming from so huge and brutal a 
man. "For the love of one man you roused the revolutionary groups 
to attack the prison, and actually succeeded in freeing him. Jason 
Striker-yes, I see it in your eyes! You would do anything to save 
him from torture or death. Anything at all! Yet you dare not ex-
133 
press it openly, for El Caballo would not approve." He chuckled. 
El Caballo meant "The Top" in Spanish. In Cuba it was a term of 
respect for Fidel, but Mirabal used it derisively. "I must admit the 
Horse has good taste in some matters. And so you waited, heedless 
of your own safety, waited to meet the gringo, lest he become lost 
in the great city, and be recaptured because of his ignorance of our 
custom and language. But he was swept into the festival crowd, 
his pants falling down, and he was victim of that same distraction 
you so prettily planned for the prison authorities, and could not 
get back to you, and so it was my men who completed your liaison 
instead. Such irony, that the prisoner goes free, while his rescuer is 
made captive! Normally it is the prince who frees the lady at great 
peril to himself, not the other way around." 
Dulce made no sound, but her lips formed a word in Portuguese: 
"Puerco," pig. 
"You will be pleased to know that Striker remains free," Mirabal 
said. "You need not have troubled yourself about him; I was about 
to release him anyway." 
Now at last she reacted overtly. "Liar!" she snapped. 
"Why should I lie to you?" he inquired. "You are powerless. I 
inform you only that you may understand what I wish you to 
understand-when the time comes. You shall quite possibly be of 
inestimable service to me." He paused, but she had no comment. 
"I interrogated the American, and learned that he was on a mission 
for Fu Antos, the chief of the Japanese ninjas, an old time 
warrior cult who have recently infiltrated our inland forest region. 
Striker's meeting with you was coincidence; that led me astray for 
a time, for I thought it had to be by design. Since it is important 
to me to locate and eliminate the ninja villain, I decided to allow 
Striker to 'escape,' aided by one of my agents within the prison, 
then watch where he went. If he led me to the Black Castle and its 
oil strike . . ." He shook his head. "Alas, Fu Antos outsmarted me. 
I could have sworn from his actions and reactions that Striker was 
just a bumbling fool possessing no information of value. Therefore 
I was sure he was a courier of vital news. And lo, he fooled me 

134 
completely, by being exactly what he seemed to be. He was merely 
an ignorant decoy. While I wasted my attention tracing his aimless 
wanderings through the city, the ninja was receiving a vast 
shipment of weapons via the river." He shook his head in grudging 
admiration. "Who would have thought a martial artist of Striker's 
reputation would come all the way to Brazil merely to serve as a 
distraction! I could not anticipate that, and but for chance, that 
ploy would have been successful. But now I have no further need 
of the American." 
Dulce could no longer feign indifference. "You lie again. You 
hate Jason. You are holding me to lure him into a trap." 
"I do hate him. He injured me in our prior encounter in New 
York, and for that his life is forfeit. Which is the beauty of it: the 
ninja knew I would focus on Striker immediately, and so run the 
risk of overlooking more important matters. So-" 
"But it will not work. Jason will never do your bidding from 
fear of my torture." 
"Torture you?" Mirabal inquired, raising an eyebrow. It was a 
minor gesture, but it displayed the type of bodily control that 
made him a formidable fighter. Whether twitching a brow or hammering 
with a fist, his coordination was perfect. "No, my dear, 
you shall not be tortured. I would not have one bit of you disfigured. 
And you are right: Striker would not be moved. He loves 
you less than you love him, and neither knows nor cares where you 
are. He is with a lithe young girl he met in the streets, a seamstress 
and dancer, and now he sleeps off his night's endeavors in her 
apartment." Dulce's eyes flared, but she did not dignify his taunt 
by giving it the lie. 
"Striker has in any event become superfluous," Mirabal said. 
"I shall allow one of my squads to obtain the practice of the chase 
this afternoon, after the American is suitably rested. There is no 
sport like the pursuit of live prey! The men shall gain invaluable 
experience as they track him down and make their kill, and the 
unfit among them will no doubt be destroyed. Striker has a certain 
talent in the rough and tumble; it makes up for what he lacks
135 
in wit." And he rubbed the back of one knee reflectively, again 
remembering his own initial encounter with the subject. Then he 
returned to Dulce: "No, my dear, you need have no fears. You 
shall have the very best, until I have need of you." And he shaped 
his huge gnarl-calloused hands around the rope between her wrists, 
tensed his astonishing muscles, and snapped it like so much string. 
Then he did the same for her feet, freeing her. More than ever, he 
resembled Frankenstein's monster, except that the monster had 
been, at heart, innocent. 
"You should have left me tied!" she cried. "You'll have to take 
me by force! I'll never submit voluntarily." 
"You misunderstand, my voluptuous beauty," he said. "I have 
no personal desire for your body." But he loosened his belt and 
dropped his trousers, uncovering his phenomenally muscled legs. 
Dulce might have attacked him at that moment, while his ankles 
were temporarily hobbled, but she knew he was alert and would 
give her no chance. He could kill her with one blow of his horny 
fist, literally, and would. 
He removed his undershorts, revealing his elephantine genital 
dangling like a python. Suddenly his left hand shot out, catching 
her elbow. He hauled her into him, and like, a bird caught in the 
coils of a deadly snake she suffered herself to be enfolded without 
resistance. He drew her up, running his right hand over her breasts, 
squeezing them through the cloth of her dress, inserting his fingers 
into her cleavage. Then the hand traveled down over her abdomen, 
across her swelling hip, and around to enclose her buttocks 
in a firm pinch. His head tilted down; he lifted her by the 
buttocks as though hoisting a child, and kissed her lips. 
"No, my dear, I shall not place my tongue between your pearly 
teeth," he murmured, giving her posterior a final penetrating goose. 
Then he let her go and stood back. 
His naked penis remained completely limp. 
He had proved his point. He was physically unmoved by her 
sex appeal. 
"What do you want with me?" Dulce asked, half relieved, half 

136 
insulted. "I know nothing of Fu Antos." 
"I am aware of that. We have virtually located the Black Castle. 
I have maintained surveillance of all unusual traffic on the tributaries 
of the Amazon River, a Herculean task. My agents pinpointed 
the freighter carrying the weapons as soon as they were loaded on 
it near Key West, and we have monitored its radio calls. We moved 
in at the time of transfer to the smaller boats, but never hindered 
the procedure. Thus we have located our quarry: a convoy of small 
boats carrying weapons for the ninja. Already my men, posing as 
itinerant workers, have eliminated the ninja representatives, quietly; 
my own personnel now man the crafts. Thus we shall have 
safe access to the Black Castle of the Ninjas, trusting them to guide 
us in. Is it not beautiful?" 
Dulce had no knowledge of the Black Castle or the ninjas, but 
she was interested in another aspect. "Then I am of no use to you," 
she said, hoping he would let her go. She might yet be able to 
warn Jason. 
"On the contrary, you are my insurance," Mirabal said. "In 
my researches into the history of the ninja cult-I always study 
my enemy carefully-I came upon a truly remarkable coincidence." 
He studied her for a moment. "Yes, you are perfect. The gods have 
truly smiled on me this day." 
Then he left her, carrying his trousers in one hand, his limp 
member still proclaiming its disinterest. 
"Maricon!" she exclaimed in her native tongue, with amazed 
realization. "He is a homosexual!" Or at any rate, a sexually indifferent 
man. Some were like that. 
Still, she was unable to fathom the meaning of his other words. 
For what was she perfect, if not for information or love? Yet she 
had a gnawing certainty that she would not like the answer when 
it finally came clear.
137 
* 
The captain of the lead boat kept his eyes open as the river 
narrowed. He was on his own; Mirabal would not join the party or 
indicate his involvement in any other way until the battle was 
joined, lest his arrival by helicopter tip off the ninjas. No word of 
this mission had been allowed out; even the troops did not know 
where they were going or why. In fact, no one knew; there had 
been neither time nor privacy to torture the prior captain for information 
about the precise landing or identification codes. Probably 
the man hadn't known anyway; the ninjas would intercept 
the convoy at their convenience. That was when it would get hairy. 
Was it really possible to outfox the foxes? 
It was night. Slowly the boats moved on upriver, using only 
those lights required for safety. There was no signal from the shore. 
Then a voice spoke from the gloom of the dark cabin. "Captain." 
A chill ran down the captain's spine. He turned. He could 
barely make out a hooded figure. How it had come aboard the 
boat without detection he could not guess, but its very presence 
was all the evidence necessary. This was a living ninja! 
"Yes," the captain said. If there were a secret password, he 
would soon be dead, but he was under orders to take that gamble 
and he knew better than to disobey. He had seen a few of the 
victims of Fernando Mirabal's displeasure. 
"To the right. Dock," the ninja said in bad Portuguese. The 
captain turned the wheel. The boats behind followed. There was a 
small, dilapidated-looking wooden pier half-concealed by the jungle. 
It was just like a thousand others scattered along the Amazon River 
system. The pilings were rotten and the planking was overgrown 
by vegetation. But underneath it was strong, braced by new timber, 
the exterior carefully preserved as a facade. It was, in a sense, 
invisible: no one would have thought to use it or even approach it, 
ordinarily. 
A number of Indians were on hand with mules to help unload 

138 
the shipment. Many of the cases were small but heavy, containing 
disassembled machine guns, bazookas, ammunition and grenades. 
Many were sealed in oil drums or wrapped in tarpaulins. They 
were not hard for one or two men to handle. 
But soon the Indians grew suspicious. Certain code-signals 
were not forthcoming. Hands went for weapons. 
And there was a barrage of fire from the boats. "Get the ninja!" 
the captain cried-and fell, a knife in his back. The men charged, 
but already he was dead, the ninja gone. Obviously the ninja had 
realized before that this was not the original crew, but had allowed 
the unloading to proceed so that his people could ambush the 
troops and recover the supplies. The less sophisticated Indians had 
blown the whistle prematurely, and perhaps that had been fortunate.
A crewman used a radio. "They're on to us," he said. "We 
killed the Indians, but the ninja got away. Move up the second 
convoy fast; nothere point in secrecy." 
For a few miles back there was another and larger expedition. 
That one carried mechanized equipment the ninjas had never ordered. 
Now it would see action. 
Under the overhanging trees of the jungle a road had been 
made. It was cleverly covered over by green turf and even a thin 
layer of standing water in places, but underneath it was solid. 
Someone had put a lot of work into this secret highway. 
The armored column was on its way, using the ninjas' own 
jungle turnpike. There was no longer any attempt at concealment; 
the battle had in effect been joined. Without the prepared road, it 
would have been impossible. This was the very heart of the continental 
forest. The trees were large and close together, rising one 
hundred, one hundred and fifty, and even two hundred feet above 
the floor. Their upper foliage was luxuriant and interlaced with 
vines and parasitic growth so that sunlight could not penetrate to 
the level of the trail. There was therefore hardly any undergrowth, 
except in occasional grassy gaps in the forest cover. This was the 
forest primeval.
139 
This was in fact a battalion of the Brazilian army, with eight 
hundred men accompanied by select armored units. Unlike North 
American troops, most of the men used their feet instead of riding. 
There were five light old armored cars, carrying .30 and .50 caliber 
machine guns, and eight half-tracked personnel carriers bearing 
the most privileged troops. Five jeeps handled the officers. A 
tank led the column, and another terminated it, with men riding 
on each. The convoy moved at the pace of the foot-soldiers, however, 
slow but sure. 
Suddenly the lead tank bogged down. The road had taken a 
hidden turn under the marshy terrain, and without a ninja guide 
the machine had blundered off the built-up support. The other 
vehicles halted, and the men got out, poking about to locate the 
road. This was only a delay, not a setpped. 
Then the arrows started flying. Each was tipped with deadly 
nerve poison; the slightest scratch meant death. A dozen men were 
dead before the others realized what was happening. Then the cry 
went up: "Ambush!" 
The men dived for cover of their vehicles. The turret of the 
stalled tank spun about, its machine gun raking the jungle in a 
semicircle. But it seemed to have no effect. 
The arrows continued to fly. They were few but highly selective; 
virtually every shaft scored on a soldier. The effect was disproportionate 
to the damage: these weapons made no sound, so the 
first evidence of their presence was the mortal strike. When the 
men faced about and watched for the source, the arrows stopped, 
only to rise silently from the obscurity again when attention wavered. 
Some shot high into the morning sky, to plummet down on 
those people taking refuge behind what little natural cover there 
was.
"And we waited till morning to start our march!" a sergeant 
gritted. He had known that was folly, but had been overruled by 
the officers. He was Genaro Cabral, a leader of men, formerly of 
Major Lima's battalion. He had dropped the TNT bomb into the 
privy, destroying the dwarf ninja. "Well, we'll stop that! First pla- 

140 
toon, face out in a circle, watch the horizon, fire on the level through 
the brush when and only when you see an arrow rise. We're bound 
to nail some of them!" He hoped. This brushy clearing had evidently 
been chosen by the ninjas because of the cover it provided 
them; they were probably dug in. 
The men of his platoon obeyed with alacrity. A sergeant is the 
core of any army unit; when crisis comes, he acts. 
No more arrows came. "All right," the sergeant bawled. "Second 
Platoon, hitch a chain to that stalled tank and haul it; back 
onto the road." Strictly speaking, he lacked the authority to give 
such directives, but no one challenged him. 
Now the disciplined troops began to function. The arrowambush 
had seemed devastating at first, but there were actually 
only twenty casualties, and the psychological effect was being dissipated. 
Still, the spasms of the dying men had been unnerving; 
the poison threw one big cramp, and some suffered broken spines, 
writhing and screaming before their hearts failed. So there was 
horror in the ranks, but a few primitively armed warriors could 
not, it seemed, successfully oppose a modern army. 
The tank was brought back to the road. Now soldiers went 
ahead with poles, tapping the ground under the marsh, locating 
the firm foundation. The convoy moved ahead again. 
Unfortunately, the men now fell into the traps laid for the 
vehicles. There were a lot of traps; evidently the ninjas had worked 
all night, as the sergeant had feared they would. He had learned 
something from his experience with the dwarf ninja, but he was 
the only one here to whom that experience was firsthand. The 
others thought the stories of the ninjas were exaggerated. Now 
they were learning the hard way. Five of them dropped into a huge 
pit, to be speared on the sharpened stakes below. But at least their 
sacrifice saved the tank. Another masked pit contained a dozen 
poisonous snakes, who quickly bit the unfortunates who dropped 
in to visit. Trees had been felled across the road, their surfaces 
covered with poison so that those who moved them suffered terrible 
burns and lingering death. Further along, a huge tree toppled
141 
right on top of one of the personnel carriers, ruining it; the tree 
had been cut and propped so that a slight push would bring it 
down. This sort of thing kept progress slow. 
The column entered a thickly wooded section, where the trees 
were smaller but so close together it was impossible to see far. Here 
the ground was firm throughout. The vehicles picked up speed. 
Then more arrows came-this time spearing the tires of the 
jeeps. The tanks and halftracks were impervious, but the officers 
weren't in them. The column slowed to a halt. 
"Keep moving!" the sergeant yelled. "It's another ambush!" 
He knew that it was possible to drive on flat tires, and that this 
was much safer than stopping exactly where the ninjas wanted 
them to stop. "Push for that hill! Make a circle at the top! We can 
defend that better." 
His leather-lunged volume made itself felt. The officers, concerned 
for their health, kept their mouths shut and let the man on 
the spot handle it. It was not that they were timid or inferior men; 
they merely yielded to the exigencies of the situation. 
The jeeps lunged up the hill, their deflated tires flapping and 
bumping, while the troops clung tightly to the accompanying 
vehicles. They lurched into a rough circle at the top, and the men 
poked their rifles out. 
Nothing happened. A crew got out to start fixing the tires, 
and then a few arrows drove them back. "They're nickel-and-diming 
us to death!" the sergeant observed in his own vernacular. 
The officer in charge thought so too. Small but steady attrition 
could bring them down in time; it was a tactic used in many 
parts of the world, even humbling the mighty U S of A in Asia. 
"Cabral, take a company and clear the area," he ordered. "We'll 
take some casualties, but it's better than being struck sitting like 
ducks for their arrows." 
And so Sergeant Cabral moved out with his men, alert and 
wary. They carried Garand M-l rifles at the ready, and some M-3 
submachine guns shooting at anything that moved. They encoun- 

142 
tered no resistance. They did not realize yet that they were entering 
the mouth of hell. 
"Come out and fight like men!" the sergeant bawled. He was a 
tough old veteran whose words were mainly to keep up morale. 
He knew the ninjas would never attempt to match the firepower 
of conventional troops in the open, but if he made them look like 
cowards, his own meHo, uld gain confidence. As Major Lima had 
stressed (and what a loss his death had been!): the key to success in 
the jungle was not in the rifle but in the mind. 
Amazingly, his challenge was answered. Abruptly green and 
brown-splotched ninjas showed from behind trees, like so many 
apparitions. Each loosed a deadly arrow. One of the arrows brought 
down the bold sergeant; the others took out the remaining noncoms 
of the company. The nervous soldiers let off a volley of shots- 
but, confused by the number of targets and trying to duck the 
incoming arrows, they missed. The figures disappeared; not one 
had been hit. 
Now the company was leaderless. But, aware that there was 
no way out, the men dropped to the ground and aimed at the 
trees. There had actually been no more than a score of ninjas, and 
almost two hundred soldiers remained. "Try that again, why don't 
you!" one yelled. 
And the ninjas did. They manifested before their trees like 
spirits of the wood. This time the troopers aimed more carefully. 
Their rifles fired, and the bullets sang around each ninja. 
Yet not one of the robed figures fell. Like ghosts they advanced 
upon the soldiers. Ghosts with bows, for the arrows winged into 
the faces of the prone men. 
"It can't be!" one soldier cried, firing first at one figure, then 
another. He knew himself to be a dead shot, yet his efforts had no 
effect. 
Now the ninjas opened their hoods-and gaunt skulls were 
revealed. It was only paint, but it had demoralizing effect, for many 
of the troops were superstitious. The shots stopped, giving the 
ninjas time to close the gap.
143 
The ninjas were upon the soldiers. The bows had disappeared; 
other weapons took their place. Some were katanas, the Japanese 
Samurai warrior swords. On the ground, in close quarters, the 
troops were at a disadvantage. The swords slashed down, cutting 
arms, legs and heads in half. The men raised their rifles as shields, 
unable to take effective aim at such close range. But the finely 
tempered swords sliced right through the metal barrels, rendering 
the rifles useless even for this. 
The soldiers, with the courage of desperation, rose up to grapple 
their adversaries. But the ninjas were demons in close combat. 
Their weapons moved devastatingly: spears, halberds, war clubs, 
maces, tetsubi iron bars, a naginata like a spear with a blade in the 
end, chained sickles-each ninja had his favorite death dealer. The 
weapons were lacquered in black so as not to reflect light. But soon 
a more deadly aspect manifested: the blades and clubs, like the 
arrows, were poisoned. The slightest break of skin allowed that 
potent coating to enter the body, and death followed in seconds. 
Thus the ninjas were doubly dangerous, despite being outnumbered 
ten to one. They spread a wide swath of death, merely by 
nicking as many soldiers as possible. The two hundred became a 
hundred and forty, then one hundred, and the odds were reduced 
to five to one. 
Among the ninjas was a small man, really a boy, who nevertheless 
wielded two swords: one long, one short. Yet those two 
blades were the most devastating of all. For this was Fu Antos, 
Lord of the Ninjas. He had come late upon the scene, having been 
occupied with the fortification of the Black Castle and the development 
of the first oil well. But this subversion of his arms shipment 
during his inattention had caused him to take a personal 
interest in rectifying the situation, and to seek a bit of exercise in 
combat. 
Fu Antos whirled this way and that, a dervish of death. Here 
he lopped off the face of a gaping man; half that face went flying 
away. There he brought his blade down straight, cleaving a head 
in twain like split wood. Another he decapitated with a single 

144 
stroke; the corpse stood there a moment spouting blood. Fu Antos 
was a miniature berserker of slaughter, never tiring; his ki gave him 
the strength of several grown men. 
Now three men pressed in on him. With incredible power, 
the ninja master brought his two swords together in truncated 
arcs, cutting the two side men in half at the waist and meeting in 
the torso of the center man. For an instant the tableau remained; 
three surprised soldiers staring at the little ninja. Then the two 
side bodies toppled, rolling apart, and the third sank down with a 
kind of squish. 
Another soldier was leveling his rifle at Fu Antos' head. The 
ninja's two swords whirled. The short one lopped off the tip of the 
rifle; the long one swished by the front of the soldier's face. The 
man's nose flew off. A flick of the wrist, and Fu Antos speared that 
nose in the tip of his short sword. Then he returned it to the man, 
pinning it to his face by means of the blade. Ungrateful for this 
cosmetic favor, the man collapsed and died. 
The numerical odds were down to four to one. "Run!" someone 
cried. The soldiers panicked. In a mass the survivors rose up 
and charged through the jungle toward their convoy. 
The ninjas did not follow. Instead they brought out their bows 
again and loosed a shower of arrows at the fleeing body of men. 
And by the time the troops made it back to the trucks, only twenty 
remained. 
"Ghosts with swords!" they gasped. "They cannot be killed! 
Our bullets won't touch them!" 
"Bullshit!" a lieutenant snapped. "They must be wearing bullet-
proof cloaks. All you have to do is grapple with them, smother 
them in their own folds." But he looked nervous. 
Meanwhile, the tires had not been fixed, and the convoy remained 
stalled. It had a good defensive position, and the machine 
guns and tank-mounted cannon could destroy ninjas no matter 
what they were wearing. 
"Radio for reinforcements," the officer said. "We need special
145 
equipment to deal with this. Flame throwers, bazookas. We'll clean 
them out, all right." 
Again, Fu Antos agreed. The elimination of Major Lima had 
blunted the Brazilian army's jungle-fighting capacity, but here 
and there competent officers remained, and they tended to surface 
at awkward moments. The bulk of the convoy sat tight; the battle 
had only begun. Those six hundred soldiers could overrun the 
Black Castle's incomplete ramparts, and there were reinforcements 
coming for the army, none for the ninjas. They had to be stopped 
here in the jungle. It was necessary to destroy the personnel, not 
the equipment, so that the ninjas could use the weapons they had 
expected to obtain. 
The ninja leader, contemplating the convoy from his forest 
cover, smiled. The infiltration of the ninja's own shipment by the 
soldiers had been a brilliant tactical stroke. He should have anticipated 
it and taken precautions, but he had been so busy with the 
construction of the castle and related matters that he had not paid 
proper attention to the opposition, and could blame no one but 
himself. Once this youthful body grew to manhood, he would 
make fewer such mistakes. And he had to give credit to the leader 
of the opposition: Fernando Mirabal. That was the man who stood 
most in need of assassination-and Fu Antos had let him go free 
after having him in his power. Calamitous misjudgment! 
Well, perhaps he would get another chance at Mirabal. If the 
man showed up anywhere near the Black Castle, and he was bound 
to. He would not escape the reckoning of the ninja. Though in a 
way it was too bad, for in certain respects Mirabal had a mind that 
was worthy of respect. In a curious way, that mind was similar to 
Fu Antos's own. 
But at the moment there was more urgent business: to wipe 
out this formidable force before it came within range of the castle. 
The cannon, mortars and bazookas could devastate the stoneworks, 
once they oriented on a clear target. But they would be equally 
potent in defense of the castle, if they could be captured intact. 
Yet the soldiers might well blow up their own equipment rather 

146 
than turn it over. So a proper strategy was called for, to separate 
men from equipment without damage to the latter. 
It was time to initiate the sequence of the elements: Air, Earth, 
Fire and Water. Air was gentle; it would accomplish this critical 
separation. The other elements were more brutal, and would have 
to wait upon the defense of the castle itself. 
Fu Antos raised his hand in a signal: AIR. And a ninja runner 
moved quickly to the ninja smoke-expert, who even now had prepared 
a wagonful of fine, dry wood shavings. He would move his 
wagon directly upwind from the convoy and proceed. 
Soon it began, for the ninjas were always efficient. The flame 
crackled up, then dampened as special potions were poured into 
it. This infusion of Water into Fire had its effect on Air; the smoke 
thickened, too heavy to gain much altitude. Instead it rolled like a 
bloated python across the landscape, through the forest toward 
the convoy. The wind shoved it along, making twists in the snake's 
giant torso, but the thing kept growing from the muted fire. The 
ninjas, alert to their own devices, gave that dark vapor a wide berth. 
The head of it crossed the convoy: perfect aim. The long torso 
slithered by, infiltrating the trucks and tanks, curling around the 
soldiers. It had a sweet, tangy flavor, not unpleasant. 
But the officer caught on. "Gas!" he cried. 
He was right: this was a ninja form of nerve gas. Many of the 
same mushrooms that had polluted the town's water supply, bringing 
madness, were in this smoke. To breathe it was at first exhilarating, 
but that was the onset of disaster. 
There were few gas masks, for this tactic had not been anticipated. 
Major Lima would have come prepared, but Major Lima 
had been removed for that very reason. The officers and tank crews 
had masks, but not the soldiers. A sergeant had a better alternative: 
"Run!" he bawled. "Get out of the gas! Hold your breath- 
don't breathe it!" 
The men needed little urging. The tank and crews and officers 
donned their masks; the others fled into the forest. 
Then hell broke loose. Vicious animals charged among the
147 
soldiers: wolflike dogs, jaguars, and boars. The beasts looked rabid, 
for several of them foamed at the mouths. This terrified the 
soldiers, who did not know that the ninjas had carefully squirted 
foam into the animals' mouths as they were released. The men 
fired wildly, but the creatures were already in their midst, and the 
shots only brought down other soldiers. In addition, several men 
had inhaled too much of the smoke, and now were enjoying themselves 
firing right at the handiest targets: their associates. The animals 
themselves slashed randomly with their tusks, teeth, and claws, 
seeming to exist only to kill. It was a thorough melee. 
Small bags flew through the air to burst at the feet of the men. 
Small poisonous snakes emerged. They slithered around the feet 
and legs of the men and started biting. Other bags loosed little 
wasps, scorpions and stinging flies, with similar effect. 
Then monstrous bat-forms swooped down from the trees. They 
were ninjas, employing gliding kites. In moments they too were 
among the panicked soldiers, slashing, hitting and mauling. Then 
they were gone again, leaving many more soldiers dead. 
Now only the gas-masked men remained with the convoy. 
The ninjas ran toward it, and the vicious animals let them pass 
because they wore a special repellent. 
The turrets of the two tanks swung about as the ninjas approached. 
But it was difficult for the men to orient well while 
wearing gas masks, and vision from inside a tank is seldom ideal 
anyway. The ninjas gestured at the tanks, drawing their fire, then 
dropped out of sight before the aim could be adjusted. 
But even a confused tank is dangerous. The lead one charged 
forward, its treads crunching the ground where the ninjas had 
disappeared, grinding up the turf. The ninjas could no longer be 
secure in their invisibility; they had to scramble out of the way. 
One was too slow, and the tank crushed his legs. Destroyed but 
not dead, the ninja reached inside his uniform, grabbed a packet 
of poison, and popped it into his mouth. Then he died, satisfied 
that he could not be interrogated. 
Meanwhile, Fu Antos quickly got in under the guns and clam- 

148 
bered onto the moving tank. He emptied a bag of itching powder 
into the vent. 
Like all ninja products, it was superior grade. The men inside 
went wild as the fine material sifted down into their uniforms, 
aggravating the skin intolerably. If there is anything worse than 
ants in the pants, it is itching powder in a tank. In moments the 
tank, too, was vacant, the masks off. 
The second tank was orienting its cannon on Fu Antos. He 
jumped down and used the other vehicles of the convoy as cover, 
so that it could not fire. The other ninjas had already dispatched 
the officers in the jeeps, but the tank crew could not know that. 
Then he skated two tonki, little throwing knives, in through the 
forward apertures of the tank. No other man could have made 
such accurate throws. 
The tank hesitated, while the crewmen inside shifted places, 
the living and the dead. Fu Antos mounted it during that hesitation, 
and poured liquid Greek Fire down the vent. Flame erupted. 
Now the tank was dead. 
Fu Antos's mighty ki protected him from the narcotic smoke, 
but even he was not entirety immune. He moved out of it before it 
affected his mind. 
The battle still raged in the jungle. The soldiers, mobbing the 
outnumbered ninjas, had at last brought down several. One ninja 
was struck amidships by a bazooka shot, and simply disintegrated. 
Another was caught close-range in the stream of bullets from an 
M-3 machine gun. Though his cloak protected him somewhat, 
the sheer impact knocked him over. Two other men emptied their 
guns into him at point blank range. Each bullet hit close upon the 
last, so that the effect was cumulative, and he was battered to 
death without ever suffering perforation. 
With ninja casualties mounting, it was time to break off. Fu 
Antos made a signal, and abruptly the ninjas departed. 
But now the wind shifted. The awful smoke rolled toward the 
remaining men. Again they ran. But that meant the smoke no 
longer covered the convoy.
149 
The ninjas reappeared. They climbed into the deserted vehicles. 
But they were not able to operate the tanks or personnel 
carriers, lacking the knowledge. So they planted explosives and 
blew them up after unloading the cases of weapons and ammunition.
Hidden in the forest, they opened the cases, so as to transfer 
the supplies to more convenient carrying form. And they received 
a shock. The first case, marked GRENADES, contained a jack-inthe-
box with a face like Mirabal's, its tongue sticking out. And a 
note saying "Congratulations! You have just become the proud 
owner of this box of rocks." And the rest was-stone. 
Mirabal had outsmarted the ninja after all. 
So far. 

Chapter 8: 
The Love of Oba 
Now Oba took me to her apartment. Actually it was both 
more and less than that. It was in a big two-story house in one of 
the poorer sections of town, that had been partitioned into small 
rooms, each occupied by a person, couple, or family. We passed 
into a central courtyard, with a communal laundry, and thence up 
to her room. 
She opened a round red can of guava paste labeled Conchita, 
cutting out some pieces and putting them on hard soda crackers 
from a big square box. I didn't know what it was, so she put one in 
my mouth. I chewed dutifully, and it was delicious. I gulped some 
cool water, and that was delicious too. In fact, I was feeling very 
good, riding an ebbing wave of euphoria. Then she showed me her 
bed, and suddenly my day and night of action caught up with me, 
and I lay on that bed like a felled tree. 
It was late afternoon when I woke. Oba was gone. I was not 
worried; I knew she had other things to do besides watch me snore. 
She had left some more food on the table where I would find it: a
151 
pot of black coffee, more crackers and paste, and some tasty soft 
white cheese. Simple fare, but good. I checked the little ice chest, 
but there seemed to be no milk. That's the difference between me 
and the Brazilians: I'm a milk drinker. Ah, well: coffee, then, and 
fresh-baked bread. 
She had also left two big crumpled dirty blue and red l0- 
cruzeiro notes for me. I was especially touched by this gesture; this 
was probably all she could spare, though it was only about two 
and a half dollars in American money. Well, I would repay her. I 
pocketed the money. 
I ate quickly, then cleaned up. God, I was filthy! I had forgotten 
about the dirt I had smeared over myself yesterday. I must 
have been a real spectacle, dancing in that black mass in my bare 
feet and caked dirt. I found a razor and shaved, aware that the 
instrument's normal use would have been on the legs of a pretty 
girl. Odd that so many women shave their legs to silken smoothness, 
but not their arms. Just which limbs do they expect to bear 
the closest scrutiny? 
There was a bidet in the room. You know, one of those strange 
female saddle-shaped urinals they use in Europe. What the hell: I 
straddled it as well as I could and relieved my bladder. I had encountered 
one of those things when I attended the martial-arts 
tournament in Nicaragua, and it really set me back. It conjured all 
sorts of half-obscene visions-bare distaff posteriors squirting fluid, 
that sort of thing-well, I never claimed to be sexually sophisticated. 
I got a kind of kick out of using it, and had buquinish up 
quickly before getting a masculine reaction. If I ever write my 
memoirs, that sort of detail won't be in them, though. Don't we 
all have thoughts we are ashamed of! 
I looked around the room. I had been oblivious to its detail, 
yesterday-actually this morning, but it seemed like yesterday- 
but now I was rested and had idle time. The windows had heavy 
red drapes, and from one of them I could see the big Maracana 
Stadium. There was a radio but no TV, a big dresser with a mirror, 
the table with its two chairs-and that was about it for furniture, 

152 
apart from the bed. Oba was obviously not rich. There were pictures 
of Saint Lazarus, a leper with two dogs, and Saint Barbara 
with a sword in one hand and a small castle behind her. That of 
course reminded me of my remarkable evening. 
There was an old Singer sewing machine, one of the non-electric 
pedal jobs, and a clothing dummy, and bolts of cloth, patterns, 
spools of thread and such like. She was evidently a seamstress 
in her spare time, or maybe that was her main occupation. 
There was a picture of a man, a rather handsome mulatto with 
curly short black hair and a powerful jawline. Her boyfriend? Then 
why had she been willing to pick me up? Could be she was merely 
helpful, a nice girl; best not to presume too much. 
Still Oba didn't reappear. What did I know of her, anyway? 
Maybe she had gone to fetch the Death Squad. No, I had to have 
some faith; I had tried to help her, and maybe she had a small yen 
for me, so she helped me back. She'd be home in due course. 
What the hell. I was no pimp, to lie around being served by a 
woman. I needed money to buy my passage home, and to repay 
Oba for her kindness. I had to go out and see how I could earn it. 
I found a pencil and printed a note on some of the breadwrapper: 
OBA-I WILL RETURN. J.S. That should reassure her. 
I went out and down the stairs to the central patio. There were 
a number of people around, and they stared at me, no doubt taking 
me for Oba's lover. Well, let them take! I made my way to the 
street and on to a broad avenue going by the stadium. I was careful 
to note the address so I could find it again. 
Soon I was back in the crowd. Again I rode the wave of it 
knowing it would bring me to where the action was. 
And it took me to a major martial arts festival. 
Suddenly I knew how to get out of Brazil. Martial arts is my 
bailiwick. 
I entered a large open space. Further along were huge tents, 
like a circus, and I could hear sideshow barkers calling. But what 
interested me was up close: a trained fighting bear, and a sign with
153 
the figure one thousand cruzeiros. Obviously anyone who could 
beat the bear would win that prize. 
I paused to do some crude calculations: 1,000 cruzeiros-I 
had to refrain from thinking of them as "crud-zeroes"-would translate 
into about one hundred and thirty dollars, if I had my exchange 
ratio straight. An airplane ticket to America would cost me 
about four hundred dollars-so it wasn't enough. Also, I would 
need clothing, so the Death Squad spies wouldn't recognize me at 
the airport, which they surely had staked out. Good Brazilian businessman 
clothes, probably at least another hundred dollars. Plus 
some for bribes-hell with that! So I needed a stake of five hundred 
dollars, and I surely was not going to steal any of it from any 
voodoo idols. This bear prize could be a start toward that total. 
I approached more closely. Actually there were two animal 
matches; the more popular one was a chimpanzee. It was the chimp 
who paid one thousand cruz; the bear paid five thousand. That 
was more like it; I could win my grubstake outright, over six hundred 
dollars. 
But first I watched the chimp. He wore red boxing pants and 
red boxing gloves, and was much smaller than a man. But the 
animal was tough. Many men tried it, paying the entry fee of ten 
cruz-and the chimp beat them all easily. Chimpanzees, like all 
apes, are much stronger than men. 
No one dared even attempt the bear. I knew the odds were 
much worse for it, but the prize was much bigger too. So I paid 
the entry fee of twenty cruz-praise the voodoo god for Oba's 
generosity!-and took the ring against the ursine champion. It 
was a European black bear, six feet tall and over four hundred 
pounds. Its claws were clipped and it was muzzled, but it remained 
a monster. Had I not been desperate . . . 
I came in fast with a tai otoshi body drop, hauling the bear over 
my leg. It staggered but did not fall; its hind legs were too short 
and its gravity too low for this to be effective. 
It reared again on its two hind feet and tried to grab me in a 
bear-hug. This time I went in deep with a ko-soto-gake small out- 

154 
side hook, going into sutemi by throwing myself down along with 
the bear, carrying it across my hooking leg. This worked; it rolled 
on its back. However, merely throwing it was not enough, in this 
match; I actually had to subdue it. So I put a kesagatame scarf hold 
on it, my arm circling its neck, holding it down. But again it was 
too strong for me, and shaped wrong. I changed to another 
holddown, katagatame, but still it was getting away. So at last I 
went into a modified hadaka jime strangle from behind. In addition 
to the pressure of my arms around its neck, I crossed my legs 
around its waist in an illegal (in contest judo-but this was hardly 
that!) scissors hold and squeezed as hard as I could. This was a 
hold not even a bear could break readily, though it certainly tried. 
I knew it was losing consciousness. 
Then a bell clanged. Oh, no! The owner had called the end of 
the round, and would not let me continue the strangle. I got up. 
Now I realized that there had been some small print in the terms, 
that I had not been able to read anyway, so that the bout had to be 
finished within a short round. I could take my winnings of 1,000 
cruz for lasting one round, or go for a second round. And I knew 
the bear would not allow itself to be caught in that strangle again. 
With ill grace I accepted my winnings. A few more seconds 
and I would have won the full prize, but one fifth of a loaf was 
better than none. I should have known that the rules would be set 
up to favor the entrepreneur, not the client. 
I continued on down the street to the big tents. There was a 
sign at the largest one, printed in three languages: Portuguese, 
Japanese, and English. It was a Sumo tournament and exhibition, 
Japanese wrestling. Anyone could enter by paying the fee, but in 
this case I knew the rules. Few were entering, for a professional 
sumo wrestler is an impressive hunk of man, huge and fat and 
strong. 
I needed more money than the truncated bear purse had provided, 
and that sort of cash was available for the sumo winners. 
Judo is an excellent all-around martial art, overlapping the techniques 
of karate, kung fu, aikido and wrestling. Many serious
155 
judokas will study other martial arts, to increase proficiency in 
judo. I had done the same, and one of the arts I had dabbled in 
was sumo. In fact, one of the things I did in my own dojo was to 
have my young students strip off their jackets and do sumo. It was 
good exercise, it made for variety, and it was fun; the kids loved it. 
Of course I would be at a disadvantage against a classical sumo 
wrestler in his own specialty. But I knew there would be no topranked 
sumotori here. Brazil had a sizable colony of Japanese settlers, 
the largest in Latin America, about half a million, but this 
was hardly Japan itself. So I figured I had a reasonable chance for 
the purse. 
Actually, I could make my money without reaching the finals. 
Betting was legal here; all I had to do was bet on myself and win a 
couple, and I'd have my money. Or, playing it safe, bet half my 
money, or five hundred cruzeiros. That way if I lost, I'd still have a 
stake. The five hundred cruz would be about sixty-five dollars, if I 
won three times and doubled it each time, that would come to, 
let's see, five hundred and twenty dollars. Just about right, without 
even risking my other half of the bear winnings. That would 
be reserved to repay Oba. 
So I entered. What did I really have to lose? If I didn't enter, I 
would be stuck here anyway. 
The tournament was inside the big tent, on a raised platform 
marked with a circle. All around the edges of the tent were hawkers' 
booths and little sideshows; maybe I would have a chance to 
look into some of them after the tournament. I'm a sucker for such 
entertainments, and I was also hungry. The first thing I'd do after 
this was buy some good ice cream. 
But now my first match came up. The object in sumo is to 
make any part of your opponent touch the ground-other than 
the soles of his feet, of course-or shove him out of the ring. Kicking, 
punching, hair-pulling and gouging are forbidden. In sumo, 
the "ring" really is a ring, about fifteen feet across, with no ropes 
around the edge, only a white ring on the floor marking the boundary. 
The platform is supposed to be made from sixteen rice bales, 

156 
supported by four pillars at the four points of the compass, each 
painted a different color. This platform was painted, but the floor 
was wood, not rice. Too bad; I rather appreciated the niceties of 
tradition. 
I had to don a Fundoshi, the tight-fitting black loin cloth. 
Around my waist was a fat cord of hemp; it was permissible to take 
hold of this, and it gave good leverage. My opponent wore the 
same. He was a veritable mountain of flesh; I judged he outweighed 
me by 150 pounds. No wonder the local boys weren't having much 
luck!
The judge, or gyoji, was dressed in a brocade kimono. In real 
sumo there is also a jury of five men, but here it was up to the lone 
judge. 
There were normally a lot of formalities associated with sumo, 
and combatants could take a long time preparing for a match, 
though the match itself was usually short. But this was degraded 
sumo, and the local Brazilian entries were generally so inept that 
little preparation was required. My opponent had little way of 
knowing I was different. 
The signal for the start of the match came. The sumotori rushed 
me, thinking to finish me off in the first hustle; after all, all he had 
to do was grab me and shove me out. That was his mistake; a man 
too intent on shortcuts is easily trapped. I grabbed his outstretched 
right arm, braced my left foot against his right knee, and hauled 
him over in a hiza-guruma knee-wheel throw. His forward impetus 
sent him flying right out of the ring. So the easy victory was mine, 
not his. 
That trick doubled my money, at least the amount I had bet. 
Now I had one thousand cruzeiros, plus my Oba's-newshoes reserve. 
However, it had cost me the element of surprise. The other 
contestants were quick to recognize my martial arts ability. An 
amateur does not perform a perfect knee-wheel throw on a professional
-not by chance. They would be alert for me now. 
My second match was proof of that. It was against another 
man-mountain, but he did not charge me. He came in cautiously,
157 
then suddenly grabbed my neck with both hands. These big men 
were trained to move very quickly in the ring; never think of a 
sumotori as a slow hulk. 
He was trying to choke me into submission, a legitimate tactic. 
But the strangle is fundamental to judo, as is the choke. A 
strangle cuts off the blood to the brain, a choke the air to the 
lungs. A strangle correctly applied will be effective much more 
rapidly than a mere choke. I had had many years practice in resisting 
more competent chokes than this. I tensed my neck muscles- 
and they were formidable, if I do say so myself-hunched my 
head down, and resisted his relatively crude effort. My wind was 
cut off, even so, for he had great strength in his hands, but it 
would take him two minutes to down me from asphyxiation. Meanwhile, 
I clamped my own hands to his neck, going for the strangle. 
I was ready to bet the match that I could outlast him in this particular 
ploy. 
I was right. He lacked the tough neck for this. My thumbs 
sank in and put pressure on the two nerve centers at the sides of 
the neck over the carotid arteries. A nerve-strangle is even faster 
than a blood-strangle. That was it; he fell unconscious. I had my 
second victory. 
That brought my money to two thousand cruzeiros. One more 
win would do it. 
The sumotori of my third match neither charged nor choked. 
He circled me warily, then reached out, and I caught hold of his 
right arm. He thought I was going for another forward throw, and 
braced himself to counter. But I trapped his right arm in my left 
armpit and turned inward into a waki-gatame arm-lock. The sudden 
pain made him fall on one knee, costing him the match. 
Good enough. Now I could collect my winnings and get out 
of here. The rapidity of my victories was not unusual; in sumo it is 
generally settled very quickly. It is all geared to a quick heave utilizing 
maximum effort, like weight lifting. 
But a large hand clapped my shoulder as I walked toward the 

158 
partitioned changing-room. The strike was from behind, startling 
me. "Jason Striker!" 
I turned. It was another sumotori, 350 pounds-but this one 
I recognized. He was a yokozuma, a grand champion of the art, 
one of the genuine masters. "Kiyokuni!" I exclaimed. "What brings 
you to Brazil?" 
He lowered his eyes. "I am getting old, friend, past my prime. 
My rank is for life, but my body fades. The competition in Japan, 
the strong young ones-" He shrugged. "I had to win, for I had 
gambling debts. Yet I could not." 
"You were in debt, yet you traveled to the Americas?" I asked, 
trying not to make it sound too critical. 
"As an entrepreneur," he explained. "I was not ready to untie the 
traditional knot." He meant the knot of hair tressed on his head. A 
great champion, ready to quit, untied the knot in public, signifying 
his retirement. "My friend, the Osensei Hiroshi of Aikido-" 
"My friend too," I interjected. I had not realized that these 
two knew each other-the huge sumo expert and the tiny Aikido 
expert. Hiroshi had gotten me into this present adventure, as a 
matter of fact, coming to plead Fu Antos' cause. 
"Hiroshi suggested that I organize a troupe of wrestlers like 
me-too old or too new or recovering from indisposition." Now 
he meant drug addiction or alcoholism; that has happened to some 
very good martial artists, unfortunately. One of the greatest judokas 
of all time, Shiro Saigo, went that sad route. "I borrowed all I 
could to set it up. Now we tour the world. Though we are not the 
best Japan has to offer, we are better than any elsewhere. And we 
perform a valuable service, promoting the art of sumo and educating 
other people to the Japanese way. We give seminars on the 
courtesies of martial art and proper technique, and we offer limited 
instruction for those interested in sumo. Our fees are reasonable, 
and a man past his competitive prime may remain at his teaching 
prime much longer." 
"That's great!" I exclaimed. "You are spreading a good knowledge."
159 
"We like to think so," he agreed, inclining his head in a little 
gesture of appreciation for the compliment. There is something 
about the grave, automatic courtesy of the true martial artist that 
always touches me. 
"Well, you certainly helped me," I said. "I got in trouble and 
lost my money, and now I have won back enough to get home 
again. Without this tournament I don't know what I would have 
done." 
"But surely you are not leaving now!" he protested. "You have 
won three matches in fine style. Two more will bring you to the 
finals. Already the spectators have taken note of you, this strange 
North American who makes the huge wrestlers whimper! You are 
generating excitement, attracting people, and bringing us profit. 
Please, I must insist that you continue in the tournament!" 
I could not very well turn down this sincere plea of my huge 
friend. I approved what he was doing, and I really was in no hurry, 
now that I had my money. I did not need to bet any more-I 
never gamble voluntarily anyway-and could finish out the competition 
for the fun of it. "I'll stay," I said. 
"But you must be hungry!" he exclaimed jovially. "You are 
hardly more than a skeleton." Compared to him, I was, since I had 
no fat on me. "Come, we shall prepare you for the remainder." 
And he urged me forward into one of the smaller tents. The main 
tent had no sides, just a top to keep the weather away, but the 
smaller tents were complete. 
As a matter of fact, I was hungry. I did not want to eat a large 
amount right before the vigorous exercise of a match, but something 
would be very good right now. So I joined him in a lovely 
Island repast of raw fish, fried rice balls, a bowl of black bean paste 
and noodles, and plenty of Japanese tea with no sugar. 
Now it was time for the next match. Apparently Kiyokuni had 
delayed the proceedings so as not to rush me. I knew this one was 
going to be tougher, for my opponent treated me exactly like a 
professional sumotori. I could not afford to grapple him in the 
conventional sumo fashion, for he was much stronger and heavier 

160 
than I. I had to win fast, or lose, and I rather expected to lose. The 
plain fact was that I was not a match for a good sumotori in his 
specialty. 
He grabbed my belt. I cut suddenly to the side, whipping my 
hip sidewise and back in a taisabaki motion used in judo to counter 
a forward throw. Because I was nervous, and recharged by the good 
food Kiyokuni had shared, my action was extraordinarily powerful. 
The sumotori's wrist jerked violently. 
He gave a cry of pain and let go. The judge called a halt, 
coming in to examine the man's hand. 
Oh, no! I saw it now. The thumb was bent backward out of its 
socket, wrenched or broken by my thrust. 
"Here, let me-" I said automatically. The judge held the 
sumotori's arm, and I took hold of the dislocated thumb and pulled 
hard. The victim grimaced with pain, but in a moment the digit 
settled back into its proper place. But that hand would be useless 
for some time. 
The judge indicated the victory for me, but I didn't care about 
that. "I'm sorry," I told the sumotori, not certain he even understood 
my language. "I did not mean to hurt you." 
He controlled his pain like the man he was. "That hand was 
weak from prior injury," he told me in English. "I was careless, 
and you did not know." And he made a little bow. 
There was nothing else I could say. I turned away, chagrined. 
These things do happen; I have been injured many times in judo. 
But that did not make me feel much better. How would that man 
be able to make his way, now? 
But my next match was upon me. Now I would be happy to 
lose, and get out of this before I caused any more trouble. Yet I 
had to do my best; never in my life have I thrown a match, for any 
reason. 
The sumotori grabbed me around the waist, trying to lift me 
so that he could carry me out of the ring. I resisted, levering against 
his own mass so that he could not get me up. So he used all his 
strength and bulk to squeeze me and bend me backwards, literally
161 
crushing me in his embrace. Let me tell you, the press of a sumotori 
is no trifle; I could hardly gasp in enough breath to maintain consciousness. 
Then I remembered a trick little Hiroshi had employed against 
a huge wrestler at the Martial Open. No doubt it was the mention 
of Hiroshi the Aikidoist in my discourse with Kiyokuni so recently 
that brought this to mind. I tried that trick now. I put one arm at 
the small (really a misnomer, on this monstrous man!) of his back, 
and the other under his nose. I pressed upward and back on his 
face while hauling him in from the back. The upper lip is sensitive; 
he had to draw back to alleviate my pressure, but could not. 
I kept pushing with all my might, forcing him to bend, and at last 
he capitulated. The match was mine. 
Now, to my surprise, I had made the finals. Only one wrestler 
remained, and I would have to vie with him for the grand purse of 
ten thousand cruzeiros, or about one thousand three hundred dollars, 
that I didn't really want now. And-my opponent was my 
friend Kiyokuni, naturally a competitor himself. No doubt he saved 
his venture some money by winning many of the purses himself, 
and this was legitimate, so long as he won fairly, as I was sure he 
did.
I looked out over the crowd, seeing how huge it had grown, 
inflated like the ponderous belly of a sumotori. There was a lot of 
support for Japanese martial art here in Rio. Many of the spectators 
were of Japanese descent, but many were not. It was a credit 
to Kiyokuni's promotional ability. 
Then I spied a too-familiar face at the fringe. It was Laureano, 
head torturer for Mirabal. What was he doing here? 
What else but searching for me? The same excitement that 
had attracted the swelling crowd had brought him to investigate. 
I had in effect blown my cover, and I had to get out fast. "I have 
changed my mind,' I said to Kiyokuni. "I can not participate further." 
He was shocked. "Jason, you can not do this! It is the final 
match!" 

162 
"I-I am indisposed," I said, not wanting to get him involved 
in my Death Squad problems. "I shall yield the match and purse 
to you. Please use some of it to help the man whose hand I injured." 
"Indisposed?" he repeated, and I realized I had made an unfortunate 
choice of vocabulary. He thought I was pleading addiction 
to some drug. Then he shook his head, refusing to credit that. 
"But you have done so well! Everyone is waiting for this encounter! 
It is a record crowd." Then he paused. "Ah, you worry about 
Toshida! That is all right; we do not throw our injured troupe 
members into the street to die! All of on this tour have problems; 
all contribute to a common fund to assist those whom misfortune 
befalls. Do not be concerned." 
"You are my friend," I said. "I cannot fight you." 
He smiled with understanding. "Ah, you seek to avoid embarrassing 
me before this throng! I appreciate the thought, but I am a 
warrior. I can take my losses as well as my victories, and I would be 
privileged to lose to you, my friend. Come, I insist-the match 
must continue." 
Laureano was looking my way, and I was sure he had spotted 
me. His eyes seemed to glitter insanely behind rimless glasses. 
There were four or five men with him with their shirts hanging 
out, covering their belts, surely concealing their weapons. Among 
them was the big ugly football player/thug. Trouble galore! "You 
misunderstand, friend. I can't hope to defeat you. It would be a 
mismatch." 
"Now you sound like a coward, and I know you are not!" he 
answered. "Come, it is a fair match, and it would look strange if 
you suddenly withdrew now. People would think I had bribed 
you to forfeit, and my reputation would suffer." And he looked at 
me with such a pleading sincerity that it was painful. 
What could I say? He was honest, well-meaning, and correct. 
He did not know about my problem with the Death Squad, and I 
did not want him to know. I had to go through with it, and made 
a good show for the spectators, many of whom I knew had placed
163 
sizable wagers on the outcome. All I could do now was hope to 
finish it quickly, one way or the other, and get out before Laureano 
and his hoods reached me. 
Kiyokuni and I approached each other slowly. I had not been 
fooling when I pondered the strength of the sumotori; he might 
consider himself over the hill in Japan, but he had been one of the 
mightiest sumo wrestlers of all time, and was still a formidable 
opponent. In a straight judo match I think I could have taken 
him, for that was my specialty; no doubt I had better endurance, 
and could nail him when he tired. But I was quite unlikely to beat 
him in sumo, and was much more likely to lose rapidly than to 
win slowly. He would not fall for the tricks I had used on the lesser 
combatants. Furthermore, he knew me from Japan, and had seen 
me fight there; he was wise to my techniques. 
We grappled and pushed at each other, not trying for an immediate 
win so much as a minor advantage that could be parlayed 
into a winning combination. Yet I felt the tremendous musculature 
under Kiyokuni's fat; he could bull me out of the circle any 
time and knew it, but the showman in him wanted to make it look 
tougher for the betting spectators, and the friend in him wanted 
to spare me the ignominy of too-ready defeat. He would not throw 
the match, of course, any more than I would, but there are kind 
and unkind ways to prevail. Damn his kind heart; if he beat me in 
five seconds and let me go, I could avoid murder or capture by 
Mirabal's torturer! 
I heard a cry. Now the Death Squad was right up to the platform. 
Laureano's burning half-mad eyes were fixed on mine, his 
right hand stroking the bump below his hanging shirt; he had a 
gun there, all right. I didn't think he'd shoot me right there on 
stage, in full view of the crowd, but seeing the lurking insanity 
and lust for blood in his face, I wasn't sure. He'd probably do it 
rather than let me slip away again. And if he tried, he very well 
might hit my friend Kiyokuni. I had to break this off right now- 
but how? 
Suddenly there was a piercing scream. My gaze turned invol- 

164 
untarily that way. It was Oba, right before Laureano, who was 
trying to push past her to regain a clear shot at me. 
She screamed again, with marvelous volume. All heads turned. 
She gesticulated wildly, a torrent of Portuguese emerging from her 
pretty little mouth. She pointed at Laureano in a gesture very 
similar to the one the boy Filho had used on me in prison. Nearby 
faces scowled. 
Then I knew what she was doing. She was accusing the Death 
Squadders of attacking her, and the crowd believed her. In truth, 
Laureano was innocent of this particular charge, but I wasn't going 
to raise my voice on his behalf. Let him have a taste of his own 
medicine, the false accusation and frame-up. Serve him right! 
Now I had leeway. I freed my right arm, got clearance between 
us, and let go with a mighty uppercut to Kiyokuni's chin. It 
was a knockout blow-and an obvious foul. 
There was an instant roar of outrage from the crowd as the 
judge signaled the penalty. They could not know that I might 
have saved Kiyokuni's life from a misplaced assassin's shot. The 
sumotori fell back, losing consciousness, a surprised look on his 
face; he had never suspected I would be capable of such a dastardly 
deed. The judge, too, was shocked; he was yelling something at 
me, but his voice was drowned out by the crowd. 
Half a dozen sumotoris scrambled into the ring, furious. Instead 
of freeing myself from a match, I had gotten myself into a 
brawl! Why hadn't I simply confided in Kiyokuni and let him 
help hide me from the Death Squad? Sometimes I'm not very 
bright, sad to say. Kiyokuni was not only a fine fighter and the 
employer of these men, he was their friend and benefactor. I could 
well understand their anger and sympathize with their intent, but 
could not afford to wait for it! They would beat me to jelly in an 
instant, and if they didn't, the Death Squad would finish me off 
instead. My own folly! 
They converged. Surrounded by the dancing whales, I prepared 
my escape. Fortunately they got in each other's way, being 
so eager to get at me. I leaped up and delivered a flying kick to the
165 
side of the face of the nearest, knocking him down. But another 
grabbed me from behind with both arms. I jumped, using him as 
leverage, and shoved with both legs at the chest of the one in front. 
He fell back like a monstrous tenpin, bowling over the others. 
Then I bent forward and gathered in the knee of the man holding 
me, who was staggering backward from the recoil of my shove; I 
encouraged that stagger with a backward kick to his abdomen that 
incapacitated him without injury. I was not trying to hurt these 
people. 
What a melee it was! Oba was still screaming, the crowd was 
closing in on the Death Squad and on me simultaneously, the 
judge was appalled, sumotoris were sprawled all across the ring, 
angry spectators further out were starting to throw stink bombs, 
and one wrestler remained on his feet coming at me. Laureano's 
gun was now in his hand, and the other Death Squadders were 
reaching for theirs. I had generated a riot that might soon cost the 
lives of a number of people-but had I saved my own life? 
Laureano's gun came up, the muzzle centering on me as the 
last sumotori charged me. The other wrestlers were getting up; 
after all, they were used to taking falls. It was now or never. 
I ducked down to meet the wrestler. Fortunately he was a light 
one, a scant 300 pounds. I put my bowed shoulders into his midsection, 
caught his right leg with my right arm, braced my legs 
and lifted him in an unsteady kata-guruma shoulder whirl. When 
I had him up, I turned around in the "airplane spin" of the television 
wrestlers, letting his legs fly out to bash down the others. 
Then I heaved him off the platform, directly into the Death Squad, 
crushing them down beneath that awful weight. 
I jumped off the platform, grabbed Oba's hand, and ran for it. 
I had no time to pick up my money or even to recover my clothes. 
I only hoped Kiyokuni would understand, once he thought it out. 
Then I spied Laureano. The man was extricating himself from 
the pileup, apparently having been on the fringe. He was bent 
over, trying to rise despite part of the Football Player sprawled on 
one of his arms, and his posterior was facing me. It was an oppor- 

166 
tunity I could not resist. I broke away from Oba, jumped toward 
the torturer, closed my fist, and smacked him at the base of the 
spine right between the buttocks with an Ippon-Ken strike. It was 
an atemi blow, outlawed in karate competition because it could 
injure the spinal nerve, interfering with the function of the legs 
and the urinary system. 
Laureano screamed and collapsed, and I knew my blow had 
done the trick. It would be a long time before he walked normally 
again, and he might lose control of his bladder. He would suffer 
horribly-just the way he had made countless prisoners suffer. 
Now Oba and I merged with the crowd. I felt naked in my 
scanty Fundoshi, and no wonder, for it was really no more than a 
tough jock strap. But the milling throng didn't seem to notice; 
probably they assumed it was just a carnival costume. They didn't 
know I was the cause of the riot. 
Oba took the lead, smiling sunnily. And I realized that this 
little goddess had indeed saved me from betrayal by a friend, voiding 
Exu's curse. Kiyokuni had meant only well, but he had nearly 
been the death of me; only Oba's timely distraction had foiled 
that.
There was a cry. I looked back, and there was the big Football 
Player, towering over the heads of the crowd, forging through like 
a tank. He was waving his fist at me; he wanted me to know he was 
back on my trail. He must have shown his badge or whatever and 
freed himself, and resumed the chase, heedless of the plight of 
Laureano. I certainly hadn't given him the slip long; he was like a 
damned bloodhound. There seemed to be more Squadders with 
him than before, too, seven or eight now. And they obviously had 
caught on to Oba's connection to me; that particular ploy would 
not work again. 
"Vir," Oba said, tugging me on. 
"I hope you know an escape hatch," I muttered, following her. 
"Those bastards mean business." And how! 
She led me to a door, and we ducked in. I hoped Football 
hadn't seen us do it, but had no real confidence. It was some kind
167 
of an exercise hall, with students working out. Not judo or karate 
or Aikido; I couldn't place it at first glance, but it certainly had the 
aspect of a martial arts dojo. For one thing, the pupils were in 
armor. Did the Society for Creative Anachronisms have a Chapter 
here?
The Master came up. He was at least sixty years old, stood five 
foot six, with a substantial pot belly that brought his weight up to 
perhaps 180 pounds. His eyes were watery, his beard wispy, and I 
could see the somewhat trembly nature of his pulse. There were 
big dark liver spots on his hands, a sure sign of advancing age. 
Taken all in all, not impressive. Perhaps he had been a sharp martial 
artist once, but no longer. He wore a samurai sword, and now 
I recognize his martial art. This was kendo or iado, the science of 
swordsmanship. 
Oba spoke quickly in Portuguese. The Master smiled and 
turned to me. "Jason Striker!" he exclaimed, though Oba had not 
named me. 
Uh-oh. If he knew me, would he give me away to the Death 
Squad? No, I had to trust him; evidently Oba knew him, and 
anyway I had no choice. 
"Fuji, kendo," the Master introduced himself simply, so I could 
understand. We exchanged bows. 
Now I had to admire his school, for it would have been bad 
form to allow minor matters like a Death Squad hot on my heels 
to distract me from common courtesy. Chafing inside, I did so. 
Most of the students were still working out. They were not 
actually in armor, at least not the conventional kind; that had 
been my error of a too-hasty glance. They wore cotton blouses and 
ankle-length divided skirts, with bare feet. They had helmets similar 
to baseball catcher's masks, with iron face grills and padded leather 
side flaps, the whole cushioned by a towel underneath. The breastplates 
consisted of bamboo slats, extended by a short leather plate 
to protect the crotch. Shell gauntlets covered the arms from the 
backs of the hands to the elbows. 
Their "swords" were made of bamboo, with sixteen inches of 

168 
handle and thirty of blade-and that blade was split, tied together 
by an interior cord. The result was to deprive it of its striking 
power. But it could make a sound, and the judge could estimate 
the power and cleanness of the blow by that crack. More advanced 
students fenced without armor, and used more substantial wooden 
swords. 
It is foolish to judge by appearances, especially in martial art. 
I knew that, but this time I forgot. I'm afraid my border-line contempt 
must have been evident to Master Fuji, and in retrospect I 
am keenly embarrassed. I had a lesson coming. 
There was a sudden loud pounding on the door. We knew 
what that was. Oba spoke again, urgently. The Master gestured 
me to a curtain, and we hastened to hide behind it. 
The curtain was semitransparent, with a coarse weave, so it 
was possible to see through it by putting my face up close. 
Now the men of the Death Squad charged in, a brutish crew. 
Laureano was not among them, thanks to my knock on his posterior; 
the Football Linesman led them. Despite the danger I was in, 
my glance passed by them to the wall beyond, attracted to the 
display of wooden swords. 
Wooden swords. Fat lot of good they would do against thugs 
armed with guns. And that must be a wooden sword Master Fuji 
was wearing too, not a real one. He was virtually unarmed. 
"Move aside, old man," Football snapped arrogantly, or something 
like that in Portuguese; his peremptory tone raised my hackles. 
I never did much like bullies, and these ones were worse than 
most. 
Master Fuji looked small and frail before these brutes, but he 
stood his ground, answering softly but firmly. He would not permit 
a search without a warrant, or whatever the formality was, and 
of course the Death Squad hadn't bothered with that. I appreciated 
his courage, but knew it was useless; they would simply shove 
him aside and proceed, quite possibly ransacking the premises and 
terrorizing the students while they were at it. 
Yet the students continued their ritual postures as though
169 
oblivious to the threat to their instructor. They surely knew he was 
in danger, or at least embarrassment; were they disciplined, or 
were they afraid? Some example for the field of martial arts! I flexed 
my muscles, planning combat strategy, but I knew it was hopeless. 
There were eight thugs, and all were armed; in one second 
those pistols would be in their hands and blasting away. 
Football spoke again, to his men, and they spread out to circle 
the Master. The old man spread his hands, shaking his head. "No!" 
he cried. "I forbid it!" 
Football's left hand thrust out, shoving the Master back. He 
staggered. Now the other thugs closed in for a bit of sport. They 
encircled him completely, vulpine smiles on their faces, reaching 
slowly for their guns. They wanted him to see what they were 
doing, to make him cry out and try to resist or get away. A frantic 
rabbit was always more sport than a passive one. 
Now, in the Orient it used to be a crime punishable by death 
for a visitor to draw a weapon in the host's house. Such an action 
was never taken lightly; to draw was to challenge to the death. An 
offender could be forced to commit seppuku, ritual suicide, even 
when he was in the right. 
This was Brazil, not the Orient, but a martial arts dojo is 
really an extension of the Orient. I knew the Master would have to 
act, or be shamed before his students, and therefore he would at 
the very least get beaten up, and perhaps die. I had to get out 
there and fight my own battle. 
Yet this thought and this resolve were only halfway through 
my brain, and my body had not yet responded, when the Master 
exploded into the most phenomenal action I have ever seen. It was 
so rapid and so devastating that at first I could not believe what I 
saw. Only later was I able to work it out, re-creating what had 
happened. 
Here, then, is that re-creation. The Master was ringed by the 
eight Death Squad thugs. Football was in front of him, the others 
stepping in from all sides as their hands went for their guns. Master 
Fuji drew his long sword from the scabbard-and lo! it was, 

170 
after all, razor-sharp steel, not wood-with his left hand. He 
brought it up high to clear the scabbard, the hand reversed on the 
hilt-seemingly an impossible grip for combat. But then he 
brought it down and back, and stabbed the man directly behind 
him through the gut, piercing the liver. 
Then he drew the sword out, clapped the hilt into his right 
hand, angled it up past his own head and whipped the blade across 
the two thugs farthest to his right. The first, standing upright, was 
slashed deeply across the chest, so that the blood and muscle blossomed 
out. The second, leaning forward, had his throat slit. The 
katana, having a blade as well as a point, and being slightly curved 
so as to facilitate slicing, was well adapted to this motion. 
The thugs had not yet quite realized what had happened. Seeing 
is not the same as believing, not in the first instant. Not when 
a rabbit metamorphoses into a tiger. They were still reaching in 
leisurely fashion for their guns. Except for one man, the third from 
the Master's right, who had drawn and was just leveling his weapon. 
Master Fuji swung back, slicing open the skull of that man. The 
thug's brains slopped out from that terrible forehead gash, tumbling 
across his face as he fell. 
Again the Master reversed his stroke, gripping the sword in 
the classical two-handed Japanese way. With a kesagake movement 
he opened the abdomens of the two on his left. Their entrails 
spewed out like garbage from burst bags, and they too collapsed, 
dropping their guns. 
Only two remained standing at this stage. Both had their guns 
out, and both had now caught on to what was happening. But the 
sword reversed course again and severed Football's right arm, sending 
it flying through the air still holding the pistol. Amazed but 
not stupid, he turned to run, but collapsed as his blood pressure 
dropped, for his stump was spurting wildly. Unless he received 
prompt medical attention, he was likely to die from loss of blood, 
and such attention seemed unlikely. 
The last man managed to get off one shot. It missed Master
171 
Fuji, who took care of him with a terrible do-giri stroke that almost 
cut him in two at the level of the nipples. 
Then the Master returned his katana to its scabbard without 
looking; the guard on the handle made a faint click as it struck 
home. The whole action had taken five seconds. 
I stumbled out, unable to abort my attempt to participate 
though the action was over. I must have been gaping, for the Master 
faced me with a little smile. "Also Iado, 8th Dan," he said, 
completing his self-introduction. 
Oh. Iado was true sword fighting-steel, not wood-and 8th 
Dan would be one of the highest grades in the world. No doubt 
about that! It was the art of the quick draw, the swordsman's equivalent 
to the old western American cowboy gunslinger's draw. Since 
the action was brief, it did not require much stamina; even an old 
man could be devastating, as we had just seen. 
Master Fuji spoke to Oba, who was looking a bit faint. In 
response she took me by the hand and guided me through the 
classroom to a back hall, while the students came to clean up the 
mess. We would not be bothered any more by the Death Squad 
assassins! 
My mind numbed, I suffered myself to be led. Oba took me 
to a private room in back, and closed the door behind us. Then she 
turned and collapsed into my arms, sobbing. 
I held her, well appreciating her emotion. To see eight people 
so suddenly slaughtered-it horrified me too. I had looked upon 
the Master as a basically harmless retiree, a devotee of a martial art 
that never had had much impact . . . 
I became strongly aware of Oba's lithe body, trembling in my 
arms. I felt a pang of guilt for thinking of sexual qualities in this 
moment of relief and horror. Yet there is a relation between opposites, 
whether it be male and female, or shock and acceptance, or 
horror and love. My emotion had been roused, and so had hers, 
and that extremely negative outward impression yet was a mutual 
experience that drew us together. I don't know whether that makes 
sense; I'm not much of a philosopher. 

172 
At any rate, I kissed her, and she kissed me back, fiercely. My 
hands slid down along her silken hair to cup her firm buttocks- 
and I drew back, unwilling to let her shock at the bloodshed set 
her up for a seduction. I am, at the root, an amorous man, but 
there are limits. 
She stood alone, a lovely nymph. How I wished I could talk 
with her! 
Oba suddenly remembered something, her mood changing in 
that mercurial way women have. She rummaged in her handbag 
and brought out a little wooden item, handing it to me with a 
smile. 
I accepted, turning it over in my hand. It was a carving of a 
human hand, the fingers closed, thumb sticking up between the 
first two like a fouled-up fist. "What is it?" 
"Figa," she said brightly. 
"Figure?" 
"Figa." And she strung it on a thin chain and hung it around 
my neck, a necklace. 
"I don't understand . . ." 
So she explained, by gestures, making a little play of it. There 
were several confusions, but gradually I came to understand. 
The Figa was a good-luck charm, an amulet against the evil 
eye. (Oba made the fiercest, cutest evil eye expression I ever saw.) 
It symbolized passion and fertility, warded off envy and jealousy, 
and kept evil spirits at bay. It must never be lost, for then all the 
bad luck it had warded off would come crashing down on the 
owner's head. It had to be bought and given as a present; anyone 
who bought his own Figa would find it valueless, just an inert 
object causing neither good nor harm. 
It was a cute figurine, and a cute notion by a cute girl. "Thank 
you, Oba," I said. And now my curiosity about her was aroused. 
Yet how could I question her, with this language barrier? 
Well, why not? Maybe she would comprehend a little. "Just 
who are you, Oba?" I inquired. "A working girl? Secretary? Won't 
you be missed from your job? Oh-or are you a seamstress? I saw
173 
the cloth in your room. No wonder you dress so nicely. Or do you 
have some connection with the voodoo, umbanda, or whatever?" 
Her black eyes glowed, and I thought she understood. And 
she began to dance. 
It was beautiful. She had the lithe, slender dancer's body, with 
muscular legs and perfect coordination, and she moved with such 
grace I was entranced. "So you are a professional dancer," I murmured. 
"I should have known." 
But she continued, and it was evident that she had more on 
her mind than showing off her form. Her gestures were stylized, 
repetitive, not like the voodoo dance, but like pantomime. 
That was it! She was telling a story! 
I watched, and gradually it came clear. Nuances of gesture and 
expression, and occasional spoken words, brought to life the story 
of the gods of voodoo. 
In the beginning there was chaos, a being without definition, 
incomprehensible to the mortal mind. He was composed of three 
spirits, one of whom created the heavens and the earth and all 
living things, including man in his own image. But the man was 
vain, so the god tried to destroy him. Yet the man was immortal, 
and survived though all the earth was blackened by the scourge of 
the god's lightning. Still, after that, he stayed out of sight. 
The gods-the three aspects of the One God-then had mercy 
on the earth, and re-created life on it. The aspect Olofi (Oba pronounced 
his name for me) was put in charge of this chore, while 
the others went away to continue creation elsewhere in the universe. 
Olofi, mindful of the bad example set by the first man, gave 
the second man eleven vital commandments: not to steal, kill (except 
for food and self-defense), eat human flesh, make war, covet, 
curse, ask too much, or fear death (but not to commit suicide); 
and to honor his father and mother, respect the god's laws, and 
teach these commandments to his children. 
Poetic license, I thought: how could the first man honor his 
father and mother? He had none, by definition. But I was struck 
by the similarity to the Ten Commandments that our Judeo/Chris- 

174 
tian/Mohammedan God had handed down to the people following 
Moses: Thou Shalt Not Kill, Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods 
Before Me, and so on. Was there really much difference between 
voodoo and conventional religion? 
The dance/pantomime continued: the first man was Oxala. 
(The first man? I had supposed from Ester's discourse that Oxala 
was a god. Maybe the line between mortal and immortal was fuzzy, 
at least in the beginning.) Olofi gave him a wife named Oddsomething-
or-other; it wasn't clear to my American/English-oriented 
mind. Anyway-and I swear I don't know exactly how she 
conveyed this information, unless I was picking up her mental 
projection, telepathy, or had it by intuitive osmosis-Oxala was 
represented as the original White Knight. I mean he was a tall, 
handsome white man, in a white cloak and white armor, on a 
strutting white horse. His wife Odd-etc. was a black woman, fair 
(if that is the appropriate word) and voluptuous with the huge 
breasts of maternity. The two mated-and wasn't that a spectacle, 
in this lone-dancer pantomime!-and Odd's tummy swelled grotesquely 
in rapid pregnancy. Then her pelvis moved forward, and 
she came almost into a squat, opening her legs wide. In America 
we think all babies must be born from a supine mother lying in a 
hospital bed, drugged to alleviate pain. But elsewhere in the world 
many babies drop into this world from the upright womb, gravity 
assisting the undrugged effort. I saw it all, such was the power of 
her suggestion. 
She birthed a son, named Ag-something, and a daughter 
Yemanja. "Yemanja!" I exclaimed, interrupting my own morbid 
fascination with the dancer's pangs of parturition. "Goddess of the 
Moon, my patron-" But why should I be surprised? Oba was 
telling me her identity, as I had asked: not who she was in mundane 
life, but her goddess-genealogy. I already knew the river goddess 
was the daughter of the sea-goddess Yemanja; that was why 
she was here, helping to abate the curse of Exu. Now I knew that 
Yemanja was the daughter of the first man and woman in the 
voodoo pantheon.
175 
But there was more. Yemanja was a beautiful woman whose 
skin was yellow. She married her brother Ag (so that's incest; and 
whom do you think Cain, the son of Adam, married, if not one of 
his sisters?) and they had a son Or-something-Orangutan? I could 
not keep track of all these complex names; that would have to do! 
When Orangutan grew up he had no sister to marry (sibling incest 
seemed to be the rule with these gods; better than descending 
to the common folk for mates, no doubt) so fell in love with his 
mother. Now this was a scandal, even among gods. Ag became ill 
with envy and disgust and died, and Yemanja resisted. But Orangutan 
was handsome, talented, strong, persistent and, it developed, 
ruthless. He raped her. (Hoo-boy, what a dance Oba danced!) 
Yemanja cursed him, and he also died. But she was already pregnant 
with his seed. She climbed to the top of a high mountain and 
killed herself. 
But even this was not the end. In fact, it was the beginning. 
She died in one sense, but not in another, for she was immortal. 
This ambivalence was also typical of this pantheon. Thus the world 
faced the consequence of her suicide at the same time as it knew 
her as the continuing goddess of waters; no contradiction. The 
dead goddess's abdomen burst asunder, releasing the waters of the 
universal deluge that drowned the world. Was there a Noah's Ark 
in voodoo mythology? The dance didn't say. Fourteen new gods 
were birthed in that torrent. And the first true man and true 
woman-Adam and Eve in my framework-formed from Yemanja's 
bones. 
Among these posthumous gods were Xango, Oshun and Oba. 
Now at last I had it straight! 
And she told me about Oba herself, who I gathered is known 
in the Catholic framework as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She was 
both sister and wife to Xango, but the god of fire and thunder had 
a fiery and boisterous nature and a roving eye. Oba was afraid he 
would take up with one of her more glamorous sisters, such as 
Oya. So Oba went to another sister, Oshun, to seek advice, not 

176 
realizing that Oshun herself, goddess of love, was one of Xango's 
interests. 
"Well now," Oshun told her mischievously. "I know an excellent 
magic spell to keep him home. All you have to do is cut off 
one of your pretty little ears, cook it up in a pot of okra soup- 
that's his favorite, you know-and serve it to him." 
"But-" Oba protested, appalled, touching her ear. She didn't 
even think to ask how her sister was so familiar with Xango's tastes. 
"Don't worry; he always comes home ravenous. He'll eat it." 
"But will it have an effect on our love life?" 
"It certainly will! Guaranteed." And Oshun smiled with anticipation. 
So naive, dutiful Oba stiffened her shapely spine, lifted a sharp 
knife, and courageously cut off her left ear. She staunched the flow 
of blood, clenched her teeth against the pain, and made the ear/ 
okra soup. 
When Xango came home that evening, Oba put the soup before 
him. He sat down to eat, dipped a spoonful, then paused, 
looking at her. "Why are you wearing that stupid white handkerchief 
over your head?" he demanded. 
"Please eat your soup before it clots-uh, before it gets cold," 
she said evasively. "Why shouldn't I wear a kerchief if I want to? It 
isn't as if you ever take me out anywhere where I need a hat." 
Sore point! He couldn't take her out, for then she would find 
out about the women he made time with during the day. "But 
why a blood-colored rose over the ear?" he asked. 
Uh-oh! She must be bleeding again, and it was soaking through 
the kerchief. "I have my reasons," she murmured. 
Xango would have pursued the matter, but he really didn't 
care very much what his dull wife wore, and he was hungry. So he 
muttered something about feminine vanity, and ate a spoonful of 
the soup. And reacted. "What'd you put in this stuff?" he demanded. 
"Tastes meaty-almost like human flesh." 
"You know it is forbidden by the Third Commandment!" Oba 
replied, affecting shock. But it did upset her, for she was tricking
177 
him into a fundamental violation. If he ever found out! Her knees 
felt weak, her stomach knotted. Still, his unwavering love, guaranteed 
by the spell, would make it all worthwhile. 
"You're acting awful funny today," he muttered. But he settled 
down to eat, for he had a hot date with none other than Oshun, 
and he didn't want to be late. He slurped it all down in short 
order, including the ear. "That last pod of okra tastes more like an 
ox's hoof," he complained. "Next time pick it fresher, and wash the 
dirt off it." 
Oba nodded dumbly, wondering how long it would take the 
spell to act. Xango spruced up his hair and departed, paying her 
no further attention. 
"Sister, you'd better put out tonight," Xango said to the goddess 
of love when he reached her. "My wife's been acting strangely. 
I think she's suspicious." 
"I know she's suspicious," Oshun said as he nibbled on her 
perfect neck. "But I played a really cute trick on her today." 
"What are you talking about?" the god of thunder rumbled as 
he took hold of her classic left breast. 
"I told her she could put a spell on you by feeding you her 
ear." And Oshun laughed, sending remarkable ripples through 
that breast. 
But Xango tensed, crushing instead of squeezing. "You what?" 
"The little dummy may even have believed it," Oshun continued, 
shifting to alleviate the pressure. "Even though she's no romantic 
expert, she really ought to know that it isn't a girl's ear a 
man wants to eat." And she drew his head down toward her marvelous 
body. 
Xango was lusty but not stupid. "Her ear!" he ejaculated. He 
jerked away. 
"Hey, where are you going?" Oshun cried. She wanted him 
coming, not going. But instead of bringing him closer to her with 
the good laugh she had anticipated, she had only succeeded in 
sending him stomping out. All she had for her effort was a hurting 

178 
breast. "Maybe I should cut it off and make soup out of it," she 
muttered darkly, glancing down at herself. 
Back home, Xango unceremoniously ripped the handkerchief 
off Oba's head. There was her mutilated ear. He clutched his stomach, 
knowing now what he had eaten. Thoroughly disgusted, he 
stormed out of the house. 
Oba remained Xango's official wife, but he never again cohabited 
with her. But the scheming Oshun did not profit much either, 
perhaps because of her complicity. Instead, her sister, Oya, 
patroness of fire, Oggun's wife, became Xango's favorite mistress. 
Subsequently it was Oya whom Oshun had to outwit by arousing 
the lust of a skeleton, as Ester had already informed me. 
"Now just a minute," I said. The truth is, I was burning with 
godlike lust, completely aroused by the force of her dancing narrative, 
and I was no skeleton. But there was something else. I approached 
her and put my hands to the sides of her head, pushing 
back the hair that covered her ears. I thought I had seen-but it 
could have been my imagination, stimulated by the pantomime. 
She had a cauliflower ear. Evidently it had been bashed once, 
perhaps by a jealous lover. She, like the Oba she portrayed, had 
sacrificed one ear to a man. And would probably give everything 
to have that man back again. No wonder she had put so much 
feeling into the story! 
And do you know, that only redoubled my passion? "A goddess 
should not go unloved," I said, certain now that it had been 
her need for fulfillment that had motivated her, at least subconsciously. 
Probably her boyfriend was a martial artist, or at least a 
strong, brawling man, and she had recognized certain similar qualities 
in me and been drawn in. At any rate, she was some girl. I have 
never seen anyone else dance like that. 
She met me as she had before, with matching passion. Maybe 
her dancing catalyzed her as it had me, arousing her desire for the 
things she had represented. There is a technique of acting, called 
Method, in which the actor becomes his part, living it fully while
179 
on the stage. The mortal Oba had become the goddess Oba-and 
I had become Xango. 
We kissed and kissed again, deeply. Then my mouth slid down 
over her neck. Her blouse fell open and I ran my lips and tongue 
over her firm free breast, fruit of a goddess. And she leaned over, 
clutching me to her, climbing me, biting and sucking at the base 
of my neck, and say, wasn't that stimulating! I got my hands down 
around her thighs, cupping her buttocks under the skirt, snaking 
in between panties and flesh, kneading those masses feverishly. 
She was burning hot down there, and those dancer's muscles flexed 
under my grip like living things-which of course they were. 
Her hands also were busy. One clutched my shoulder, digging 
in almost painfully; the other got hold of my Fundoshi and twisted 
it around a bit to the side, uncovering what threatened to burst 
out anyway. She grasped my swelling member and kneaded it in 
rhythm with my pressure on her buttocks and mouthing of her 
breast. Suddenly my urgency became incipient; if I didn't act 
quickly, I would spurt into space. 
But there was no bed in that room, and no time to fool around 
with clothing; the need was too imperative. I put my two hands 
under her arms, my thumbs pressing into the sides of her breasts, 
and lifted her bodily. Her legs spread wide and hooked behind me 
as her hot cleavage came down on my rigidity. I leaned back, supporting 
her whole weight, shoving aside her panties, setting her 
down directly on my member so that gravity forced the deepest 
penetration as my piston slid into that hot oiled cylinder. Then I 
slid my hands behind her back, pulling her upper torso in to me, 
burying my face in her fragrant mass of hair. 
I believe the position is known as "The Tree" with the trunk of 
the man supporting the limbs of the woman as he stands erect in 
more ways than one. But for me it was more like a diesel, the 
maximum compression triggering the explosion. 
Our climax was painful in its violence. On the one hand I had 
the feeling that my member, supporting her full weight, would 
break off; on the other, I pictured her flying up to the ceiling, 

180 
propelled by my irresistible jets. It was the most intense sexual 
experience I ever had, yet not the most pleasant, because of the 
muscle-deadening exertions required. 
I sank back to the floor, bending my knees to do a judo breakfall, 
such was my momentary exhaustion. But Oba clung to me, following 
me down as it were in makikomi, maintaining the hold by 
utilizing both her limber torso and her dancer's thigh muscles. It 
was possible, I discovered, for a woman to clasp a man without 
using her limbs. 
"No," I said, realizing that she expected more of me than was 
humanly possible. But, still joined, she found my lips with hers 
and kissed me with all the passion of the first time. 
And to my amazement, my hardness remained. Now she rode 
me like a horse, bouncing on me so vigorously I was afraid she 
would come loose and land on me crushingly. But she had excellent 
control. And slowly she brought me to a second climax, longer 
and harder but no less powerful than the first. 
God, I thought. Never get involved with a goddess-or a 
dancer! I was prostrate on the hard floor. 
Yet even now she did not relent. She continued to move on 
me, pressing me from outside and inside. "It's impossible!" I gasped. 
"This is worse than Mirabal's torture!" 
I was wrong. It seemed to take a thousand years, and may 
actually have been half an hour, but in time her persistent stimulation 
roused me to a third performance. Actually I was almost 
completely acquiescent now; she did the lovemaking, drawing from 
my gut the last dregs of my potential. It was slow, slow, slow, like 
a quiet tide rising, yet in the end the volume of sensation was as 
great as the prior peaks. 
At last she was satisfied. Yet even now she did not actually let 
me go. She settled on top of me, retaining my battered member 
within her, and we both sank into a kind of placid trance. 
I'll never forget the love of Oba, but I hope never to experience 
it again. I'm not getting any younger, and that sort of thing takes 
incredible stamina. I'd rather do fifty pullups, one-handed. It was
181 
days before I was able to raise another erection; she had emptied 
me. 
But what a way to go! 

Chapter 9: 
Animation of the Curse 
The Black Castle was on a rise in the middle of a roundish 
swampy plain within an almost circular mountain valley. There 
was an unnatural look about the area, as if it were a moon crater 
overgrown by the jungle. Few trees grew here; most of the valley 
was open except for low brush. In the center, in contrast, was a 
cluster of enormous trees, and it was within this island forest that 
the castle was taking shape. As yet the ramparts were hardly visible 
above the trees. Thus it could not readily be spotted from the air. 
Fu Antos looked out from the highest battlement. He had 
won the battle but not the campaign, as he knew; he had a few of 
the modern weapons, but they were only one factor, and his ninjas 
were not yet conversant with their use. 
It had been a job rescuing those supplies from their assorted 
booby-traps, but ninjas had much expertise at that sort of thing. 
One of the boxes had contained the severed head of Candelaria, 
the girl who had delivered the bees to Costa of Petrobas. Unfortu-
183 
nate, but it showed how quick Mirabal had been to make the 
connection between that assassination and the ninjas. 
At any rate, the ninjas now had fifty to a hundred M-3 
submachine guns, fairly simple to operate: merely point and squeeze 
the trigger, and the guns would squirt bullets. Also a fair number 
of hand grenades, and some C-4 plastic explosive: white, odorless, 
crumbly, like dry cream cheese. The plastic had already been specially 
positioned, and they had only imperfect notions how to use 
the other devices, preferring their primitive weapons. So they were 
still at a disadvantage. These few ninjas could not hope to stand 
for long against the might of the Brazilian army. So long as Mirabal 
lived, the Black Castle was not secure. 
Yet Fu Antos had resources. If he could trick Mirabal into 
committing his full force into the fray . . . 
He had not long to wait. The colonel had not bothered to 
trace the tedious hidden road to the castle; he had sent his troops 
sloughing through the marshes in such numbers that the jungle 
animals had been routed. Human-sea tactics, suffering many casualties 
even before contact with the enemy. No finesse, just raw 
power. He had expected better of Mirabal. 
Then he looked again. These were not government troops, 
these were Indians! Had they joined their enemies? 
No, now he saw the army men. Their guns were trained on 
the Indians. The Indians were from several pacified villages, evidently 
rounded up by force; they had to attack the Black Castle or 
be shot from behind. They were armed only with bows, knives, 
spears and similar native weapons, no guns. 
Poor Indians! They had believed the promises of the government 
for a better life if they adopted the ways of the white man. 
Now they had been rounded up like cattle and driven to the slaughter, 
men, women and children. The warriors were first, followed 
by their families; the warriors knew that if they did not attack the 
castle, their families would be shot down from behind. 
And if they attacked, the ninjas would either have to slaughter 
their friends or allow the Black Castle to be swamped. Very nice 

184 
ploy. Only a ruthless genius would have set this up, and only a 
more ruthless genius would be able to nullify it. 
"Meet the Indians under a flag of truce," Fu Antos said. "Explain 
to them that we shall have to massacre them along with the 
soldiers if they come near the Black Castle. We do not wish to do 
this, for we regard them as our allies, and we know they are being 
forced to fight. But if they join us, we will help them overcome the 
soldiers, and many will survive." 
The flag of truce was displayed, but snipers from Mirabal's 
side shot all the parties meeting under that flag. The ninja representative 
was unhurt, protected under his bullet-proof cloak, but 
it was obvious that no truce negotiations could take place. The 
Indians were obviously more frightened of the troops than of the 
ninjas. That was unfortunate, for it doomed them all. 
Even half finished, the ramparts of the Black Castle were formidable. 
They could easily withstand the attack of the Indians. 
But the tribespeople charged across the open portion of the valley. 
It was pathetic, for the men could run faster than the women and 
children, yet hesitated to leave their families isolated on the battlefield. 
It would be a terrible thing to slaughter these victims of 
circumstance, but that was what Mirabal was counting on. If the 
Indians were allowed to overrun the castle, the government troops 
would soon wipe out the ninjas, and probably the Indians too, 
who would then only be in the way. 
Fu Antos did not waste either ancient or modern ammunition 
on the Indians. He let them get to the walls and attempt to scale 
them with the crude ropes and wooden ladders they carried. Then 
the waiting ninjas dumped pots of boiling water, oil and fecal 
matter on their heads, along with plain old rocks. It was just like 
old times. 
Some ladders hooked over the ramparts, which as yet had not 
been built very high. The ninjas simply used special hooks of their 
own to shove the ladders off and over, to fall on the heads of those 
below. The few Indians who actually made it to the top were met 
by trained swordsmen. The Indians' crude knives, machetes, wooden
185 
clubs, and stone-tipped spears were no match for the weapons and 
expertise of the ninjas. One ninja used a kusarigama chained sickle 
that he hurled through the head of one Indian, stuck into the 
body of the next, drew him up close and dropped him over the 
wall, throttled a third with the chain, and bashed in the forehead 
of a fourth with the steel ball on the end of the chain. That was 
typical of the action; it was one-sided, and the ninjas did not lose 
a man. 
There was, however, one injury. A crafty old Indian crept over 
the top, lay down, and used a blowgun. The dart caught a ninja in 
the left eye. It was not poisonous and did not kill him, but did 
cost the man that eye. The ninja struck the old man's arm between 
the wrist and elbow with a karate blow that splintered the bone, 
then made a shuto block to the neck, breaking it. The corpse rolled 
off the wall. 
After that the Indian women and children came up the wall. 
Now the ninjas did not even bother to use their weapons. They 
attacked with bare hands and feet, parrying the feeble efforts of 
the Indians and heaving them off the wall. The ninjas took some 
more injuries in this hand-to-hand scuffle, for the children bit 
them and the women had claws like tigers, but their fingers poked 
out eyeballs, bashed in noses, and stunned nerve complexes with 
devastating effectiveness. 
Fu Antos looked on from his turret, seemingly aloof, but seething 
inside. "Now we are killing women and babies," he murmured. 
"For this shame there must be a penalty. Loose the animals." 
Signals were made. Suddenly cleverly concealed trapdoors 
opened near the edge of the valley and crazed animals charged out, 
into the pitched tents of the army camp. Bats flew into the tents, 
seeking darkness-but their bodies were coated with poison that 
rubbed off on whatever they touched. Dozens of capybaras, the 
world's largest rodents, scooted through with small torches tied to 
their tails, setting the tents afire. And large snakes slithered among 
the troops: anacondas up to thirty feet long, and boa constrictors 
up to fifteen feet. They did not actually hurt many soldiers, but 

186 
they created a tremendous distraction that prevented effective dousing 
of the flaming tents. And vicious monkeys dropped from the 
trees: reddish howlers and spider monkeys, with poisoned teeth 
and feet. And from other cages came stubby-legged bush dogs 
with snub noses and short tails, standing only a foot tall at the 
shoulders, but crazed and vicious. 
In short, the government troops were suffering the same sort 
of harassment as the ninjas. In due course all the animals were 
killed or driven off, but many soldiers had been wounded, the 
ranks were demoralized, and the tent camp was a smoking ruin. 
Mirabal looked on the devastation with an expression very like 
that of Fu Antos watching the dying Indians. Tit for tat! 
Now, at last, Mirabal committed his own troops. The Indians 
seemed to have fully occupied the ninja defense, so that nothing 
could be spared for the fresh army. The troops charged across the 
marsh, not even bothering to fire their rifles. 
The colonel had managed to carry in and emplace half a dozen 
mortars: fairly simple substitutes for cannon. Each unit was merely 
a tube. The shell was dropped in the muzzle, and fired itself when 
it struck the base inside. It lacked the range and precision of major 
artillery, so lobbed the shells high, like a catapult. But a comparatively 
small and light mortar could do the job of a howitzer if 
appropriately emplaced and operated. 
Now these mortars were set up in a line at the base of the cliffs 
where there was a narrow but firm ledge. The region seemed to 
have been made for mortars, a fatal oversight on the ninja's part. 
They started lobbing shells at the castle, and each shell packed an 
awful punch. 
The first one missed the castle, overshooting it. A plume of 
water and dirt appeared, pretty from a distance, awful from close 
up. This was not bad marksmanship, but the process of zeroing in. 
The first shell was normally fired long, the second short, and after 
that bracketing the third would be right on target. 
"Earth," Fu Antos said, invoking the second of his four major 
defense elements. The first, Air, had been used with devastating
187 
effect on the besieged army column: the narcotic smoke. A ninja 
waved a black flag from another high turret, a signal to an unseen 
associate. 
Another plume manifested, short of the castle. The mortars 
were zeroing in. Still Fu Antos stood on the battlements, waiting. 
Now a round of six mortars struck. Three missed to the side; 
two exploded in the castle's center court; one blasted a gaping gap 
in the outer wall. The stones jumped and toppled, falling on the 
few Indians still trying to scale that section, crushing them. But it 
was obvious that the castle could not withstand many more such 
strikes; there would be too many avenues of entry for the troops. 
Now the mortar shells were pulverizing the castle with direct 
hits, collapsing the bunkers where the ninja women and children 
were sheltered. "Get to the ramparts!" one man cried in Japanese. 
"That's as safe as any other place, and you can fight there." So they 
moved out, as brave in their desperation as the families of the 
Indians, while the terrible shells slowly demolished the castle. 
Yet Fu Antos merely watched. 
Then there was a muffled noise from the mountainside behind 
Mirabal's army. The entire cliff shuddered and collapsed. An 
avalanche formed, triggered by the carefully placed plastic explosives 
the ninjas had captured. Rocks and dirt and trees tumbled 
majestically down, onto the ledge where the mortars were emplaced. 
The earth had swallowed that portion of the army. Yet a single 
mortar escaped. It continued to bombard the castle, until a kiteflying 
ninja made a kamikaze dive at it, blowing it up with a hand 
grenade. Now the artillery was silent. 
Still, the soldiers were committed. They plowed on toward 
the castle. The ninjas were now using catapults to lob grenades at 
the troops, but it was obvious that this was a mere nuisance to a 
force of this size. Once the soldier's firepower was brought to bear 
at close range, the men would be able to scale the half-built walls 
or ram through the gaps made by the mortars with virtual impunity, 
killing any ninjas who showed their faces. 
"Fire," Fu Antos said. And now the ninjas manned huge pol- 

188 
ished-steel mirrors that caught the sun, focused it, and speared it 
at the oncoming troops. Like lasers, the fierce beams bathed the 
soldiers, and the men screamed, their clothing bursting into flame, 
their ammunition exploding on their bodies like firecrackers. Grenades, 
heated to spontaneous ignition, blasted holes in the advancing 
line, until the soldiers in the front ranks had to throw all 
their remaining explosives away. Some were only passingly touched 
by the beams; they fell clutching their faces, blinded, hair singed. 
But Mirabal, watching closely with his powerful field glasses, 
gave orders. .75mm recoilless rifles were trained on the mirrors, 
which were necessarily exposed. Expert snipers fired at will. One 
mirror was hit directly; it blew up, the fragments raining down 
like shrapnel. Another was put out of commission when the legs of 
the ninja operator were struck; man and mirror crashed to the 
ground. After the first shock was over, the mirrors lost much of 
their effect. 
Still, the troops had been decimated, and were in no fit condition 
to storm the castle. Now Mirabal committed his reserves. 
Another five hundred men charged over the bodies of their comrades 
toward the castle. The ninjas had little left with which to 
oppose these. 
Yet a detachment emerged from the main gate of the castle. 
Only a dozen men, but there was something odd about them. 
They were swathed in white robes and mounted on old horses, 
bearing lances. Strange cavalry! 
The soldiers, thinking it might be a surrender mission, did 
not fire immediately. The horsemen approached, their clothing 
resembling nothing so much as tattered bandages. 
Then one soldier caught on. "Lepers!" he screamed. 
There was little in Latin America that carried greater horror, 
for less reason, than leprosy. Leprosy is one of the least contagious 
diseases known, but most people shun all contact with those afflicted. 
The soldiers panicked. 
The horsemen charged among them. Their lances bore blades 
set lengthwise near the point that could cut open flesh without
189 
getting stuck. Indeed, the riders were so feeble that any direct 
strike of their lances would have unhorsed them; their gnarled 
hands could hardly bear their weapons. But the soldiers were not 
even trying to fight; they wanted only to get away, impelled by a 
horror worse than death itself. 
Mirabal snarled another order. His sharpshooters aimed, and 
in seconds all the lepers fell. But it took some time to reorganize 
the troops for battle; the bloom was off, and the men were shaken. 
They would not pass anywhere near the fallen lepers. 
Still, there were many more soldiers than ninjas. The last ragged 
charge crunched forward relentlessly. The ninjas were now out of 
arrows and had to use their captured rifles. Erratic as their aim 
with these unfamiliar pieces was, this was a net increase in their 
firepower. But they were so vastly outnumbered that they could 
not hope to stop all the troops. 
Several hundred men stormed the ravaged ramparts. The defenders 
were out of hot oil, out of refuse, and low on ammunition. 
Their numbers had been thinned by inevitable casualties; only a 
dozen ninja men remained, and twice that number of women and 
children, who now were doing much of the firing. All were shaken 
by the mortar bombardment, many were wounded, and most were 
dead tired. 
Fu Antos remembered almost four hundred years before, when 
the troops of Nobunaga, Shogun of Japan, had overwhelmed the 
first Black Castle and slaughtered all its brave ninjas and their 
families. He experienced a feeling of d�j� vu. Those limited ninja 
forces had withstood the siege of the mightiest army in Japan's 
medieval history. Then it had been crossbows against Portuguese 
muskets; now it was cross-bows, against Portuguese artillery. 
Mirabal's army lacked the sheer numbers of Nobunaga's, but possessed 
many sophisticated modern weapons. So it had been a fair 
match and a great battle. 
Certain mistakes had been made in the Japanese siege, and Fu 
Antos had seen to it that those mistakes were not repeated. He had 
prepared his defenses of Air, Earth, Fire and Water to eliminate 

190 
potential weaknesses. Modern technology and an intelligent, ruthless 
enemy commander had strained the ninja position to the utmost. 
But victory was assured, because this time Fu Antos had no 
traitorous female within his walls to betray him to the enemy when 
victory was within his grasp. 
Mitsuko: after centuries, that name still stirred his gut with 
rage and desire. Lovely treachery! The love of woman was ever the 
undoing of man. This time he had no woman, and his enemy 
Mirabal was said to be no lady's man. 
But it was time to finish, lest the battle be lost while he reminisced. 
"Water," Fu Antos said. A pigeon was released. It winged 
swiftly across the valley toward the river. 
The siege continued. Slowly the massed troops gained the 
upper hand. The ninjas were now confined to individual towers, 
firing from upper embrasures, while the enemy overran the center 
court. It seemed to be all over but the mopping up. 
Then water appeared. It welled up from vents within the castle, 
poured out from sluices in the walls. The top blew off a centercourt 
fountain; a geyser of water gushed up. The castle was perched 
atop a massive subterranean conduit, and was now rapidly flooding.
The enemy saw the trap too late. The soldiers were caught 
between sheer stone walls as the water rose. No way to climb out 
of it, not with armed ninjas on guard. 
The sluices in the deep mountain reservoir had been opened; 
millions of gallons of water were rushing down to debouch within 
the castle. Yet those outside the walls were no better off, for now a 
giant wall of water was rushing down the valley, sweeping over 
everything in its path. The reason for the strange aspect of the 
valley was now apparent; it suffered periodic and devastating floods. 
There was no escape. 
Many of the soldiers and Indians could not swim. They were 
caught by the developing current and spilled over the ramparts, 
carried along involuntarily. Now the water turned red, and it was 
lumpy with drowning bodies. Even those who could swim were at
191 
a disadvantage, because they were trying to keep their rifles clear 
and so could not use their hands. They had to disarm themselves 
in order to survive. 
Still the water rose. A strong impetus carried the soldiers along 
toward the gap in the wall blasted by the first mortar strike. Those 
who somehow clung to the ramparts were picked off at leisure by 
the ninjas in the towers. 
And of course there were now crocodiles in the lake forming 
around the castle. And assorted snakes, large and small, excellent 
swimmers. And giant electric eels. 
The ninjas had won, thanks to the last of the elements, water. 
Only the mopping up continued as the waters subsided. Only 
one enemy remained with the resources and cunning to escape, 
and that one was Fu Antos's special prey. For it was Fernando 
Mirabal, instigator of the entire persecution against the ninjas. 
Once he was eliminated, a minimum number of judicious assassinations 
would preserve the secret of the Black Castle forever. 
The colonel, of course, had fled the moment he saw the water 
rising, knowing that it was over. But he knew better than to attempt 
the booby-trapped ninja road alone. It was impossible to 
drive through the virgin jungle, and anyway the ninjas had sugared 
the gasoline of the remaining army vehicles and disabled the 
helicopter during the animal-distraction. So Mirabal moved on 
foot.
And Fu Antos followed. His ninja skill made the colonel's trail 
easy to read; the man had concentrated on speed rather than concealment. 
He was a powerful man, and had made excellent time, 
but no one could traverse wilderness as swiftly as a ninja. Steadily 
the gap closed. 
Mirabal came at last to an old prospector's cabin. He had spotted 
it in his preliminary survey of the area, circling about in his 
helicopter, and made a mental note: just in case. Now it was the 
case, and he had sought it out. It was almost over-grown by the 
resurgent jungle: a good place to hide. 
Fu Antos arrived shortly after. He too knew of this cabin, as he 

192 
was conversant with the entire area. His quarry was inside, unquestionably, 
gun ready. But from its small window waved a white 
cloth. 
Mirabal wanted to parlay? Fu Antos raised an eyebrow. "Very 
well," he called in Portuguese. "Come out unarmed. I will speak 
with you." He did not need to add that any attempted treachery 
on Mirabal's part would void the truce instantly. 
The colonel came. He was gambling that the ninja would honor 
the truce, at least long enough for the necessary dialogue. They 
met under a tree before the door, an incongruous pair: the huge 
man and the young boy. 
"I have this place so full of booby-traps you'll never get me," 
Mirabal said. "And I am well armed. You might get through, but 
the chances of saving your own life are only fifty-fifty. Is it worth 
it?" 
"I have fire-arrows," Fu Antos said. 
And the cabin was dry wood. Set afire, it would force the man 
out, easy prey to a ninja arrow. Mirabal did not even bother to 
bluff further. He knew he was virtually helpless before this unimpressive 
adversary, like a giant cobra before a tiny mongoose. Fu 
Antos parlayed merely to savor his victory; had he had any doubt 
at all of his command of the situation, he would have struck instantly. 
Only the agility of the colonel's mind could save him from 
the implacable vengeance he had earned, and his prepared ace-inthe-
hole. "I can be more useful to you alive than dead." 
Again, no verbal parrying. The hopeless buzzing of the trapped 
fly was music to the spider. "Continue." 
"I have resources that can rebuild your castle within a month, 
in complete secrecy. You have mental powers and raw materials 
that could profit me immensely-diamonds and oil, for example. 
Working together, we could achieve the dreams of both." 
Fu Antos raised an eyebrow inquiringly. 
"You want to know how you can trust me not to betray your 
secrets the moment I am safe," Mirabal said. In effect he was groveling, 
relieving the victor of even having to put the questions. "You
193 
possess unparalleled hypnotic powers. Use them on me; verify my 
sincerity. If I mean to betray you, kill me now. I offer no resistance, 
only a new allegiance, penalty of my defeat." 
The man had offered his services to the victor, in a time-honored 
gesture. But the ninja only shrugged slightly. The offering 
was insufficient. 
So Mirabal played his trump. "And I have-this," he said. He 
reached inside his jacket, brought out a waterproof envelope, opened 
it, and held up the photograph inside. 
Fu Antos looked, and froze. At the moment of his seeming 
nadir, Mirabal had struck at the ninja's most fundamental liability. 
"It is-her," the ninja whispered. 
Mirabal bowed his head in mock surrender. "Now kill me." 
The ninja was oblivious to the ploy. His intense interest had 
been hooked; to kill the Colonel now would be to throw away the 
compelling information he offered. "Tell me of her." 
Mirabal had the grace not to gloat. His hook had lodged, and 
through it he would not only save his life, he could achieve tremendous 
wealth and power. Why hadn't he thought to cooperate 
with the ninjas before, instead of fighting them? There was no 
essential conflict of purpose. "She is Dulce, an agent of the Cuban 
intelligence network. She is highly intelligent, trained in combat, 
and absolutely loyal to her principles. She would foment an armed 
revolution to save her man. All in all, a woman worthy of the finest 
man." 
Fu Antos hardly listened. For the image he stared at was that 
of Mitsuko, his beautiful wife of almost four hundred years before. 
The wife who had betrayed him to the enemy, bringing about the 
downfall of the first Black Castle. In all the intervening centuries 
he had cursed her, yet had been able to love no other. This was not 
precisely Mitsuko, for the picture depicted a Western girl, but 
still, the resemblance was remarkable. 
"She is alive and well in my possession," Mirabal continued. 
"The photograph hardly does her justice. But there is one complication." 

194 
"Bring her to me," Fu Antos breathed, in those words signifying 
his capitulation. He was ready to trade his nascent empire for 
mere possession of this one woman, exactly as Mirabal had anticipated. 
"This is the complication. Oh, I can bring her here an hour 
after I reach a telephone; she is confined in one of our offices in 
Brasilia, not far by air from here. But her loyalty is to another 
man. I would be delivering only her body; her heart would not be 
yours, so long as that man lives." 
"I will kill that man," the ninja said with cold finality. 
Mirabal raised his hands in a gesture of incapacity. "Please do 
not misunderstand, Lord Ninja. I do not seek to thwart you, only 
to clarify certain awkward aspects that may have already occurred 
to you. This woman Dulce is not a carbon copy of Mitsuko. Her 
love is not negotiable. If you killed her lover, she would seek to kill 
you, and I doubt even your hypnotic power could change her mind 
for long. She is a superior creature; she must be won gently, not by 
force, or she will be no better than your wife was. But, properly 
cultivated, her loyalty to you would be unflinching. She would be 
what Mitsuko should have been. It would be a mistake to-" 
"Dare you preach at me?" Fu Antos demanded, his eyes blazing. 
Suddenly he had no faintest resemblance to a child, despite 
his size. 
Mirabal bowed his head. "I apologize for my presumption. I 
shall have her brought directly to you." 
Fu Antos was mollified. "Rephrase your thought." 
"Obviously it will be necessary to eliminate her lover. But you 
should not do it personally. Rather you should side with her, and 
help her to avenge her loss. Gradually her appreciation for this 
support will convert to appreciation for you. It may take a few 
years, but some things are best done slowly, properly, like the 
maturing of fine wines and cheeses. Love must develop in its own 
fashion, at its own rate; only then is it deep and complete. Your 
body is growing yet; by the time it is ready, she will be ready." 
Fu Antos nodded, impressed by the logic. His mind was cen-
195 
turies old, but his body was a stripling, really inadequate to the 
task of loving a voluptuous woman properly. He needed time. 
"This is the first service I can perform for you," Mirabal continued. 
"I will kill her lover, and let her escape to you. You and I 
are known enemies; you will be guiltless. You will send your ninjas 
out to kill me, though they may not have any more success than 
they have in the past." 
"Who is her lover?" 
Now it grew ticklish again. "Jason Striker, the American judoka. 
I believe you know him." 
"Striker!" the ninja breathed. 
"I realize he has been a friend of yours, or at least has performed 
some small service," Mirabal said carefully. If the ninja was 
prepared to dispense with Striker . . ."But I can show you that he 
is the one she-" 
"A ninja has no friends," Fu Antos said, his expression hardening. 
"Jason Striker must die." 
Mirabal nodded, his victory complete. "I shall intercept him. 
He is now on his way to Brasilia, in the company of a lithesome 
dancer, to meet your agent." 
"You are well informed," Fu Antos said dryly. 
"It is my business to be informed. Striker has been intimate 
with her-" Mirabal paused, having a notion. "In fact, it might be 
best if Dulce were to have concrete proof of his infidelity, before he 
died. That would destroy her romance with him completely, leaving 
her ripe for . . ." 
"If you were on hand, she would know it was false," Fu Antos 
pointed out. "She would suspect Striker had been framed." 
"True," Mirabal said regretfully. "I did frame him before." He 
pondered another moment, then brightened. "But there is always 
an alternate method. It happens that the dancer's estranged husband 
is in my employ. He has shown little interest in his wife, but 
he has a jealous nature. He is proficient in capoiera, the great Brazilian 
fighting art. On my orders, he could help Dulce break out, 

196 
he claiming to be a ninja agent with information where to meet 
Striker." 
Fu Antos nodded, smiling. 
And so it was arranged: Jason Striker's best friend in the Amazon 
collaborated with his worst enemy to have him slain, because 
of the girl who loved him, exactly as the god Exu had decreed. 
There was to be no escape from the voodoo curse.
Chapter 10: 
City of the Future 
The truck jounced along the red dirt road, northwest through 
the highlands of Brazil. I saw endless fields of beans and rice, orchards 
of coffee trees, and huge herds of cattle ranging square miles 
of pasture. I had not really grasped before how big Brazil was. 
The sun was hot, but we were pleasantly cool, for huge blocks 
of ice surrounded the cargo: live crabs and lobsters from the coast, 
bound for the gourmet restaurants of the capital city. Every so 
often a lobster claw emerged from the slats of a crate and tried to 
pinch me: one of the defects in the service I had to live with. 
Near the river-I had no idea which river-we passed a series 
of swampy lakes. The truck slowed to get around a wooden-wheeled 
cart drawn by half a dozen slow oxen, and the mosquitoes were on 
us in a swarm. We slapped and slapped; there was nothing else to 
do. I had visions of malaria and yellow fever, though really had no 
idea whether these were dangers this far south of the Equator. 
Our transportation from Rio de Janeiro to the wilds of the 
continental interior had been as abrupt as the rest of this crazy 

198 
adventure. Kan-Sen's message had finally come through to the hotel, 
delayed by I knew not what bureaucratic snafu. It had been taken 
by an employee who was in Umbando and had seen me at the 
mass, so he took it to the pai-de-Santo, who delivered it to Oba's 
apartment. When we returned there, after the Kendo school massacre, 
we discovered it: orders to go to Brasilia, where a ninja would 
contact me at a certain restaurant. 
So here we were, Oba still protecting me from the wrath of 
Exu. I had tried to suggest that she had fulfilled her assignment, 
and that little danger for me remained now that the Death Squad 
had been wiped out, but the language barrier had prevented her 
comprehension. It had not, however, prevented her from understanding 
that I had to go to Brasilia. So she had arranged transport 
for us on this truck, that happened to be going to the very restaurant 
I needed. That was either one hell of a coincidence, or there 
really was something about voodoo assistance. I hoped I was not, 
like the lobsters I rode with, heading for hot water. 
Then at last, as the dawn came over the fringe of the huge 
tropical forest, it hove into view: Brasilia, capital city of the future. 
I could not see it all from the ground, of course, but Oba drew a 
picture in the dust that put it into perspective like an aerial photograph. 
The city looked like a modern swept-wing airplane, seven 
miles from the golf club in its needle-nose to the railroad station 
dangling from its tail, with a single highway traversing its entire 
length like a ramrod through its metropolitan gut. 
Even from the truck it was impressive, but perhaps not in 
quite the way intended by the architect. For there were more favela 
slums here, massive ones whose population rivaled that of the city 
proper. Oba had explained something about the favelas, by gesture 
and pantomime, as we had had plenty of time to exchange 
communications. Quite an education. 
We passed the airport and entered the city from the south: the 
tip of its right wing. We drove three miles up the center of that 
wing along a broad parkway, divided with triple lanes with green 
gardens between.
199 
Oba pantomimed more detail as we went: to the east, in the 
nose section, were the ministries, courts, and towering congressional 
office buildings, like the brain in the cockpit of the craft. To 
the left, in the tail section, were some of the entertainment facilities: 
the ovals of the racetrack and sports stadium. Oba made two 
marks with her finger, clarifying the map. Somehow those smudges 
in the tail reminded me of ovaries, and that suggested another 
kind of entertainment, more of a participant exercise than football 
or horse racing. But I quelled my one-track male mind. I still 
hadn't recovered fully from our heroic triple indulgence in the 
kendo school, and anyway, if I tried to make time with Oba now, 
that damned lobster would pinch me in the ass. 
Beyond the entertainments, at the very tip of the torso, was 
the newspaper and printing complex. And again my unruly imagination 
ran rampant, as I visualized scandal sheets and propaganda 
being ejected from the feathered anus of this roc-like bird. I'm just 
a natural lowbrow, I guess, especially when I've spent two wearing 
days being rattled in a fish truck with an aggressive lobster and a 
girl who doesn't speak my language. 
But Oba was acting out an episode of the city's history. It 
seemed there was a big contest, open to all the architects in Brazil, 
with a large cash prize: to design Brasilia. The leading firms of the 
nation spent months preparing designs and drawings and models 
to submit to the judges. One person who was too modest to enter 
was Lucio Costa, though he was known for his architectural brilliance. 
But his friends coerced him to enter, and finally, reluctantly, 
at the very last moment, he spent twenty-five cents for 
paper and pencils and quickly sketched his plan, just to shut them 
up. Well, at least it was an entry. 
"Now, don't tell me, let me guess!" I said. "The winner-" 
Oba smiled. Right: the Selection Committee, experts drawn 
from all over the world, awarded first prize unanimously, to the 
two-bit effort. And that selection was hailed all over the world as 
an innovation in city planning, imaginative yet basically simple. 
Costa's design became Brasilia. 

200 
I was impressed all right. We were now driving past the superblocks, 
each containing a dozen trees and surrounded by gardens 
and playgrounds. Each superblock, Oba let me know, was supposed 
to be virtually self-contained, with its own stores and schools. 
At least, that was the theory; I wasn't clear from her gestures and 
my observations whether it had actually worked out. If it had, why 
the favelas? 
There was no traffic congestion, even in the high-rise center of 
town. Of course; we had arrived at dawn, too early for slothful 
government workers to be up. Later in the day it might be a different 
story. Cloverleaf loops and ramps made stoplights unnecessary, 
and the sheer geography of the layout facilitated movement. 
We pulled up behind the monstrous theater and restaurant 
section in the heart of the city where the load of seafood was to be 
delivered. This was as far as our driver could take us. 
We thanked him, inadequately, and moved out on foot. All 
the way around to the front of the restaurant, where we entered in 
order to make contact with the ninja. 
Now I had to order a glass of fresh skim milk, and refuse to 
settle for anything else. Feeling stupid, I did so. The waiter spoke 
very little English, so there was a minor hassle, and it turned out 
the closest they could come was canned milk. Brazilians were not 
milk drinkers. I was adamant, though conscious of my seedy appearance. 
Finally the waiter went for a consultation with the headwaiter. 
Oba was staring at me with perplexity. I was, of course, being 
quite unreasonable. I wondered what uproar I would have created 
had I emulated Hiroshi and ordered something really exotic like 
yak's milk. 
The headwaiter approached, a forbidding figure of a man, and 
I was daunted. Where was the ninja? Had there been a foul-up in 
communications? "We have reserved our best private dining room 
for you, sir," he murmured in English. 
"Oh, we can't afford that!" I protested, uncertain how much 
money Oba had and feeling like a pimp. I had no money, having
201 
lost it all when I fled the sumo exhibition. Kiyokuni would have 
given me my winnings, of course, but I had been ashamed to face 
him so soon after the riot, and with the urgent message from Kan- 
Sen. So I had taken off for Brasilia in my borrowed clothes. Oh 
there are many things I would do better, if only I had proper time 
to reflect. Half my problems stem from my own spot misjudgments. 
"There will be no charge," he assured me. "Your friend will be 
along soon; he asks you to eat well while you wait." 
My friend, Fu Antos? Or one of his ninjas? Must be. "All right," 
I said. I'd certainly be glad when all this mystery was through. I'm 
not temperamentally suited for intrigue or high living. 
The private dining room was ornate, fit literally for a king. 
There was a couch and several easy chairs beyond the huge banquet 
table, and so many potted plants and even small trees that it 
resembled a greenhouse. The waiter attended us, then discreetly 
retired, giving us romantic privacy. 
We were served crab cocktail with plenty of red sauce, onion 
soup with thick cheese floating on it, a salad of heart-of-palms, the 
hearts being tubular and white and probably very tasty; filet mignon 
with black beans, and plenty of Brazilian wine. In short, an 
elegant Latin American meal. I'm really no gourmet, either, how I 
wished for a cheap U.S.A.-American type snack! I wondered uncomfortably 
whether my friend the pinching lobster was buried 
somewhere in this repast. 
That started a disconcerting chain of thought. This was too 
similar to the meal I had had with Dulce. Not in detail but in 
atmosphere: strange, delicious dishes, in private with a pretty girl. 
I had no reason to be suspicious, yet, when I contemplated all that 
fancy food, my hunger left me. Also, for no reason I could fathom, 
I remembered the Iado Master and the sudden slaughter of the 
Death Squad. All that blood and guts. Maybe I was getting paranoid, 
but I couldn't eat. 
Oba had no such reservations. Even if I could have explained 
my concern to her, I wouldn't have. I knew it was just my foolish- 

202 
ness, an overdose of suspicion; James Bond never suffered loss of 
appetite, did he? And this was probably the best meal she had 
been offered in a long time. 
"Comer! Comer!" she urged me, gesturing with her fork. No 
mistaking her meaning: Eat, eat! 
So I did something I wasn't proud of: I faked it. I shoveled 
bites of food into my pockets when she wasn't looking, and made 
chewing motions. Messy as hell, but when I get hung up, I get 
hung up all the way. I poured my soup into the big flowerpot 
beside my chair, hoping it didn't kill the plant. Same with the 
wine, the palm tree behind me drank that. I felt disgusted with 
myself. 
Actually, Oba wasn't paying much attention, or I never could 
have gotten away with it. She ate with such gusto I wondered 
whether she had ever had a chance at such a repast. And my forebodings 
seemed less and less sensible, until I was chagrined at my 
foolishness. Here I was with a soggy pocket, passing up a wonderful 
meal. 
Yet there is an ornery streak in me that sometimes just won't 
let go. If I ate now, I would be admitting that I had been wrong 
not to eat at the start, and it can be very hard to admit something 
like that. So the nonsense compounded itself. I had started out 
not to eat, and now I was perversely determined to finish out that 
way, going to hell and hunger in my own fashion. I knew I would 
regret it, for there was likely to be much work after I met the ninja 
representative. I had not been summoned all the way here for nothing, 
after all. There had to be some hugely important task, something 
only I could do. Perhaps I would be instructing the ninjas in 
special judo and karate techniques, so they could better defend 
their secret Black Castle from intrusions. Yes, that must be it, and 
I was glad to do it for Fu Antos, the unique man who had saved 
my life from the effects of the delayed-action deathblow, not so 
long ago. I owed him my life, literally. Though there were times 
when I wondered about the ninja master. 
Oba sank onto the table. Her nose pressed into the egg cus-
203 
tard. Startled, she jerked up, wiping her face. But then she swayed 
forward again. 
Suddenly alarms were clanging stridently in my brain. She 
had been drugged! Just as before, the food, the drink, the same pattern. 
Someone knew about us and had arranged the same trap that 
had suckered me before; only this time my subconscious had warned 
me off. There are limits to how many times I will fall for the same 
stunt, it seems. Sometimes my unconscious mind is smarter than 
I am. 
Who could have arranged this, except another Death Squad? 
Mirabal's men must have intercepted Kan-Sen's message, and eliminated 
the ninja assigned to meet me here. I had to get out! 
But how could I get Oba free of this trap? She was an innocent 
girl, not involved in my mission. She had only wanted to help me. 
Well, I'd make do. I stood up. 
Too late. Someone was coming. 
I could fight, but suppose there was a whole crew, as before? 
Oba would be sure to suffer, even if I got away. I couldn't desert 
her; she might be tortured, having her teeth pulled out, or worse. 
Then I had an inspiration. I dumped my platter of food on 
the table near my place, knocked over my glass, and threw myself 
to the floor half under the table. It would look as if I had eaten half 
my meal, fought the drug, and succeeded only in making a mess 
before losing consciousness. 
I kept my left hand over my face, as if accidentally, so that I 
could peek through my fingers, unseen. I wanted to know who my 
enemy was, where he was, and how he was armed, before I made 
my move. If it were Mirabal . . . 
But it was only the headwaiter. Still, that was significant, for 
he evinced no surprise at what he saw. That meant he was in on it. 
He spoke to the waiter behind him. That was all, just the two 
of them, and neither one armed. I could handle them readily. 
But I waited. Surely these two men were not the conspirators. 
They were employees of the restaurant. They might have been 

204 
bribed or threatened, but the ones I wanted hadn't shown up yet. 
Useless to tilt at the flunkies. 
The headwaiter spoke in Portuguese. How I wished I could 
understand him! The two men came and dragged me out and 
turned me over, and I remained limp, only groaning a little as if 
trying to fight out of it. Too complete an unconsciousness might 
be suspicious, assuming this was the same drug as before; I had 
been able to fight it off for a while, then. Unconsciousness is not 
necessarily total; it only seems that way in retrospect because of 
memory blackouts. 
They picked me up and dragged my trousers off. I didn't like 
this, but allowed it; obviously they had something in mind, and I 
doubted it was homosexual rape. Maybe they were going to dress 
me in something else? Why? What if they discovered my pocket 
full of food, already well mashed? But they didn't; they merely 
hauled me over to an easy chair in the corner and went to work on 
Oba. 
They stripped her all the way naked, cleaned the custard off 
her face, and carried her over to me. They lifted her up, bent her 
knees, and set her in my lap, facing me. 
What the hell? They surely knew-or thought-I was in no 
condition to take advantage of this opportunity. I hoped my masculine 
reaction would not give me away, but it was all right, because 
her firm buttocks rested on my thighs and concealed that 
region. The position brought mixed memories, though! 
They propped her head on my shoulder and draped her arms 
and hair around me as well as possible. An unconscious girl does 
not hang on too well, so they had to draw me up a bit and pin one 
of her hands between my back and the chair. Her handsome breasts 
pressed against my chest, and I felt her bare abdomen swell rhythmically 
against mine with her breathing. What a posture! 
Then the two men quickly wheeled out the table and replaced 
it with a fresh one. Presto, no more mess! 
But what could it all mean? Eventually Oba and I would wake 
up, and perhaps be under the impression we had made love. But
205 
would that be so shocking? We had made love before-and how!- 
so there was nothing shocking about that notion. Actually Oba 
was as thoroughly lovable a creature as I've encountered, and I 
don't mean just her fine dancer's body or her pretty face. So this 
careful pose made little sense; left to our own devices, we just 
might have assumed it on our own. 
The waiters set an open bottle of liquor on a little table beside 
us, after pouring out two glasses, half full. So it would look as if we 
had left our drinks in favor of more intimate entertainment. But 
still, that was only appearance. Unless someone else spied us. 
That was it! We were being framed, just as I had been framed 
on the homosexual charge before. Certainly the same sort of mind 
had concocted this trap, the Death Squad mind. 
Well, I could foil that. As soon as the waiters left, I'd get dressed 
and take Oba out . . . and never find out who had engineered this. 
Yet if I stayed, who knew what mischief was in the offing? 
Too late, again. Someday I'll have to learn to make difficult 
decisions fast, or I may not live to make more slow ones. The waiters 
ducked out, and someone else was coming down the hall. No 
time to get out. Well, nothing I could do now except to play it 
through. 
A figure appeared in the doorway. Two figures. 
Someone screamed. A woman. 
Through slitted eyes, peering past Oba's luxuriant hair, I saw 
the people, and received my worst shock of the day. 
Dulce! 
She was staring at the two of us, so suggestively arranged, and 
I knew there was only one conclusion she could draw. She was the 
very last person I would have wanted to show up at this moment. 
Beside her was a man. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't 
place him, and of course I didn't know anyone in this city. 
It hardly mattered, for he screamed and charged. Instantly I 
recognized the mode of the martial artist; his muscular development 
and the manner he moved gave it away. And there was no 

206 
doubt of his intention. He was out to kill. I may be slow in some 
respects, but in combat I catch on quickly. 
I exploded out of that chair. Or tried to. Oba was in my arms, 
and I had either to drop her or use her as a shield, and I balked at 
either. So as the man's fist came down, I turned, catching the blow 
on my shoulder. Then I set Oba in the chair, somewhat roughly, 
but speed was of the essence. I straightened, about to whirl into 
my antagonist, and he caught me with a hard kick to the side. It 
scored right under my ribs, and his calloused toes smashed in with 
appalling force, half stunning me. A man does not have to get 
struck on the point of the chin to suffer disorientation. 
I pitched forward. I was not unconscious, but at this stage it 
was easier to take a fall than to fight the pain; in a moment I would 
recover from the shock of the blow and be able to function better. 
And it wouldn't hurt at all if he thought I was out for the count. 
But as I landed, he kicked me again, in the small of the back. 
And again the pain blossomed. A girdle of paralysis clamped about 
my waist; I felt like dying. Something internal had ruptured, or 
maybe a nerve was crushed; I couldn't tell, but it was awful. I was 
really taking a beating. 
A third time he kicked me. He didn't care whether I was awake 
or asleep; he just wanted to bash me to death. And he was pretty 
well succeeding. I knew then what I faced: this was a renegade 
Capoiera fighter. Capoiera is a Brazilian specialty, said to be the 
dirtiest martial art in the world. Anything goes; the glass-sharded 
feet of the man I'd fought in the Rio prison had been an example. 
This bastard would pulverize me if I remained a target. 
I had no choice. I had to fight back or be demolished. I gritted 
my teeth against the pain in my back, and when his fourth kick 
came I whipped my arm about and caught his foot. That made 
him stagger, and I was able to get to my knees. 
He cuffed me on the ear, and I let go, hoping I didn't have a 
cauliflower ear like Oba's now. The old schoolboy punishment of 
boxing the ears was a painful one. As I stood up unsteadily, he 
performed another Capoiera specialty: he fell back on one hand
207 
and one foot, and then shot the other foot at my face. But I had 
anticipated this, now that I had identified his style of combat, and 
I countered instantly. I knocked his leg aside with my forearm, 
then leaped forward, onto his body. 
We crashed to the floor together, him underneath. A hitting 
specialist is at a disadvantage when encumbered, which is one of 
the reasons judo is such an effective all around martial art: it includes 
striking and wrestling forms. He was like a python, whipping 
his body back and forth, trying to shake me loose and get his 
finger in my eye or his elbow in my throat or his teeth anywhere, 
but I whipped with him, and used his contortions to my own 
advantage. 
First I got behind him, straddling his body, pressing him down; 
he countered by heaving up violently, to throw me off. But as his 
body cleared the floor, I hooked my left leg around his left arm, 
slid my right arm around, his right shoulder and up to grab my 
own lapel (lucky they hadn't stripped me of that, too, but actually 
I know plenty of "naked" techniques too), and thus had both his 
arms entangled from behind, with his feet out of the way. That's 
the secret of judo, using your opponent's own strength against 
him, so that the more he exerts himself the better off you are. He 
didn't like that position, so he tried to buck me off, and again I 
took advantage of his power. I took a forward roll, landing beneath 
him, giving him the sensation of success, but it was illusory, for I 
had not relinquished my control of his arms. He lay face up, his 
arms pinned, his head on my belly. Not uncomfortable, but not 
much for carrying the attack to me, either. But I had no such 
restriction; I shifted my right leg to control his right arm, freeing 
my left leg. That gave me both my left leg and left arm to work 
with. I grabbed his collar and pulled across his throat, putting my 
leg around his head for leverage. There was a lot of leverage in that 
leg, too. 
Now this may sound complicated, so I'll put it in simpler 
terms: it was the Jigoku-Jime, or "Hell Strangle", so named because 
it is hell on the victim. His arms were entangled, his legs thrashed 

208 
helplessly, and I was applying terrible leverage to his neck. Hercules 
himself could not have broken that hold. 
Meanwhile, Dulce had gone over to Oba and hauled her out 
of the chair, probably intending some sort of mayhem herself. But 
she had discovered the girl was unconscious. Dulce was not the 
sort to beat up a helpless rival, no matter how angry she was. So 
she was contenting herself with shaking. Oba violently, waking 
her, still thinking it was the effects of the liquor. 
Oba's eyes opened slowly; obviously the drug was still on her. 
I hoped there would not be a woman-woman fight; I was in no 
position to break it up promptly. But then Oba saw me with my 
strangle on the struggling man, who was almost out though resisting 
heroically. She made an anguished little cry and staggered to 
her feet, fell, and crawled toward us on hands and knees, her handsome 
breasts drawing down. I thought she had mistaken our position, 
supposing I was the one getting wiped out, since I was on the 
bottom, but it was not so. She threw herself on me, trying to 
wrench my leg from the man's neck. She screamed something in 
Portuguese. 
Naturally her action was ineffective, and in a moment she collapsed 
across the man. He, too, had had enough; his legs stopped 
moving as he lost consciousness. She had succumbed again to the 
drug, he to my strangle; ironically they finished in each other's 
arms. 
"Let go," Dulce snapped at me. "She said you are killing her 
husband." 
Actually I had already eased up. A judo strangle is a controlled 
thing, quite safe when properly applied, and I hadn't gotten to be 
a fifth degree black belt without knowing how to do it right. I was 
subduing him, not killing him, despite his attempt to kill me. 
"Her husband?" I demanded as I disengaged. Sometimes I'm 
slow on the uptake; I have admitted that many times. Now I knew 
where I'd seen this man before. The picture on Oba's dresser: him. 
"He brought me to meet you. He helped me escape from
209 
Mirabal, and here you are, like the tomcat you are, seducing his 
wife! No wonder he lost control!" 
"Fat chance," I said, rubbing my back, trying to alleviate the 
continuing agony there. "The food was drugged, and we were posed. 
Remember when you and I dined together? That's how the Death 
Squad strikes." 
Her eyes widened. Dulce was no dummy. "She is drugged. 
And he tried to kill you without even questioning-" She paused. 
"But you-why aren't you drugged?" And her suspicion of me was 
strong again. 
I explained tersely. Then: "Obviously this was another trap. 
Someone wanted me dead, and wanted you to think I had betrayed 
you. Just how convenient was your escape from Mirabal, 
and how did you know where to find me?" 
Her eyes narrowed. "Too convenient! This man had word from 
a santerio or something, a note telling you to be here. He told me 
he was a friend of the ninjas who wanted to make a deal with the 
MR-26 Movement, so if I would come with him and meet with 
Fu Antos-" She stopped, shaking her head at her own gullibility. 
"Obviously he's no friend of the ninjas! He must be Mirabal's 
agent, sent to track down the ninjas, using me and you. And his 
wife is in it with him." 
The man was beginning to stir. "I don't think she's in on it," I 
said, getting into my pants. "But we'd better get out of here; she 
obviously still loves him." Indeed, Oba was clutching the man 
even in her unconsciousness. 
Dulce smiled grimly. "Hurts your male ego, doesn't it." 
"Yes." Better to let her think that than the truth, that Oba 
and I had been every bit as intimate as the pose suggested, at 
another time. But I certainly wanted no more to do with Oba 
now; I don't like adultery. Let her return to her husband, whom 
she still loved despite her injured ear, just like her namesake goddess. 
If only I had been able to understand her whole meaning, 
during the pantomime dance. 
We moved out quickly, leaving Oba and her husband to come 

210 
to what terms they might. Maybe this time Xango would stay at 
home a little longer. His wife had quite a bit to offer, if he cared to 
try her out. 
We sneaked out the back door, dodged around the building 
and down the street, alert for pursuit, but there was none. It seemed 
Mirabal hadn't figured his neatly laid trap would miss. 
"So the colonel arranged to have me killed, in your presence," 
I said as we walked along, putting more distance between us and 
the restaurant. "But why?" 
"Obviously so I would panic and run to the Black Castle for 
help, whereupon they would follow me and ascertain its location," 
she said. "I'm afraid I was na�ve." 
"You know where the Black Castle is?" I asked, surprised. 
"Not exactly. But the ninjas did make an overture to the urban 
guerrillas. That was why I believed the Capoeira agent. Before 
we raided the prison, I learned that there was a ninja stronghold in 
the jungle, and I know its location to within about fifty miles. I 
did not know the connection to you, until Mirabal informed me. 
If we contact the Indians in that region, they will put us in touch." 
"And we can warn Fu Antos how far Mirabal has penetrated 
his network," I said. "The ninjas are in terrible danger. Mirabal is 
savage and smart, and he has the whole resources of the government. 
Yes, we have to do it." Then I paused, startled, my hand at 
my throat. "The Figa!" I exclaimed. "I lost my Figa!" 
Dulce eyed me. "Don't tell me that doll even had you wearing 
a native amulet!" 
"It's bad luck to lose it," I said, my ears heating. "It must have 
come off during the fight." 
"We're not going back there!" she said sharply. "That would 
really be bad luck." 
"No, of course not," I agreed, chastened. After all, it was only 
a magic charm, of no actual value. Maybe I was upset because it 
had been all that remained to me of Oba, with her dancer's body 
and dancer's stamina. 
"Here's the bus," Dulce said. "We have a long ride."
211 
"We do?" I hadn't realized we were taking a bus. But we were, 
and we did. I snoozed off and on, and Dulce remarked how the 
land here was no good for farming, the soil being thin and poor 
under the seemingly luxurious canopy of trees. 
And so we rode into the wilderness, heading away from the 
city of the future, toward the castle of the past. We got off at a tiny 
village, a mere cluster of huts, and walked into the dense tropical 
forest. 
We did not suffer from hunger. Huge, heavy nuts lay on the 
ground under the big trees. Dulce found edible roots, and fruits 
that hung on little stems poking out directly from the massive 
trunks. I'm no nature expert, but I'm not entirely naive about the 
wilderness; I had been a beret in Indochina years back, and learned 
to forage from the land. But Dulce evidently knew more about 
this particular locale than I did. She had pills to purify the water 
and kill the liver flukes that infested it, and knew how to make a 
fire. She spied an armadillo, and I killed it with a karate blow to 
the head. I was sorry for the creature, but it was food. 
We came across an abandoned patch of cultivated land where 
the Indians had tried to grow some fruit. There were a few tubers, 
plantains and mangos, guavas and avocados remaining. 
I was ravenous, after my missed banquet, and afraid we might 
not find as much food further along, so I stuffed myself. My stomach 
rumbled as it encountered the roast armadillo, and all that 
avocado didn't help, but I didn't want to waste anything. Dulce 
only looked at me and shook her head. "Little boys and ice 
cream . . ." she murmured. It was her way of remarking on my 
gluttony, or perhaps she was bitter about something else. Like a 
slender dancer, nude, in my lap. 
We walked. The floor of the deep jungle was not bushy, though 
there was a great deal of mossy growth. In fact, we could have 
ridden bicycles through it, only watching out for animal burrows 
and raised roots. My notion of tropical forest being dank and impenetrable 
was completely false. Well, not completely; it was indeed 
a tangled mass above, high in the canopy. Huge liana vines 

212 
climbed the trunks of the trees and hung everywhere, just as in the 
Tarzan movies. We could not see the sun at all; every square foot 
was covered by leaves. And the jungle floor was no crawling mass 
of pythons, headhunters and carnivorous plants; there were animals, 
but we knew of their presence mainly by their sounds and 
traces. It really was quite peaceful. 
The air was hot, for though this was the winter season in North 
America, it was the height of summer here in South America, and 
we were nearer the equator. Dulce, wiser than I, soon stripped to 
the buff, and made me do likewise. "The earth is antiseptic here," 
she said. "It is the sweat-soaked clothing that brings smell and 
illness. To be bare is to be healthy, only stay out of the sun." 
Like Adam and Eve, I thought. Could it be that the innocence 
of the first man and woman was the source of their health? That 
when they emerged from the healthy shade of the forest and put 
on grime-holding clothes, they put on disease as well? Then what 
a paradise we lost when we gave up our nudity! I glanced sidelong 
at Dulce. Her unfettered beauty threatened to raise the beast in 
me, and I had to look away. 
At night, fatigued from a long walk, we stopped in a moonlit 
clearing. We gathered a mound of dry leaves for a bed; if it rained, 
well, we were naked anyway, and would dry. It was a novel funfeeling, 
this Adamic and Evian repose in the forest. 
However, the obvious, un-innocent thought occurred to me, 
actually it had been building ever since we went natural, and I 
made it known to Dulce. Or rather, it made itself known, when 
her thigh banged against it. It was a wonder she didn't get bruised, 
for this particular serpent was rocklike. Would it tempt her? 
But first I had to confess my relationship with Oba. "We were 
posed, there in the restaurant, but before that, in Rio-" 
"It is all right," she said coolly. "I do not own you. I am not a 
jealous female. I know how men are." 
Cutting words! I would have preferred to have been bawled 
out. "She helped save me from the Death Squad," I continued 
lamely.
213 
"Men are polygamous. It is unrealistic to expect otherwise. I 
do not have to love you to get in bed with you." 
She meant that I did not have to love her. She was tightly 
controlled, so I had only a hint of what was suppressed inside her, 
but that hint was a glimpse into an awful chasm. She loved me, 
unworthy as I knew myself to be, and what could I say? For me, 
love was a many-fickled thing. Yet after my fiancee, Chiyako- 
Dulce relented. She stroked my cheek in the dark. "I am sorry, 
Jason. I know you loved once, and never again. The Chinese girl." 
"She's dead," I said. And winced, feeling an internal pain. But 
that might have been indigestion from all the unfamiliar jungle 
food. Brazil nuts are pretty greasy and concentrated. Avocados had 
a lot of fat, too. And that armadillo, well, my stomach hadn't forgiven 
me for that yet, it seemed. 
So we made love, but it was not as good as before. After that 
we chatted a while, and decided that in the morning we would 
make up some bits of bark to be like caracoles, the voodoo coconut 
fragments, and try a throw to indicate the direction we should 
take to find the ninjas. It seemed Dulce was not a complete skeptic 
about such magic, and neither was I, now. Though the loss of 
my Figa complicated that. 
* 
I woke in the night. I had a pain in my right side just under 
the ribs. That lingering indigestion would not go away! I knew I 
shouldn't have stuffed myself; why had I done it? 
I got up and paced about, hoping to release a little gas pressure 
and be done with it, but the pain only intensified. I leaned 
over and vomited, and that seemed to help, but only for a little 
while. The misery spread to my back, and became so bad I wanted 
to cry out. 
Dulce woke. "You're sick!" she exclaimed. 
"Something I ate," I muttered. 
"I ate the same, and I'm not sick." She looked at me worriedly 

214 
in the moonlight, and came to put her hand on my arm. "It can't 
be your conscience, because you don't have much." 
"Well, I did get kicked in the back pretty hard in that fight," 
I said, ignoring her unkind dig. "I felt something go, then, but I 
had to keep going-" 
"Lie down," she said. Obediently, I returned to the leaf-bed, 
though that did not alleviate my condition. This was one hell of a 
stomachache, not a kind I had had before. 
She ran her hands over my body, squeezing here, pressing there, 
and there was nothing sexual about it. She must have had medical 
training in Cuba; she had marvelously gentle hands. I suppose the 
Communists are good at such things, inculcating all the necessary 
skills in their agents. 
"I don't think it's appendicitis," she murmured as she turned 
me over and probed my abdomen. 
"Can't be," I said. "My appendix was taken out years ago." 
When she poked into my stomach on the right side, I groaned 
aloud. But she continued, gauging the locale by my reactions. 
One particular spot seemed to generate pure pain at the slightest 
pressure. "That's what I was afraid of," she said at last. 
"What?" I gasped, relieved that she at last had some diagnosis. 
"Gallstone." 
"What?" 
"You have a gallstone, by the signs," she said. "I have seen it 
before. It usually does not develop so suddenly, but your recent 
exertions may have accelerated it." 
"Gallstone?" I repeated stupidly. "I told you I got kicked a 
couple of times. In the side and back. It really hurt! Maybe something 
was ruptured." 
"Be quiet," she said, just like a nurse with a balky patient. 
"The liver produces bile; that neutralizes the strong acids coming 
into the intestine from the stomach and helps break down fat. The 
bile is stored in the gall bladder until it is needed. Sometimes 
stones form from parts of the bile that have settled out of solution, 
and these stones can block the duct so that the bile cannot get out.
215 
This interrupts the digestion, and can cause the most severe pain 
the body can experience." 
"Now she tells me," I moaned. 
"It can be controlled for a while by diet and drugs." 
"Here in the jungle?" I demanded. 
"But the only real cure is surgery." 
"Surgery!" Like most athletic men, I have a morbid fear of 
"It is very simple, as these things go. Just to remove the stone, 
surgery. 
so the bile can go through. But-" 
I knew: how could I undergo surgery, here in the wilds of the 
Amazon? 
"We will get help, at the Black Castle," she said. 
"Yes! Fu Antos, he cured me before. He has terrific power. He 
can use his ki to-" 
"I was hoping they would have a surgeon there," she said. 
"Oh, yes. But how can we get there, even if we find the way? 
I'm not sure I can walk far." 
"I'll carry you if I have to." And she wasn't fooling! But I thought 
of being draped across her shoulders, all that pressure on my stomach 
while she staggered along, and I quailed. 
"I'll make do, somehow," I said. "If only we could stop the 
pain." 
"Your jacket!" she said, delving into our bundle of clothes. 
"What?" 
"The food in your pocket." 
"I dumped that out. Anyway, I'm not hungry." The understatement 
of the night! "And it's drugged." 
"Yes. It will serve as an anesthetic, in small amounts. We can 
scrape some from the cloth-" 
"I'd rather not," I protested, remembering my prison experience. 
"That drug has all sorts of bad connotations. And it might 
aggravate my condition." 
"That's true." She considered, then brightened. "I know! I saw 
wild coca plants growing, back a mile or so. Wait here." 

216 
"I don't care for any cup of coca, either!" I objected. "Anyway, 
it's pitch black. You can't-" But she was gone. 
She was quite a girl, I thought. Evidently she could make her 
way in the dark with confidence. She was certainly one worth marrying, 
if I knew what was good for me. Was it really necessary that 
I love her? But of course there was her Communism, that I doubted 
she cared to give up, even for me. I had a fleeting little nightmare: 
Dulce standing proudly, torch raised, like the Statue of Liberty, 
declaiming, "I could not love thee half so much, loved I not Marx 
more." 
Before long she returned with what felt like a handful of leaves. 
"Chew this," she said. 
I was in no condition to argue. I don't even remember what 
they tasted like, and it was too dark to see them. So I chewed. And 
you know, in due course I began to feel better. My pain diminished, 
and strength returned. 
"Hey, this herbal remedy is great!" I exclaimed. "What did 
you say it was?" 
"Cocaine," she said succinctly. 
I laughed. "No, I'm serious. This stuff really helps. What-" 
"The coca plant. Not cocoa. A lot of people confuse the two. 
The drug cocaine is extracted from it. It is an excellent anesthetic." 
"I'm an addict!" I exclaimed, appalled. 
"One dose does not an addict make, not in this form. The 
natives chew it all their lives without much ill effect. Right now 
it's better than being in pain from the gallstone." 
I could not debate that. I kept on chewing. 
Next morning I felt much better. In fact, I felt terrific. We ate 
a little more fruit, then went on to discover a small stream with a 
nice pool. I rinsed off, then stood on the bank and watched Dulce 
with open appreciation as she bathed. She was like Venus. This life 
could not last, but what an idyllic interlude! 
It ended abruptly. Indians appeared. One brought his bow
217 
up, aimed, and loosed an arrow at me. I reacted automatically: my 
arm swept across and deflected the arrow just before it struck me. 
I could not simply let it go past; it might strike Dulce. 
A second Indian aimed. I was ready; I tried to catch the arrow 
in midair, but only knocked it aside again. Still, I did it with a 
flourish, trying to make it look easy. It wasn't easy; had I not had 
some practice in this sort of thing, I would have been brought 
down. 
A third Indian, a big buck, charged me with his spear, screaming. 
I screamed right back at him, a piercing kiai! yell, just as he 
hurled his weapon. I caught the spear, reversed it, and poked it 
between his legs, sending him into a jarring tumble. Then I held 
the point to his throat, showing how easily I could kill him. 
The other Indians, amazed, came up and kneeled before me. 
Dulce emerged from the water. "That was beautiful, Jason," she 
murmured. 
She faced the Indians and addressed them in Portuguese. After 
a brief dialogue, she turned to me. "They are headhunters, but 
have decided to be friendly. We are invited to visit their village." 
"Headhunters!" 
"They don't practice it any more. And they will send a runner 
to notify the ninjas. I believe we can trust them." 
Just like that! I was glad I had gone out to impress them instead 
of really fighting them. I didn't want to lose my head, on top 
of my bodily problems. But of course I had known that the Indians 
of this area were allies of the ninjas. 
The village treated us royally. I had to make another demonstration 
of arrow deflecting so everyone could applaud, and Dulce 
and I made a mat and demonstrated some judo throws. Ippon seoi 
nage, o uchi gari, koshi guruma, just the ones we could do without 
clothing, since we remained nude. Many of the Indians were nude 
too, so that didn't bother me. 
That evening we feasted. Dulce tried to warn me to go easy, 
but I was sure she had been wrong about the gallstones, and I was 
feeling so good I pitched right in. The main course was some kind 

218 
of meaty stew, very good. I washed it down with plenty of native 
beer. The water, you see, was not safe because of the flukes, and I 
was thirsty as hell. But along about my third helping of stew, I 
drew out of the pot what looked like a baby's hand. Horrified I 
stared at this confirmation of their cannibalistic culture, but Dulce 
explained it was only monkey meat. Nevertheless, I decided I had 
eaten enough. 
And that night I had another gallstone attack that made the 
first seem mild. Dulce gave me more coca leaves, and warned me 
that if the gall bladder burst I could die, unless I had surgery very 
soon. I promised never to go off my diet again, and finally this 
attack abated. 
Fortunately a ninja came in the morning to lead us to the 
Black Castle. I kept chewing coca leaves and made it, glad that my 
ordeal was almost over. Even the notion of surgery did not seem so 
bad, now. 
* 
After that my memory becomes sketchy. Perhaps it was the 
recurring agony of the gallstone, or the mind-affecting coca I chewed 
to alleviate it; more likely it was what happened next. I was entering 
the most awful period of my life, physically, mentally and 
emotionally. But that's another story, a tortuous one. I can provide 
only snatches, with certain retrospective interpretations, and I can 
not promise even these are completely accurate. So for what little 
it may be worth, I offer these bits: 
The Black Castle seemed to be in ruins, surely that's a mistaken 
image, but I swear that's what I remember, with stones 
tumbled about. The plain around it seemed to have been flooded 
recently, though there was no river in sight, and there was a stench 
as of a recent bloody battlefield. 
Inside it was bare, but that was only the surface. Below there 
was an incredible labyrinth of tunnels and chambers. Like an ice-
219 
berg, nine-tenths of the castle was beneath the surface. The important 
thing was that we had made it; we were safe! 
Except-another horrible vision. The boylike Fu Antos, larger 
than I remembered him but still a child, met me not with open 
arms of welcome, but with a great sword. This memory is the most 
nonsensical of all; it could never have happened that way! I was 
surely delirious. But I report the snatch as I have it. I, crippled by 
my physical agony and sheer astonishment, was unable to resist 
effectively. Those terrible hypnotic eyes of the lord of the ninjas, 
four hundred years old; the gleaming blade swinging at my head- 
It was Dulce who threw herself between us, intercepting the 
sword with a wooden chair. "Stop!" she cried. "Spare him, Lord 
Ninja! Only let him live, and I will do as you wish." 
And what could Fu Antos want of Dulce, whom he had never 
met before? More of my delirium, of course; I must have run a hell 
of a fever! 
Yet I found myself alone on a crude wooden raft, drifting down 
the mighty Amazon River, with only a few coca leaves for sustenance. 
In my fevered vision, that I knew must be untrue, I had 
been betrayed by my best friend, Fu Antos, at the time I least 
suspected. With my lucky Figa lost, only the sacrifice of the girl 
who loved me, Dulce, had saved my life. 
All false, of course. But one thing was not false: I was dying. 
For my gallstone had not been removed. My whole body was turning 
yellow from the jaundice of this malady. I could not survive 
long. 
Something bit my hand, which was dragging in the water. I 
jerked it out. Must be piranha fishes; they would get me in the 
end. My whole life passed before me, as I have recorded it now. For 
now the pain was starting again. 
I hear the cry, the raucous scream of some hungry jungle bird. 
It sounds like the gleeful laughter of a vengeful voodoo god. But it 
fades as I lose consciousness . . . 

CURSE 
OF THE 
NINJA 
and others 

INTRODUCTION: 
This volume is only half a novel. We were writing it when 
news came that the series was being canceled, and work abruptly 
stopped. The first five Chapters, of a projected ten, are virtually 
complete, with spot summaries of intended scenes near the end of 
Chapter 5, and a little bit of Chapter 6, followed by a summary of 
the remainder. Unfortunately it was the finale toward which we 
had been building for two and a half novels that was aborted. We 
were not pleased, but it was not our decision. 
The volume has been filled out with several stories and sample 
projects, showing what else we would have written had there been 
any interest by a publisher. We trust this will have some interest 
for readers. This is really a collection of pieces, filling out our collaborative 
activity. We hope readers will enjoy it regardless. 

Chapter 1: 
Dream of Red and White 
He was a middleweight, around 176 pounds, completely bald, 
standing only five feet five inches tall but with his mass filled in by 
solid muscle. He was in a deep defensive stance and clearly afraid 
of me. 
Good-I needed an easy victory! I took hold of his jacket with 
my right hand, caught his right sleeve with my left, and whirled 
into a powerful uchi-mata inside thigh throw. It was one of my 
favorite techniques, and I was good at it. Very good. I hauled him 
up on my back, and my right leg thrust back between his thighs 
and up to sweep his legs into the air. He flipped completely over 
and came down hard on the mat in front of me. 
"Ippon!" the referee cried, making the signal, his hand straight 
up. Wonderful gesture! That meant it was a clean throw, with my 
opponent landing with speed and force on his back: my victory. 
Judo is a martial art, a system of self defense, like karate, aikido, 
kung fu and others. If I were attacked on the street, and threw the 
thug like this on the hard concrete, he would not get up again in 
a hurry. But of course in contest judo we don't want to hurt the 

226 
opponent-not that much, anyway-so we have a mat. We are 
careful to use correct technique so that he falls harmlessly. 
Immediately both judges got up. "Koka!" they cried, signaling 
with their hands at chest level. That meant an imperfect throw, a 
minor effort. An ippon is like a home-run in baseball with the 
bases loaded, or a touchdown in the final seconds in football: a 
game-winning score. But a koka is like a base hit or a first down: 
nice to have, but not really enough by itself. 
There was a brief conference, and majority ruled: I was awarded 
a measly koka for my throw. Well, these things happen, and a 
good judoka does not complain. He can think his private thoughts, 
though; I would have rated that excellent throw better than a mere 
base hit. 
I returned to the match and moved Uke around a bit. In judo, 
the man who performs a technique is always Tori, and the one who 
gets techniqued is always Uke. That's pronounced OO-kee, two 
syllables with, the accent on the first. The term derives from ukemi, 
or "fall" in Japanese. Anyone serious about judo has to learn Japanese 
terms and pronunciation. 
Uke was still too nervous to attack me; he knew he'd been 
well-thrown even if the judges didn't. So I spun into another uchi- 
mata. Again he flew and landed, and again the referee signaled 
ippon intelligently. And wouldn't you know it, again the two judges 
overruled him. "Yuko!" they cried, hands slanting down. 
Well, a yuko is like a double in baseball that knocks in a run, or 
a field goal in football. Enough to win, if the other team doesn't do 
anything, but not spectacular. I was frankly dissatisfied. I'm not 
nearly as good a sport inside as I am outside. But I kept my face 
calm. 
I closed a third time. I probably should have varied my technique, 
but at this stage I was determined to achieve the recognition 
my performance deserved. I shoved Uke back, and when he 
resisted I hauled him abruptly forward and off-balance, and rammed 
into a third uchi-mata. It was explosive; he sailed up so high he 
would have been thrown clear of the mat and into the lap of a
227 
judge if I hadn't hung on to his right arm. He came down partly 
on his side with a crash that shook the room. In fact, my throw 
was so violent that I myself fell forward on my head, turning to 
come down partly over him. 
"Waza-ari!" the referee cried, hand going out to the side at 
shoulder level. That's like a baseball triple with a couple of runs 
scoring, or a football touchdown with no extra point. A good, 
strong showing, but not enough to win outright. After twice being 
overruled, the referee was being more cautious. These judobaseball-
football scores are not directly comparable, of course; it's 
just an approximation. 
Surprise! "Ippon!" the two judges exclaimed, grinning. It 
seemed I had finally put enough oomph into it to satisfy their 
savage tastes. The match was over; an ippon always terminates it 
right there. That's one of the ways judo differs from other sports. 
But I wasn't through. Not by a long shot. The moment the 
first Uke bowed off the mat, a second one was bowing on. For I 
was not in a tournament or contest; I was running the line. I had 
to fight five yodans, or fourth degree black belts in Kodokan judo, 
one after the other without respite. 
A yodan is a tough customer. A black belt in judo signifies a 
master grade, like a professional baseball or football player: the 
pick of the martial art. A shodan or first degree black belt could 
mop up any number of barehanded attackers in a street fight, 
though judo is called the "gentle way" of fighting. A nidan or 
second degree black belt could normally wipe out a shodan; only 
about one in three shodans make nidan. And there is a steeper ratio 
for each step up; one nidan in ten makes sandan, the third degree, 
and one sandan in thirty makes yodan, the fourth degree. So a 
yodan is one in a thousand black belts, roughly. 
And I was running a line of five yodans. Me, Jason Striker, a 
fifth degree black belt, or godan, one in a hundred thousand. Trying 
for one in a million. Could I do it? 
The first couple shouldn't be too bad-but as I grew tired, 

228 
those constantly fresh Ukes would become greater hurdles. And if 
I lost even one match, I was finished. 
But I had no time to worry about that. The first Uke had been 
tense and stiff, knowing he was overmatched. This second one was 
relaxed and confident. He was a large black man with a small 
mustache and big belly and strong arms. He knew the odds were 
against him, but with one break he figured he could take me, and 
he was bound to try. He might not be as good as he thought he 
was, but then again, he might. Maybe he was pushing for 5 Dan 
status himself. 
He let me grip his lapel with my right hand-then he went 
for waki-gatame, the armpit hold. This consists, basically, of clamping 
your opponent's arm under your own armpit and bending it 
backward. The pressure on the elbow-joint will force quick capitulation. 
But as with all armlocks, you have to be careful; too much 
pressure can break the captive arm. The victim will normally surrender 
long before that happens, so you give him a chance to tap 
out, to yield, and nobody gets hurt. 
This bastard didn't give me that chance. He grabbed my arm 
and drove down to the mat, not caring whether it broke in the 
process. But I was not exactly a novice; I somersaulted forward in a 
judo roll, changing the angle and fouling up his leverage. Then I 
broke his hold-but he moved with me and got on top with a 
yoko-shiho-gatame side four quarter hold. His left hand circled my 
neck; his right gripped my left leg. 
"O-saekomi!" the referee cried, signaling the commencement 
of a legitimate holddown. 
Out of the frying pan . . . I had thirty seconds to get out of it, 
or I was lost. Fortunately the hold was not absolutely tight; they 
seldom are in matches, since they have to be applied despite resistance. 
I used what room I had to maneuver. I grabbed his jacket on 
the side with my right arm, then twisted, reached over his head 
with my left hand, and grabbed his belt. This was tough to do, for 
of course he was shoving me down, and time was passing. Fifteen 
seconds, twenty.
229 
I bucked, my back arching high with my head and feet touching 
the mat. This is called bridging, and is a standard escape technique, 
but I had prepared for my bridge by pushing with my left 
hand as if to shove him off; naturally he resisted the thrust. Then 
as I bridged I reversed it, pushing with my right and pulling with 
my left, exerting a lot of torque in the same direction he had been 
shoving. As he pressed down hard on my torso, I added to his 
movement. I had a lot of strength in my arms; those hours of 
weight lifting I had done while training for this sure came in handy. 
Now for a human bench press. 
I heaved him right up and over in a forward somersault, then 
rolled on top of him in a yoko-shiho-gatame of my own. Now he 
had to break the hold-and he couldn't. He struggled valiantly, 
sliding across the mat, but I stayed with him. My hold differed 
from his in two crucial points: it was not loose around his neck, 
but so tight his head was shoved up painfully so that he could not 
even think of bridging. And my chin dug into his chest, putting 
pressure on his soft breastbone and further restricting his motions. 
These little details make all the difference. In fact, there can be 
just as much strategy and action and drama in the course of a 
holddown as in a spectacular throw, though it is more subtle. In 
thirty seconds I had my ippon for the holddown. 
Why was I doing this? Because I was going for the biggest step 
of my career: promotion to Rokudan, the sixth degree belt. This is 
beyond the black belt stage; the colors are red and white striped. 
Few men outside of Japan ever make this grade; I would be the 
highest ranked Caucasian in North America. Truly a status worth 
fighting for. 6 Dan was a worldwide elite; fewer than ten white 
men in the world had made this rank, in all the history of judo. 
I had already done the technical questions and the three classical 
katas or stylized demonstrations. These covered the nage or 
throws, the katame or grappling, and the kime or the ancient forms 
of self defense. I had also done two more of my own choosing. This 
five-man competition accounted for sixty percent of the examination. 
I had to win at least three of the matches and lose none. 

230 
And these opponents were not about to lie down and play dead for 
me. 
The third man was big and strong. He was about 35 years old 
and weighed perhaps 230 pounds and seemed to be of Japanese 
extraction. That meant mass and skill and experience-a tough 
combination. I was panting from the effort of overturning and 
holding down my last opponent; not really tired, but the edge was 
off. 
So I tried for a quick win, much as the last had tried against 
me. Uke went for me with his right arm outstretched and stiff; I 
grabbed his sleeve with my left hand, my right hand going to his 
wrist. I lifted my right leg and put my foot against the top of his 
left leg. Then I fell back and to the side, pulling on that arm and 
pushing on his leg. 
When we were on the mat I passed my left leg over his captive 
arm, over the elbow, to put pressure on it, while I bent the arm 
back with bothnd shands. But this Uke was tough; he tried to 
resist and pull his arm back, and he had a lot of power. He was 
getting away, and I had to twist onto my side to hold him and 
apply more pressure. 
Two things happened then, both unfortunate. Our opposing 
forces were so great that something had to go, and it did. His 
arm-and my spine. I heard a tearing sound as the ligaments of 
his arm tore, at the same time as pain shot through the twisted 
muscles of my lower back. He screamed and tapped out, and I let 
go, the victor. 
He would not be able to practice for a while, and I was sorry 
for that. But it had been his own fault for struggling so hard against 
a potentially injurious hold; he could have yielded with honor and 
without damage the moment I secured it. I had applied pressure 
slowly, giving him opportunity to do just that, and instead he had 
tried to fight out of it. 
I had my own troubles. My wrenched back was not too bad, 
but I could not afford to let it rest, and it would weaken my attempts 
at throws in the two remaining matches and make me look
231 
worse than I was. With good luck I would not aggravate it too 
much; with bad luck, I could wind up with a serious injury and 
lose my promotion to boot. 
It takes a moment for one contestant to clear the mat and the 
next to come on, for everything is formal in judo. In that moment 
my eyes surveyed my surroundings. We were in a large dojo, or 
judo exercise hall, with bleacher seats tiered in a huge oblong, 
filled with spectators avidly watching the action. They were not 
paying fans, but the friends and relatives of the judo players who 
had come to participate in the tournament and the promotions. 
Judo is one of the few sports where the players pay and the spectators 
come free. Not always, but true in this particular case. 
Crowded up as close to the demonstration area as allowed were 
a number of my own students and associates. There was Illunga, 
an almost-handsome, no, almost-beautiful black woman who instructed 
karate at my dojo. And a tall, copper-bronze haired slender 
woman, a brown belt, watching intently, one of my best students. 
And of course a number of my friends and judo associates, 
here to watch me try for the big one. 
The next man was a giant, even bigger and stronger than the 
last. He must have weighed 300 pounds, no fat. He took off his 
glasses just before he stepped out, and peered myopically at me. 
Some very powerful men have weak eyesight, but judo is hand-tohand 
combat, so it hardly matters. A blind man could be a good 
judoka; some blind men are. This one had a beaked nose and whiteflecked 
hair, and seemed Italian. He would have power to burn, 
while I struggled along on my tiring system and hurt back. This 
was going to be bad. 
We closed, took hold, pushed each other around a bit, feeling 
it out. Then I leaped in for a morote seoi nage shoulder throw. My 
right arm bent at the elbow and angled across his chest, heaving 
up as I rotated to draw him up over my back. But my back gave a 
stab of pain as I took the load, making me hesitate fractionally- 
and Uke used that moment to recover his broken balance and 

232 
stand firm. His left foot swept forward as he hauled me backward, 
going into a counter-throw. 
I danced out of the way. But he followed up his advantage, 
dropping into a left tai otoshi body drop throw, seeking to augment 
my spinout right into a fall. However, avoiding such traps 
was second nature to me. I jumped over his outstretched leg and 
tried to counter him myself; a failed technique in judo is a golden 
opportunity to initiate a counter technique. But he had the jump 
on me and was carrying through a continuous attack. He was already 
winding into a soto makikomi wraparound throw, passing his 
right arm over my head and throwing himself to the mat, carrying 
me along with him. It was a sutemi, or sacrifice technique, doubly 
powerful because Uke's deliberate loss of balance was transmitted 
to my body, bringing it down. When a heavy man does this, there's 
an awful lot of pull. I was unable to resist it, but I did foul it up so 
that the throw was imperfect. 
"Yuko!" the referee called. It was a good call; the bastard had 
taken me down. No doubt Uke thought it had been an ippon, but 
now those hard-nosed judges were on my side. 
Well, that put me behind, but not by much. This man was a 
demon on his feet, but maybe not so tough on the mat. I, however, 
was tough on the mat. It was part of being an all-around 
judoka. Even as I fell, I wasn't just messing up his throw, I was 
setting up for my own next technique. I twisted and hooked one 
leg over his belly, gained leverage with that leg, reached around 
him and literally climbed on the back of the giant. He got on his 
hands and knees, trying to stand up. You aren't permitted to retain 
a mat-hold once your opponent stands up, and wouldn't 
want to; he could drop you hard, falling backwards and crushing 
you beneath his weight. Remember that image of the concrete 
pavement: no hold is worthwhile if in real life combat you'd get 
your brains beat out while maintaining it. But naturally I acted to 
keep him down. I rode his back as though he were a horse, and 
pushed with my stomach and with my legs on his thighs so that
233 
he sprawled on his belly; my weight and position would not permit 
him to get his legs under him. 
Then I slid my right hand around his neck, grabbing deep 
inside his left collar. My left hand passed the opposite way, grabbing 
his right collar. Then I pulled back, drawing the cutting edge 
of my right wrist into his neck, shifting a bit to nudge the muscles 
over the carotid arteries aside. It was the okuri-eri-jime strangle. 
But Uke had a strong neck. He ducked his head down, his 
chin blocking my wrists, and tried to buck me off. My hold slipped 
a trifle, but I reapplied it immediately. Then he got his hands up 
and pulled hard on my fingers when the referee wasn't looking. 
This was an illegal tactic, and it hurt my fingers. But then the 
referee looked, and gave the man a chui or half point penalty. I 
tried to complete my strangle, but could not, and finally time ran 
out.
Uke had a yuko for him and a chui against him. The penalty 
was stronger than the positive score, and so he lost. My victory, 
but hardly a proud one. And now I had a wrenched middle finger. 
And one match to go. 
Well, it wasn't the first time I'd fought in an adverse situation. 
Back at the Martial Open, when top representatives of seven major 
martial arts had competed against each other for a kind of world 
championship, I had gone up against a devastating karateka, my 
hand injured. I had been marked for death-but my ki had saved 
me. 
The ki-that mysterious inner force that emerged sporadically 
to tide me through my worst crises. I had no real control over 
it, and could not summon it at will, but it was terrific when it 
came. But of course I would not use it in an ordinary judo situation 
like this. It was my skill that was at issue here, not my paranormal 
powers. 
The last Uke was comparatively small, about 150 pounds, 
and fast. Oh, was he fast! I reached for him but could not get my 
grip; he avoided me, and there is no rule in judo saying you have 
to let your opponent take hold. He was fighting me edgewise. I 

234 
stepped around, seeking a better position-and he caught my descending 
foot with a de ashi barai foot sweep. It was like stepping 
on a banana peel; my foot went out from under, and I went down. 
I tried to turn out, to void the throw, but succeeded only partially; 
Uke had been too fast, his timing perfect. 
"Waza-ari!" the referee cried, and the judges concurred. And 
so did I; it had been a very nice technique. But it boded ill for me; 
I needed at least a tie, and so far I was losing. 
Naturally I had no chance to bring him into matwork; he was 
lightning on his feet, and not about to let me slow him down with 
my grappling technique. 
I was in trouble. The smallest man in the line had thrown me. 
All he had to do was stay away from me for the rest of the match 
and he would win. I had to catch him. 
Easier decided than accomplished. I stepped in-and he tagged 
me again with de ashi barai. I didn't go down this time; I learn 
such lessons very quickly. But his motion was so neat that I did 
stumble, clinging to him momentarily for support. Here his strategy 
worked against him; he should have swung into another technique 
while he had the advantage, perhaps finishing the match 
with another waza-ari. Two such scores are the same as one ippon. 
But he was geared to strike and withdraw, avoiding any countertechnique. 
He was too defensive, and so he missed his opportunity.
There was my opportunity. I had less than a minute to go in 
the match, but my greater experience was already translating into 
a tactical advantage. He wanted to be defensive-let's encourage 
him!
I feinted, trying for a big technique, and he drew his legs back. 
I tried for a shoulder throw, and he ducked his head and shoulders 
down, moving fast. I shoved him further down, reached my right 
hand over his shoulder, grabbed his belt, and leaned hard on him. 
As he tried to come up, I put my left foot between his legs, sat 
down, and boosted him over my body in a sumi-gaeshi takedown.
235 
For some reason referees don't score this kind of throw high; all I 
got was a koka. But now I had him down on the mat. 
I never let him go. I rolled on top of him as he came down, 
still gripping his belt, and applied the kuzure kami-shiho-gatame 
holddown, a variant of the upper four quarter hold, a good one. 
Now he was mine; no matter how he jumped, he could not get 
away. Ten seconds, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five- 
Uke gave a sudden terriffic wrench, throwing his feet up and 
over my head, jerking his whole body in a kind of back somersault. 
There was no warning; he caught me counting seconds instead of 
concentrating on the business at hand. His head slipped free and 
he was loose. 
Time was called. The match was over. I had been so close, so 
close . . . 
But then I remembered: twenty five seconds on a holddown 
constitutes a waza-ari, matching his prior score. And I had made a 
koka on my takedown. 
I won the decision by the margin of one slim koka. 
Now my injuries were as nothing. I had made rokudan! The 
official was holding out the coveted red and white checkered belt. 
I reached to take it. 
And it faded. "No, no!" I cried, trying to hold it together- 
but it was all only a dream, and I was falling awake. 
* 
I opened my eyes. I was sitting up in bed, reaching for the 
footboard. It was gaily painted red and white, but it was no rokudan 
belt.
I certainly had ambitious dreams. To be the highest ranking 
white judoka in America, or some such-and I didn't know a thing 
about judo! As far as I knew, I had never practiced it or any other 
martial art at all. 
Of course, I didn't know much about myself. I had been staggering 
along the burning edge of a Florida highway, sick and half 

236 
starved, until a well-intentioned stranger had given me a hand. 
He had thought I was drunk or spaced out, but when he talked 
with me he realized I was an amnesiac. So he fed me and gave me 
a place to stay for several days while we tried to find out who I was. 
We had no luck; he offered to take me to the police, who might 
identify me by my fingerprints, but I balked. Suppose I were a 
criminal? I didn't like that notion at all. I wanted to remember on 
my own, so I could make my own decision, rather than having it 
made for me. Suppose, for example, I had been framed and conked 
on the head? I could find myself in jail with no way to recover the 
truth. 
My benefactor was understanding, but felt he could not ethically 
do more for me, in the circumstance. I don't blame him. He 
did help me get a temporary job and a room of my own. So I 
became the pole man on a survey crew, lining up my pole for the 
transit man to orient on. Unskilled labor, but I still managed to 
foul it up a few times. The pay was enough to sustain me, and it 
really was not demanding work. Just as well, because I was a pretty 
weak character. I weighed about 130 pounds at the start, which 
was pretty thin for a man standing over six feet tall. 
I seemed to be recovering from some sort of injury or operation. 
There were scars on my stomach, and at times I suffered 
dizzy/weak spells. And I had nightmares-inchoate, fevered things, 
snatches of terror in some deep jungle, of being chased by someone 
wielding a huge sword, or drowning in a river swarming with 
crocodiles-that sort of thing. 
But this last dream had been different. For the first time it had 
been pleasant, in a violent, rough-hewn way, and I had been sorry 
to awaken. True, I had been hard-pressed, even hurt in that experience, 
but I had felt competent to handle it. I had been a real 
man. 
I'd be willing to go through a lot of pain to have that feeling 
again, mine to keep awake as well as asleep. 
Now all I had was the pain in my back and hand. The dream 
was false, but my pains were real; they had been with me when I
237 
found myself on the street. I had been roughly treated, somewhere, 
somehow, somewhen. How ingenious of my subconscious 
to build this into my fleeting dream of glory! 
Still, if there was judo in my dream, maybe I had known something 
about it once. Maybe I should look into that, in case it 
offered any key to my lost identity. Probably wasted effort, but . . . 
So that evening after work I went to the local club whose advertising 
poster I had seen. It was Taizo Sone; they seemed to have 
two or three clubs in the area, and this was the closest one. 
I was in luck. They met in a community center, two or three 
times a week, and I had come on the right night. Students in 
pajamalike uniforms were putting mats into place. Someone directed 
me to the instructor, whose name was Steve. He was a young 
man, in his early twenties, and not large or muscular or roughspoken. 
In fact not at all the way I'd expected a martial artist to be. 
"Sure," he said. "Sit down and watch the class. If you want to 
join, fill out this application form. It costs ten dollars a month." 
"Thanks." I sat down and looked at the form-and hit a snag. 
For the name I filled in the one I had taken to get me by until I 
found out who I really was: CAESAR KANE. And my current 
address. But age-I didn't know my age. 
"How old do I look?" I asked Steve. 
"Maybe thirty five," he said. 
"That old?" I was shocked; I certainly did not feel middle 
aged. 
He shrugged. "That entry is mostly for the children. In tournaments 
they are graded by age and size." 
"Oh." So I gritted my teeth and filled in 35, sure it was wrong. 
But amnesiacs could not be choosy. 
"Time for class," Steve said. "Why don't you try it?" 
"Why not?" So I stripped myself of liabilities like shoes, wallet 
and keys, and went to join the line forming for class. Except that I 
didn't really know where I belonged. 
I must have looked as bewildered as I felt, because a cute little 
girl took me in charge. She had long yellow braids and bright blue 

238 
eyes, and seemed three sizes too small for her uniform. "You have 
to stand at the end," she explained. "You don't have a gi." 
I took her word for it. The others were arranging themselves 
by size and the colors of their belts, the darker belts seeming to 
have more authority. The little girl's belt was white, and she was 
the smallest of that color, so she was at the end, except for me. I 
towered over her, feeling like the scarecrow of Oz. What was I 
doing here, anyway? 
"My name's Penny," she said brightly. "I'm six." 
Introductions, yet! "I'm Caesar. I don't know how old I am." 
Damned if I'd say thirty five! 
She went into a giggle. "Everybody knows how old he is!" 
From way down at the far end of the line someone called "RE!" 
Everybody bowed. Belatedly I bowed too, a stiff little effort from 
the waist. We were bowing to the instructor, Steve, in his black 
belt, and a taller friend beside him, a brown belt. 
"Move out, spread across the mat," Steve said. 
We spread out. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but 
at least I could follow the leader. 
It wasn't hard. Steve led us, so all I had to do was copy him. 
First we just sort of jumped around, limbering up. Then we whirled 
our arms around, twisting at legs and hips. If this were all there 
was to it, I'd have no trouble. 
Then Steve sat and spread his legs out wide. "Grab your right 
toe, keep your knee straight, touch your forehead to your knee," 
he said, doing it easily. I tried it with confidence. 
It felt as if the back tendons of my thigh were about to rip out. 
I could almost hear the piano-wire sproing! as my head balked a 
good foot from my knee. Touch? Not in a lifetime! 
"Oooo, it hurts so good!" Steve remarked. I could agree only 
with the first three words. 
But my surreptitious glance around reassured me: a number 
of the others couldn't do it either. Some children, like little Penny, 
were limber and/or soft-boned, but others were groaning. 
At last, after several similar contortions, we proceeded to some-
239 
thing different. "On your backs!" Steve cried. "Hit it!" And he 
slammed one hand into the mat beside him. 
I was completely lost. What was the point of this? But in a 
moment a green belt came over and explained it privately: "These 
are breakfalls. You hit the mat to take the shock when you fall. 
Your arm's a lot tougher than your gut. Like this." And he 
whammed the mat with a sound like a pistol shot. 
I copied his position and threw out my arm. It struck with a 
sound like bubblegum popping, and my hand stung. 
"Not like that," he cautioned me with a straight face. "Open 
your fist, put your palm down, not up, and cup your hand. Make 
the whole arm level." He demonstrated with another detonation. 
Somehow, with the green belt's help, I got through the assorted 
breakfalls, which proceeded from lying-on-back, to sittingon-
mat, to squatting, and finally to standing. But I was bruised, 
my left elbow skinned, and I wondered how I was going to survive 
the hour, let alone the course. 
"Form two lines for rollouts," Steve cried next. 
The students lined up off the mat and took turns doing forward 
rolls on the main section. These looked like fouled-up somersaults 
with crash-landings. I went out, put my head down, 
pushed off as I had seen the others do-and plowed shoulder-first 
into the mat. Ouch! It felt as though my collar bone had fractured. 
But I guess it hadn't, because I could still move my arm. 
After that I lacked the nerve to try it again. 
"Tonight we'll start with the o-goshi, the big hip technique," 
Steve announced. "Watch as I throw Paul." And he took hold of 
his friend the brown belt, whirled around, and heaved him over 
his back. Paul went tumbling to the mat, striking it with bone- 
sundering force. I winced; there went one friend! This class was 
murder, in the most physical sense. 
But the brown belt jumped right back up, smiling. Some how 
he had survived that devastating crash unhurt. 
Now Steve went through it slowly, stepping in close, bending 
his knees, putting one arm around the victim's back and heaving. 

240 
Paul went over, landing with less of a smack. I watched every motion, 
and it was completely clear. Anybody could do it, once he 
knew how. 
Nevertheless, Steve demonstrated it several times, explaining 
the position of the feet, arms, head and knees, as though such 
details mattered. I wondered why he went over it so much when it 
had been obvious the first time. 
"Now take your partner and throw it five times each," Steve 
said.
The others paired off. I didn't know anybody, so I just stood 
there awkwardly. Then a girl trotted up. She was small, pert, and 
wore a kind of double pony-tail. The baggy gi masked her other 
attributes, but I judged her to be in her early twenties. "You look 
lost," she said. "Okay, you can throw me." 
Anywhere but in a judo class, that would have sounded funny. 
"Throw a girl?" It hadn't occurred to me that these exercises were 
coed. At least, not in the adult division. Obviously they were, 
however. 
"Well, I can't throw you, because you don't know how to take 
a fall yet." 
That seemed to make sense, though how this maybe hundred 
pound girl would throw a man my size even if he could take a fall 
was unclear. So I stepped in to throw her, and suddenly discovered 
that I had no idea how to do it. Steve's demonstration had made it 
look so easy, as though there were no other possible outcome but a 
smooth flip to the mat. But seeing and doing were vastly different 
things. "I don't know this throw," I confessed. 
"I'll show you," she said brightly. "By the way, I'm Vonnie." 
"Bonnie?" 
"Vonnie-with a V. Everyone confuses it." 
"Caeser," I said. "I think." 
She laughed without affectation. She was a very pleasant, open 
sort. "Now you put your right foot across the front-there, that's 
right-sort of half turn-put your arm around my waist-bring 
your left foot back more-"
241 
I followed her directions with a certain difficulty. It wasn't 
that I had any wrong idea about where I was, but my natural 
inclination when I had my arm about a girl was to draw her in 
facing me, rather than across my rump. Vonnie was a good deal 
shorter than I was, so my hand fell mainly across her back up near 
her shoulders, and I knew that wasn't going to work for a throw. 
"Bend your knees," she said. "You have to get down low enough 
to pick me up. Pull on my sleeve with your left hand. Pull harder, 
forward. Turn. No, the other way, away from me, look to your 
left-that's right." 
That was right? I was twisted up like a corkscrew, with her half 
sprawled across my side and back. This would never work! 
"Now, heave forward," she said. "No, go ahead, put some 
oompth into it-that's it-straighten your knees as you go 
around-there!" There was a slap on the mat. "You did it!" 
I looked, astonished. She had just landed on the mat in front 
of me. I had thrown her-and I had no idea how I had done it. 
She bounced up. "That was very good. Now try it again, faster. 
O-goshi." 
"Oh, gosh," I echoed. 
And about the third time I threw her, I began to catch on to 
the nature of the throw. Instead of seeming impossibly awkward, 
it became almost natural. "Wonderful!" Vonnie encouraged me. I 
had learned the O-goshi hip throw! 
There was more practice that evening, but I knew the high 
point had been passed. I was tired, sore and confused by the multiplicity 
of Japanese names and techniques, but I was actually learning 
judo. 
The class concluded with some practice with the instructors. 
We formed two lines. Steve faced one line, and Paul the other. The 
first students went out, bowed, and took hold of the instructors, 
trying to throw them-whereupon the instructors threw the students 
instead. I was near the end of Paul's line, so I had plenty of 
time to watch. The students looked so clumsy I was sure they were 
faking it, just going down to make the instructors look good. Yet 

242 
when little yellow-braided Penny hooked Paul's leg and pushed, 
he went down on his back, slapping the mat, while she clapped 
her hands for joy. Hmm. 
Then my turn came. I stepped up to the edge of the mat and 
bowed, and from the center Paul bowed to me. A nice formality, 
this careful judo courtesy; I liked that. But now Paul looked like a 
giant, there in the splendor of his brown belt, and my confidence 
evaporated. 
Well, nothing ventured, etc. We came together. I grabbed his 
left sleeve and pulled-and he just looked at me curiously. I couldn't 
even remember the proper grip. 
"Here," he said after a moment. "Take my left lapel in your 
right hand, like this, and my right sleeve in your left. Right. Now 
go ahead and try a throw." 
Smarting under my embarrassment of ignorance, I turned into 
the o-goshi hip throw Vonnie had taught me. 
Paul just stood there, unmoved. "Get down lower," he advised. 
"Pull on my sleeve." 
I bent my knees-I had forgotten that detail-pulled-and 
fell over backwards. Paul merely shook his head sadly. 
I got up and tried it again. I grabbed his lapel, pulled-and 
he made a little motion with one foot, tapped me on the shoulder, 
and I crashed down on my back again. 
"You need to keep your balance," Paul said mildly, making a 
little bow of dismissal. 
Balance. Yes. 
It seemed I still had a way to go for my 6 Dan dream.
Chapter 2: 
Strange Conquests 
I leaned back comfortably, my belly full of the crude but delicious 
native repast. The monkey stew had been good, and the 
roasted termites very tasty. The fermented-corn beer was weak, 
but there was plenty of it, and of course it was safer to drink than 
the water. 
Dulce had given up cautioning me about indulging; she was 
fed up in more than one sense and I was half-hypnotized by the 
flickering fire and the relief of finding help after isolation in the 
deep jungle. 
The small, grizzled Chief spoke a few words in his native language. 
I turned to Dulce, who had to interpret for me. "He says 
the tribe wishes to honor the White God," she explained. 
"Not by cutting off my head!" I protested, moderately alarmed. 
"These are headhunters, remember." 
"Reformed headhunters," she reminded me. Dizzy as I was, I 
noted again what a voluptuous woman she was, and how pretty 
her face was when she spoke. There were worse fates than being 
lost in the jungle with such a companion. And she had taken good 
care of me in my illness, too. I owed her a lot. "Anyway," she 

244 
continued, "they don't decapitate friends. Only enemies. It should 
be safe for a White God like you." She smiled with momentary 
malice. "See that you behave like a god, not a devil." 
"What sort of honor is it?" 
"I don't know. Probably something they just cooked up, an 
instant ceremony to suit the occasion. They were quite impressed 
by your combat performance, you know." 
The Chief spoke again, smiling. "He says for you to go with 
him," Dulce said. 
I eased to my feet. "Okay, we'll come." 
But the Chief barred Dulce. "It seems this is a stag party," she 
said, just a bit nettled. "Go ahead, Jason; I'm sure it's safe. I'll relax 
here." And she settled back with a determined complacency. 
Stag party? My alcohol-fogged interest quickened. What 
would these hospitable primitives have, a dancing native girl bursting 
out of a nut-flour cake? 
I accompanied the Chief, and a dozen warriors fell in behind 
us. I was certainly glad the natives were friendly. 
We came to a large hut on the outskirt of the village, that I had 
not seen before. Its floor inside was covered by soft brush and dry 
moss, making a bouncy, fragrant mattress from wall to wall. And 
on this huge bed were five naked girls. 
The Chief spoke, augmenting his words by a pantomime of 
such suggestive nature that I could not fail to catch his meaning. 
He made motions of grasping, hugging, kissing, stroking and 
spreading, and he bucked his groin forward violently several times. 
It seemed I was being invited to patronize the royal harem. 
"Well, thanks, Chief," I said. "But I'm not really in the mood, 
and Dulce would be jealous, So if it's all the same to you-" 
The Chief grunted firmly, pointing at the nearest girl. The 
torchlight was not good, but she was evidently the pick of the 
tribe, maybe fifteen years old with heavy black hair, fine full breasts, 
nice little buttocks and good legs. Small-she could not have 
weighed more than a hundred pounds-but all the tribespeople 
were small. They lacked the advantage of civilized nutrition; in
245 
fact they probably went hungry often when the hunting was bad. 
Regardless, this girl was very comely. 
I looked around, squinting to see better in the irregular illumination 
of the interior brands. "Well, if it's really that important 
to you-" I did not regard myself as a promiscuous man, but 
sometimes protocol requires special activities. "But not in front of 
a crowd; we Caucasians prefer privacy." 
It seemed they understood a bit of English, or at least my 
tone, because the warriors shook their heads negatively and crowded 
closer. They intended to stay. And from their attitude I got the 
impression that this honor was not exactly voluntary; like the eating 
of bread together as a sign of friendship, it was a necessary 
formality. I had to perform in their presence, sharing my hero's 
seed with their tribe, in this manner becoming part of them. 
Well, there was nothing for it but to humor them. It was an 
honor: they thought enough of me to wish to perpetuate me within 
their tribe. And the girl was alluring, and I suspected something 
aphrodisiac had been added to the food, because I felt its effect. 
Or maybe it was the aroma of the scented torch. Supposedly primitive 
peoples can be remarkably sophisticated about matters of the 
flesh. 
Okay, if I had to do it, I'd do it right. I'd give them a show to 
remember. I might have felt otherwise if I had been sober, which is 
why I normally don't drink. Alcohol has a very liberating effect on 
me, to put it politely, perhaps because I am not used to it. But this 
was a unique situation. 
I stripped. After all, I entered judo matches in public; this 
wasn't that different. I focused on the girl's nether bifurcation, 
tantalizing in the flickering half-light, the shadows as suggestive as 
the visible portions, and felt my member swelling in response. 
There was a murmur of satisfaction among the men, then of awe; 
my member was in proportion to my size, but I was substantially 
larger than they were. Soon I was turgid as a blocked garden hose. 
I almost leaped on that poor girl. No finesse at all; I got down 
on her, thrusting between her widely spaced legs, holding her 

246 
shoulders to keep her from sliding out from under. My member 
found the place and rammed home as her legs clasped about my 
waist, her ankles crossing and locking behind me. It was well that 
I wasted no time, for I came explosively the instant I touched 
bottom, pumping spurt after spurt deep into her body, my hips 
smacking into her thighs and buttocks with every urge. 
There was something very like applause from the watching 
warriors, as if I'd just performed a beautiful judo technique and 
won the match with an ippon. Well, that was close enough. I'd 
shown them what the White God could do, all right! 
I relaxed, but the girl did not. She must have been hurting 
inside from the sheer velocity and distention of my production, 
but she clutched me to her. She hauled my chest down to her 
breasts, flexing her thighs against me. And you know, my member, 
that had partially softened after the climax, began to engorge 
again. Maybe I was an exhibitionist at heart; ordinarily once was 
enough. But think what an impression I could make if I fired off 
two rounds in rapid order! 
Something shoved against my shoulder, knocking me over to 
the side. My contact with the girl was broken, and I fell on my 
back with my tumescent member projecting up. One of the other 
girls had done it, forcefully intervening. 
Now that girl plumped down on my crotch, pausing only to 
grasp my member and stuff it into her aperture. She was a solid 
girl, almost fat, with big soft buttocks and bulging tummy but 
still fairly good looking. She bounced on me, her big breasts slapping 
audibly with every jerk. 
I just lay there on my back, amazed, while she rode me like a 
horse. The spectators began clapping in unison with her motion- 
whomp, whomp, WHOMP! She rose so high and came down so 
hard I was afraid my member would slip out and get crushed 
under her pile-driving mass. I had a vision of it snapping in half, 
like a stepped-on stick. In self defense I had to follow her motions, 
bridging as she rose, keeping my lodging secure. 
And slowly I peaked again, my organ filling with liquid, swell-
247 
ing to huge proportion. The climax was not as sharp as before, but 
overall it was as powerful: like a locomotive steaming into a station, 
instead of a sport-car squealing to a stop. 
So the second girl was satisfied, and I was limp. I nudged her 
off, and she went. 
And a third girl came, short but well endowed. She got down 
to embrace me, her breasts dangling above my chin. 
Now ordinarily such a position would be most stimulating. 
I'm one of those males who regard naked breasts as natural playthings. 
But these had arrived on the scene just too late. "Hey, 
wait!" I protested. "I'm spent!" 
But she protested, grabbing hold of my exhausted member as 
though to knead it back to health and vigor. And the standing 
warriors raised their spears and made performance-motions. 
"Now hold on!" I said, forgetting that the girl was doing that 
already. "You can't expect me to-" 
They persisted. They expected. They had the spears. I was 
supposed to run the line of all five girls. Some honor! 
It seemed that when the White God honored this tribe, he 
was expected to do the whole job. Or else. 
What happened to gods who didn't make the cut? That was 
no difficult conjecture: obviously they were no longer considered 
to be gods. A fallen god become a devil, an enemy-and these 
people were headhunters. 
If I failed, it would not be from lack of initiative by the girl. 
She really wanted that White-God elixir; she was just about pulling 
the spigot out by the root. 
The Chief stepped forward, scowling. He didn't like suffering 
the embarrassment of presenting a fake god. He raised his hand in 
an incipient signal of negation. I was in trouble. 
Then I felt something strange but wonderful. It was a filling 
and hardening, something intangible flowing from my hara, the 
seat of my being in my belly, to my external member, suffusing it 
with new strength and substance and confidence. 
It was the ki, that mysterious force that imbued me with su- 

248 
perhuman power at my greatest need. I had no real control over it, 
and had never anticipated its manifestation in this situation. 
Nevertheless, it was here, and suddenly I was formidable. My 
member swelled to such proportion and rigidity that it sprang out 
of the girl's hands, startling her. She gave a little shriek, as of one 
surprised by a striking snake, though that snake merely looked her 
in the eye. 
I rolled to my knees, caught her about the waist, and bore her 
back. She fell, her two legs going straight up in the air, and I 
pressed in from below, skewering her with my hugeness. The fit 
was tight, in this position, and her legs pressed against my chest 
and shoulders, pushing me back. But I thrust right on through, 
reaming out the channel and pumping it full of fluid. 
Ippon! Now the applause was deafening. 
I didn't wait for the fourth woman; I whipped out of the third 
one, letting her collapse like a punctured balloon, and dived for 
the next. Caught by surprise, she was on her stomach. No matter; 
I grabbed her by a buttock, heaved her up until she bent forward 
at the waist, and took her from the rear. My ki kept me charged; in 
moments I had filled her up, like a car getting gasoline. And the 
spectators were staring, awed. 
The last girl was the smallest, younger than the rest. In fact 
she was barely nubile, her breasts very slight and pointed, but her 
body was clean and firm. She looked about eleven, but that was in 
terms of my culture, where girls are well fed and mature early; she 
was surely several years older. I sat down, my legs spread straight 
out as in a preliminary judo exercise. I picked her up by the elbows, 
and set her down on me, dead center. 
This one, unlike the others, was virginal; I tried to be gentle, 
but my imperative would not be denied. I let her own weight 
impale her slowly on the stake, and when the resistance of her 
condition made her wince, I lifted her up again. I tried a second 
time, forcing a way into that constricted aperture, and again had 
to lift her up, while the warriors gaped. They'd never seen it done
249 
this way, and my supercharged member was simply too big for 
this child-sized girl. 
Then she wriggled and my left hand slipped, depriving her 
suddenly of support. She dropped hard, with a little scream, and 
the impalement was complete. I climaxed again, almost fearing 
that the force of my jets would shoot her through the roof, but of 
course nothing of the kind happened. I waited until the orgasm 
had spent its fury, all the greater for its confinement in that tight 
channel, then gently lifted her off me. My member was still hard. 
The tribesmen were exclaiming and slapping each other on 
the backs. I knew they had never seen anything like this. I stood 
up, my erection paramount. "Where's the rest of your women?" I 
demanded. 
"Jason!" 
It was Dulce, who had forced her way through the throng, 
alerted by the commotion. Shocked, she stared at me, seeing it all. 
It wasn't that she was squeamish about sex; she certainly wasn't. 
But she hated to see me make a complete fool of myself, and she 
was concerned about my health. With good reason, on both counts. 
Suddenly the ki drained out of me. My whole body went limp. 
I felt as if a gallon of blood had been sucked from me, and maybe 
it had. What had I been filling those five containers with? 
I looked at the girls, and was appalled. One was picking lice 
out of her long black hair and eating them; another had a set of 
toothmarks on one breast-mine, I was sure!-and a third smiled 
at me with her teeth filed to points. A piranha-mouth! Had I kissed 
her? She was not mature, she was old! The fat one was consumptive, 
hacking up phlegm. And the child-sized one was bleeding 
profusely from the genital injury I had dealt her. The room looked 
like a battlefield, complete with fat flies settling on the bodies. 
I felt sick, and not merely in the body. I had an awful premonition 
that I was about to suffer another gallstone attack. Dulce 
didn't even have to say "I told you so." 
I woke, sweating. This time I was glad to see the dull familiarity 
of my bachelor room. If this episode had been sheer imagina- 

250 
tion, I needed to find better things to think about. If it was a 
memory from my past life, I might have good reason for my amnesia. 
Running a line of willing women in front of a cheering crowd 
of headhunters? Impaling a childlike girl? It better be a dream! 
Yet somehow I suspected that it wasn't, even though it had 
gone like a parody of my prior dream about making the sixth degree 
black belt. That woman Dulce, for example-it was as though 
I actually knew her. And the jungle-almost it came back. I had 
been there, somewhere . . . 
No, impossible! Time to return to the real world, like Walter 
Mitty. 
* 
The start of the second judo class was not so bad, as I now had 
some notion how to do the breakfalls and knew better than to 
attempt the forward roll. My shoulder still hurt, but I was able to 
function. I had made the plunge and invested in a gi; it was huge 
and stiff and baggy on me, and I felt like a walking sandwichbillboard. 
"Don't worry, it'll shrink," Steve assured me. I hoped 
so; it was hard to convince myself that the whole class was not 
staring at my clown-like aspect. On top of that, it chafed. 
"Back to back with your partner," Steve cried after the initial 
exercises were done. 
Huh? This was something new! 
People paired off and sat on the mat, leaning back against each 
other the way kids do at a picnic. Again I lacked a partner, and 
wasn't really too eager to find one. Suddenly my shoulder seemed 
to hurt worse; it had gradually intensified as the hours passed, last 
time; nothing seemed to be broken, but I didn't want to aggravate 
it. 
But again I was approached by a girl-not Vonnie, but a wellconstructed 
black-haired lass. She wore no gi; instead she had jeans 
and a sweatshirt. She looked about twenty-two. Her name, it developed, 
was Terry, and she had not been to very many classes
251 
herself. That gave us a kind of camaraderie; we were both beginners. 
With so many teen-age green and brown belts sliding so 
easily through impossible contortions, it was a comfort to know 
that other beginners existed. 
We sat down back to back. "But what do we do?" I asked over 
my shoulder, my nose banging into her loose long hair. When I 
started out to learn judo, all of three days ago, the last thing I had 
anticipated was to find myself sitting in clothing like starched 
pajamas on a thirty-foot square mattress, leaning into an attractive 
young woman. This was martial art? 
"It's matwork," she explained. "Like wrestling. You try to get a 
holddown." 
"Wrestling?" I thought I'd misheard. But indeed, now all the 
other couples were going at it vigorously, getting into all manner 
of tangles, clutching heads to chests, throwing thighs over faces, 
tearing jackets open, wedging forearms through crotches and lifting, 
sending belts flying loose, crushing each other to the mat, 
panting and groaning with effort. 
I looked at Terry. 
I just couldn't do it! First, and least important, I didn't know 
any holddowns. Second, how could I wrestle with a girl? Anywhere 
I grabbed her . . . 
Maybe something similar occurred to her. "Okay," she said. 
"I'll hold you down and you try to get out of it." 
That suited me. Of course she would not be able to hold me 
down, but at least I could find out what the hold was like. 
I lay down on my back, and she put the kuzure yoko shiho 
gatame, or variation of the side four quarter hold on me. No, I 
didn't master its name until much later. All it was, basically, was 
her kneeling beside me, leaning over my chest, and wrapping her 
two arms around my far arm. There was very little weight on me; 
I was conscious of her two breasts pressing into my torso, but they 
were hardly burdensome. 
Then I tried to break the hold. It was the strangest thing: she 
had no real weight on me, but I couldn't get off my back. I don't 

252 
care what others may think, I really was trying. No matter how I 
squirmed and struggled, she was right there, her hair flying across 
my face. I had no leverage, no way to sit up or turn over. I thrashed 
around for about two minutes, wearing myself out, before I finally 
got a hand against her knee, pushed it away, and twisted out from 
under. 
Later I learned that if a judo hold is maintained for thirty 
seconds, it's an ippon or victory for the holder. So I had really lost 
four times over. 
Suddenly I had a whole lot of respect for that hold. 
Next we practiced turning over a prone opponent. I still working 
with Terry. Steve demonstrated several ways to lever someone 
over, and it really wasn't complicated; anybody could do it. 
Then it was our turn. Terry lay down on her stomach, and I 
tried to flip her onto her back. I started to slide my right hand 
under her arm and around behind her head in the half-nelson 
Steve had shown, but she had her arm tight against her side. I 
couldn't get through without going lower down on her torso, beyond 
her elbow, and moving up from below, and then I encountered 
her, er, chest. Jamming my hand through there could be 
subject to misinterpretation. She was a buxom girl. 
So I tried the alternate method Steve had shown, taking hold 
of her collar and putting my shoulder down against her side to 
bulldoze her over. I shoved-and she didn't budge. Who would 
have believed it could be so hard to turn over one feminine-type 
girl! As with the holddown, I had greatly underestimated the problem.
But I tried. I braced my knees and shoved valiantly-and felt 
an odd kind of tearing in my left side. It wasn't really painful, just 
muscles sliding about over my rib-cage, making the area a little 
numb. So I kept on trying to turn her over, and failing. She was 
glued to the mat, smiling. 
A young brown belt stopped by. The higher belts did this, 
acting as assistant instructors. "I can't turn her over," I complained. 
"Well, you slide your hand around like this," he said, happy
253 
to show me the ropes. But he couldn't seem to get his hand in 
either, perhaps encountering the same complex of problems I had. 
Terry had her arms tightly clamped in good proper resistive style, 
and of course she was supposed to resist. And a man just doesn't 
grab a girl by the bust and roll her over. Not in public. (In dreams- 
ah, in dreams! Jungle, White God, running the line-for shame!) 
So far, our efforts had only tickled her. 
Another brown belt appeared. "What's the matter?" 
"We can't turn her," I said. 
"No problem." He was a large, husky man. "You just take 
hold of elbow and knee, like this, and haul her up-" He hauled, 
lifting Terry abruptly a foot off the mat. She screeched and flailed 
her arms, understandably startled-but dropped down on her 
stomach again and clenched her elbows to her sides more tightly 
than ever. 
"Well, you do have to apply a little force," the husky brown 
belt said calmly, picking her up again and twisting her in the air to 
flip her on her back as she dropped. 
Something in her clothing went SNAP! 
"Oops," he said, taken aback. "Are you all right?" 
"Quite all right," Terry said quickly, tucking herself back together. 
Obviously she was unhurt. Woman wear elastic in various 
places, of course; that's one of the intriguing things about them. 
That ended turnover practice. I now had the unenviable distinction 
of having been unable, even with the help of two brown 
belts, to turn over one girl-and my increasingly sore side indicated 
I had injured myself in the attempt. I was some judoka! 
* 
There were actually two classes, with a five minute break between 
them. I had entered the beginning class, but as an adult I 
was eligible for the Seniors class too. "Why don't you try it," Steve 
suggested. "We go into self-defense techniques, chokes and armlocks 
that the kids aren't allowed to do." 

254 
Well, why not? I wanted to learn judo, and this was a good 
way, if I didn't tear myself up too much more. So I stayed. The 
smaller children went home, including Penny who insisted on saying 
good-bye personally with a hug; but a few more adults appeared, 
so it was a group of similar size. As usual, I had no partner. 
This time a man approached me. He was Mr. Campbell, an 
orange belt who looked to be about my own age, and he was the 
club treasurer. He seemed very nice-but the truth was, all the 
people in judo seemed nice, and I knew I would want to continue 
coming for social as well as physical reasons. Aspects of judo, such 
the forward rolling breakfall, terrified me, but I liked the people. I 
had not really expected such friendliness and helpfulness in a martial 
arts class. 
This time Steve demonstrated the seoi-otoshi technique, or 
shoulder drop, in which he turned as in the o goshi but kept his 
right hand on Uke's lapel-I remembered that the thrower was 
always Tori, the other Uke-and stuck his right leg back. It looked 
easy-as they all did, when Steve did them. 
Mr. Campbell was familiar with the throw, so he threw me 
first. Over I went, seeing the high ceiling spin by. Wham! right on 
my hurt side, and I also scraped the skin off my left elbow again 
and stung my hand and banged my head: a typical fall. 
He helped me up. "Sorry-I didn't realize you weren't used to 
the falls yet. Are you all right?" 
"Fine," I said dizzily. "I seem to have landed wrong." 
"It takes time to learn," he said. "I'll just load you next time." 
"Load me?" That sounded bad. 
"I won't complete the throw. Like this." And he went into the 
throw again. My feet went up sickenly, and I tensed for the worst- 
and then he set me down gently, upright. Hey, this was much 
better! After this I would remember the key word: LOAD. 
Then it was my turn. Following his directions, I stepped 
around, turned, and heaved. My right wrist bent backwards painfully, 
and he did not budge. A complete failure. 
"Try it again," Mr. Campbell said. "This time bend your knees.
255 
You have to get down low, to pick me up." 
Oh, yes-I always forget that detail. The knees really didn't 
seem very important. So I humored and spun around, bending 
my left knee as I threw my right leg down almost to the floor 
behind him. "Wrist stiff!" he warned, and I jerked my fistful of 
lapel forward and heaved. 
And he went up like a feather, over my shoulder, and landed 
resoundingly on the mat. 
"Beautiful!" he cried, getting up. He wasn't hurt at all. I wished 
I had that secret of safe landing! 
"You jumped," I said unbelievingly. I knew I couldn't have 
done the throw all by myself. 
"I didn't jump. You threw me." 
So just getting down that extra couple of inches had made all 
the difference. Another valuable lesson learned. Mr. Campbell was 
shorter than me, so getting down really counted. And now I really 
liked this throw, my first successful effort with a partner my own 
weight. Seoi-otoshi. 
Steve ended the class with some testing for promotion. He 
looked down the line. "Angel," he said. 
A girl came out. She chose a partner and stood before Steve. 
"Ippon seoi nage," he said. 
She took hold of her partner, whirled around, and threw him 
over her shoulder. Wham! In the still hall, the landing was like a 
crack of thunder. Steve made her do it twice more, and it remained 
just as impressive. 
"Morote seoi nage," Steve said. 
Angel whirled into a throw that seemed just about like the 
first one. Slam! The boy struck the mat. I was amazed at the repeated 
impacts he withstood. I would have been crushed to a quivering 
hulk, yet he took fall after fall without concern. It reminded 
me of the dwarves bowling on the mountain, and I was Rip Van 
Winkle watching their game of nine pins. Just one big human in 
this instance, crashing like thunder again and again. Boom-boom- 

256 
boom, seeming to land so hard that bones must splinter, yet without 
damage. 
"Tai otoshi," Steve said, heedless of the carnage. "O soto gari. O 
goshi." How could anyone even remember the horrendous names? 
Yet Angel performed them all. 
I was impressed and dismayed. Here was one nondescript girl 
selected from the class (later I saw her in street clothes, and she 
was quite striking; it was the gi that made all women sexless), a 
mere white belt-and she seemed to know all the throws in the 
book! How could I ever master all this? She even did three 
holddowns I didn't recognize. 
Angel made her yellow belt promotion. But I wondered 
whether there was even any point in my remaining in the class. It 
would take me years just to master the yellow belt techniques- 
and I couldn't even take a fall yet!
Chapter 3: 
Sword and Stone 
I faded in and out as I floated down the Amazon River. At 
times I was quite lucid, admiring the crocodiles that hopefully 
paced my raft. At other times the pain was so bad that I wished 
the reptile's hopes would be fulfilled. I was dying anyway; why 
prolong the agony? 
Something grabbed me. Instinctively I fought, knowing it was 
useless and pointless; I could never overcome a crocodile in water. 
But I wasn't in the water; human hands were holding me. 
They were Indians, jabbering in their own language. I didn't 
know whether that was good or bad; I didn't recognize them. They 
might help me-or eat me. 
They helped me. They portaged me overland for many days. 
We could not understand each other, but it hardly mattered, because 
I did not remember who I was or where I was going. Sometimes 
I was able to walk; at other times I could only lie and moan. 
A pretty maiden tended to me then, seemingly amenable to my 
every need-except the need to be free of pain. 
Then I found myself in the city of Manaus. How I got there 
and how I left there-blanks. 

258 
Time, confusion, travel-whom did I meet, who helped me? 
More blanks-and I was on a tramp steamer, and it must have 
been in the ocean, for there was no land in sight, and the swelling 
waves added to my discomfort. You might think that slow undulations 
would lull me to sleep, but they made me feel seasick. Yet 
I had to eat. The food was exceedingly greasy and overspiced, but 
I had suffered illness and hunger on the route and lost much weight, 
and now that food was plentiful I could not be choosy. 
About three AM I woke with a sensation of fullness, heartburn, 
indigestion, and general malaise. Not seasickness, for it had 
happened often before I was on the boat, and this was worse. I 
heard myself screaming. The ship's doctor was a drunk; he gave me 
some sort of medicine and a shot of morphine, and I relaxed. 
But next day it was back, the pain spreading from my right 
side into my back and stomach. The skin over the region of my 
gall bladder was swollen and sensitive. My body was turning yellowish, 
and in the mirror I saw the whites of my eyes becoming 
yellow too. This horrified me, as it reminded me of the dread 
addiction to the drug Kill-13, where the whites turned red. I had 
fought the purveyors of that drug, and thereby lost my fiancee; 
the whole series of associated memories was anathema. But in this 
case it was not addiction, but jaundice: the bile from my gall bladder 
was blocked off, and spreading throughout the body instead of 
the digestive system. Another symptom was in my stools: dead 
gray, no brown. An ugly thing to contemplate, in more than one 
way.
Half delirious with pain and morphine, I lay on my bunk and 
heard the captain discussing my case with the doctor. "He's going 
to die. You'll have to operate." 
"Cap'n, I can't operate! I do not have a proper license or instruments." 
"And you're a drunken bum. I know. But we don't have any 
choice. We're not much as a ship or crew, but we're human." 
"We don't have anesthesia." 
"We have plenty of rum."
259 
"I never did this kind of surgery before." 
"You'd rather just weight him down and dump him over the 
side? You know he can't live unless you operate. Now. What kind 
of murder do you prefer?" 
They were rough men engaged in illicit trade, but decent in 
their fashion. And so the doctor agreed to operate, reluctantly. I 
had no say in the matter, which was just as well. Because as he 
anesthetized me by forcing me to drink cup after cup of cheap 
Dark Bacardi Rum, he imbibed a fair quantity of that anesthetic 
himself, and he told me his life story. It was not reassuring. 
He was a slight fellow in his forties, with protruding eyes under 
rimless glasses. He had a three day beard and a lot of hair 
around his body, and his breath was bad. "I lived in Cuba," he 
explained. "When the revolution came, I was in my third year of 
medical school. I had trouble with the Minister of Agriculture of 
the new regime, because I had taken his wife away from him, and 
he had me jailed. I learned the rest of my medicine by practicing 
in prison." He poured another round. He seemed to be determined 
to keep pace with me, but I was drinking to get dead drunk 
so I couldn't feel the knife. Had I been sober, I might have found 
the situation more alarming. But I wasn't sober; that was the point. 
"When I was freed," he continued, "I left the country, faked 
papers, and won a job as ship's doctor. The captain knows this, but 
he's satisfied, because it means I'll never tell the authorities about 
his contraband. Where else could I get a job?" He sighed. "But I 
don't know how I'll get through this time." He poured another 
round. "I haven't operated on anyone since my prison days, and 
even then it didn't matter much whether my patients survived. I 
don't have any instruments, just kitchen knives." 
I laughed. I thought that was very funny. Surgery with a kitchen 
knife! Hilarious! Which meant I was just about drunk enough. 
When the time came, four crewmen seized my arms and legs 
and tied me to a bunk. One of them looked at the doctor and his 
setup and had to go on deck to heave his own digestion over the 
side. But I was crazy wild drunk, not afraid at all, thinking it all 

260 
one big game. After all, I didn't have to do the surgery, or even 
watch it. But just to be sure, they put a funnel in my mouth and 
nearly drowned me in more rum. I remembered seeing an old man 
tortured by being funneled full of water-but then some censor in 
my brain clamped down and all my past was blank again. 
Then I saw the knife, and abruptly I was sober. The doctor 
was trying to sterilize the thing in the flame of a guttering candle. 
It was a common vegetable paring knife, not large, but a terrible 
vision. The doctor's hand was shaking. 
But he had guts, because he came at my guts. I would have 
bolted, but I was securely tied down, my abdomen exposed. The 
blade sliced into my quivering flesh. I screamed and bridged. 
"Don't do that!" he exclaimed, backing off as I felt the hot flow 
of blood down my side. "You'll make me cut up your whole intestine!" 
After that I screamed, but did not move my torso much. My 
mind sheered off into the vivid remembrance of other pains, other 
tortures, physical and mental. The time Kan-Sen put a thumbscrew 
on me . . . Illunga half-castrating me with a kick to the 
groin . . . Mirabal's electrodes shooting current through my 
chest . . . Chiyako. 
Chiyako-that was the worst of all. My beloved Chinese- 
American fianc�e, daughter of Shaolin kung fu, brutally killed before 
my eyes by the savage Kill-13 addict. That pain never ceased; 
only its encapsulation had permitted me to function normally. 
I had a terrible spasm, and then I was unconscious again. There 
was blood all over my belly, soaking the sheets beneath me. But 
there was also a tremendous sense of peace flooding through me, 
as though that blood were carrying away the horrors trapped in 
my body. The awful pressure was gone; the gallstone-indeed, the 
whole gall bladder-had been removed. Dazed-looking crewmen 
were mopping the blood out of the site of surgery, eyes squinting 
so that they did not have to look at any more of me than absolutely 
necessary. 
"Thanks, fellows," I said.
261 
"We're not through this yet," the doctor warned me. "You're 
bleeding like a stuck pig, and I haven't closed the incision." 
"Want me to stop the bleeding?" I asked. I didn't seem to be 
joking. 
"Si, Se�or," he agreed absently as he prepared his suture materials. 
Sweat dripped from his forehead into the wound. 
I concentrated. The bleeding slowed, then stopped. It was the 
ki, come to help me in my hour of dire need. 
The doc stared. "It's the DT's! he exclaimed. "I'm seeing that 
wound close up by itself!" 
"I see it too," a crewman said. "Maybe he's dead." 
"Just sew it up," I snapped. "I don't know how long I can do 
this."
"He doesn't sound dead," another crewman said, awed. 
Clumsily, the doctor sewed. I don't know what he used-maybe 
a sail-canvas stitching outfit. But I felt it drawing the wound shut. 
At last he was done. The operation was a success! I passed out. 
I woke hours later with a raging fever. The surgery had been 
performed under septic conditions, and infection had set in. I had 
merely exchanged one doom for another. 
The pain of the knife is sharp. The pain of contamination is 
dull. But the knife is soon finished, while the infection ravaged me 
for days. I couldn't eat, could hardly move; I hacked weakly on the 
bunk, lacking the strength to clear my congestion more strenuously. 
My remaining flesh withered away. I had lost a good deal of 
blood before my ki clamped down, and had little reserve energy. 
Slowly I spiraled toward the nether terminus. There was nothing 
the doctor could do; he had no penicillin or wonder drugs. 
I saw the four-armed black goddess Kali, the face of death. 
Then that face shattered like mud-plaster and revealed the skulllike 
visage of Exu, the Voodoo Satan. He had put a curse on me, 
and every detail of that curse had been fulfilled. Yet Exu was not 
my ultimate enemy. The enemy I sought was-blank. That knowledge 
had been wiped from my brain. Even the incipience of death 
would not conjure that essential information. 

262 
Yet I would not let myself drift into that dark abyss. I had a 
mission, transcendently important-that I could not remember. I 
had to live, whatever sacrifice it took. 
At last the dark tide turned. My fever peaked and dropped, 
down a little more each day. I recovered some energy and appetite. 
"I prayed for you," the doctor said. "Don't laugh." 
"I'm not laughing." It was still an effort to speak. I knew he 
had saved my life, however precariously. 
"Or maybe it was for myself I prayed. But I didn't think you'd 
make it." 
"You're a good doctor." 
He swore vehemently in Spanish. "A foul lie!" But he was 
pleased. And my statement must have been true, because how 
could a poor doctor have saved me despite being in an alcoholic 
stupor? 
We neared the coast of America. "We helped you," the captain 
told me. "It was a favor to one who loves you. I do not know who. 
But we must not let them find you aboard our ship. There would 
be questions, a search." He spread his hands apologetically. 
"I understand," I said. Indeed I did. A search would turn up 
their contraband cargo. "I will remember nothing." 
We shook hands. "Perhaps we shall meet again," he said, "when 
memory is feasible." 
Delicately put. "I hope so." 
So they put me ashore in a small boat without lights, at night, 
and left me standing on the beach. Silently the craft returned to 
the night. I waved once, knowing they could not see the gesture. 
Then my memory faded. 
I turned and tramped toward the lights of the nearby city. 
There was nothing else to do. 
* 
One evening Mr. Campbell did not show up, and neither did 
any of the girls. The thing about working with such people was
263 
that they were less aggressive and more careful than the strong 
young men. This meant that I didn't get exhausted to the point of 
pain, or get hurt taking hard falls. It seemed to take forever for 
injuries to heal, and it was very easy to re-injure the same places 
before healing was complete. So my effective choices were either to 
drop out of judo, or to work with those who didn't hurt me. Because 
there was so much to learn, and skill took more practice than 
muscle, I stayed in and practiced carefully. Slowly I was learning 
to take better falls, though they frankly scared me, and I was mastering 
the names of the techniques. 
Tonight I knew I was in for it. The luck of random selection 
matched me with a husky yellow belt named Jeff, seventeen or 
eighteen years old, and we started with matwork. No way could I 
match his strength; it took him about fifteen seconds to put me in 
the kami-shiho-gatame or smothering hold, and it was aptly named. 
His chest was pressing my head into the mat, and it was all I could 
do to breathe. My struggles were useless; he seemed to weigh three 
hundred pounds, and to be anchored by metal bolts driven into 
the foundation. Might as well try to lift the building! 
"Try to break the hold," Jeff told me, unconsciously adding 
insult to injury. What did he think I was doing? 
After a time he let me go. "You put the hold on me," he said. 
So I put it on him, sliding my forearms under his shoulders from 
above and gripping his belt. I shoved my chest down on his face 
and clung so tight he'd never get out. Let him smother a while! 
"Ready?" 
He hadn't noticed my hold? He was teasing me. "Yes." 
And he simply rolled over sidewise, and I was on the bottom 
again. "You didn't spread your legs," he explained. "You had no 
side stability." 
Another forgotten detail! Why did it come so easily to him, 
and so hard to me? Yet he was only a yellow belt. What did it take 
to get beyond that? 
"Where's Mr. Campbell?" I gasped when I was too exhausted 
to make even a show of resistance. Oh, the resiliency of youth! 

264 
"Didn't you hear? He fell off the roof of his house, sawing a 
branch from a tree. Broke his arm in three places. He's in the 
hospital." 
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed, almost as concerned for myself as for 
Mr. Campbell. If I had to work much longer with Jeff, my arm 
would get broken in three places. Or feel like it, anyway. 
Right then I decided to undertake a program of exercise, for 
self defense. Against judo class workouts. I could no longer depend 
on someone like Mr. Campbell to throw me gently. I had to 
be able to take a hard fall, or to prevent my opponent from throwing 
me. At the moment I could do neither. 
"Line up," Steve said. "Uchikomis, loading practice." 
Uh-oh. If there was one thing worse than matwork, it was 
loading practice. Because we didn't just load one or two times; 
we'd do twenty five loads in quick succession, then twenty five 
more with another technique, and so on, until our gis were sopping 
with sweat and we were staggering like drunken folk. 
Jeff had to go show a new student the breakfalls, so I was alone 
again. I had only moments to take any partner available-and the 
only one free happened to be little Penny. 
You'd think it would be an unequal match, a grown man and 
a six year old braid-headed girl. Yes indeed, but not quite as expected. 
We loaded ippon seoi nage, the one-arm back-carry throw. 
She just grabbed my arm and leaned forward; no trouble at all for 
her as she was not tall enough to take any of my weight. But when 
it was my turn, I had to squat down almost to the mat, in order to 
get under her arm. She thought it was great fun, by my legs were 
killing me. 
Steve walked by. "It's good for you," he said. Yeah, sure; that's 
what they used to say about cod liver oil and tetanus shots. 
But maybe Steve had mercy, because then he had us change 
partners. Some more people had come in; I hadn't seen them, but 
how could I see anything with a face full of sweat and waves of 
pain radiating from my knees? Penny got someone closer to her 
size, which pleased her not at all, and so did I.
265 
"O soto gari!" Steve announced, and started counting off that 
impossible rapid Japanese cadence. "Sho! Ni! San! Yon! Go!" My 
new partner swing into it without seeming difficulty while I took 
my turn as dummy. I mean, as Uke. "Roku! Shi!" Twenty fine pulls 
and sweeps, just like that. 
"Other partner," Steve called, reminding me of a square dance. 
Some of those exercises were indeed like dances, especially when 
we had to move around in semi-randori style and alternate techniques. 
I imagined music playing, couples circulating, only instead 
of "swing your partner" it was "throw your partner." Might 
be possibilities there! 
In o soto gari you step out to Uke's right side, swing your right 
foot up behind him, then sweep it back, knocking his right leg out 
from under while you smack him down with good shoulder contact 
and a yank on his right arm. It is a very effective throw if you 
can ever get into position for it. In competition, Uke never lets you 
get close enough. But in loading practice, he's not resisting, of 
course; you sweep your foot back to the side of his foot so as not to 
throw him, and give a good hard shoulder or chest-to-chest thunk. 
Well, I tried it. I didn't do everything right the first time, of 
course; I never do. I stepped across, swung my leg out, looked 
down to see if I was doing it properly, and saw my partner's belt. 
Up until now I had just sort of blissfully rested, eyes half closed, 
while Tori buffeted me. You get that way in uchikomis pactice, 
kind of shell shocked. So I hadn't actually looked at my partner. 
The belt was black. 
I blinked, faltering in mid effort. The film of sweat over my 
eyeballs must've distorted my perception of a green belt. Gave me 
a scare, there for a moment. I looked again, and it was definitely, 
shockingly black, with a white stripe through it. 
Now black belts are rather like the officer corps in the military; 
they don't mix much with the peons. The only black belt I'd 
seen was Steve. What was this one doing here? And why the added 
decoration of the stripe? 
Well, I was stuck in the middle of loading practice. I had to 

266 
carry through. But suddenly I had the shakes, knowing how utterly 
clumsy I was. Now it was important that I do it right, somehow. 
Step to side, sweep with leg, pull down with left hand, shove 
with right hand, smack shoulder to shoulder, thunk! 
Lo and behold, I did it right. Desperation must have given me 
temporary skill. Only my shoulder contact was not a hard, bony 
smack; it was more of a right chest to right chest collision that felt 
wrong. I tried at again, and again it was wrong, more of a cushiony 
contact. What was the matter? 
I studied the situation, amidst the repeated loadings. Slowly 
it came to me, despite the present dullness of my mind. I was 
doing it more or less right, but my partner had a very soft chest 
under the gi. In fact my partner was a woman. 
A female black belt? I must be dreaming! I wasn't even sure 
such things existed, and certainly they didn't do loading practice 
with male white belts like me! 
At last the count stopped; maybe Steven's voice was getting 
tired. Breathless as I was, I still didn't want it ended. What in the 
world could I say to my partner-"nice day"? Matter of fact, it 
wasn't a nice day; it was night and it was raining. The water was 
sluicing down the window panes. 
"O goshi!" Steve cried. Nope, he hadn't lost his voice. Pity. 
There was a crack of thunder almost overhead, and the lights 
went out. It was a real storm! 
Now it was pitch black in the dojo. There wasn't much to do 
except wait it out; no doubt the power would return in a few 
minutes. I had read that central Florida was the thunder and lightning 
capital of the nation: more noisy weather here than anywhere 
else. Could be; here was some evidence. 
"How do you do?" my partner inquired. Her voice was low, 
and for me it had an oddly suggestive quality. It must have been 
the notion of a female black belt. I had worked out with female 
white belts and yellow belts, one of each, but they were more or 
less on my level. A black belt-obviously she had had a hell of a lot 
of judo experience, though she didn't t an older than I. And a hell
267 
of a lot of skill; I had felt her easy competence during the loading, 
now that I thought back on it. I had in my innocence supposed 
that only Steve did such things so well they seemed natural, but 
probably it was a quality of all black belts. The thought of a young 
woman with all that skill did something funny to me. What other 
skills might she have? 
"Are you there?" she inquired with the hint of a smile in her 
voice. Obviously I was here physically; she had hold of my lapel. 
"Uh, hello, I'm Caesar," I mumbled, embarrassed. What was I 
doing, thinking like that about a woman I hardly knew? Who was 
like an officer, while I was a lowly recruit. 
"So it's Caesar, now," she murmured. 
"What?" It almost seemed as if she knew me. 
"I'm Susan." 
Even a female name! Yet what had I expected, a Martian name? 
Now I was aware of her presence in more subtle ways. She was hot, 
too, after the exercise, but she wasn't drippingly sweaty as I was. 
She gave off a gentle glow of warmth, and she smelled nice. The 
darkness prevented me from looking at her, so I was more aware of 
the non-visual aspects. Somehow they made her seem twice as 
feminine as before. Of course I hadn't even noticed her gender at 
first.
Still the lights did not come on. There were noises of impatience 
around the hall, but I was hardly aware of them. Underneath 
all my amnesia and inexperience I discovered that I was still 
a male. This warm closeness in the dark, this alarming but exciting 
concept of a female black belt who just might have known me 
from somewhere before-no, I must have misheard or misinterpreted. 
I tried to keep my thoughts in line, but I kept remembering 
the feel of those o soto gari chest contacts, too soft. 
"Let's finish the uchikomis," she suggested. 
"In the dark?" I asked dully. 
"Judo is balance and feel. You don't need to see." And she 
stepped into me, put her arm around my waist, leaned forward 
and lifted me off my feet. 

268 
Startled, I almost flailed the air. But she set me dawn again 
with complete control. Then she swing into another o-goshi. At 
first I was amazed at her strength, then I became aware of the fine 
balance and limberness of her body. She could lift me because she 
was doing the technique correctly, in contrast to my efforts. That 
way it required very little brute strength. 
"You try a few," she murmured. 
"Okay." What else was there to do? I stepped into her, too 
close, in the dark. She was almost as tall as I. "Sorry." 
She did not deign to acknowledge my obvious clumsiness, 
which made me feel even more awkward. If only this was some 
other venue than judo! 
I backed off and tried again. I stepped across, slid my right 
arm around her waist, bent my knees, turned away, and lifted. Up 
she came; she was feather light. 
"Very good," she said. It was a verbal pat on the head. Had I 
been a dog I would have wagged my tail. I felt like doing it anyway.
What do you know: I could do o goshi in the dark. Maybe 
better than in daylight. I put her down, then tried it again. That 
gave me a chance to note other details, such as the pleasing swell of 
her hip as my hand slid across, and the supple accommodation of 
her body to my effort. I had been able to lift her because she 
cooperated perfectly. A white belt would not have known how, 
especially in the dark. The lack of loading sounds elsewhere in the 
dojo suggested that the yellow and orange belts were similarly 
challenged. 
I lifted her again-and it didn't work. "You have to bend your 
knees," Susan reminded me. 
Damn! I always forgot one of those details when I didn't concentrate. 
She had corrected me exactly in the manner of any other 
instructor. Right when I wanted to think of her in some other 
vogue. I was probably blushing, hoping the light did not come 
back on right now. 
I tried once more, bending my knees-but this time my bal-
269 
ance was all off, and instead of drawing her up, I fell back into her, 
my head banging into her chest. Fortunately it was not a hard 
landing; she was female, all right. 
"Let me show you," she said, unperturbed. She must have had 
eons of practice dealing with duffers like me. "Draw on Uke's right 
lapel, bringing him off-balance. Duck down low, bring him close 
across your hip, then straighten your knees." She demonstrated, 
her posterior rising to catch me across the crotch. 
The complete darkness made me dependent on touch, and 
hyper-aware of bodily contact. There was something about that 
smooth lifting pressure in that area by that pneumatic derriere. I 
knew it wasn't supposed to happen in Judo, but I suffered a specific 
reaction. It was necessary that we stop this practice before 
that reaction became rigidly evident. I opened my mouth- 
The lights came on. "O goshi!" Steve called immediately. And 
Susan proceeded to load twenty five o goshis in rapid order, every 
one perfect, every one catching me right where it counted. Ooooh! 
* 
My exercise program went reasonably well. The first time I 
did pushups at home, I almost made it to nine, which was better 
than I expected. Judo must have built me up some already. I found 
a child's swing in the yard and did chins: the first three weren't 
bad, but the fourth was uncomfortable, and I barely made the 
fifth. My arms remained fatigued for an hour or more after each 
exercise. I also did squat jumps, and fell over after twelve, my legs 
knotting in agony. And sit-ups-after the twentieth the pain in 
my stomach was so bad I had to quit. 
But my body responded. Every three or four days I found 
myself able to do another chin, and I recovered more rapidly from 
the effort. In about six weeks I made it to fifteen, with the other 
exercises increasing similarly. My weight increased, and it wasn't 
fat; one day I stepped on the scales and discovered to my amazement 
that I had gained thirty pounds. I still couldn't match Jeff in 

270 
matwork, but I could hold my own against women, children, and 
white belts. 
But meanwhile I was still learning things in class. One day I 
worked with a big brown belt named Bo. We were doing randori, 
but I had absolutely no chance to throw him. Yet he could throw 
me without seeming effort; in fact, I seemed to throw myself. He 
didn't actually throw me, knowing I was afraid of falls; he'd just 
load me. 
"How come I have so much trouble, while you do it so easily?" 
I asked him, frustrated. "I know you outweigh me, and you're a 
brown belt, but I can't even turn in for a throw unless you let me, 
and can't perform it anyway." 
"Kuzushi," he said. 
"God bless you." 
He smiled. "Kuzushi. You move your opponent about, 
offbalancing him. That way he sets himself up for your technique. 
Like this." And he guided me around with so natural an imperative 
that it seemed pointless-until I found myself straddling his 
leg in an o uchi gari reap. He had hardly moved; I had walked right 
into it. 
"Kuzushi," I repeated with new appreciation. 
One day a new student came: a man about my own age. He 
had no partner and looked lost in his brand new gi. I well remembered 
the feeling, so I went up to work with him. I showed him 
some of the breakfalls and talked him through the ippon seoi nage 
throw the way Vonnie had done for me with o goshi. He was amazed 
to discover that it worked; he had actually done a throw! And I was 
able to take the fall all right because I knew he couldn't throw me 
hard. 
He was Mr. Taylor, and he made his living selling potato chips. 
He became a regular judo student. I had a partner again.
Chapter 4: 
Roofer's Affair 
But much of my judo was no longer in the dojo. Because Susan, 
the black belt, took an interest in me. Why, I had no idea. She 
had an almost boyish figure, with small breasts and comparatively 
lean muscular body, large hands and feet, but she was undeniably 
feminine, with ample posterior and thighs. She was bronzed by 
the sun and exuded health. A woman like her could have her pick 
of black belts, and I was a stumbling white belt. But there it was. 
Had I known what she had in store for me, I might have walked 
out the moment she first entered the dojo. Then again, maybe 
not. I'm a man, after all, and men are traditionally foolish about 
women. It's in the job description. 
She came to the club several times, and always worked with 
me. Though her demeanor and judo were always proper, there was 
something entirely female about her that always stimulated me 
embarrassingly, and she could hardly have been ignorant of the 
effect. Maybe it intrigued her. 
I was a lonely man without a past, only a lot of fantastic dreams. 
Here was an attractive woman showing an inexplicable interest in 
me. How would any man in my situation have reacted? 

272 
So when she invited me to come help her on a weekend chore, 
I accepted. It would give me a chance to know her better, and who 
could say how far it might go? After all the suggestion of the judo 
practice, I really wanted to find out the reality. 
Saturday morning I reported to her address, and a princely 
estate it was. She was evidently rich. But she didn't invite me in; 
she had her car out front, a sporty Mercedes-Benz. It seemed that 
the chore was not at her home. She was wearing a man's shirt, 
some kind of tight brown riding pants, and boots. She looked 
good in them; the pants molded the buttocks and the rest just 
seemed to suit her. 
We drove north out of town, the car purring like a contented 
tiger. Half an hour passed without arrival. "How far are we going?" 
I inquired. 
"That depends on you." 
What did she mean by that? I hesitated to ask for a clarification, 
so was silent another half hour. Now we were well out of 
town, in fact out of the county, still proceeding north at a good 
clip.
She pulled into a drive-in eatery. "This is where the chore is?" 
I inquired dubiously. 
"No. This is where we get a bite to eat. It's a long drive." 
I shrugged. "Just so long as we're back by dark. My landlady 
worries." 
She gave me a sidelong glance. "We may be. But you're a big 
boy now. What'll you have?" 
"Tell you in a minute." I struggled to get my wallet out of my 
back pocket, which was hard to do with the seat belt holding me 
securely down. I wasn't sure how much money I had, but knew it 
wasn't much. 
"My treat," she said with a smile. "I'm well off." 
She must be. Her house had been palatial, and the car was an 
import of luxury, not economy. 
The carhop came up. Susan rattled off an order for hot dogs, 
potato sticks, onion rings, and milk shakes, to go.
273 
So we ate while driving, me handing her things as she needed 
them. "Uh, if you have so much money," I began, balancing this 
and that on my knees. 
"Why do I gobble cheap food on the run?" she finished. She 
sucked on her straw, swallowed, then continued. "Because at home 
I can't get away with this. My cook would die of shock; she's a 
nutrition nut. I get so tired of formal meals. This is the only chance 
I have to eat on the run. Fun, isn't it?" 
"I guess so. Just where are you taking me? or am I allowed to 
know?" 
"To my little cabin in the wood. To tack down the roof." 
"Oh." So she had a satellite estate, as it were. Well, why not? 
She could evidently afford it. 
Susan hummed a tune as she chewed on onion rings that I 
dipped in catsup for her. Surely an abomination to her fastidious 
cook! The melody sounded half familiar, but I couldn't place it. 
Probably it dated from my prior life, wherever that had been. 
Then suddenly it came: "To the Woodland!" I exclaimed. 
She glanced my way, raising an eyebrow in the way she had. 
"You remember it?" 
I pieced it out. "To the woodland-far away-longs my heart 
forever. To the woodland longs my heart-This no man can sever. 
In the woodland far away-there lives my darling loved one." 
"Why Caesar, I didn't know you cared!" 
I felt the heat of embarrassment coming to my face. "You were 
humming it, not me." 
"You don't care? I could have sworn otherwise when we did o 
goshi in the dojo." 
The bitch. She had been aware of my predicament, and now 
in perfect judo style had brought me down by pushing in one 
direction until I resisted, then abruptly reversing. "What is your 
interest in me?" I demanded, partly to cover my shame. The truth 
was, I would have liked to do with her as I had dreamed I did with 
a jungle harem, but such thoughts could never see light. She was 
playing with me. 

274 
"Oh, you remind me of someone I once knew." 
Or was it possible that she had known me before? Then why 
tease me instead of telling me? "Who?" 
"All in good time." 
I gave it up. She had me pretty much dancing on a string, and 
knew it. I had to let her play her little game, because she might 
have at least two things I desperately wanted. The second thing 
was knowledge of my past. 
In due course we entered Citrus County, Florida. The almostlevel 
ground had given way to gentle hills, and now these hills 
became more pronounced, and I liked that better. I must have 
lived in hilly county, when I was myself. 
At last we turned onto a gravel road, that gave way to sand, 
then dirt, then grass, and finally to forest leaves. We bumped uphill 
to a wooden cabin, about twelve feet by twenty four feet, set 
on concrete blocks. Sure enough, its roof was blank knotty plywood, 
with only the lower portions shingled. 
"I don't think we can finish that today," I said dubiously. 
"There are sleeping bags inside." 
So I was to spend the night with her. Yet how much did I dare 
presume? 
"Here are the shingles," Susan said, indicating a pile on the 
north side. "There are hammer and nails inside. Why don't you 
start in on the roof, and I'll see what I can do about supper." 
There was so much domestic suggestion in this setup that I 
dared not let my imagination roam. I donned the workman's apron 
she gave me, filled its pocket with roofing nails, took a hammer, 
set the ladder and climbed up. 
"You'll need more than that," she cautioned me. "Better take 
up the box, and some shingles." So I ferried up the shingles, perching 
them near the edge of the upper slope, just within reach from 
the top of the ladder. 
The Cabin was fourteen feet tall at the roof-ridge, and it stood 
from one to two feet above the ground, depending on which side 
of the hill I looked. That may not sound like much, but I discov-
275 
ered when I reached the upper rungs that I was nervous about 
heights. The roof had two slopes, like an old fashioned barn; the 
outer one was steep, so that the ladder leaned against it, and the 
inner one was only about thirty degrees off the level. But the ladder 
did not reach quite up to the bend. So I had to go to the very 
top rung and scramble up over the ridge, onto the slanting upper 
surface, and it felt precarious as hell. Suppose the ladder slipped 
out from under? Suppose I lost my balance? 
Well, Susan was watching, so I grasped what courage I had 
and scrambled up. 
I made it, but I wasn't sure how I'd get down again. The slant 
had looked almost level from below, but now it seemed dangerously 
steep. I could not see beyond the bend in the roof; it looked 
like a sheer drop-off. Wherever I set my feet and hands-and I 
dared not get off all fours-that slant seemed to be shoving them 
and me toward the dread edge. 
"Start with the felt," she called from somewhere far below. 
"Felt what?" I yelled back. For there wasn't anything to feel up 
here, except nervous. 
"The felt. The roll-roofing material." 
Oh. Not felt as in feel, but felt as in hat. The tar paper. I had 
a pre-cut segment up here with my pile of shingles. It was supposed 
to go down first, under the shingles. Cushioning them, 
maybe. I was learning to be a roofer. 
I crawled to the end of the cabin with the roll. This was worse 
yet: fifteen feet straight down. It was a horrifying, dizzy height. If 
I fell- 
Then a little gust of wind passed. 
I hugged the roof, sprawled on my belly, my feet straddling 
the peak. Oh, that wind tugging at me! It seemed like a hurricane 
blowing me to doom. Oh, sure, I knew it was just a baby wind, a 
zephyr, nothing to take seriously. But my feeling didn't believe 
that.
So how did I move about now? Well, I did push-ups. Up, drag 

276 
knees along, down; up, knees, down. Suddenly my judo exercise 
program had relevance to real life. 
I flattened an end of the felt and tacked it down with a nail. 
Ouch! Naturally I hit a finger. 
Then I hooked one leg over the roof-ridge to counterbalance 
the upper part of my body, lest I slide head-first off the roof. I 
knew there really wasn't that much danger of sliding; had the roof 
been one foot off the ground, I'd have walked upright readily. But 
my fear did not abate. I scraped elbows, belly, ad knees doing it 
the hard way. The only way for me. 
If I had ever thought to impress Susan, I had certainly managed 
to torpedo that. But the fact was, if she had been up there 
with me, naked, I would still have had more concern for the dropoff 
than for her. This exposed roof really had my number. 
At last I got the felt tacked down. Now I started on the shingles. 
They might look small from a distance, but up close they were 
yard-long sections impregnated with ground stone on one side, 
half green, half brown. And they were stuck together. They had 
dabs of tar in the centers, so as to glue down the roof when the 
heat of the sun struck them. Oh, yes, there was heat; I felt it now, 
wafting up from the roof, bathing me, making me sweat. 
I wrenched off the first shingle in the pile. It gave way suddenly, 
giving me one hell of a fall-scare. After that I pried them 
loose, carefully. As with judo, these seemingly simple things had 
to be done just right, or there were consequences. I went to work 
laying and hammering, placing each row so that it was staggered, 
the edges of the shingles lining up horizontally but not vertically. 
That was so rain could not find a crevice straight past the layers. 
The job would have been tedious if I hadn't been so scared. I 
might get this job done, somehow, but I'd never make a professional 
roofer. 
For an hour I laid down shingles, and I got about a quarter of 
the job done. My right forearm was numbing with fatigue, because 
I wasn't used to hammering, but I was no good with my left. 
I made a mental note: practice hammering left handed, just in
277 
case I ever needed to do this again, so that one hand could spell 
the other. I had some scrapes on my knuckles from the sharp bits 
of rock in the shingles. But I dragged on. 
I finished another row, crawled back for the next shingle and a 
reload of nails-and saw something skitter inside the nail box. A 
bug of some kind, probably a roach. Something gave me a feeling 
of deja vu; I remembered a roach from somewhere-crawling up a 
divinely shaped leg? I was peering up under a skirt, seeing that 
roach, and hearing the weird beat of fantastic music. 
Ridiculous! What would I be doing on the floor, looking up 
some dancing girl's leg? Male erotic fantasy of the kind I already 
had too much of. I needed reality, not fantasy. 
Well, I didn't like roaches. I wanted this one out of my nails. I 
picked up the box and shook it. Out tumbled a scorpion. 
It was only a little one, not much over an inch long. But the 
sight of it gave me an ugly shock. Suppose I had put my hand on 
it, grabbing blindly for nails? The sting of a scorpion, I knew from 
somewhere, could kill. Maybe this little one wouldn't be fatal, but 
the pain might send me toppling off the roof. 
The scorpion hid behind the box. That was no good; I didn't 
want to share the roof with it at all, and I certainly didn't want it 
back in the nails. I twisted about awkwardly and shoved the box 
with one foot. 
The scorpion was gone. 
Where was it? I hadn't seen it go inside the box, but it wasn't 
outside either. Had it fallen off the roof? I didn't wish that fate on 
it, though it probably could survive the fall better than I could. 
Maybe slid under a shingle? Poor thing; I bore it no malice, I just 
didn't want its company. Now how could I put my hand in the 
box, not being sure? 
"Something the matter?" Susan called. "You stopped hammering." 
"Uh, nothing," I called back, ashamed to admit my timidity. 
"Just tired." That was at least a half truth. 
"You sure? You sound shaken." 

278 
Maybe the truth would do. "There's a scorpion." 
"Ignore it; the local ones are harmless." 
That information helped somewhat. "Thanks." 
"Better get the felt up over the ridge before it rains," she advised. 
"Get the crack covered over." 
Rain? I looked at the sky. Huge gray/black clouds loomed to 
the south. A storm, certainly. 
I scrambled to unroll the felt. I still had a few nails in my 
apron; they would do to tack it down. I bent the felt lengthwise 
across the ridge and banged in several nails, then began unrolling. 
There was an ominous swishing through the trees, as of a gale 
approaching. A light spattering of raindrops fell. God, those southern 
storms blew up fast! 
I unrolled some more and hammered feverishly. I had to get it 
down before the real rain hit. 
But as I neared the far end, a big gust came. It whipped across 
the roof, tugging at me, making me cower spread-eagled across the 
ridge, my fingers scratching for purchase that wasn't there. I had a 
mental picture of a mountain climber clinging to a near-vertical 
face of rock a mile above the canyon, his fingers sliding as the 
hurricane force wind savaged him. Sure my situation wasn't anywhere 
near that bad, but that was the image. Imagination is marvelous 
stuff. 
The felt I had just tacked ripped out. It sailed past me. My 
body was weighting down one part of it, but somehow I got off it. 
I didn't want to be carried along with it. The whole roll rolled off 
the roof. There was a pause, and then I heard the solid thunk as it 
hit the ground. There, but for the grace of God- 
Now the rain sluiced down in earnest. The entire roof became 
slick. The wind buffeted me, not satisfied with the roll of felt. I 
couldn't stay up here, but how could I get down? I couldn't even 
see the ladder, assuming it remained in place. If I started down to 
find it, and it wasn't there, I might not be able to halt my slide 
down the steeper outer roof. I'd got to the ground with or without 
the ladder.
279 
"Over here!" Susan cried. She stood outside, getting splendidly 
wet. She was not a large breasted woman, but her soaked 
blouse clung to what she had, giving it perfect definition. A view 
to remember. But I was here, and she was there, and I had another 
concern at the moment: protecting my body. 
"I can't get down!" I cried despairingly, knowing I lied; if this 
storm got any worse I'd come down regardless, maybe headfirst. 
"The ladder's here," she yelled, pointing. "Slide your feet down 
toward it." 
"I can't see it!" 
"I'll tell you where. Trust me." 
Shivering with more than cold, I twisted around and let my 
feet slide over the bend. My fingers had no purchase; my whole 
body began an inexorable slide, exactly as I had feared. 
"Go right!" she cried. "Right!" 
I pushed over my right foot, and felt nothing. My hands were 
leaving the ridge, slipping in water. No traction; I could not return. 
"It's right below you! Another inch!" 
I dropped that inch-I had no choice-and my toe felt the 
top of the ladder. It began to slide sidewise under my thrust. "Hold 
it in place!" I screamed. 
She held it. The ladder firmed. I slid down, my left foot finding 
the second rung. Now I had support. But not until I got down 
far enough to put my hand on the rung did I relax, and then not 
much. 
I stepped to the ground at last, and Susan was there, and we 
fell into each other's arms. She was cold and wet, like me, and her 
once elegantly coiffured hair straggled in dark rat-tails, but to me 
she was warm and lovely and wonderful to hold. 
"Let's get the hell inside," she said. 
That was right: it was still raining. I had forgotten for the 
moment, secure in her embrace. We disengaged and got inside. 
Now the rain abated somewhat, having done its damage. 
"This will never do," Susan said. "Get your clothes off." 

280 
"But-" 
"Think I want you dripping all over the furniture?" she demanded. 
Actually there was no furniture to speak of, just piles of 
building supplies and boxes of this and that, and drips were descending 
from the rafters. But it seemed to make sense at the time. 
A lot of things make sense when you're shivering wet and nervous, 
that don't add up when you're warm and dry and confident. 
Still, I dawdled a bit. Susan gave a little sniff of disgust and 
unbuttoned my shirt, stripped it off me, and wrung it out over a 
bucket. I took off my shoes and poured them into the same container. 
A lot of water had descended from the cloud in those few 
minutes. 
"Now the pants," she insisted. 
"You're wet too," I pointed out. 
"So I am." And she called my bluff by emerging from her own 
blouse and skirt. She was slender, but fairly solid around the hips, 
with firm thighs. The higher grades of judo tend to have strong 
legs.
I took down my trousers, still feeling awkward as hell, and 
stood in my underpants. I remembered the o-goshi loading, fearing 
a similar embarrassment, and of course the very thought mad 
it start to happen. 
"Oh, come on," Susan said, unsnapping her wet bra. 
"Everything's soaking." 
Her breasts, like the height of the roof and the force of the 
wind, were more impressive up close. Some generous-busted women 
are overly padded elsewhere; Susan was lean enough so that nothing 
detracted from what she did have. In fact, a slender woman 
can be the very essence of sex appeal. It was certainly true in this 
case. Her judo practice and skill gave a her a certain healthy grace 
even when she was standing still. Despite my discomfort, I found 
the situation extremely suggestive. 
I didn't dare take off my underpants. 
She fetched a towel from somewhere and began to dry me off.
281 
"You've certainly lost a lot of weight, Jason," she murmured as she 
rubbed my shoulders. "What happened to you?" 
Actually I had gained weight recently, but I must have had 
more before my amnesia. "I'm don't know. I'm an amnesiac; my 
life dates back to only a few days before I started class. I think I 
had an operation or something. There's a scar on my body, and I 
was pretty thin." 
"You don't remember anything?" 
"Well, sometimes I think I remember, but the stuff is so fantastic 
it makes no sense at all. Once I dreamed I was a black belt in 
judo." 
"Well, it happens." She dried my legs. Her touch in that region 
did nothing to alleviate my condition. 
"Another time I dreamed I was making love to-" I broke off, 
and not only because of the delicacy of the subject. Susan had just 
tugged down my underpants, without warning. 
She eyed the result, which was impressive at this stage. "It 
happens," she repeated, seeming pleased rather than shocked. She 
brought up the towel to dry the remainder, paying special attention 
to what was most in evidence. If I had thought o goshi was 
bad . . . 
Abruptly she stopped. "There's sleeping bags in the loft. 
Come." 
I had been about to, but perhaps not the way she meant. 
Then again, maybe that was what she meant. 
She climbed the ladder to the loft, and I followed, getting an 
excellent view of that comparatively plush posterior of hers. No 
view in the world like that! Again I had a fleeting memory of looking 
up such legs. Had it been anticipation instead? 
She glanced down at me, catching me looking. "Let's do it," 
she said as she cleared the ladder. 
There were, indeed, sleeping bags spread out. She lay on top, 
sunny side up, and I grabbed her, burying my face in those breasts. 
Then I slid up to get on top of her. Nature took over; I climaxed 

282 
before I had even completed entry, which subtracted somewhat 
from the experience. 
She squinted at me. "Where'd you practice lovemaking? In the 
Amazon jungle? 
Amazon jungle! Could that have been where? It almost seemed 
so. But I didn't say that. "Sorry. Did I hurt you?" Yet she was 
clearly no virgin. 
"That's not the point. As with a judo throw, you have to consider 
your partner too." 
I paused, not knowing what she meant. But she showed me. 
She talked with me for a little while, explaining that women, too, 
had sex drives, but that their expressions of them differed from 
that of the male. More care had to be taken, the preliminary moves 
done correctly, like turning in, placing the feet and hands, bending 
the knees, and lifting for an o goshi. Art, rather than force, or it 
fouled up. It was a good discussion, and I realized I had blundered. 
Just as I did so often in judo. 
But she was not condemning me, merely educating me. She 
made her points delicately, without affront. Then she showed me 
how. She stroked me, just so, and I turned on. Then I stroked her 
similarly, getting it right, and despite the classroom nature of the 
lesson, I saw that she was turning on too. Do a thing right, and it 
works, regardless. She turned to her side, her back to me, and 
guided my body and hand. Oh, that posterior! And so I remembered 
that there was more than one direction from which to approach 
a given destination, and that some positions are better than 
others, when both parties are considered. 
Because I had shot my wad the first time, there was less urgency 
about the rerun. I was able to stimulate her in the way she 
needed, as long as she required, and when she slowly worked into 
her own climax I was ready to match it. Had to match it; her 
pulsing interior would not be denied. And you know, it was much 
better this time, not only for her but for me. I had learned something 
valuable. 
And in retrospect, my dream of the jungle harem seemed lu-
283 
dicrous, for a whole new set of reasons. I had never even thought of 
how the girls might feel about the matter. I had supposed I was 
performing heroically, when in fact I had short-circuited the real 
potential of the act. I hoped I would remember this lesson, next 
time I dreamed of a harem. 
* 
We had cold bean sandwiches for supper; the rain had made 
an outdoor fire impossible, and there was no electricity or gas. 
When this rich girl roughed it, she went all the way, so to speak. 
But I was hungry, and beans and milk from a thermos were delicious. 
We took an evening walk out in the forest, marred only by the 
barbed sandspurs that kept sticking to our legs. Our clothing was 
still wet, so we went naked, like true children of nature; there was 
no one here to see. And what is so indecent about such exposure? 
There is nothing so beautiful as the unadorned human body in 
good health. If you ask me, the indecency is merely in the minds 
of those who scream about indecent exposure. But of course my 
opinion wasn't worth much; I had, pretty close, been born yesterday.
About a quarter mile to the east there was an old railroad cut, 
with three tracks running through a man-made chasm forty feet 
from top to bottom. Much higher than the cabin roof, but it didn't 
bother me despite the steepness of the slope. All in the perspective, 
I suppose. We climbed down and up the other side, scrambling 
four legged like animals, and I flipped down a little clod of 
dirt that hit her on the left breast, and she chased me until we 
both got grounded by the ubiquitous sandspurs. By then it was all 
the way dark, and we limped back to the cabin. 
We slept naked in the bag. I was so tired I conked right out, 
believe it or not, before my hand got much farther than her left 
breast. (She had washed the dirt off it.) As with everything else, 
multiple sex sounds great from a distance, but in practice it be- 

284 
comes too difficult to be worthwhile. I know that's not the way 
the male magazines would have it, but I wonder how many of 
their writers and editors have actually tried it? An endless hunger 
is generally endless because it is unsatisfied, not vice versa. 
The last thing I remember before I faded out was belated confusion: 
what was the name she had called me, earlier, as we undressed? 
She had told me I had lost weight, which meant she must 
have known me before. What had she called me? My fogged brain 
would not bring it back, and I didn't care to inquire directly. I 
feared she would get angry at the slip, and refuse to make love 
again. I did not want to risk that. Tonight I was sated, but what of 
tomorrow? Whereupon I slept. 
In the middle of the night it rained again. I had not gotten the 
felt to stay over the ridge, and so the roof leaked. Drip, drip- 
right onto our double sleeping bag. 
Susan woke up and said something unladylike. She scrambled 
out and found a poncho in the dark; I felt her body sliding past 
me. We spread the poncho over the sleeping bag so that the drips 
ran off. 
Now I had been recharged somewhat by sleep, and my interest 
in her body was renewed. I ran my hands over her breasts, 
stomach, and thighs, growing more excited. She murmured appreciatively. 
Slow and mutually fulfilling-yes, that was the way. 
And would you believe, I fell asleep again before coming to 
the point. I think I heard her chuckle in my dreams. The white 
belt had muffed another technique despite the cooperation of the 
black belt. That's one thing that really gets me, in retrospect. There 
was absolutely no excuse! 
I woke before dawn, needing to relieve myself outside. I slid 
out, found the ladder, went down quietly, and opened the door. 
The night air was chill on my bare skin, but not too bad. I moved 
out from the cabin, looked up between the trees, and saw the 
stars. 
They were magnificent. They shone like diamonds in the 
cleared, washed sky, so many there was no counting them. I saw
285 
the three bright lights of Orion's Belt, and up to the north the Big 
Dipper. That exhausted my knowledge of the constellations, but I 
must have stood for ten minutes admiring the splendor of the 
heavens. It was an experience that reached right into my being. I 
almost forgot to do what I had come to do. 
When I returned, Susan was awake. "Now you hold the fort 
while I go out," she said. Which set me back a bit; like many men, 
I had sort of thought that women got along without natural functions. 
It's that pedestal we put them on; we want them to be sexy 
but nothing else. 
As dawn came, I tried to get a fire going in the crude stone 
hearth outside, but the wet wood made the effort as frustrating as 
my latter sexual ones. So we had cold cereal and milk, and it was 
really quite adequate. 
"Oops, I forgot!" she said. "I have a bag of charcoal. Pour a 
little kerosene on it from the lamp and get it started; we need a fire 
to dry out our clothes." 
So we had a fire of sorts after all, an almost flameless one that 
we shrouded in hung clothing. With luck the sun would also be 
out soon, and would help. 
Meanwhile, that roofing job remained unfinished. I took a 
look at the ladder, and realized that I had lost the courage to go up 
again. Oh, I tried, but the moment I put a hand on the rung, I 
thought of Mr. Campbell, falling from his roof and breaking his 
arm in three places. If I went up again- 
I went back inside, disheartened. "I haven't got the nerve," I 
said, expecting to get bawled out. She had, in a fashion, already 
paid me, and now I was reneging on the job. "I can't go up again. 
I know the roof needs doing." 
"Take it easy," she said. "When that felt thunked down last 
night in the storm, for a moment I thought it was you. I could 
never have forgiven myself. I was just glad to get you safely down." 
"I'm a coward," I said glumly, not much cheered by her understanding 
attitude. "I came here to help you do a job, and I can't 
do it." 

286 
"You did a job," she said, smiling. 
"Damn it, I'm going up!" I exclaimed, turning about. I went 
to the ladder, put hands and feet on it, ascended-and balked at 
the second run from the top. The nerve was drained out of me; 
fifteen feet was too long a fall to contemplate. The stupidity of it 
made me almost as mad as the fact of failure. 
Then I had a small inspiration. I descended and approached 
Susan. "Throw me," I told her. 
"What?" She was washing dishes with a sponge and Kleenex- 
another thing her cook would have bawled her out for. 
"Three feet to a mat is nothing compared to fifteen feet to the 
ground. I'd much rather take a controlled judo fall than an uncontrolled 
roof fall. Throw me." 
Bemused, she spread out the sleeping bags and threw me. I 
took an imperfect fall, and bounced up. "It didn't hurt me!" I 
exclaimed, rubbing my shoulder where it hurt, some. "Throw me 
again." 
"Here he has me alone in the woods," she muttered, "naked, 
miles from help, and what does he want? To be thrown." 
I had forgotten: we were still naked. But it didn't matter. She 
threw me again with the ippon seoi nage, one of the few throws that 
will work naked, and it was evident that I had lost much of my 
fear. Whenever I started to worry, I visualized that roof, and that 
made it all right. I had conquered another hurdle, of a sort. 
After that I made myself useful working on the foundations, 
mixing concrete and troweling it into the stacked concrete blocks 
on which the cabin perched. The work was tedious but worthwhile. 
Susan washed me off when I finished. Her attention caused 
me to react again. "You know, I wish I'd been less sleepy in the 
night," I said ruefully. 
"You lost your turn," she agreed. "Now it's my turn." 
"Your turn?" 
"To do you. Passive mode. Lie down." 
"By daylight?"
287 
She laughed. "I love your na�vet�!" 
I lay on the impromptu mat, and she addressed me with slow 
strokes and kisses. Before long she had me worked up to a fever 
pitch, but she wouldn't let me act. Instead she spread herself on 
me, tantalizing me, keeping me from taking any initiative, and at 
her leisure took me in and milked me with her body. When I 
finally came, it felt like a volcano erupting. What an experience! 
She got up, having done me, and looked out the window. 
"There was supposed to be a delivery by now. Must be late." 
"Someone was coming?" I asked. "Suppose it had happened 
when-" 
She half smiled, and I realized with a certain chagrin that this 
had been part of her game: the excitement of possible discovery. It 
was just as well I hadn't known. 
Near noon the clothes were dry and we made ready to drive 
back after dressing. At that point a pickup truck pulled up. It was 
a man from a lumber company, bringing a load of interior paneling 
for the cabin. So the delivery had made it after all. 
"Better get that roof shingled before it rains," he observed. 
"Water will ruin this stuff." 
"It already rained," Susan said. "Our ladder's really too short." 
"That so? I've got a larger one." 
"You know how to roof?" Susan asked. 
"Sure. It's part of the business. But I have to unload this stuff 
and tack it in and get back to the shop." 
Susan delved into her purse and came up with a hundred dollar 
bill. "Can they spare you a couple more hours? We could use 
the help." 
"We already been paid for the paneling job. Gotta do it." 
"In addition." 
"Lady, roofing labor ain't worth-" 
She tucked the bill into his shirt pocket. "It is to us." She 
smiled persuasively. 
He melted. "You've got a deal!" And he took his ladder off the 
truck, leaned it against the cabin, put a heavy bundle of shingles 

288 
on his shoulder, and proceeded right up. "Come on," he called to 
me. "We can polish this off in an hour." 
Seeing him so casual about it, there was nothing I could do 
but mount the ladder. I hesitated at the top, and he put out a 
strong hand to steady me. I crossed over to the roof-the thing I 
thought I'd never do again. 
"Lay out the shingles; I'll nail them down, soon's I get the felt 
laid." He was down the ladder and back with the felt, and in a few 
minutes accomplished what I had failed to in much longer time. 
Then he started in on the shingles, holding with the soft side of 
his fingers up so that a hit would not hurt as much, striking each 
nail four time with perfect aim. I had had to strike a dozen times, 
and I had lost numerous nails from bending or flipping out when 
they struck impervious knots. Here was a real professional, every 
bit as skilled in his area as the judo black belts were in theirs. 
In his presence, surrounded by his confidence and competence, 
I found my own fear of the roof diminished. I moved about 
on hands and feet rather than by crawling, and I didn't even notice 
the wind. I laid out shingles and he hammered in the nails. And in 
an hour we had finished the whole top section of that roof. 
"Thanks," I said. "You have no idea how relieved I am to have 
that done." 
"Glad to help. Not just for the money." He winked. "Girl like 
that-you're lucky." 
We descended the ladder, and as my foot touched the ground 
I realized that I had been relieved of the charge of cowardice, and 
had done what had terrified me before. All I had needed was a 
longer ladder and a confident companion. 
How many seemingly insuperable obstacles of life could be 
overcome by just that formula? The proper tool and proper approach. 
What of my worst one, the amnesia? My memory of my 
past remained closed, but somehow I felt I was closer to the breakthrough 
now. 
The man finished the paneling with the same efficiency and
289 
drove off. Probably the extra money had contributed to his positive 
attitude; he could have a considerable party with that. 
Soon we followed. It had been quite a weekend, and I had a lot 
to think about. 

CHAPTER 5: 
EIGHTY PER CENT 
Every month or so our dojo had a team tournament with one 
of the other Taizo Sone dojos in town. Half a dozen of our students 
would be matched with their students, and each winner got a 
medal or ribbon. After the tournament there would be testing for 
promotions. 
I had watched these little tournaments with fascination, seeing 
how different competition judo was from normal randori practice. 
I had not entered any matches, however, knowing that would 
be utter folly. Now I had learned the basic throws and holds, and 
felt I was ready to try for the lofty eminence of Yellow Belt. So I 
was present and garbed in my gi, and nervous as hell. 
The students of the other dojo were there, with their instructor 
Tom, a sandan or third degree black belt. Black belts didn't 
compete in these affairs, but served as coaches and referees. 
Tom and Steve got together and picked out one child from 
each class, little white belts. They were carefully matched up by 
size and skill, to make it fair. The idea was to give them experience 
in matches, without the outcome being certain. Then two more, 
larger boys, yellow belts. And so on up, sometimes matching yel-
291 
low belt with a larger white belt so that it was skill against size. In 
real tournaments, I understood, it was pot luck, and white belts 
frequently came up against black belts, almost certainly doomed. 
But here the emphasis was on good matches, or at least fairness. 
"Caesar," Steve said. 
Huh? I looked at him. Steve indicated a place on the mat 
where the other contestants were sitting. Already a white belt my 
size was coming from the other side. 
I was going to compete in a match. 
My mouth went dry. My knees felt rubbery. How could I go 
out there and actually fight? I didn't know anything! I glanced 
wildly around. 
And caught Susan's eye. She was one of five black belts who 
had shown up for the tournament. I remembered the cabin roof, 
and the cabin loft. And I was more afraid of being a coward in her 
eyes than I was of being a coward in fact. 
I walked to the mat area and sat down beside my teammates. 
It was amazing how deadly serious this innocent little meet had 
become, merely because I was now a participant rather than a 
spectator. I guess a lot of life is like that. A person pays a whole lot 
more attention when his own neck is on the block. 
Jeff came to sit beside me, and after him a green belt. They 
didn't seem worried; why was my gut squeezed and squished like a 
Rorschach blob? We were seven all told, and opposite us were 
sever from the other dojo. 
Nervously I watched the first match. Our boy was smaller 
than his opponent, and that was bad, because size does count in 
judo when skill is equivalent. The lighter player has to work harder 
to lift the heavier one, and can more readily be lifted himself. Our 
champion tried hard, attempting an o soto gari leg throw to the 
rear, but the other boy pushed him back, grabbed him around the 
neck, and fell on the floor. No art to it at all, and the referee, a 
large black belt named Shawn, gave no score, but now the larger 
boy got the kesa gatame or scarf hold. This was clumsily applied- 

292 
even I could see that-but decisive. In thirty seconds it was over. 
The outlook was bleak; we were behind one match to nothing. 
But lo! We won the second match, and the third, then lost the 
fourth. It was two to two-and suddenly I was up. 
I was scared stiff, which may have been just as well, because 
otherwise my knees might have buckled. My opponent was smaller 
than I, and a good deal younger, but he might as well have been a 
giant. I only hoped I would not lose too quickly. 
I grabbed his left lapel and right sleeve in approved manner, 
and looked into his eyes-and realized that he was just as scared as 
I was. It didn't help; now I was afraid we'd both make fools of 
ourselves. 
We moved around, neither daring to try anything. All my 
confidence in the techniques I had practiced was gone; I knew 
nothing would work. "Attack! Attack!" someone yelled, and I didn't 
know which one of us he meant. 
Shame, not courage, drove me to it: I attacked. I tried to turn 
into an o goshi hip throw, but he had hold of my sleeve and I 
couldn't turn. That never happened in practice throws. So it was 
nothing, not even a spoiled attempt, as far as anyone could see. 
But he had felt my effort. So he jerked me forward, and I stiffarmed 
him, not meaning to but simply unable to make my arms 
bend. That, as it turned out, was a good defense. At least at this 
level. So all we did was move a little more. 
We were both getting tired. I was panting, and so was he, and 
his handsome long hair was getting in his face and God knows 
how I looked-and we hadn't done anything. 
Time was running out. I realized it was not going to end with 
a bang but a whimper, a draw, and indecisive match. No credit to 
either of us, no medal or ribbon. People on either side were yelling 
up a storm of encouragement: "Throw him, Caesar!" "O soto gari, 
Alan!" "Attack!" "Take him to the mat!" But we were stuck in a 
morass of inability. We were too evenly matched, too inexperienced. 
Never again would I watch someone else's match and think
293 
myself superior; fatigue and uncertainty changed the whole picture. 
Sure we had been taught the techniques-but this was real. 
I saw the brown belt with the stopwatch lift the beanbag he 
used to signal the end of the match. When he threw it onto the 
mat, it would be over. A hell of a poor showing. 
This couldn't be tolerated. One of us had to win, or we'd both 
lose. I wrenched about and dropped into a seoi otoshi, the throw 
Mr. Campbell had taught me, my last attempt. But I didn't have 
my balance, hadn't used kuzushi to break his balance, and had my 
right elbow in the wrong position. As a result the attempt was a 
disaster. Alan resisted, hauling me back. His counter was better 
than my effort; I fell backwards, my feet going up in the air-and 
I came down on the back of my head, hard. 
The room spun. I felt no pain. Just shame. 
When my head cleared, Susan was mopping my face with a 
wet paper towel. "Some breakfall, Caesar," she muttered disgustedly.
I sat up and stared at her. "Susan! When did you get your 
black belt?" 
Her eyebrow raised. "Beg pardon?" 
"You were a brown belt in my class." 
Now she stared at me. "Uh-oh. You remember?" 
I looked down. "What the hell am I doing in a white belt?" 
But as I asked, I remembered. I was a white belt-but also a black 
belt. I had two sets of experiences, and for the moment I wasn't 
sure which was real. 
"What is your name?" Susan asked me. 
"Jason Striker, of course." I paused. "No, Caesar Kane. No, 
both." 
"That blow to your head," she said. "It brought you back!" 
"Did it? I still seem to have a gap. Between leaving my own 
dojo up north and coming to this one. What happened?" 
"If you don't know, no one else does," she said. "You disappeared 
there, and reappeared here, months later. Emaciated and 
amnesiac." 

294 
Alan came over. He had won the match, but didn't look happy. 
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to-" 
"'Sall right," I said, shaking hands with him. "It was a fair 
match. I have to learn how to take a better fall, is all." Yet maybe I 
had gained a hundred times more than I had lost, for now I had 
my past back. A significant part of it, anyway. 
I shook my head, trying to get it settled. I saw Jeff doing throws 
in the main area. Uchimata, for an ippon-was it only the next 
match? No, the tournament was over; he was testing for promotion, 
going for his green belt, skipping right over orange. No wander 
he had been so tough. Tomoe nage, the stomach throw. Combinations. 
Kids really had to work for their belts here. 
Jeff made it, and I was glad for him. I wondered how he had 
done in his tournament match while I was out. He must have 
won, for it would have taken two victories to overcome my defeat 
and put our team ahead-and there was the trophy cup, on our 
side. I had missed some good matches. But you have to expect to 
miss something if you insist on getting knocked out before the 
tournament is over. 
Now the black belts went out for some randori or free practice 
among themselves: Steve and Tom, Shawn and Mike. 
"Come on," Susan said. "Get your system going." 
"Randori? I asked. "I can't go out there with all those black 
belts." 
"That depends," she murmured, "on who you think you are." 
"Who?" I asked, not getting her drift. 
"Are you Caesar Kane, who just lost a match to a fourteen year 
old boy-or are you Jason Striker, 5 Dan?" 
I pondered. "You know, I'm not sure. I've got both memories, 
and always before I have woken up to find that-" 
"So let's find out," she said, drawing me to my feet. "You're 
going to throw me, or get thrown. Hard." 
We moved out onto the mat. I saw some students staring at 
me; obviously I should be home soaking my head, not going out 
for randori after my injury. But the fact was that I had suffered
295 
much worse bashes in the past, and fought through; this one was 
nothing in comparison. I did want to know, as Susan put it, exactly 
who I thought I was. 
Susan wasn't fooling; she spun into a moroto seoi nage, lifting 
so hard I would ordinarily have flipped right over her and whomped 
into the mat on my barely-healed side. But I merely stood firm. 
"How many times have I told you," I reprimanded her gently, 
"kuzushi. You didn't break my balance." And I turned and swept 
her feet out from under with a perfect okuri ashi barai assisted foot 
sweep. "Timing and balance," I concluded as she struck the mat. 
"Just like old times," she muttered as she got up. "You made 
me look like a white belt, you prick." 
I smiled graciously at her. "You asked for it." 
She nodded. "I was glad to get it, Jason." 
Then I walked over to Mike and Shawn. "Mind if I cut in?" I 
inquired. 
They looked askance at me, not having seen my action with 
Susan, or perhaps assuming she had been teaching me an effective 
counter. But they did not protest. 
I took Mike, who had recently made his black belt by placing 
high in the high school nationals, and moved him about. He was 
young but highly skilled, probably destined to be a leading competitor 
on the national scene in a few years. He thought, naturally 
enough, that he was working with a white belt, so he didn't even 
try to throw me. No black belt needs to prove himself against a 
white belt; instead he acts as a teacher, helping the novice to improve 
his skill. 
So I lifted him with a hane goshi spring hip throw, not putting 
too much force into it. He went over, but put his right hand down 
and turned out neatly so that my throw counted for no score. A 
very nice recovery on his part. He had a supple, smooth manner 
about his randori that I liked. We resumed motion. 
Now he was on guard. A white belt does not catch a black belt 
twice, especially with the same throw. So I did another hane goshi, 
a hard one this time, too fast and accurate for him to resist. My 

296 
right leg swept up his legs and he flipped over, this time taking a 
perfect fall. 
He sat up and stared at me. What I had done should have 
been impossible, even for another black belt of his rank. He had 
never before encountered efficiency like that, and was trying to 
decide whether it had been a fluke. I made a little bow and went 
on to the next: big Shawn. 
Shawn was another high school prodigy. He had earned his 
black best at age 15 by coming in second in the high school nationals. 
He might have been first, but his opponent had fouled 
him, and he had gotten mad and fouled him back-and the referee 
had caught only Shawn's action. He was huge and strong, a 
natural wrestler. Most people tried to avoid getting into matwork 
with him-so I took him down with a sumi gaeshi, rolled over as he 
started to get up, and flipped him into the jigoku jime hell strangle. 
He had strong arms and a good neck, but I knew exactly what I 
was doing, and he had to tap out before his lost consciousness. It is 
considered very classy to take a man with his own specialty, but as 
it happened, my specialty was matwork too. 
Three down, two to go. Why did running a line of five black 
belts seem so familiar? 
Tom and Steve had stopped their randori and were staring at 
me, as well they might. Susan might have let me throw her, and 
Mike might have taken one fall for me. But Shawn would never 
have gone voluntarily into the hell strangle, and a white belt hardly 
knew how to apply it properly. 
I bowed to Steve. He returned the bow, and came to meet me. 
He hardly knew what to make of this, having seen me in all my 
white belt inadequacy for several weeks, but he was not about to 
take a fall for me. He found it difficult to take falls for any of his 
students, perhaps fearing that they would lose respect. 
I took hold of him-and had him almost helpless. I was no 
stronger than I had been as a white belt, but now I had all the skill 
of a godan. I knew precisely how to make my strength count, nullifying 
his. It was similar in its way to holding a bird in one's open
297 
palm and preventing it from flying away by countering its balance 
in subtle ways. Before, Steve's skill had toyed with mine; now 
mine toyed with him-and we had not even moved. There is as 
big difference between a godan and a shodan as there is between a 
shodan and a rokkyu. That is, 5 dan is to 1 dan as 1 dan is to a 
white belt. 
I eased up enough to let him attempt a throw, and he spun 
into a tsuri komi goshi lift-pull hip throw But I kept my balance, 
and as he went down low I stepped forward so that my legs straddled 
him, holding him down and voiding the effort. He had to break 
and scramble out from under. Next time we closed I threw him 
with an uchi-mata. And went on to Tom. 
Tom was a sandan, a third degree black belt who could probably 
have made fourth degree any time he wanted to. He had been 
given his belt by the club founder, Taize Sone, and valued it as 
such. He was a skilled competitor, interested in making the national 
Olympic team. His mode of action was deceptive; he wasted 
no effort or motion in superfluous style. He took it so easy it seemed 
he wasn't really trying. But just try to throw him or get him in a 
holddown! 
I moved him about, and he moved with me, retaining his 
balance. I tried my uchi-mata, but couldn't get him over. So I did 
a takedown and clamped an armlock on him-and he calmly braced 
himself and lifted me clear of the mat, voiding my hold. This time 
I had my work cut out for me, though Tom hadn't yet even tried 
any techniques of his own. 
"Now I recognize you," he said. "Only one person does uchimata 
like that. Jason Striker. What are you doing here in a white 
belt?" 
"It's a long story," I said. "I'm wondering about it myself." 
We stopped the randori; it had become pointless. "This is Jason 
Striker," Tom said to the others. "Godan, former national champion. 
I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn't believe it." 
I understood, however. I had not faked any clumsiness as a 

298 
white belt; it had been quite genuine. My transformation had 
been remarkable. 
But I did have a headache. It was time to go home and recover. 
Past time. 
* 
I was sad to leave the Taizo Sone judo clubs, but it was urgent 
that I sort out my memories and get my affairs in order. I had been 
out of circulation entirely too long, for all that I had needed that 
time to fully recover my physical health. So my amnesia had its 
silver lining. 
First I phoned Ilunga, back at my own dojo. "Where you been, 
White Master?" she inquired as though I'd merely checked in an 
hour late. I visualized her strong black face; she was one hell of a 
woman, this karate mistress. She was in charge in my absence, 
quite competent, and probably smarter than I was. She had emotion, 
but didn't show it. 
"Florida," I said succinctly. "Where was I going?" 
"South America," she said. "Maybe you better talk to Luis." 
"Senor," Luis said immediately. She must have put him on the 
extension. "Are you well?" He was a Cuban exiile, not at all like the 
drunken doctor of my vision, but a 5 dan in judo. I had no concern 
about the welfare of my judo classes while they were in his 
hands. With Ilunga for karate and accounts, and Luis for judo, I 
was superfluous, which thought did not please me quite as much 
as it might have. Evidently they had managed just fine without 
me. 
"Well enough," I said, deciding not to go into the whole story. 
Susan had loaned me a set of weights to enhance my exercise, and 
I was recovering my optimal condition. "I lost my memory, only 
just got it back, most of it. Ilunga said I was headed for South 
America; that part's still blank, except for some visions of the Amazon 
River. Do you know anything about it?" 
"Only that it is dangerous, Se�or," he said. "You received word
299 
from your enemy Kan-Sen that the lord of the ninjas needed you, 
and you departed. I urged against it, and Ilunga called you- 
pardon the term-a honky fool." 
"That's her way of saying that she loves me," I said, only half 
joking. 
"Si. But you went, and we have heard nothing more, until this 
moment. We feared very much you were dead." 
"Close enough," I agreed. "Obviously someone wants me dead. 
But I have the feeling it's more important than that. I'd better run 
it down before it runs me down. So don't let on that I'm alive. This 
call is strictly private." 
"Honky fool!" Illunga repeated vehemently. 
"I want them to believe that I'm dead," I explained. "That 
way I can catch them by surprise." 
"Catch who by surprise?" Luis inquired. 
"I wish I knew." 
Illunga gave a derisive snort, but I knew she and Luis would 
protect my secret. They both loved me, in their fashions, and would 
keep the faith. 
So I resigned from my survey job and cleaned out my room. I 
had planned to sneak out alone, but Susan intercepted me. Women 
have a knack for such things. "I know I'm less interesting now that 
your memory's back," she said. "But there are still things I can do 
for you." 
She was more or less right on both counts. There had been 
many women in my life, and I valued the memory of most of 
them, especially my dead fianc�e Chiyako. Susan when I knew her 
had been no more than a promising brown belt student. I did not 
as a rule date my students, though some had made that rule difficult 
to honor. But Susan had left my dojo two years ago and I had 
not seen her since. Evidently she had kept up with her judo and 
retained an interest in me, so that when she discovered me as a 
white belt . . . Well, she was no longer my student, and she had 
made her point. I liked her more than somewhat, and she had 
helped me considerably. I really knew her better now than I had 

300 
before, and not just socially. I had had no idea she was rich, not 
that it would have made a difference. She had merely been one 
brown belt among many, almost anonymous. She must have preferred 
it that way. 
"I have a motor home," she continued. "I can take you where 
you're going, privately. I have money. I can shop for you. Alone, 
you're just going to get yourself killed, as you almost did before." 
Nobody seemed to have any confidence in my abilities outside 
the dojo-especially those who knew me best. That was another 
irritation, in part because it might be warranted. Obviously 
I had fouled up badly, somewhere between here and South America. 
"If you come with me," I pointed out, "you may get killed too." 
"Yes. Isn't it exciting?" 
I wasn't certain whether she was joking. There are things about 
women I have never understood. They are not merely soft men. 
This one had seduced me on the cabin floor in broad daylight, 
knowing that a delivery man was on his way. Evidently she had a 
hankering for innocent danger. But what I faced was ugly danger. 
"I'll think about it," I said. Maybe I could sneak out alone. 
"You'll think about it with me along," she insisted. "I want 
you to tell me to my face, not copping out on the phone the way 
you did with your dojo." 
That was another thing: why did women always fathom me so 
much better than I fathomed them? 
Thus I found myself in her motor home. It was a Cruise-Air- 
after a moment I fathomed the pun-looking like a yellow striped 
box with oblong windows, small-seeming wheels, and a door in 
the middle of the left side. But inside it was a luxury apartment 
twenty two feet long, with padded couches, a dinette, kitchen, 
bathroom, and whatever. No need to pay hotel or motel bills with 
this; all the comforts of home traveling right along with you. All 
except- 
I looked at Susan, who avoided my gaze. That was a signal. All 
the comforts of married life, really. That made me a bit nervous. 
Just what designs did she have on me?
301 
"I have credit cards for everything," she said brightly. "It can 
all be done in my name, keeping you anonymous." 
That was exactly the way I wanted it. Because I remembered 
more than I had told Luis. It wasn't just the long journey down 
the Amazon River, it was the background. Kan-Sen was my enemy, 
true, but now he worked for Fu Antos, lord of the ninjas, 
who was building his new Black Castle somewhere in the Amazon 
jungle. My connection with Fu Antos went way back. He had 
saved my life, and I had helped him reincarnate in youthful form. 
I had assumed that if my enemy worked for my friend, he 
became my friend, even if I didn't want it. Now it occurred to me 
that my friend might have become my enemy. If that were so, I 
was free to kill Kan-Sen, and there was nothing I'd rather do. For 
he had killed my fianc�e Chiyako. But maybe I was rationalizing, 
trying to find a way to justify the vengeance I craved. 
I might kill Kan-Sen. But first he would have to be interrogated. 
For surely he knew what I needed to know about Fu Antos. 
Someone had left me for dead in the Amazon. Had it been the 
ninja, or someone who had tried to stop me from reaching the 
ninja? I had to be sure, before I acted. 
Because if Fu Antos was now my enemy, I had one hell of a job 
cut out for me. Fu Antos was perhaps the most formidable warrior 
of all time, and he had conquered death itself. I would never have 
suspected him of turning against me, but he was the only one I 
knew who had the power to wipe out a man's memory. He could 
do astonishing things with his fantastic power of ki. 
"I think I smell wood burning," Susan remarked. "Is it really 
such an awful chore, traveling with me?" 
I had to laugh. "I was remembering things I had forgotten, 
trying to figure them out." 
"You forgot our weekend in the woods? I can explain that very 
simply. I loved playing with you when you didn't know who you 
were. When I could be the instructor." 
I had to laugh again. "Yes you were, and I appreciate it. This 
was something else." 

302 
"You must tell me all about it. Maybe I can figure that out 
too, for you." 
I realized that it might really help to have her input, for my 
question was intractable. Why? Why would Fu Antos summon me 
to the Black Castle-to kill me? Or to wipe out my memory? That 
made no sense at all. I had meant him no harm, and would not 
have known he had left Japan had he not sent the aikido sensei 
Hiroshi-armed with a bag of diamonds-to summon me. Fu 
Antos surely had enough enemies, without wiping out his friends. 
"Maybe you can," I agreed. 
"I'm glad that's settled." 
I hardly heard her. I would have to assume that one of the 
ninja's enemies had intercepted me before I reached the Black 
Castle. A powerful enemy, with brainwashing facilities-for surely 
something had been done to my mind-but who still did not dare 
to kill me openly. Maybe he had held me prisoner while he destroyed 
my mind, and I had somehow escaped before the job was 
quite complete. So now I had recovered maybe eighty per cent of 
my memories, including all my prior life. Just the twenty percent 
or less that related to the last several months remained lost. 
In any event, I had a score to settle. I would have to make my 
own investigation to discover why my real enemy was. And hope 
that that enemy did not discover me first. 
"Where to, sir?" Susan inquired with a smile. She was driving; 
it was her vehicle and I had no license. I had been driving recently 
of course; I didn't like breaking the law, but to get a license I 
would have had to verify my identity, and I hadn't had an identity. 
Now I had one, but my wallet and all its papers had been lost 
along with my memory. 
"Miami," I said. 
* 
We drove east, leaving the Suncoast. We passed some of the 
non-tourist artifacts, such as a monstrously ugly phosphate mine.
303 
Phosphate was the backbone of Florida industry, but its byproducts 
destroyed the local soil and landscape and lead to increasing incidence 
of cancer, and of course big money talked, preventing reform. 
That was the ubiquitous shame of mankind, always putting 
short range self interest before the welfare of the larger society or 
the land itself. 
"Reminds me of your attitude," Susan said, looking at the 
desolate landscape. 
"What?" 
"Brooding. Ugly. Silent." 
She had me there. "I'll try to reform." 
"You'd better. This hasn't been much of a date so far." 
"This is no date!" I protested. Then I realized that she was 
teasing me. I was being socially clumsy, as usual. 
We passed a sign advertising a large amusement park. "Let's go 
there," Susan said. 
"This is serious business, not a holiday." 
"But it has to look like a holiday," she pointed out. "You don't 
want anyone to know your real mission." 
"Nobody's watching me now!" I snapped. 
"Right," she agreed, turning into the park. 
I tried to fathom the logic, but could not. Had I made a mistake, 
traveling with her? If all she had in mind was distracting me 
from my mission- 
"They turned too," Susan said. 
"Who?" 
"The car that's been tailing us the last twenty miles." 
"Who would want to follow me?" I demanded. 
"Maybe we should find out. I'd guess the news of your return 
spread pretty quickly. Why did you run the line at Taizo Sone?" 
"You told me to-" 
"It was a foolish feminine idea. You should have ignored it." 
No arguing with that. I had destroyed my privacy at the outset. 
I suspected that our alleged tail was coincidence, merely someone 
headed for this park at our speed. But if it were not- 

304 
Well, it would not be hard to verify the matter. If anyone was 
after us, they'd have to keep pretty close, because it would be 
almost impossible to keep track in the hustle and crowding of the 
park. Once we were sure we were not being followed, we could 
resume our journey. Probably Susan had made it up, as an excuse 
to have a good time. I evidently had not impressed her sufficiently 
with the urgency of my mission. 
"If we park and leave the vehicle, and somebody is after us, 
they could plant a bomb in it," I said, hoping to shake her up so 
that she would change her mind about stopping here. 
"It's got a security system and a loud alarm," she said. "If 
anyone breaks in, the whole neighborhood will know." 
Sigh. She had countered my ploy without even trying. 
We bought tickets at the grand entrance. It was a good thing 
Susan had money to burn, because they weren't cheap. I felt a bit 
like a gigolo, having her pay for everything. Maybe that was the 
way she wanted it. Before, I had been short of memory, dependent 
on her for judo knowledge. Now I was short of money. The feeling 
was similar. 
Park personnel challenged us at the ramp to the interior. "Any 
food in that bag?" 
Susan frowned. "No food." She turned to me. "Must be they 
don't want any wrappings littering the premises." 
"Must be," I agreed. I had thought it was an inspection for 
weapons, like the checkout for boarding an airplane. Which showed 
how a person can overreact to the mere notion of being followed. 
But inside there was food being hawked everywhere. Paper 
cups, straws, and similar items littered the walks and lawns. We 
passed a stream, and it was so gray with pollution that most of the 
trash in it was hidden beneath the murk. "Why did they try to 
stop us from bringing in any food?" I marveled. 
"Because we'd never pay their prices if we had any alternative," 
Susan said. "They need a captive market." 
I glanced at their prices. They were sky-high. "I'll starve first," 
I said, disgusted. "What kind of tourist trap is this?"
305 
"An efficient one. Don't grump; food's on me." 
That didn't help. "Are we still being tailed?" 
"Yes." 
* 
[Not yet written sequence here: it rains, and half the attractions 
are shut down so that Jason and Susan can't use up their 
tickets, and get soaked. They use the distraction of the rain to get 
behind the men who are following them, and there is a fight scene 
in a closed attraction. They demolish the thugs, but learn nothing, 
as they are merely hirelings. Except for one name: Mirabal. 
That triggers some more of Jason's missing memory. Susan, turned 
on by the excitement, seduces Jason before they leave the site. His 
extreme nervousness at the prospect of discovery in such a public 
place delights her.] 
* 
It was late by the time we got out of the park, and I was tired. 
But it was necessary to get well away from the scene of the action, 
so that this mysterious Mirabal would not be able to trace our 
whereabouts. He surely knew what our vehicle looked like, so even 
being on the road was no guarantee of security. 
"Hey!" I exclaimed. "I know a place near here. A friend of 
mine has a dojo." 
"First place your enemies would look," Susan said. "I like adventure, 
but we're getting more than I bargained on this soon." 
"I doubt it. It's a small dojo, and I've never been there. I knew 
him up north several years ago, and promised to drop in if I were 
ever in the area. I know people all over the country, so nobody'd be 
able to guess that I'd visit this particular place. He can keep his 
mouth shut, and would give us a place to hide the vehicle. By the 
time they figure out where we are, we'll be gone." 
"In short, you want to see him again, just as I wanted to go to 

306 
the park." 
I sighed. "I guess so. The camaraderie of judo-" 
"Well, no one can say I'm not fair about these things. What's 
his address?" 
So we pulled into the little dojo of Sensei Josef Fuentes, 3 dan. 
He was a dark haired Cuban of about 40. There were a lot of 
Cuban judokas in Florida, because of the sizable Cuban exile population. 
It was late, and no class was in session. But my friend welcomed 
me with a big Latin smile, and opened his dojo to us. So we 
had a little workout of three. It may sound funny, doing active 
judo practice when we were tired, but judo isn't work for me, its 
life. I feel better after doing good randori than I do after taking a 
nap.
After a while I sat down at the edge of the mat and let Susan 
work with Josef. They did randori that was almost like a kata, or 
judo playlet, alternating throws. It was very nice, almost too nice. 
I began to grow restive. I was the one she was traveling with, after 
all. 
Then I caught myself. Was I getting jealous about a woman I 
hadn't wanted to travel with anyway? Because of standard judo 
courtesy? What was the matter with me? 
I knew the answer: Susan had set out to impress me, and had 
succeeded. I had always had a soft spot for female martial artists, 
and I did like a relationship with an attractive and amenable young 
woman. She had baited me like a fish, and the hook was halfway 
set. I had to school myself to accept what she offered without 
letting her lure me into a commitment I couldn't legitimately make. 
Not while part of my life was missing. So she was working well 
with Josef, and smiling at him, giving him pleasure. I should be 
happy for him, not resentful. It was just a passing interaction. 
Then we sat down and talked, reminiscing about old times. 
We soon discovered that Josef had a serious concern of his own. 
"Last month this man-I do not dignify him by naming him- 
came and told me that whenever I hosted a tournament in my dojo
307 
I must pay eighty per cent of the money to the Judo Federation. I 
asked him why, and he said because otherwise my people would 
never get promoted. My ikkyus would not make shodan, my shodans 
would not make nidan, and I myself-!" He shook his head, bewildered. 
I frowned. "That's impossible. Promotions are handled by the 
Board and they are based on merit. No one pays for his belt; that 
would be completely contrary to everything judo stands for." 
"So I thought," he said. "I showed that man the door in a 
hurry. But last week my best student went for his promotion, well 
qualified, and they turned him down. And I talked with other 
senseis, and they say the same. They don't like it, but they pay, and 
then they have no trouble. I did not agree to pay, and-shall I 
show you my student? Do you want to see what he can do?" 
"No, I believe you," I said, troubled. I was privately certain 
that he had overrated his students. It is a measure of an instructor's 
success how his students perform, and naturally he believes in 
them-sometimes unrealistically. But to try to blame the promotions 
board-that was an ugly tactic, and it disturbed me fundamentally 
to see my friend do this. 
Josef perceived my skepticism, and said no more. The evening 
concluded on a subdued note. 
Back in the motor home, Susan spoke up. "That man was 
serious, Jason," she said. "He's caught between honor and the welfare 
of his students." 
"He can't be," I snapped. "Judo doesn't work that way. I've 
been in it long enough to know, and I've never seen such a thing." 
"Maybe you just don't want to hear of it," she said. "I've seen 
things happen, like tournament dates fixed to coincide so that 
each tournament loses half its contestants to the other, and preferential 
treatment by referees, bad calls-" 
"Listen, I don't let anyone badmouth judo!" I said, whirling on 
her. 
She didn't budge. "So I notice. But if you want the truth-" 
I was so angry I stomped out of the vehicle. But as I walked 

308 
alone in the dark, the doubt loomed larger. There are bad apples 
in any profession, even, alas, judo. Could someone have tried this 
kind of thing? The more I pondered it, the more it upset me. 
Finally I returned to Susan. She was sitting up in bed in the 
convertible dinette, looking so beautiful in her nightclothes that I 
was sorry I had ever argued with her. "I need some change for a pay 
phone," I said. 
Wordlessly she handed me a fistful of quarters. 
I phoned the secretary of the United States Judo Federation, 
whom I knew only by reputation. I did not give my name. "I just 
want to verify something," I said, and quickly sketched out the 
situation as Josef had presented it. 
There was a pause. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Who is 
making this complaint?" 
I started to answer, but froze. If I gave my name, the whole 
judo world would quickly know where I was, and I already had 
enough trouble. I had to keep my secret and get going on my 
private mission before word spread further. Most especially, I didn't 
want anyone knowing I was headed south. It might mean my life. 
"I can't tell you," I said lamely. 
"Well, what dojo was threatened?" 
Again I could not answer, lest I give myself away. 
"You expect me to believe an anonymous complaint?" the secretary 
inquired, his voice cold. 
Worse and worse! He was reacting exactly as I had, and I couldn't 
blame him. "I just want to verify that-" 
"There is nothing anonymous about my response," he said 
firmly. "I state categorically that no ranks are bought in judo, directly 
or indirectly. Not in America, not anywhere in the world. 
Not in Kodokan judo. The situation you describe would not be 
tolerated by the USJF. If anything of the kind were to come to my 
attention, I would investigate and take appropriate action immediately. 
I speak for myself and the USJF president. Send me a 
letter providing al the facts-the names and dates-and you will
309 
see how rapidly we satisfy you, if there is merit to your charge. But 
I will not accept anonymous denigration of our fine martial art." 
"Uh, thank you," I said, somewhat at a loss, but at the same 
time rather proud. This was the sort of response I subscribed to. 
In the morning I would tell Josef exactly how to resolve his 
dilemma. One letter with the facts to the secretary, and the whole 
sordid thing would be investigated. There would be a paper trail, 
what tournament money went where, and they would rout it out. 
Judo is an honest martial art; it cleans its own house. No 80% 
payoff can be tolerated, ever. No payoff of any amount. 
Meanwhile, Susan was waiting in that bed . . . 
* 
[Unwritten sequence: Jason and Susan go on to Miami, where 
they get faked up papers and changed appearances and head for 
Brazil, sneaking out of the USA so that enemies can't trace them.] 

CHAPTER 6: 
TWO PICTURES 
Our Catalina flying boat landed in the river near the city of 
Manaus. I saw the jungle close by, encroaching on river and city. 
"Jog your memory?" Susan inquired. 
"Not enough," I said. "I think I passed through here after the 
critical part, after my memory had been erased, and I wasn't here 
long, so it really doesn't count." 
[Enemy pursuit develops.] 
We fled up the Rio Negro, the Black River. I did not recognize 
the area, but since sections of my journey down had been overland, 
and much of my river travel had been while unconscious, 
that indicated nothing. 
[An airplane flies low to strafe them. The enemy is pulling out 
all the stops. They dive into the crocodile or piranha infested water 
and swim to shore, managing to make it through to an Indian 
tribe they befriend with gifts.] 
The Indians were wonderfully half primitive. The men had 
some modern western clothing, but not enough to go around. 
One wore trousers, with the top half of his body bare. Another 
had a soiled shirt, with the bottom half of his body bare. Some
311 
had loincloths, and most had tattoos in many colors covering many 
parts of torso, limbs, and head. Red paint was dabbed to beautify 
their genitals. They wore feathers in their hair. 
The women, in contrast, were big-eyed, innocent, and bare. 
The hair of their heads was long and black; they had no hair elsewhere. 
They were not old in years, but age comes rapidly to primitives. 
Women of 20 or so were already saggy of breast. Only the 
dawningly nubile girls of thirteen or so were pretty. 
Could this be the tribe whose harem I had-? No, impossible; 
I didn't recognize any of them, and they didn't recognize me. Probably 
the episode had never happened. I hoped it had never happened! 
Yet it was one of my few leads to the Black Castle. 
[But Mirabal's men soon catch up and invade the village, indiscriminately 
slaughtering men, women, and children. In the 
melee they save the life of a half-breed Indian who speaks English; 
grateful, he leads Jason and Susan to shelter in a house in the 
village of a secret tribe he knows, where no intruder can penetrate. 
It seems that the only reason these two white fugitives are accepted 
there, for now, is that it is clear that the military men want 
them dead. The enemy of their enemy just might be a friend. If 
not-it will be easy to kill the two. So the danger is hardly over.] 
"This is horrible!" Susan exclaimed. "They don't care who they 
hurt!" 
"This is the way it has always been," the guide said grimly. "It 
is what we expect from the white man." 
"But you have a white parent," I said, perhaps tactlessly. "If 
the natives hate the white raiders-" 
He glanced briefly at me. "Such liaisons are not always voluntary 
on the part of the natives." 
"Not-?" 
"Rape," Susan murmured. 
Oh. Unable to figure out anything to say, I turned and looked 
at the wall. There were two pictures on it, and they immediately 
compelled my attention. 
The first picture showed a young man with regular features, 

312 
handsome, distant eyes, in the uniform and helmet of a Brazilian 
military officer. I was a amazed to see such a representation here, 
obviously well cared for. 
The second picture showed two ancient Indians seated side by 
side with sunken eyes, deeply wrinkled faces, similar in their piercing 
gaze. 
"What do you make of them?" the guide inquired. Now there 
were several armed natives with him. They seemed expectant, but 
I wasn't sure about what. Something was in the offing, and I hoped 
it wasn't a brutal game of turnabout, with Susan suffering the 
rape. We could fight if we had to, but we were both tired, and 
would be unable to find our way out of the jungle even if left 
alone. We needed the support of these people, not their enmity. 
Yet the Indians did not seem menacing, just waiting. I realized 
that this was some kind of a test, and my reaction might have 
serious repercussions, for good or ill. I had to say the right thing- 
and I had no idea what that might be. 
Honesty seemed to be the best policy. So I confessed my ignorance. 
"I don't understand," I said. "The first could be one of the 
soldiers who hunts you, rapes your women, burns your villages. 
Though he has some Indian blood, I think. While the second-" 
I broke off. "Wait, there is something-" I squinted at the second 
picture. "Something familiar about one of the-he's part white, 
isn't he! And he-the physique, the lines of the face-that old 
man is the same as the young soldier!" 
The Indians relaxed. They might not speak my language, but 
they understood that I had made a key connection. That, it seemed, 
was good. 
"Marshall Candido Rondon," the guide agreed. "The greatest 
man of the western hemisphere. In youth-and age." 
I had never heard of him, and found myself embarrassed. But 
I soon learned, for this man in the pictures had probably just 
saved my life and Susan's freedom. Because I, an ignorant outsider, 
had in my fashion recognized him. 
Rondon was a half-caste Indian, born in 1865, died in 1958,
313 
founder of the Service for the Protection of the Indians, SPI. He came 
from the Mato Grosso, a huge jungle section next to Bolivia, served 
by the twin Amazon tributary rivers, the Xingu or River of Gold, and 
the Tapajos, River of Fevers, and bounded on the east by the Rio das 
Mortes, the river of Death. Gold, fever, and death-apt terms! 
Rondon's father had been a gold seeker, his mother a Guanas 
Indian. Both died by the time he was two, and he was raised by 
the Indians until adopted by his white uncle. He obtained an 
excellent education. As an adult he undertook to plant telegraph 
poles through the wilderness, so as to bring a measure of civilization 
there. This was a formidable undertaking; they had to carve 
paths through the jungle, and men died from disease. 
But the worst threat was from the Indians. "My people had 
been betrayed so often by the white man," the guide explained. 
"It was safest to kill him on sight." 
"But that would only bring more white men with guns," I 
protested. 
"Yes. But at least we died fighting." 
But Rondon instituted a radical new policy. "Don't kill the 
Indians," he said. And he enforced it. His men killed no Indians- 
even though Indians killed his men. He tried to pacify them with 
gifts and with great oaths of friendship. "I bring you peace," he 
said. And gradually his sincerity registered, and the Indians trusted 
him. He was, after all, partly of their blood. 
In the process Rondon traversed twenty thousand miles of 
jungle, learned ten Indian dialects, discovered fifteen new rivers, 
and became known as one of the greatest explorers of all time. The 
American president Teddy Roosevelt joined him in one adventure, 
and the two became friends. 
Rondon was a genuinely good man, revered by both the Indians 
and the Brazilian Congress. He founded the SPI. 
"The SPI!" another Indian spat, with the guide translating. 
"Service for the Prostitution of Indians!" 
I turned to him, confused. "If such a good man organized it, 
why do you hate it?" 

314 
They told me: almost from the first, without Rondon's knowledge, 
the SPI was perverted from its original purpose. Instead of 
protecting Indians, it became the apparatus for destroying them. 
Its three great principles were exploitation, starvation, and murder
-all under the guise of legitimizing, of helping the Indians. 
* 
[The text ends here, written December 7, 1975, with notes 
for coming scenes of torture, rape, and massacre as Mirabal's troops 
continue their pursuit. Jason Striker had not believed that mass 
killing continued to the present day, but he sees it happen. This 
was to be another example of honest history and sociology, included 
as background for these adventure novels. But our research 
stopped at this point.]
SUMMARY OF THE 
REMAINDER: 
Slowly, with much intrigue and violence, Jason Striker zeroes 
in on the dread Black Castle. The ruthless but politically powerful 
Mirabal has teamed up with the ninjas to monopolize the vast oil 
deposits located in the Amazon, and so the ninja influence now 
permeates both the jungle and the government of Brazil. In short, 
Jason faces a thoroughly formidable complex of enemies. The closer 
he gets to the Castle, the less his life is worth. Yet he persists. 
When he arrives, his memory becomes complete, and he knows 
at last what has been done to him, and the gigantic treachery that 
has been fashioned against modern civilization itself. For Fu Antos 
means to destroy contemporary society and reduce world population 
to the medieval level, subservient to the ninja castle. This 
project is well on its way to success. The Black Castle has been 
built on the site of ancient ruins; there is evidence of alien visitation 
from space, millennia ago. There are strange things here, and 
Fu Antos is reconstructing the secret science of these aliens, augmenting 
his own weird physical and mental powers fantastically. 
But Jason arrives just before the arrangements are complete, and 
now he knows Fu Antos to be his enemy, the one he must destroy. 
The timing is very bad for Fu Antos, who has been preoccu- 

316 
pied with other matters. Yet the ninja master, so young in appearance, 
has remarkable powers in his own right, and a shrewd four 
hundred year old mind. The code of the ninjas requires him to 
meet the man he has wronged in single combat to the death. But 
it is no ordinary combat. Fu Antos uses his ki to evoke the finest 
martial artists of all time to oppose Jason. They are mere simulations, 
but their threat is genuine, for of course behind these images 
is the highly skilled martial art of the ninjas. Jason must prevail 
in the most formidable challenge of his career, for these are not 
his equals but his superiors in combat. Only imagination, savage 
determination, and his own erratic but powerful ki get him through. 
Indeed, Jason's ki is one reason Fu Antos wants him dead, because 
Fu knows its potential. 
Balked on this level, Fu Antos pulls out all the stops. He evokes 
Jason's lost fiancee, the only woman he ever loved in his prior life. 
She tempts him and lies to him, unmanning him. And in separate 
but devastating nonphysical ways Fu Antos destroys Jason's more 
recent romantic interests, proving that they also have been deceiving 
him. For example, Dulce sold herself to Fu Antos. She did it to 
save Jason, whom she loves, but now it seems like a betrayal. And 
Susan, who befriended and seduced him during his amnesia, didn't 
tell him that she is a married woman, merely out for illicit adventure. 
She likes him, but she was always playing a game with him. 
They never had any future together, just dalliance that he would 
never have agreed to, had he known. Faced with these seeming 
betrayals, there seems to be no point in Jason's competing against 
this monstrous mentality. 
Now, in Jason's stunned confusion, Fu Antos deprives him of 
his ki and all his black belt skill. He reverts him to Caesar Kane, in 
effect, and has him completely at his mercy-and there is no mercy 
in him. But he still must meet Caesar in physical combat; Dulce 
insists on that, and she does have considerable influence, as she 
closely resembles the one woman Fu himself loved. Nevertheless 
the case seems hopeless for Jason. But Fu Antos makes one fatal 
oversight: he forgets that Jason now has completely separate white
317 
belt judo skills, learned during his amnesia in Florida. Even a white 
belt can be dangerous, especially against an overconfident opponent. 
Caesar overcomes Fu Antos by surprise. Then the subjugated 
Indians rise up and destroy the Black Castle and all its secrets. 
The curse of the ninja, like the curse of the voodoo god that 
operates in this area, has been abated-but its scars will remain as 
long as Jason Striker lives. 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 
When the authors entered into this Ninja subset of the series, 
they made it clear to the editor that the series should not be cut off 
at this point, because there would be no proper conclusion. The 
editor said there was no problem, because the series was selling 
well. But then he moved on, and a new editor took over-and it 
seems the first thing he did was decide that the series was not 
selling well, and he cut it off. This is typical of the behavior of 
editors; it's like the new ape male killing the offspring of the old 
male, so that all the cubs by this female will be his own. In this 
case there was more to it than that; the new editor had a grudge 
against Piers Anthony, and bounced everything of his he could 
reach, not caring about its quality or market potential. That attitude 
finally caught up with him, and cost him his position, but 
the damage was done. 
Thus this novel was cut off, and never published. Piers Anthony 
went on to best-sellerdom with Xanth and other fantasies, 
and Roberto Fuentes went on to became an insurance salesman in 
Miami. Now, more than a quarter century later, thanks to the 
Internet and electronic publication, this portion of Curse of the 
Ninja finally is available for readers. 
Elements of the novel were drawn from our own experience, 
adapted to the need. Jason's gall-bladder surgery derived from 

320 
Roberto's surgery of the time, except that Roberto's was a good 
deal more sanitary. The roofing job was from Piers' experience; 
when the roll of felt struck the ground, his wife thought it was him 
falling off the roof. The white belt sequences were Piers', and the 
instructors and other students were real people. For example, Piers 
was the one who was unable to turn over the white belt girl, even 
with the help of two brown belts. Piers' daughter Penny was in the 
class, and played herself in the novel. Susan was from Roberto's 
side, rather liberally adapted for story purposes; she never came to 
that Florida class. 
There was a lot of research for both of us. Here is an example 
of a note Piers wrote to Roberto: "You want Manaus in the novel, 
and I know why. Good place to show. But it is not on the Xingu 
river, which is where you want the Black Castle. While reading 
Green Hell [a research text on the area] I narrowed down the likely 
locations for the Castle to two: up the Xingu, and in the Acre 
province of Brazil. There are still-wild Indian tribes in each area. 
But the Xingu has unavigable rapids, so our boat convoy could 
not have approached the Black Castle as we described [in Amazon 
Slaughter] unless the Castle was downriver, or on some other river. 
Question is, is the Amazon/Jurua river navigable? There may be no 
navigable rivers penetrating into the deep hinterland. But my main 
reason for preferring the Jurua River is that up here, in Acre, not 
only are the remaining Indians more numerous and savage, it is 
also closer to the oil region and to the von Daniken Gold of the 
Gods region. Daniken says that in Equador, near the Santiage 
River-which is a tributary of the Maranon, which in turn flows 
into the amazon-is a system of monstrous squared-off caves that 
seem to have been fashioned by sobe ancient alien civilization. 
Other research indicates that von Daniken must be taken with a 
shovelful of salt; he never went to some of the places he claimed. 
So we could conjecture similar tunnels, perhaps interconnecting 
ones, that Fu Antos has discovered, and he has built the Black 
Castle over the entrance to this system. Also, our scene with the 
water flooding, in the last novel-there had to have been a higher
321 
source, with a steep incline, for that water to be dammed up and 
rush down. Near the Andes is best for that. So I argue for Acre." 
This shows the way we hashed over settings and scenes throughout 
the series; none of it was careless writing. 
The question of the corruption of Judo by the demand for 
most of tournament money was, unfortunately, a real one, accurately 
described here. We made an unofficial query about it to the 
American Judo headquarters, and got a response of exactly the nature 
described. But those who were being dunned were nervous 
about making a formal complaint, because justice is not always 
served by those in charge, as politics demonstrate the world over, 
and there could be serious consequences for any whistle-blower. 
We hoped that publication of this novel would help blow the lid 
off that scandal, but it didn't get published. 
We tried various other notions, doing chapter and summary, 
but none of them were accepted for publication. Accordingly, we 
are filling out this partial-novel volume with those other projects, 
in this manner completing our collaborative enterprises. Thus it 
least will give readers an idea of what doesn't get published. Editorial 
whim governs far more than most readers perhaps understand. 
The first of these, "Ki" is a short story featuring Hiroshi, the 
little aikidoist, in the time before the first novel, Kiai!, started. It 
was published in the June 1974 issue of VERTEX, a science fiction 
magazine. The second, "Beast of Betelgeuse," was accepted 
for publication by GALAXY, another science fiction magazine. But 
then the magazine was sold, a new editor took over, and of course 
the story was dumped. 

KI 
Clap two hands, Hiroshi thought, and there is sound. He clapped 
once, precisely, with two hands. There was sound. 
But what is the sound of one hand clapping? He made the motion 
with one open hand. There was no sound. 
But one hand with ki extended . . . 
Was there a ghostly sound? 
Hiroshi listened carefully. No, that was not the clap of one 
hand he heard. It was more distant, more urgent. It was the call of 
imperative need. 
0-Sensei, I go, he said in his mind. He stood, stepping into his 
wooden sandals at the edge of the tatami. He let the pleats of his 
black hakama skirt straighten, and walked serenely out of his dojo. 
His students did not even turn from their exercises, for the ways of 
their honored teacher were at times inscrutable. 
He walked down the narrow street, his sandals making no 
sound on the cobblestones. The houses were wooden, two and 
three stories high, gay and clean and individual. Some resembled 
pagodas, and here and there were small, pretty gardens with dwarf 
trees and oddly shaped shrubbery. The way was crowded now; the 
majority of the men and women hurrying by wore kimonos, but 
perhaps two in five were in the ugly new Western dress. Street 

324 
vendors hawked their wares with piercing cries, selling fish, shrimp 
and octopus. 
He arrived at the Tokyo airport ten minutes before the great 
jet was scheduled to take off. Most of the passengers had already 
boarded. A phenomenally fat man was just emerging from a rest 
room. 
Hiroshi walked down the passage to the door to the airfield. 
"Ticket, sir?" the guardian of the gate inquired. 
Hiroshi shrugged. "I travel to New York City, in America." 
"I know where New York is!" the man said testily. "But you 
have to have a ticket! And you'll have to take another flight; this 
one is sold out." 
Hiroshi shook his head gently, touching his wispy beard. "This 
flight is necessary." 
"Not without a ticket!" 
The huge man came up behind Hiroshi. The man was not 
actually tall, but he dwarfed the little teacher, who stood just five 
feet high and weighed one hundred pounds. "Kindly step aside, 
sir," the ticket-taker said abruptly to Hiroshi. "You are interfering 
with our last passenger, and the schedule-" 
"I regret I can not," Hiroshi said politely but firmly. 
"Old man-" the ticket-taker began ominously, not showing 
the deference due to age. Then a massive arm reached over Hiroshi's 
shoulder, and a fat hand oily with sweat balked the ticket-taker's 
action. 
"One moment, sir," the last passenger said. 
Hiroshi turned to face him. The man's bulk was vast-perhaps 
three hundred pounds-but he carried himself with power. 
He wore a kimono to accommodate his gross musculature, and 
sturdy sandals on his feet. He was in his middle or late twenties, 
with long black hair tied in a topknot. 
"I am Kiyokuni, sumo wrestler," he said. 
"Hiroshi, aikido." 
They bowed to each other formally, the large and the small. "I 
thought I recognized you, O-sensei, but I did not expect to find you
325 
in such a place as this," Kiyokuni said. "I have long wished to meet 
a teacher of your eminence." 
"On the contrary," Hiroshi demurred. "It is an honor to address 
an esteemed young member of the Yokozuna, the very highest 
league of wrestling. I have admired your career." 
"Sir, you must board!" the ticket-taker said urgently to the 
wrestler. "See, the fuel line has already been taken from the wings 
of the plane." 
They ignored him. "No career compares with yours, greatest 
of teachers," Kiyokuni said, deeply flattered. "I am bound for Hawaii, 
to give a sumo exhibition. But I would cancel it instantly to 
visit with you." 
"I regret I must travel to New York," Hiroshi said. "But another 
time-" 
There was the growing sound of the jet motors warming up. 
"Sir!" the ticket taker cried desperately. "The flight will leave without 
you!" 
"This airplane continues to America," Kiyokuni said. "My 
ticket is only to Hawaii, but if you would accept it-" 
"This is most kind of you," Hiroshi said, accepting it. 
"But your exhibition!" the ticket-taker cried over the roar of 
the engines. 
"Let it wait! I will take the next flight!" 
Hiroshi presented the ticket-taker with the ticket and went 
out to board the plane, cutting off further discussion. He found 
his seat and was strapped in just as the machine began to taxi 
down the strip. 
* 
They were airborne. He peered out of the window, intrigued 
by the view of the city. The plane circled, gaining altitude, then 
oriented east and moved out over the ocean. 
"This-this is a skyjack!" a nervous voice said. 
Hiroshi looked down the aisle. It was a Korean University stu- 

326 
dent, a short chubby swarthy peasant-type in a Mao jacket, holding 
a Nambu automatic pistol. The gun shook, but it was no less 
dangerous because of that. 
"Tell the pilot to take it to North Korea!" the hijacker said in 
bad Japanese. The side of his face twitched. 
The stewardess, pale but composed, turned. "Wait!" the man 
cried. He looked about wildly, and his gaze fell on tiny Hiroshi. 
"You, old man! You're my hostage! If they don't turn the plane, 
I'll-I'll shoot-stand up here!" 
Gravely Hiroshi stood up and sidled past the man on the adjacent 
seat, a horrified Caucasian tourist. Hiroshi was the least 
impressive figure of a man on the plane, physically, yet there was 
an aura of serenity about him that gave him stature. The gunman 
should have noticed. 
"You all see?" the hijacker cried, as though playing to an audience. 
"I'll shoot-I'll kill this feeble old man! So you just tell the 
pilot-and don't use the radio! North Korea!" 
The stewardess walked slowly toward the pilot's compartment. 
The gunman gestured violently to Hiroshi. "Right here in front of 
me! Closer!" 
Hiroshi came to stand facing him, looking very small and frail. 
He extended his ki, but the student's deathwish was so strong that 
no control was feasible at the moment. "It would be better not to 
do this," he said gently. 
"Shut up!" The gun jabbed at Hiroshi's chest. 
"Innocent people could be hurt," Hiroshi said as though establishing 
a point of order. "And I regret that I am unable to visit 
Korea at this time." 
"I'll shoot!" the man cried, jabbing again. 
So swiftly that no one saw his hand move, Hiroshi placed the 
fingers of his left hand on top of the pistol, pushing the barrel 
back. It was a slide-action weapon, and could not be fired in this 
position. Almost simultaneously his right hand shot forward, fingers 
stiffly extended. They struck the man's solar plexus with a 
force few would have believed.
327 
The watching passengers gasped as the hijacker crumpled, 
unconscious. The pistol was now miraculously in Hiroshi's hand. 
"I regret the necessity," he said to the others. "Please take this 
weapon to the pilot for safekeeping, and ask him to resume his 
scheduled route. We shall have to make this unfortunate youth 
comfortable." 
Someone took the gun, gingerly. Hiroshi squatted to attend to 
the injured man. He placed his hand on the hijacker's chest and 
extended his ki. "The pain of dying is more than this," he murmured. 
The eyes opened. "Then I don't want to die!" 
Hiroshi nodded wisely. "You will remain in Hawaii. I have 
need of your ticket." 
The youth fumbled in his pocket and brought out his ticket. 
It was to New York. "I-I never really wanted to go to Korea! It 
was life I hated, and I thought I would get killed. But now even 
jail seems sweet! Something inside me . . ." He touched his chest 
where Hiroshi's hand had rested. "Some strange power-you made 
me well!" 
"I merely showed the way," Hiroshi said. He returned to his 
seat as the ex-hijacker got up. There was a kind of glow on the face 
of each, reflected in the faces of the passengers. 
The copilot came down the aisle. "Who broke up the hijack?" 
he demanded. "There'll he a reward." 
People gestured to Hiroshi. "Please see that he is not punished 
unduly," Hiroshi said. "He needs medical attention, and is sorry 
for the misunderstanding." 
The copilot looked down at him. "So you're the one!" he said, 
not concealing his surprise. "Well, I can't promise, but I'll try. 
What's your name?" 
Hiroshi handed him his original ticket. "Kiyokuni," the pilot 
read from the envelope, making a note. "This name will make 
headlines all over the world, tomorrow!" 
But Hiroshi was already entering meditation. I am hanging by 
my teeth over an abyss, he thought, looking down into the level water 

328 
far below. He looked, and saw the ocean. "What is Zen?" a seeker 
inquires. What shall I answer? 
* 
But long before he had the answer the smoggy spires of New 
York, America, appeared. He put aside the problem with infinite 
patience and stepped down to wintry Kennedy Airport. 
"Your passport, sir," an official said in English. 
"It is very kind of you to inquire," Hiroshi replied in the same 
language, and walked on. 
The official chased after him, blocking his way. "I must check 
your passport!" 
"I much appreciate the offer," Hiroshi replied with consummate 
courtesy. "But I shall not put you to this trouble. I possess 
no passport." 
The man's mouth turned dour. "Then you'll go right back 
where you came from, old-timer!" 
Perceiving the man's distress, Hiroshi put a gentle hand on his 
white wrist. He extended his ki. The officer's belligerent countenance 
smoothed. Now he was at peace. 
Hiroshi took Route 78 west, walked across the Brooklyn 
Bridge, and went north on Broadway. He admired the glittering 
signs and imperative traffic. How like Japan! 
People stared at him, for it was a bitterly cold October afternoon, 
with a cutting wind swooping down the street, and he wore 
only his light shirt, dark skirt, and open wooden sandals. But the 
ki was about him, making him impervious. 
After three hours of walking, he turned into an alley. In 
America, he remembered, men did not relieve themselves on the 
public streets. It was always best to honor the foibles of the natives. 
Garbage cans overflowed, broken glass littered the path, and a 
stench rose from puddles of greasy water. This was a dark canyon 
between tall buildings. The alley was restful after the continuous
329 
blare and flash of the main street. And-his ki awareness guided 
him this way. 
A large black man jumped out from the shadow of a doorway. 
His hands closed about Hiroshi's thin neck. 
The little teacher calmly reached up and grasped the mugger's 
two thumbs, one in each hand. Very gently he turned his hands 
outward, carrying the thumbs along and breaking the choke. The 
mugger swore fiercely and fought, but the pressure was inexorable. 
In a moment the two thumbs broke. 
The man screamed, but Hiroshi extended his ki again and 
made the hands go numb. "Violence is unfortunate," he murmured 
regretfully. "It is an insufficient response to the prior wrongs 
done you and your people. Go to the police; they will treat your 
injury and confine you until your drug addiction is gone. Do not 
accept the first probationary position you are offered, or the second, 
for they will lead you into inadvertent temptations. The third 
will seem intolerable, a thing of no pride, but that is the one you 
must take. In three years we shall meet again, in better circumstances." 
He walked on down the alley, the mugger staring after him. 
Hiroshi's students sometimes came to him by devious routes, but 
he had not before recruited in a New York alley. 
At dusk an hour later he reached the southern fringe of Central 
Park. He entered it through the "Artist's Gate," passing under 
the gaze of Simon Bolivar, to whom he made a little bow of greeting.
Inside he turned right, admiring the trimmed hedges near the 
path like any other tourist. Despite the cold, there were some blue 
and pink flowers. The lights were coming on in the buildings adjacent 
to the park, giving the effect of a Chinese Wall of immense 
proportion surrounding this lush valley, with illuminated mountains 
beyond. There was not a prettier spot this instant in all Japan, 
he thought appreciatively. 
Now he came to the Pond, where great flocks of birds abounded. 
He was thirsty after his hours of travel, so stopped to drink of its 

330 
water. There was no refreshment available to man to match that of 
water after thirst! 
A policeman riding a horse saw him. "Don't drink from that, 
mister!" the officer bawled, alarmed. "It's polluted!" 
Hiroshi stood up and made a bow. "I thank you for your gracious 
warning. But there is no danger." 
The policeman looked at him a moment. "Hey-don't I know 
you from somewhere?" 
Hiroshi spread his hands. "I am a visitor to your fair city." 
The officer shook his head as if trying to nail an elusive memory, 
then decided this was a harmless nut. He rode on, his beautiful 
horse snorting in the chill. 
Hiroshi had been aware of the toxicity of the water. But his ki 
protected him, neutralizing the adverse bacteria and pollutants. 
He would not suffer. 
He continued on around the Pond, then north, not hurrying. 
He passed the small zoo, now closed for the night, and came to the 
Mall. He inclined his head to the bust of each famous man beside 
it, politely. He came at last to the Lake, skirting it to reach the 
Ramble, a wooded hill to the north. The night was now advanced, 
and few people remained in the park. The aimless, hidden paths of 
the Ramble were forbidding in the heavy shadows, but he walked 
quickly into the thick of it, following his ki. 
There was a feminine scream near at hand. Hiroshi stepped 
toward it, unsurprised. Two white men were holding a struggling 
black girl under a lamp. They wrestled her down as Hiroshi approached, 
one sitting astride her head and pinning her arms while 
the other pried at her legs. 
"Please free the girl and depart in peace," Hiroshi said. 
The man on her head looked up at Hiroshi, startled, then 
contemptuous. "Get outa here you little queer before we do the 
same to you!" 
"I regret I must insist," Hiroshi said. "The young lady does 
not wish to participate." 
The other man got his hands on her panties and pulled
331 
them down. The girl twisted her body desperately, and the top 
man slapped her hard across the face. "Don't give me no trouble, 
nig-" 
Hiroshi had drawn alongside, extending his ki. He seized the 
hair of the speaking man and turned the head upward. The rapist's 
mouth opened involuntarily. Hiroshi delivered a knuckle blow to 
the nerve center between the ear and the upper hinge of the jaw. 
The man screamed in agony and fell away. 
The other man jumped up, drawing a knife from a leg sheath. 
He was naked below his flapping shirt, but that hardly inhibited 
him. He lunged, the knife held low, going for the gut. 
Hiroshi's left hand moved like the head of a striking snake, 
sweeping the knife-arm outwards. His right hand, dangling open 
and loose, whipped against the man's exposed anatomy. It was a 
devastating strike that knotted the rapist into a ball of agony. It 
would be a long time before he recovered either the ability or the 
will to rape again. 
The girl scrambled up, wide-eyed. Hiroshi bowed, unruffled. 
"I regret I employed excessive violence in the presence of a lady. I 
shall have to meditate upon that flaw in my nature. But I trust 
you are well?" 
She looked at his sandals, his skirt, and his oriental countenance. 
She was terrified. "Please-let me go!" 
Hiroshi extended his ki once more. "I am Hiroshi, humble 
teacher of aikido, a system of meditation and self defense. This is 
my practice costume, the dogi. I heard your distress and came to 
help. I do not mean to alarm you; as you can see, I am an old man 
and quite harmless." 
That last seemed laughable. Hiroshi was sixty, but hardly harmless. 
The leading specialists of the world's leading martial arts- 
karate, judo, wrestling, kung-fu and others-had encountered the 
little sensei in past decades and departed with thoroughgoing respect 
for his physical and mental prowess. Aikido was no mean 
discipline, and he was the leading practitioner of his time. 
Nevertheless, what he said was true. He was a man of peace, 

332 
and considered himself primarily a teacher. When force was required, 
he employed it, but only as a necessary resort, and then 
with genuine regret. 
The girl had no way of knowing this. But his ki reached out, 
pacifying her, and her fear abated. "I-I'm sorry," she said. "I was 
driving across the park on the transverse road, and my motor quit. 
I-these men offered to help, but before I knew it-" 
"We shall go to your car," Hiroshi said. "Perhaps it is feeling 
better now." 
It did not occur to her to argue. They walked north toward 
the road. "I had to deliver some important papers, and my apartment 
was just across the park," she said, her tension making her 
speak rapidly. "They were for tomorrow's session-I work at the 
UN-I just don't know what happened to my car-it wasn't out 
of gas. You're Japanese, aren't you?" 
"I am." Her car was just past one of the underpass tunnels 
employed to keep transverse traffic clear of the park proper. 
"It just stopped," she repeated. "And wouldn't start. I ran down 
the battery trying to-" 
Hiroshi put his hand on the hood. He extended his ki, seeking 
rapport with the needs of the motor. "Please try once more," he 
said.
"I told you-the battery's dead!" But she tried the starter. 
Some power had regenerated during her absence. The motor 
struggled over, once, twice-and caught. 
"It's running!" she cried unnecessarily. 
The sound of horse's hooves approached. The mounted policeman 
came up. "Lady, don't park here!" he cried. "The park's 
dangerous at night-don't you know that?" 
She began to laugh, hysterically. Hiroshi walked around the 
car and put his hand on hers, and she calmed. "It's all right, officer!" 
she said. "It stalled, but he fixed it somehow. And-" 
"Merely coincidence," Hiroshi said. "I know nothing of motors." 
The policeman squinted down at him. "You again! If you're 
molesting this woman-"
333 
"No, no!" she cried. "He's my friend! Let me give you a ride, 
Mr. Hiroshi!" 
"I am most grateful," Hiroshi said. "But this is not the favor I 
require from you. Please go your way." 
"Get moving, lady!" the officer brayed. 
She drove off. 
The policeman stared at him. "Hiroshi, she called you. I know 
that name! Thought I placed you! Aikido!" 
Hiroshi bowed. "It is of no importance." 
The man jumped down from his horse. "I'm taking you into 
the station! Come along now-" 
Hiroshi's motion was so slight as to seem insignificant, but it 
was the policeman's arm that ended in the submission lock, not 
the little teacher's. 
"Hey-do that again!" the man exclaimed as Hirosbi released 
him. "Slow motion!" 
He reached for Hiroshi's arm again, slowly, and the sensei made 
his move again, slowly. "You must use your opponent's ki against 
him," Hiroshi explained. "Then he defeats himself." 
"You are him! That's what I wanted to know! I saw your picture 
in the book when I studied the comealongs. The top man 
since the founder died! But we have so many kooks around here, I 
just had to check. How come you're in New York?" 
"I have minor business here," Hiroshi said. "I am glad you 
have profited from my book." 
"Hey, the chief 'll want to meet you! You're just about the 
toughest fighter in the world, aren't you?" 
"The mental discipline is far more important than the physical, 
and the peaceful solution is always best." 
"Not around here it isn't!" the officer said jovially. "These 
muggers and perverts-oh, you mean the ki. Well, I never did 
understand about that, much. But I heard you can do things with 
your mind, like telepathy. That right?" 
"I do no more than you could do, with proper training," Hiroshi 

334 
said. "Ki is inherent in everyone. I regret I can not visit your chief 
at this time." 
"Okay," the policeman said regretfully, remounting. "I sure 
won't try to tell you what do do! But watch yourself around the 
park, will you? It's a rough beat!" 
Hiroshi bowed. "I shall do so, sir." 
The man trotted off with a friendly wave. Hiroshi walked south 
along the pleasant paths. 
He came again to the little zoo, and climbed over its wall. 
Inside was a large plaster whale with a wide-open mouth. Goldfish 
swam in a glass aquarium inside it. He climbed in and curled up 
on the whale's tongue, sheltered from the bitterly cold wind, and 
relaxed. 
I am hanging over a pit of wild tigers, he thought. Only the rope 
about my waist sustains my weight. A beaver is gnawing on that rope. 
I see some wild berries growing on the fringe of the pit, just within 
reach. I pick one as the last strand parts . . . 
His eyes closed and he felt warm all over as he drifted to sleep. 
How sweet it tastes! 
* 
The sweet taste of the berry remained in his mouth as he woke. 
Dawn was near; attendants would be arriving soon. He climbed 
out of the whale, turned to make a formal bow to it, then climbed 
nimbly out of the zoo. 
He was hungry, despite the berry. He had not eaten since 
leaving the airplane. But his business was now too urgent to permit 
further loss of time, and fasting was good for the spirit. He 
drank again from the Pond and proceeded on out of the park, 
south on Fifth Avenue, admiring the glittering stores, then east on 
42nd Street. 
First he saw the massive Secretariat Building, with its phenomenal 
expanse of glass. Then he saw the wide plaza and the row 
of flags of all the member nations; Japan's was the most beautiful.
335 
He entered the General Assembly Building's main lobby, locating 
the Information Desk. 
There was the girl he had saved from a fate worse than rape. 
"Mr. Hiroshi!" she exclaimed, her dark face lighting. Then her 
mouth tightened, for she did not want her employers to know 
about the park incident. 
"If it is not too much to ask," Hiroshi said, inclining his head 
politely, "I should like to attend the General Assembly meeting." 
"No trouble at all, Mr. Hiroshi!" she said, flustered. "We have 
regular tours!" 
"I do not wish the visitor's tour. I must attend with the delegates." 
"You don't understand, Mr. Hiroshi!" she protested. "No visitors 
are allowed on the assembly floor during a business session. 
You would have to have a special pass." She paused. "Or is that 
what you mean?" 
Hiroshi nodded. "It is necessary." 
She bit her lip. "After what you did look, I-please don't tell 
anyone! I wouldn't do this for anyone else in the world, but- 
here's a pass for the guest of a delegate. I'm sure this one won't be 
used today. I'd lose my job if-" 
"This is most kind of you," Hiroshi said, accepting. 
He entered the main assembly hall with the delegates, his pass 
clearing the way past the guard. It was like an amphitheater inside, 
with many rows of chairs. He peered up at the huge, tall 
dome admiringly. "What a magnificent dojo!" he murmured, thinking 
of his own small practice hall. 
He made his way to the Cuban delegation. "Please," he said to 
the delegate in Spanish. "May I speak to the exile?" 
The man faced him, displeased. "There is no Cuban traitor 
here, se�or! Only true Revolutionaries. And I do not believe I know 
you." 
"I must apologize for the misunderstanding," Hiroshi said 
humbly. "I thought perhaps the man entered as your guest." 
"No guest! If someone is using my pass-" 

336 
Hiroshi laid down his guest pass. The delegate's face became 
grim. "This is mine! Who-?" 
"I fear he means mischief. Would you be so kind as to contact 
your office and ascertain-?" 
"I shall certainly check it out!" the man said angrily, picking 
up the pass. "This should never have been issued!" 
Now Hiroshi moved to the Japanese delegation and took a 
seat. The delegate looked at him and did a doubletake. "Are you 
not Hiroshi, the aikido sensei?" he asked in Japanese. "What brings 
you here?" 
"This is not readily explained." 
The man frowned. "Sensei, I have the utmost respect for your 
motives. But you can not remain here. This is the United Nations, 
and an important session is about to begin. If you will go to my 
office in the Secretariat Building, I will speak to you as soon as I 
can."
Hiroshi only smiled-and remained. Seeing that he would 
not be moved, the delegate put the best face on it and let him be. 
The President of the General Assembly called the meeting to 
order. 
A wild-haired man barged in, pursued by two guards. He 
charged toward the Speaker's rostrum. Suddenly he stopped, 
whirled about, and gestured at the guards. "Killers!" he cried in 
high-pitched Spanish. "Shoot! You can't touch me!" 
Both guards drew their guns and fired. The noise was deafening. 
But the bullets went up into the dome-shot after shot, until 
the guns were empty. 
Then there was silence. Astonishment and dismay showed on 
the faces of the two guards, and in the assembly. 
The Speaker was furious. "What is the meaning of this?" he 
cried in French. Hiroshi heard the English translation in his earpiece. 
"Shut up!" the intruder cried, still in Spanish. 
More guards rushed in. "Remove this man!" the Speaker said.
337 
It was obvious that neither he nor the intruder understood the 
other, but their tones made their meanings clear. 
One of the first two guards hurled his pistol at the Speaker. 
The missile missed, crashing into the glass-enclosed floor where 
the press and translators worked with such force that it cracked 
the unbreakable glass. Spiderwebs ran in all directions from the 
center of impact. 
The intruder climbed to the Speaker's rostrum. "Shut up, all 
of you!" he cried again. "I am Mario Garcia! I am a slan, a clear, 
and the true President of Free Cuba, and now you all listen to me!" 
The delegates, shocked, listened to their earpieces, hearing his 
words in one of the five official languages. But many did not get 
the word, because the strike at the translators' booth had brought 
a number of the translators to their feet, gaping. The six reinforcement 
police stood unmoving, while the President and his staff 
quietly cleared out. Only the news-hungry television camera crew 
kept operating, broadcasting it all. 
"I am the only sane man in the world!" Garcia cried into the 
mike. He was a tall, thin, nervous young man with very light hair 
and reddish white skin, almost albino. His eyes were blue and 
seemed weak, not tracking properly, though he was not wearing 
glasses. "I am the only one fit to rule, so you'll have to make me 
King of the world!" 
No one answered. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone 
else's initiative, with many shaking their heads in bewilderment. 
Even the English translation was out of commission now; but that 
made no difference to Hiroshi. He watched the wild young man 
closely, studying his every move. 
"I am a Doctor of Scientology!" Garcia cried. "And a black belt 
in judo! And founder of the SLF! Now elect me King of the world- 
or I'll destroy you along with the Communists!" 
Still no one replied, and the guards remained strangely inactive. 
There was an increasing murmur among the delegates. Hiroshi 
rose and walked toward the Cuban delegation. 
"See, I'll show you!" Garcia said, gesturing with both his arms. 

338 
"I control metal. I have telekinesis! I have telepathy! I am a slan! 
You are powerless against me!" 
The Cuban delegate spied Hiroshi and gestured him close. 
"Se�or, you were right!" he whispered, tapping his scribbled notes. 
"I called my office, and we have a file on this madman. His mother 
was a santera, that espiritismo cult. His mind became unhinged 
when his family lost its ill-gained fortune, and he became a traitor 
to his country and left Cuba. How did you know he was here?" 
"The ki led me," Hiroshi said, not quibbling about definitions. 
To the Castro government of Cuba, anticommunist was interchangeable 
with traitor. "Please-more information?" 
"You can do something?" The delegate paused, alarmed, as 
the remaining guards fired a volley into the dome. "The madman 
I comprehend; he is mad! But what is the matter with guards?" 
"It is necessary first to understand Garcia," Hiroshi said gently. 
"Yes!" The delegate brushed back his dark hair. "I made notes 
from the telephone. Garcia is from a volatile family, but he is highly 
intelligent. Good marks at Havana University, but he left in midterm 
to study something called 'Scientology' and seems to have 
done well there too. And judo, despite a sickly nature and bad 
eyesight. First degree black belt, before dropping out. Some experience 
with LSD, but he doesn't seem to be a drug addict. Apparently 
he has tremendous drive, but little staying power-apart 
from his madness." 
Hiroshi nodded. "So the credits he claims are accurate. But 
what is this 'SLF' he names?" 
"There's something about that too. He is a science fiction enthusiast
-a 'fan.' He founded a club-" he leafed through his notes, 
finding the place. "Here: 'Slans Lunatic Fringe,' devoted to the 
works of A. E. van Vogt, L. Ron Hubbard, and others of the type. 
Nonsense." 
"On the contrary, se�or!" Hiroshi said warmly. "This is relevant. 
You have told me that he is honest, and has studied aspects
339 
of the occult powers of the mind. Mad he may be, but his power is 
real."
He moved up the aisle between the chairs, toward the dais, 
leaving the confused delegate behind. 
Garcia was still demonstrating his control. "All metal! All the 
world runs on metal, doesn't it? So I am master already!" He glared 
about. "You!" he cried, pointing at the delegate from Holland. 
"You are convinced now?" 
Someone whispered a translation. The man shook his head 
scornfully. 
"Your metal watch!" Garcia said. "I lift it, thus:" The man's 
left hand jerked up. "And over-thus!" The man's fist smashed 
into his own jaw. He fell back in his seat, his lip bleeding. "Now 
do you believe?" Garcia yelled triumphantly. 
The man looked at his watch, then back at Garcia. The shock 
in his face was answer enough. 
"I can as readily make the guns of the guards kill you!" Garcia 
continued. "I can rip out the metal girders of this building and 
bring the vault down about your heads! There is no limit to my 
power! I am the world's first true Clear!" 
Hiroshi extended his ki. It met the powerful, aberrant force of 
the Cuban, related to ki but lacking its restraint. Ki was akin to 
the force and goodness of the human spirit, while Garcia's variant 
derived from frustration and insanity. In a more devious respect, 
the two complemented each other as evil complemented good. 
"Now make me King of the world!" Garcia cried again to the 
group. "Before I destroy you all!" 
Hiroshi approached him, knitting his fingers in the kuji-kiri 
exercise. "I regret this is impossible," he said politely. "Please desist 
and come with me." 
"You dare?" Garcia demanded with a quiver, his eyes watering 
as he focused on the little man. "I'll bash your head in with your 
own watch!" 
Hiroshi held up his wrists, continuing the hypnotic kuji-kiri 
motions. He wore no watch, no bracelet, no ring. 

340 
"I'll shoot your own coins into your eyes!" 
Hiroshi shook his head. "I have no money." He was very close 
now, his fingers working in marvelously intricate patterns. 
Garcia tore his gaze away from those fingers. "You'll still die!" 
He gestured to a guard, and the man's gun leveled. 
Hiroshi extended his ki. This was why he had saved it, using 
the finger-hypnotism instead. He could not use his ki in two ways 
simultaneously, and could not match the sheer raw power of the 
youth. But he could begin to rein in Garcia hypnotically, while 
using his ki to interfere with the man's paranormal control. Just a 
little jog of the gunman's elbow, as it were, as he fired . . . 
The gun went off. The shot went wide. It had worked! "I, too, 
am a kind of clear," Hiroshi said softly. He was not familiar with 
the term, but that did not matter. 
Garcia stared-into the winding fingers. "You lie, you little 
Jap!" But he must have felt the ki interference, and he sounded 
uncertain. 
One of the thrown pistols lay in the dais. Hiroshi picked it 
up. "I control this metal. Take it-if you can." 
Challenged specifically, Garcia concentrated. His force leaped 
out, surrounding Hiroshi, tearing at his control. If he could take 
over, Hiroshi was lost. But that power was untrained and unruly, 
not focused to best advantage. Hiroshi hung on, his ki extended to 
the utmost. He had never before braved an attack such as this! 
The gun quivered, but did not leave his hand. He had withstood 
the storm. 
"Now I shall move it," Hiroshi said, as though he had never 
felt the struggle. His hand flicked. The gun flew off to the side, 
and struck the lifting weapon of another guard. Both guns dropped 
to the floor. 
With an incoherent scream, Garcia jumped at Hiroshi, his 
hands stiffened for deadly blows. That was his mistake. No man 
who knew Hiroshi would have tried such an attack. 
The little sensei caught one arm, lifted it, and hit under Garcia's
341 
armpit with his thumb. Then he applied a submission lock on the 
man's arm. 
Garcia screamed with pain. Guns, coins and watches flew up 
all over the room, but Hiroshi's ki was spread out in a thin interference 
pattern that prevented accurate attack from that quarter. 
He held the grip. 
All fight left the would-be king of the world. "You are a clear!" 
he muttered brokenly. 
"Merely proper discipline," Hiroshi said modestly, maintaining 
the grip. 
In a moment a crowd formed about them. "Congratulations!" 
the President of the General Assembly exclaimed, an interpreter 
standing beside him and rendering it into English almost simultaneously. 
"You subdued the madman!" 
Hiroshi shook his head. "Not mad, merely misunderstood. 
He has no power over metal. Only over people. He did not realize 
that himself, or he would have had far more power than he showed. 
Still, it is a wonderful ki he employs, deserving of scrupulous study. 
I shall see that this occurs." 
"We'll throw the book at him!" a guard cried. "Making us 
shoot up the assembly hail-" 
But the Cuban and Japanese delegates interceded, Communist 
and Capitalist standing shoulder to shoulder on this issue. 
"This man deserves whatever reward he asks," the Cuban said. 
"He saved our lives!" 
"He is Hiroshi, the world's leading aikido sensei," the Japanese 
said. "No lesser man could have stopped Garcia-and no police 
can control Garcia now. Let Hiroshi take this man wherever he 
wishes; what jail could hold him?" 
No one could argue with that. "It was I who borrowed your 
visitor's pass," Hiroshi confessed to the Cuban. "I regret the necessity, 
and fear the information girl will be blamed." 
"I shall demand her promotion!" the man said earnestly. "That 
madman's plan was full of holes. He could never have been king of 

342 
the world, but he could have killed many of us and complicated 
the international situation perilously, if you hadn't been here!" 
There was the clamor of Babel as everyone tried to question 
and congratulate simultaneously in scores of languages. The President 
was trying to reestablish order, futilely. In the confusion, 
Hiroshi escaped with his charge. 
The trip to Japan was simplified by the complete cooperation 
of governments and airlines, but complicated by Hiroshi's need to 
maintain surveillance over Garcia. If the man ever realized the extent 
of his power and used it effectively, he would never again be 
confined. Only one place was secure, and that was where Garcia 
had been destined from the moment Hiroshi responded to the 
message of ki, could he have known. 
They went to the Japanese Isle of Hokkaido, into chill mountainous 
wilds. Fierce Ninjitsu warriors watched, but recognized 
Hiroshi, and did not challenge him. 
Inside an ancient castle, in a bleak bare chamber, a longbearded, 
emaciated man of about ninety sat cross-legged. The eyes 
were shrunken and sightless, the ears deaf, the movements so slow 
as to suggest idiocy, and an odor of putrefaction rose from the 
shriveled body. 
Hiroshi bowed. "O-Sensei Fu Antos, I have answered your call," 
he said with unfeigned respect, though his action and words were 
superfluous. "Here is a talent for study." 
Ki reached out from the ancient, far more powerful than 
Hiroshi's own. Garcia stiffened and looked about, frightened- 
and the pressure of his containment eased. The blind dumb head 
inclined. The talent was worthy. 
Hiroshi bowed again and backed away, alone. The relief was 
vast. What would he have done, had Fu Antos not acceded? Now 
his mission was done. 
A day later, still exhausted, he returned to his dojo. His students 
crowded about, forgetting themselves in their eagerness to 
learn of his adventures. They were powerful athletes and ranking
343 
practitioners of the martial arts, but before him they were like 
children. 
"A few necessary errands," was all the weary sensei would say as 
he sat on the floor in his accustomed spot. 
One student held a newspaper whose headline screamed of 
New York and paranormal talents. He looked at Hiroshi and shook 
his head, resigned. Would any student ever master even a tiny 
fraction of the spirit and power and humility this wizened little 
mystic possessed? What was ki, after all? 
It was a question Hiroshi himself longed to have answered. 
Clap two hands, he thought, and there is sound . . . 

BEAST OF BETELGEUSE 
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears, what sound does it 
make? 
Hiroshi sat in the Lotus posture, meditating-on the daily 
newspaper. The bold strokes of the Japanese symbols slashed down 
the page, telling of the recent wave of crime. Illegal gambling, 
prostitution, and narcotics were flourishing, and in seeming response 
the stock market was roaring. What did it mean? 
His eyes focused beyond the printed page, peering at the cause 
behind the effect. For crime was an effect, the result of a chain of 
indignities to the human condition, rooted ultimately in a seeming 
defect in the nature of man. Hiroshi had meditated many 
times on the paradox of imperfection flowing from perfection, a 
perfect Supreme Deity creating imperfect man, and had come to 
no conclusive answer. Perhaps man was put on Earth to earn his 
redemption, as a good sword was tempered by the fire. If so, the 
effort seemed to be failing. 
But this was more than the usual corruption. Crime was becoming 
powerful, organized, disciplined, imaginative. Where was 
the guiding force? 
Hiroshi perceived it now. It was the Yakuza, the long-time 
criminal gangs of Japan. Somehow one of the gangs had multi- 

346 
plied its power in the last few months, emerging paramount. Now 
it was extending its sticky fingers into formerly legitimate enterprises, 
investing its ill-gotten profits in solid commercial ventures. 
This process was already so far advanced that the Yakuza was on 
the way to the financial domination of Japan itself-something no 
gang had ever been able to do before. The takeover was proceeding 
so swiftly, smoothly, silently, and efficiently that no one had 
sounded the alarm. 
Hiroshi was not a politician or business man, but he cared 
about basic rightness and proportion. This was part of his philosophy 
of Zen. Meditation was good, but sometimes it became necessary 
also to act. 
So he acted. He opened his mind to commune with his ancient 
master of martial arts, Fu Antos, Lord of the Ninjas. 
COME. The summons rang like the clarion of temple bells 
inside Hiroshi's mind. 
And so Hiroshi came. North from the great metropolitan area 
of industrial Japan. He journeyed by fishing boat to the port city 
of Sapporo, then by mule cart to the northern wilds of the interior 
of the island Hokkaido. He was a little old man with a serene 
countenance who paid scant attention to obstacles, to the perplexity 
of those he encountered along the way. He walked through the 
wilderness, climbing ever higher, his bare feet relishing the earth 
and grass beneath. He wore only a thin black silk kimono with 
trousers underneath; he had removed his geta or wooden sandals 
lest they be damaged in the roughening terrain. 
As he ascended, the warm fall weather became cold, the sky 
darkened, thunder sounded, and a freezing rain started to fall. Yet 
he continued, his lightly bearded face tranquil; his interior power 
of ki kept him warm. He arrived, in a remarkably short time, at 
the ancient, rundown Black Castle of the Ninjas. 
It was a ruin, its cyclopean stones tumbled in disarray, its 
once-proud moat half filled in. He negotiated the difficult causeway 
through the surrounding marshes, entered the collapsing main
347 
gate, and passed through the hoary dark halls until he penetrated 
to the nethermost chamber. 
Here the light of a single taper high on a wall cast a dim radiance 
across the bleak dank stone. In the center, on a simple tatami 
or reed mat, sat the incredible old Lord of the Ninjas, Fu Antos. 
His legs were withered and useless; he had not walked in twenty 
years, or moved from this self-imposed prison. He looked and 
smelled somewhat like a week-old corpse. Yet there was an amazing 
aura of power about him that made him the most remarkable 
man of recent centuries. Hiroshi could actually perceive a faint 
luminous field around the hunched figure, startlingly like the haloes 
in Christian pictures of saints. Yet Fu Antos was no Christian, 
and certainly no saint. 
"O-Sensei," Hiroshi said respectfully. 
Fu Antos acknowledged with twitches of his skeletal fingers in 
the ninja kuji-kiri hypnotic pattern. Hiroshi entered the trance 
willingly, for it was the old man's only remaining means of specific 
communication. The chamber seemed to change, becoming darker, 
as though night had fallen and deprived it of even the smallest 
leakage of outside light. The lone candle glimmered low. That was 
all, for a time; the decrepit man sat with his sunken orbs turned 
upward as if staring through the massive walls and indeed the 
entire castle to the stars beyond. Now those lights appeared, at 
first a faint patina on the rough ceiling, then the full night sky. 
The stars in their myriad glory bathed the chamber, and the great 
Milky Way stood out bright and clear: so many stars, so distant, 
that they became no more than a pale white wash. What secrets 
lay beyond that awesome firmament? 
Fu Antos contemplated the oneness of the universe, the great 
nothingness. He had achieved Satori, or enlightenment, a oneness 
with Buddha, and was immersed in the sheer beauty of it. 
Suddenly a bright streak developed, much more than a shooting 
star, much closer, like a bolt of lightning yet more disciplined. 
This dazzling display illuminated the room as if it were day, though 
there was no window. Immediately it faded, and there was a tre- 

348 
mendous impact that shook the castle and the entire mountain 
range within which it stood. A sonic boom as of thunder passed 
deafeningly. The few attendant ninjas woke in alarm. 
Tanaka, in charge of the castle, also Fu Antos' chief jailer, rushed 
down to check on his lord. "Yes I remain alive," Fu Antos said 
through his fingers, irritably. "Almost I thought the bolt from 
heaven had come to release me from this prison of a body in which 
you hold me, but the joy of transformation is not yet." 
Relieved, Tanaka made as if to bring food and a sanitary facility 
(an old pot) for his master, but Fu Antos stopped him with the 
peremptory lift of one little finger. "This is a thing of awful import. 
Take three men and investigate." 
"A meteorite," Tanaka protested, for he had had an education 
in the outside world. "Impossible to locate at night-and for what 
reason? It will not fly away again." 
"Do you debate with me?" Fu Antos' fingers demanded. "It is 
no meteorite. Go, before-" 
There was a second burst of light, brighter than before, and 
again the castle shook. A stone dislodged from the corner of the 
ceiling and crashed to the floor, throwing off a spark of its own. 
The sound of a colossal explosion reverberated through the castle 
chambers. 
"Too late," Fu Antos signaled. "Go, then, in the morning." 
Tanaka bowed and hurried off to check the shaken castle. It 
had been well constructed in Fu Antos' youth, almost four hundred 
years before, but such jarring was not good for it. 
* 
Next day Tanaka led his three ninjas through the mountain 
forest below the snow-line in search of the meteorite. It was fall, all 
the more lovely for its brevity. The men walked silently, and their 
fierce dogs were quiet too; they had reverence for both the living 
and the dead. They had known much of each, for the ninjas of 
Japan had been among the most effective agents of the medieval
349 
world. Ninjas had excelled as spies and assassins, but the technological 
age had reduced the need for their services. These days a 
lone rifleman in a tall building could kill a President in a crowd, 
and never even stand trial. Who had need of the lifelong training 
and specialization of a ninja? The fine art of assassination had come 
upon hard times. There were too many do-it-yourselfers in the 
business. 
Yet Fu Antos lived, and with him his diminishing cadre. The 
world had forgotten the ninjas, and the ninjas had shut out the 
world. Now that contact was in danger of being renewed, owing 
to the intercession of an alien presence. 
Tanaka's party found the meteorite on the far side of the mountain 
range. It was a strange one, not round but bullet-shaped, 
with a charred but basically smooth outline. One end of it terminated 
in a half-melted tangle of metals. The explosion had destroyed 
what must have been a large segment. Congealed drops of 
alloy were spattered across the landscape like tektites, and lingering 
heat still emanated from the remaining mass. The earth and 
rock of the mountain had been gouged by both the impact and 
the explosion, making a double crater. 
They explored the fringes and discovered large, strange, hooflike 
depressions that marked a kind of trail, as though a huge boar 
had passed. But there were no pigs in this region; the ninjas had 
hunted them out long ago, not from any aversion to the species 
but to ensure that this prey attracted no civilized hunting parties 
that might discover the Black Castle. In any event, there were no 
pigs on Earth with hoofs exactly like these. They seemed to be in 
pairs, not fours, as if this pig were traveling upright: an obvious 
impossibility. 
The prints pointed away from the meteorite cavities, and led 
downhill into the deepest forest. A peculiar aroma was associated 
with them, that made the dogs whine and growl nervously, and 
where the trail crossed over rock there were droplets of some kind 
of oil. 
In a forest glade they found it: like a standing pig with a por- 

350 
cine snout and cloven hoof and formidable tusks, about seven feet 
tall and six hundred pounds heavy. Any notion that this was an 
ordinary boar was dispelled by the manifest intelligence of the 
face. The snout was mobile despite the tusks, and the round eyes 
possessed uncanny comprehension. The creature wore a bright, 
tight suit over much of its torso, emblazoned with a design like 
that of the Japanese flag, but with a bigger sun. The rest of the 
beast was covered by hair, with very thick, stiff bristles, obviously 
good protection. 
It made an inquiring grunt and stepped forward, its nose questing. 
Its manner was not aggressive; rather, it seemed curious about 
the men, and unafraid, mirroring the ninjas' own attitude. But 
the half-wild dogs laid back their ears, growled nervously, and 
then in the fury of desperate fear, charged. 
A metallic tube appeared in the creature's hand-hoof. A thin 
beam speared from it to touch the lead dog. The animal gave a 
yelp of surprise and pain and dropped, a disk-shaped spot smoking 
on its forehead. Twice more the beam flashed, and the two 
other dogs died. Then the death tube swung to cover the ninjas. 
Tanaka's unerringly thrown shuriken, or small metal star, flashed 
quicker than thought, knocking the tube from the thing's grip. 
The pig-man squealed with frustration and dropped to all fours, 
reaching for it. But the four ninjas were already loosing their arrows. 
They had been trained to act without taking time to plan, 
when the need arose. 
The first shaft struck the creature on the flank, but only pricked 
it despite being well-sent. The second clung momentarily to its 
shoulder before dropping. The hide was like leather armor, almost 
invulnerable to light weapons, and the clothing seemed to be missile-
proof. The third arrow winged toward an eye, but the head 
ducked down and it bounced harmlessly off the impervious skull. 
Now the ninjas charged, closing the gap before the beast could 
recover the laser tube. Two went to the right side, one to the left, 
and one came head-on with a bisento, a spear-like halberd. The 
weapon struck first, but the monster hunched its head down and
351 
took the thrust on the shoulder. The creature seemed to have uncanny 
anticipation of ninja moves, nullifying their attacks even as 
they started. 
Then the head thrust forward and up. The left tusk drove into 
the ninja's belly, snagged on his backbone, and swept him off his 
feet. The mighty neck muscles hurled him into the branches of a 
tree at the edge of the glade, where he hung, broken and dripping. 
Now Tanaka, on the left, delivered such a powerful thrust to 
the pig-man's gut that the point penetrated the softer armor of the 
underside. With a roar of pain the thing's head swung about, jaws 
gaping. The teeth closed on Tanaka's right arm and crunched together 
irresistibly. The head twitched back-and Tanaka's arm was 
ripped off. The ninja, his pain blocked off by shock, merely stared 
in astonishment before collapsing. 
Meanwhile, one of the remaining ninjas was attacking with a 
kusari-gama, a chain with a sickle on one end and an iron ball on 
the other. He swing the sickle at the beast, but somehow the pigman 
avoided it and the chain wound around Tanaka's just-severed 
arm instead. The beast then hauled the ninja in on his chain and 
used the bloody arm to smash in the man's head. 
The last ninja was working with a yoketsu shagi double-bladed 
knife, one blade straight, the other curved. He plunged it into the 
exposed neck, but there was only gristle and muscle, and the neck 
was so thick that not much damage was done. The beast scooped 
up a fallen spear between its teeth, actually employing its head in 
preference to its hand-hoof, and shoved it through the ninja's chest. 
Then its sharp rear hoofs finished off the fallen Tanaka. 
"I begin to comprehend," Hiroshi said. "The beast-man-he 
was an alien creature from another planet circling another star. 
From-he paused to read the moving fingers carefully. "From Betelgeuse, 
the red giant, six hundred and fifty light years from here. 
He crashed, but he was suspended in a special bath of oil with an 
oxygen mask, an impact-chamber. So he survived, and to cover his 
traces he blew up the remains of the ship. Which suggests that he 

352 
was a criminal among his kind, a fugitive from justice. And now he 
is among us." 
But that was not all. The ninjas had covered up the site of the 
crash because it was too close to the Black Castle. Hiroshi was not 
in complete sympathy with the ninjas' single-minded determination 
to protect the secret of their stronghold, but he honored their 
ways, and so was trusted by them. 
But now the Beast posed a real problem. It was from an advanced 
interstellar culture and possessed some sophisticated technological 
devices. It craved power, so it was setting out to establish 
an empire here on Earth before its irreplaceable devices wore out 
or malfunctioned beyond the point of repair. It was no scientist or 
craftsman; it could not duplicate what it had saved from the ship. 
So it had to use all its resources now to achieve its ambition. 
This was the cause of the current crime wave. The Beast had 
succeeded in making contact with a Yakuza gang, and had quickly 
made it a far more formidable organization, and used it to control 
the others of that ilk. It had either eliminated or absorbed all the 
moneymaking rackets in rival hands, and would soon be a political 
force to be reckoned with. In fact, the day was not far off when it 
would take over the government itself. 
"This must not be," Hiroshi murmured. "The Beast of Betelgeuse 
must be nullified." 
Fu Antos' hoary head nodded almost imperceptibly. He did 
not care about the world, but he respected Hiroshi's humanitarian 
concerns. Hiroshi was one of his few liaisons with civilization, and 
one year Hiroshi would facilitate events that would enable the 
ninja lord to free himself of this hulk of a body. Also, the Beast had 
killed four of his ninjas and three good dogs, and that required an 
accounting. He signaled again with his fingers. "Take Mario and 
those ninjas you require. Bring the body to me. Do not let the 
authorities know what has happened." Because, to Fu Antos, privacy 
was more important than the welfare of the world. If news of 
the Beast, alive or dead, got out, it might complicate the ninja's 
secrecy.
353 
"Surely it is not necessary to kill the Beast," Hiroshi protested. 
Fu Antos dismissed that with a disdainful crook of one little 
Then Hiroshi realized what he was up against. But the job 
Fu Antos responded with the mere shrug of one withered 
"It must possess secrets of immense value to the world." 
finger. "It is criminal-and telepathic." 
had to be done. "I will deal with it-my way." 
knuckle. 
* 
Mario and the three ninjas closed in on the lair of the Beast of 
Betelgeuse. This was a condominium in a quality residential district 
of Tokyo. Criminals occupied every apartment, but they behaved 
with such law-abiding decorum that they were a credit to 
the neighborhood. It was amazing how little difference there was 
between them and legitimate businessmen. 
Then there were sophisticated electronic devices protecting 
the building, for it is often the criminal mind that most fears crime. 
Not merely the best equipment that the technology of Japan could 
produce-which of course was the best in the world-but also 
clever little robots constructed from plans the Beast had salvaged- 
perhaps stolen-from its home system. They could lock onto the 
life emanations of a given person, track him down relentlessly, and 
destroy him with a laser beam to a vital area. the ninjas' misgiving 
about the decline of the fine art of assassination were misplaced, at 
least in this instance; the little robots were quality killers. They 
were also good guards, incorruptible-and once the gang gained 
control of a major electronics company, those machines would be 
mass-produced. Then the Beast would be invulnerable. But at the 
moment there were only three of them. 
This was where Mario Garcia came in. He was a tall albino lad 
with whitish blond hair, thin and nervous, a half-crazed Cuban 
exile and self-styled "Slan" who had tried to destroy the United 
Nations. He was also telekenetic-a freakish psi talent. He could 

354 
fix on metal objects with his mind and move them about. Because 
he had used his talent wildly, and tried to hurt people, he had 
been taken in charge by Fu Antos, the only man who could control 
him. It would not be safe to expose him to the temptations of 
the world long, as his mind was not yet completely pacified, but 
this mission required his unique skill. 
Mario's mind spread out to infiltrate the locks and alarms and 
booby traps of the building and nullify them. All had vital components 
of metal, so all were vulnerable. The little robots were 
largely metal too. They were more of a challenge, being of alien 
conception, but still subject to his domination. One, two, three, 
they went dead. The young man nodded to his companions. 
Now the ninjas infiltrated. Disdaining the usual entrance, they 
employed their metal tigers-claws to scale the walls; they pried 
open high windows with special tools. Silently they entered. An 
internal sentry spotted one; the ninja silenced him with a strangling 
cord and tied him up, unconscious. He did not kill, for 
Hiroshi had forbidden it, and the ninjas obeyed him implicitly 
despite his absence. This was the problem about working with a 
humanitarian; he imposed unrealistic restrictions and reduced the 
pleasure, not to mention the effectiveness, of the mission. A few 
little killings would have done so much for morale. 
The ninjas obeyed, but in Mario's mind was barely-suppressed 
contempt for the little Aikidoist. He knew Hiroshi could fight, for 
the man had originally subdued him and brought him captive to 
the dank dull Black Castle. But he also knew that Hiroshi's vaunted 
power of ki, that mysterious inner force that some martial artists 
possessed, had only barely prevailed over Mario's own telekinesis. 
Had the little ascetic not had Fu Antos to back him up-in fact, 
Mario had learned enough during his bondage to overcome 
Hiroshi's ki. But he couldn't make his break while Fu Antos lived, 
for Fu had ki like the faith to move mountains, and toughness of 
mind to match. Fortunately the Lord of the Ninjas was very old; 
he could not survive much longer. Even that awesome ki could not 
maintain life in a body rotting out from under it. Not indefinitely.
355 
So for now Mario would do the jobs that the ninja master assigned 
him, like the elimination of the pig-man. It should be no problem, 
with the ninjas to do the physical chores, and Mario to control 
the metals. 
But the raiding party had reckoned without the telepathy of 
the Beast. Deep in the heart of the building the alien was well 
aware of the raid. It dispatched thugs to engage the ninjas and to 
close in on Mario. This would take a little time, for now nothing 
mechanical or electronic was operative, including the elevators and 
intercom system, and the ninjas were expert fighters, and he wanted 
Mario alive. Mario could be very useful to the Beast! There would 
be no problem obtaining Mario's cooperation, after the ninjas were 
out of the way, because the Beast could offer Mario exactly what 
he wanted: power and freedom. Victory was sure, for neither Mario 
nor the ninjas knew what they were up against. Their thoughts 
were open books. 
Alone, the Beast waited, monitoring the progress of both thugs 
and raiders. This was a challenge, because its telepathy was shortrange; 
it faded rapidly beyond a few feet, and was diluted by multiple 
foci. As a man has difficulty distinguishing anything when 
several people talk at once, so it had to work to make sense out of 
any single mind in the jumble. But the Beast was of a telepathic 
species, long adapted to this type of problem; it enjoyed the challenge 
in much the same fashion Mario enjoyed the challenge of 
disabling alien machinery. It skipped from mind to mind as a man 
tunes a radio when looking for a weather forecast, catching tantalizing 
snatches here and there, pausing occasionally, then moving 
on during commercials. 
Then the Beast became aware of something strange and alarming. 
There was a dead spot nearby, a presence that was alive but 
did not seem to think. Close, too close. In fact it was in this room. 
The Beast cast about, using its physical senses that it had necessarily 
tuned out to avoid interference with the telepathy. So it 
saw and smelled the mental ghost: a small, whiskery old man 
"How do you do?" Hiroshi inquired politely in Japanese, mak- 

356 
ing one of his little bows. 
Amazed, the Beast reacted involuntarily. It charged the intruder. 
But the little man moved with remarkable alacrity, avoiding 
the ripping tusk. 
The Beast, no fool, desisted at the physical level and concentrated 
on the mental. Normally it scored accurately with its weapons 
because it was aware of the intentions of its opponents. In this 
manner it had killed four ninjas in the forest while still shaken 
from the crash-landing. The ninjas had reacted almost without 
thinking, so that they had been able to wound it, but ultimately 
they had had to plan their attacks, and that had been their undoing. 
Now- 
The Beast paused, dismayed. This man had no mind! 
"It is the ki, and my Zen mind training," Hiroshi explained 
helpfully. "I can not duplicate your talent, but I can nullify its 
application to me. You can not read my mind." 
The Beast tired. To it, a person without a mind was like an 
animal without a smell: baffling. But Hiroshi's ki surrounded him, 
making him opaque to the creature's mind-probe. This was why 
he had been able to sneak in here, under cover of the distraction 
created by Mario and the ninjas, who did not know Hiroshi had 
preceded them. Without that feedback, the guidance of the prey's 
own mind, the alien was in effect blinded. It emitted a frustrated 
blast of emotion as red and hot as its native star, Betelgeuse, two 
hundred and fifty times as large as Earth's sun and three thousand 
times as luminous. 
"Ah, so you can broadcast too," Hiroshi remarked. "You are 
very talented. Why do you abuse your powers?" 
THINK YOU CAN BALK ME?! the savage thought came 
through, piercing Hiroshi's aura of ki and entering his mind like a 
spear through froth. Yet thought alone could not hurt the tough 
little man, and that same froth so fuzzed his own emissions of 
thought that they were meaningless to the Beast. I KILL! 
But it was an empty threat. On the purely physical level, without 
mind contact, the Beast was a clumsy monster, while the man
357 
was a finely trained combat specialist. The martial art of Aikido 
was recognized the world over as one of the most effective modes of 
self defense known. Policemen used it to control criminals, and 
even experts in karate, judo, and kung fu respected it. Hiroshi was 
the leading figure in Aikido. Old and feeble as he seemed, he could 
not be touched by the Beast-as long as he was on guard. 
Of course, if the Beast kept him occupied long enough, the 
thugs would have time to eliminate the ninjas-probably at great 
loss, for ninjas were deadly in close quarters, like weaponed ghosts- 
or get to Mario. When the machines resumed functioning, Hiroshi 
would be caught in this trap. Then-! 
"It would be better to talk," Hiroshi said mildly, seeming to 
be unaware of the plots fulminating in the Beast's brain. His ki 
did not interfere with his spoken voice, so the Beast could understand 
him well enough. "You could do so much good in this world, 
if you would. But you associate with criminals." 
Sorry the Beast projected contritely. It could not speak physically, 
as its snout and palate were not formed for this. I thought you 
were an assassin, come to kill me. I must protect myself. 
"I may be your assassin," Hiroshi agreed. "But not if I can find 
a better way. My purpose is to save my world from disaster, for 
there remains much good in it. If I can persuade you to use your 
powers to facilitate that good instead of for your personal power, 
then we shall have no quarrel." 
Something like a sneer rippled through the Beast's brain. A 
do-gooder! It had dealt with this kind before, in its home-system. 
Too bad the home authorities had caught on. 
Now the Beast projected its sad story. It was, it explained in 
regretful mental tones, a refugee from a distant planet, no criminal 
but a victim of circumstance. It had publicly criticized the criminal 
government of its planet, and had had to flee that region of 
space to avoid execution. The civilization of Betelgeuse was a marvelous 
thing, with miracles of science, art, and philosophy, but the 
wrong element had somehow managed to get into power. Much 
as, it pointed out obliquely, had happened not so long ago in the 

358 
Earthly nation of Germany, precipitating global war, and even more 
recently in America, and might conceivably happen in a more civilized 
nation such as Japan itself some day. So the Beast-no beast, 
but an important person, like a noble, had fled. But its ship had 
malfunctioned six hundred light years out, and it had barely made 
it a scant fifty more light years to a habitable planet. It survived 
the crash, but when it tried to make contact with the nearby ninjas, 
they had attacked it. So it had had to fight. 
Hiroshi frowned. "True. You did not initiate hostilities. The 
dogs could not be restrained." 
So the Beast/Noble had avoided that type of savage and trusted 
no one. Instead it had made contact with people it need have no 
compunction about controlling: Japan's criminal element. The 
Beast had made these criminals into good citizens. If it could rehabilitate 
hardened thugs, think what it could do for ordinary citizens!
"Yet you are forming an empire based on crime," Hiroshi 
pointed out gently. 
Only to start, the Noble Beast explained. When it had taken 
over all the criminals and made them honest, productive citizens, 
it would proceed to the politicians and financiers and industrial 
barons and make them honest. Then there would be good government 
and good economics and the world would become a better 
place for everyone. 
"This is intriguing," Hiroshi admitted. "Yet I must mistrust 
any person or thing who seeks such absolute power for itself, however 
excellent the objective. Power tends to corrupt." 
Not for myself, the Beast projected with strong emanations of 
sincerity. This fool was taking the bait! Mario's thought had been 
correct: Hiroshi was not really so much. He was an altruist, therefore 
gullible. There were no mind readers on this planet to spill 
the Betelgeuse beans. I will install the best possible man in the world 
as Emperor, to rule wisely and well. It will be an iridium age. 
Hiroshi shook his head, half convinced. "No man could do it, 
especially not as your puppet."
359 
No man but one, the Beast projected, stepping closer. The one I 
have chosen is-you. 
"Me!" Hiroshi exclaimed. "I am no-" 
You are genuinely incorruptible, no figurehead. You care about the 
world. You must be Emperor. The Beast nudged up another foot. Its 
left tusk was now very near Hiroshi's head. The powerful neck 
muscles tensed. 
And Hiroshi flicked one finger at a spot on the Beast's forehead. 
It was a hard strike, for the finger was braced by ki and years 
of training to be like an iron bar. The Beast fell, numbed. Hiroshi 
had scored on its one vulnerability, that spot where the juncture of 
the two sutures of the skull bones conducted even the lightest 
shock to the sensitive brain. 
What gave me away? it projected weakly. 
"Your assumption about the basic corruptibility of man," 
Hiroshi replied sadly. "You thought every man had his price, and 
you tried to bribe me with the promise of power. This betrayed 
the ultimate nature of your thinking. No fire will temper bad 
metal into a good sword, alas. I am sorry I was unable to persuade 
you." 
So am I the Beast projected. Then a black hole opened up, as 
of a giant red star collapsing into nothingness, and its life expired. 
A great tree has fallen in the forest, Hiroshi thought sadly. What 
sound might it have made, had it stood? 

KIAI!-HOW IT BEGAN 
Piers put his arm around Roberto's neck and slowly applied 
pressure. Roberto's breathing became harsh and his eyes bulged as 
the blood was cut off. It was the hadaka jime, or naked strangle. 
Then Roberto applied a crushing ude gatame armlock, a submission 
hold that can readily dislocate an elbow, making Piers yelp 
with pain . . . 
It all started almost five years ago with an irate post card. 
Things often get violent in science fiction fandom, where professionals 
and amateurs spar in a perpetual free-for-all. Novelist 
Piers Anthony had skirmishes with several fanzines, which are smallcirculation 
amateur magazines published for personal satisfaction. 
One of these printed a letter by a critical reader, Roberto Fuentes: 
"Piers Anthony is not my favorite author . . ." 
Fighting words! But Piers, adept in his fashion at the principle 
of ju, or yielding to gain an advantage, sent Roberto a card: "Are 
you Spanish? I used to live in Spain . . ." 
No, Roberto was Cuban. And soon the two collaborated on a 
science fiction novel, Dead Morn, centered around the 1962 Cuban 
Missile Crisis. It was a major work, that should have made 
both authors famous. 
That was in 1970-and the novel remains on the market. 
Perhaps its 115,000 word length scares off publishers. Or the 

362 
graphic sex and violence. Or the authentic detail exposing the 
manner Fidel Castro came to power. Or the new thinking in time 
travel. One publisher has taken a year considering the manuscript, 
and has not yet made a report. The editor says he is still reading it. 
Another publisher was interested-but then fired 200 employees 
and returned the novel. Publishing, actually, can be considered as 
a form of martial art; writers have to be tough. 
In 1971 Roberto brought his wife Graciela and seven year old 
son Robertico to visit Piers in Florida. Piers lives in an old Spanish-
style house with his wife Cam and daughters Penny and Cheryl. 
Roberto took Piers to see a judo class in Tampa. Roberto was 2 
Dan, a second degree black belt in judo; Piers had never seen judo 
in action. The instructor was Ed Maley, 5 Dan. 
Piers sat and watched-and started writing a story, "Kiai!" It 
featured a 5 Dan judo instructor who looked a bit like Ed Maley, 
but was called Caesar Kane: Kane as in Kano, the founder of judo. 
Roberto provided the judo action for the story, and the team was 
launched in a new field: martial arts fiction. 
"Kiai!" never sold. The world was not ready for competent 
martial arts fiction. Undaunted, we built it into a novel, Kiai!, 
incorporating a notion that intrigued us both: competition between 
different martial arts, to discover once and for all which was 
best. Naturally judo came out on top-but we feel this is more 
than empty vanity, for judo incorporates the strikes of karate and 
armlocks of aikido, making it the broadest barehand martial art in 
the world. We believe that judo should win such a tournament. 
Half a dozen publishers rejected the novel. Oh, it was well 
enough done-but they said there was no reader interest in martial 
arts. Who cared about judo or karate-and who had even heard 
of kung fu or Thai kick-boxing? Forget it! 
Then Kung Fu appeared on TV, a well-done martial art series, 
and suddenly publishers were scrambling for martial art. Kiai! was 
snapped up, and other publishers put their hack stables to work 
turning out kung fu imitations. Our hero's name had to be changed 
to Jason Striker; after all, who would believe we had "Kane" before
363 
Kung Fu had "Caine"? But a typical editorial foulup allowed a 
couple of references to Kane to slip through to confuse readers. 
Roberto started as the judoka, Piers the author. But this collaboration 
changed the lives of both. Roberto is becoming an author, 
doing reviews and articles for JUDO TIMES and collaborating 
with magazine editor Steranko on an atemi article and martial 
arts poster. Piers has taken up judo, making his yellow belt and 
having his first competition match at age 40. It was against a 14 
year old boy, another yellow belt, and yes, Piers lost: waza ari, a 
half point decision. 
Who can say that the time will not come when Roberto is an 
individual novelist and Piers a black belt? We all have to start somewhere. 
At any rate, it was in this fashion that the two came to the 
friendly practice described in our opening scene. Roberto was showing 
Piers how to apply strangles and armlocks, and also what they 
felt like. That knowledge would in due course be translated into a 
scene in another book. 
We are not unduly modest. We'll stack our collaborative fiction 
up against anything else in the genre. In fact, much of the 
competition does not seem to be written with much literary or 
martial authority. You can't simply read a book on kung fu or 
karate, go to a few practice sessions, and be an instant black belt! 
We are prepared to defend that statement against the challenge of 
any rival authors either on the judo mat or in the literary arena. 
Roberto is the former black belt champion of Cuba, who retired 
undefeated. He was for many years a teacher of judo with his own 
dojo, and is the present Metropolitan Master champion. He recently 
made 3 Dan, third degree black belt or San Dan, as a competitor. 
Piers, a former English teacher, has sold 16 science fiction 
and fantasy novels, several of which have been in contention for 
best-of-year awards. His major novel Macroscope will have its sixth 
printing in 1975. 
Our four collaborative martial arts novels, Kiai!, Mistress of Death, 
The Bamboo Bloodbath and Ninja (the one-word titles are ours; 
the others are the publishers, so don't blame us) exploit our re- 

364 
spective skills. We have also had one fantasy/martial art story published, 
"Ki," and are working on a factual history of judo. We do a 
great deal of research, so as to make our work authentic, and try to 
avoid formula plotting end stereotyped characterization. 
But we are limited. Most editors have little notion of the meaning 
of martial art. To them, it is just a current fad, a way to sell a 
few more books. We have to compromise with this attitude, or we 
will not be published. We were turned down by one publisher for 
not having an oriental hero. So there is some junk in Kiai!, and 
more in the sequels. Still, we feel that some of the other books in 
the genre are fantastic and unreal. Some are entertaining and decently 
written; some aren't. But the fact is, even the greatest fighter 
in the world can not go barehanded against five men armed with 
guns and come out alive. Even one armed novice is dangerous, and 
as for machine-guns in the open-frankly our martial artist would 
be cut to pieces. We do have group fights and gun scenes, but we 
have tried for some credibility. A couple of our characters have 
gone up against impossible odds-and died in the process. Jason 
Striker is extremely wary of guns and other weapons, though it 
makes him seem like a coward at times. 
We have incorporated as much genuine martial art as we could. 
We made our protagonist into a real man in today's world. He's 5 
Dan in judo, 3 Dan in karate, with training in kung fu (actually 
that's a misnomer for the entire complex of Chinese physical exercise; 
it would make as much sense to talk about a black belt in 
American PhysEd) and aikido. This is not extreme; there are a 
number of 5 Dan judokas in America, such as our model Ed Maley, 
and any one of them could match Jason Striker in competition, if 
they are not too old. Many martial artists study several systems, 
and hold black belts in each. In one novel Striker has a friendly 
match with a lame Cuban judoka, and loses. That judoka, Luis 
Guardia, is real. So Striker is not superhuman. He fights well, but 
he gets tired, and he makes mistakes. 
Sometimes Striker "runs the line" contesting with every student 
in the class, one after the other. This can be devilishly diffi-
365 
cult, because the instructor has no respite, while every student is 
fresh and eager to pull an upset victory. This is drawn from experience: 
Roberto visited the Gulfport, Florida Judo Club and ran the 
line. One of the eager students he casually threw was Piers. Fortunately 
Roberto made it through in good form: dead tired but victorious 
in every match. It can be done, even by a man of forty. 
Other episodes in the series are also drawn from real life, such as 
accidentally strangling a too-ambitious student into unconsciousness, 
or getting an arm broken in competition. Roberto's arm never 
has mended completely. 
Striker is also uncertain in love. More than one woman has 
found him a bit naive, even stuffy. One kicked him in the crotch, 
putting him in the hospital. He encounters all kinds: white, yellow, 
black, Indian, slender, voluptuous, mild, murderous. Sometimes 
it is romance, sometimes combat, or both at once. Yet here 
too there is reality, for most of the women are drawn from life, as 
are the love scenes. Roberto had a varied education before settling 
down to marriage. 
Many of the characters, while fictional, are representations of 
real people. There is an American boxer modeled after Mohammed 
Ali, who we feel was wronged by the political deprivation of his 
world boxing title some years back; a karateka like Mas Oyama, 
and aikidoist like Morihei Uyeshiba. Striker's arch-enemy Kan- 
Sen in real life is Mockansen, no villain but a Cuban/Chinese master 
of Kung Fu who instructed Roberto more than twenty years 
ago, before that mode became popular here. The names of some 
real people, like Diago, are used with fictional identities. The leading 
fictional character, Fu Antos, lord of the ninjas, derives from the 
authors' names: FUenteS and ANThOny. 
The locales, too, are authentic. When Striker goes to Havana, 
the city is described as though by someone who lived there, as 
Roberto did. He also lived in others we use: Managua, Nicaragua; 
Miami, Florida; even New York City, in many ways the strangest 
of all. When Striker is in the jungle or Everglades, one of us has 
been there before him, and we have supplemented our observa- 

366 
tions by extensive research. Roberto was a Cuban exile commando 
in the same Central American jungles that are described in our 
novels. When there is a bomb, we know how to build it, for Roberto 
was active in the anti-Castro underground as an urban terrorist 
and guerrilla, and he did make bombs and set them off. 
But more important, we try to put something in our books 
that is worth having. Judo is more than a system of combat; it is a 
philosophy, even a way of life. Striker is hardly the perfect judoka; 
there is blood on his hands, thanks to the demands of the genre. 
But he believes in the ideals of judo, and tries to practice them, 
and when he falls short he suffers. In that aspiration and failure we 
try to show what judo is and should be. 
We tackle significant issues. We analyze the drug problem as it 
applies to martial arts, not as a plotting device (Superman come 
quick! There's a shipload of heroin docking in Miami!) but to show 
the harm drugs do, and what contemporary efforts are being made 
to rehabilitate addicts. No, we haven't been hooked on drugs in 
real life, but we have known those who were. Piers actually walked 
into a juvenile drug rehabilitation center, telling them frankly why 
he wanted information: that he was doing a book with an addict 
character, and that one recommended treatment for his own hyperactive 
daughter was to put her on speed. So he had both professional 
and personal motive to learn about drugs. The interview in 
which they refused to cooperate appears in The Bamboo Bloodbath, 
except that Striker does, after all, get in. We don't think much of 
outfits that preach love but operate in secrecy. Abuse is too easy, 
not only of drugs, but of human civil rights. 
We tackle racism: our criminal/heroine is a black karateka, raped 
by white men, with vengeance in her soul yet justice in her motive. 
While we can't claim to know what it is to be black, one of us 
has mixed ancestry and both of us are immigrants from foreign 
countries. One of us was raised in a society remarkably free from 
prejudice, especially in boy-girl relations; the other resides in the 
South. It does provide a hint. 
We tackle pollution, as our ninja sets out to rid the world of it.
367 
And history, with actual events adapted to our purpose. 
In short, under the veneer of physical and emotional violence 
and sex, we have a serious philosophy of creation. Roberto reads 
English, Spanish and French, so that he can do more varied research. 
(Piers knew Spanish as a child, but forgot it.) We have 
assembled a martial arts library including expensive books and 
backfiles of rare martial arts magazines, such as the French/English 
JUDO KODOKAN REVIEW, and we read them. 
It hasn't shown up much yet in the series-after all, there are 
only so many pages to a commercial novel-but both authors are 
in their separate fashions health nuts. Piers is a vegetarian who 
uses massive doses of vitamin C to abate colds. It works, though he 
spends about $100 a year on C. He stays clear of sugar and refined 
foods, preferring breakfasts of rolled oats with milk, spiked with 
wheat germ and nutritive yeast, and lunches of raisins, nuts and 
cheese, plus salads from his own garden. He has cleaned the debris 
from his neighborhood to make compost for the garden; the neighbors 
are trained to dump their brush on his lot. Even complete 
trees. There will soon be a natural foods and cheese connoisseur in 
the series. 
Roberto is a sun worshiper, frustrated by New Jersey climate. 
He has his poor wife cooking odd stuff like hearts, brains and kidneys 
all the time. He gives his son Robertico (who also appears in 
Ninja) so much milk to drink (instead of soft drinks, which are 
taboo) that some say the boy will one day urinate white. 
Neither author smokes, both are extremely moderate drinkers, 
and both go for high-protein, high vitamin and mineral diets. 
Both believe in exercise, much of which is provided by judo. It is 
hardly surprising that Jason Striker has similar attitudes. 
Despite all this agreement, at times we work at cross purposes. 
Roberto prefers big, hefty, hourglass-shaped women like the Cuban 
girl Dulce, while Piers tries to slim them down to more petite 
dimensions. Generally we compromise by including both types. 
Sometimes things get fouled up in the course of negotiations, and 
we find ourselves in print with a Chinese girl with a Japanese name, 

368 
such as Striker's fiancee Chiyako. Alas, we were paying more attention 
to the size of her bust than to her locale. We'll have to make a 
rationale for that error in a later novel. 
In our actual writing, we discuss notions first in a general way, 
then hammer out a plot to carry the elements we want to include. 
There is always much more than we can use; both of us have fertile 
imaginations, and the problem is always to cut it down to manageable 
size. Sometimes we just split the idea into smaller segments; 
that's how Ninja spread into four ninja novels now being 
written. Generally Roberto dictates the story line; just about the 
whole of Mistress of Death was his notion, except for the moderate 
bosom of Chiyako, and the detail of what happened to that bosom 
in a broken-bottle fight. 
This preparation is slow by mail, and sometimes dangerous. 
We once lost two weeks work via the mails. (Fortunately there was 
a carbon. ALWAYS KEEP A CARBON COPY!) Since we meet 
every year or so, we enter into hours-long dialogue a bit like judo 
randori or free practice, bouncing ideas off each other, fitting them 
together, amplifying, integrating characters with action. In a few 
hours we can thrash out what might take months by letter, In 
August 1974, sitting on the beach (Roberto edging toward the 
sun, Piers toward the shade), we worked out four novels and the 
judo history book-one day apiece. Of course, much remained to 
be done, but the framework was set, so that we knew where we 
were going, and were assured that there would be no major snags. 
Not at our end, anyway; we are never assured that publishers will 
take a given novel. 
Roberto then goes to work on research, summarizing relevant 
material and mailing it to Florida. Often he sends whole books. 
Piers then does a first draft in pencil, integrating research notes, 
outline, and theme in a readable narrative. This is his special skill 
as a writer; lots of people have ideas and information, but few can 
translate these into readable prose. When he has a chapter or so, 
he types it in second draft, with parenthetical remarks set off by 
brackets. These brackets can be one word or several hundred, and
369 
they can trigger off pages of discussion by Roberto. [Hey, I'm stuck 
for a good illustrative example here. Any ideas?] 
"About the example: Do not forget mentioning my commando 
days in Nicaragua. I lived in Managua for 6 months. Amalita, the 
girl in the first two novels, was alive and well in Managua, at least 
up till the earthquake, she and I used to go to her house and-" 
[Roberto, I can't put that in print; they'd have to censor it out. 
Anyway, I've already typed past that place in this piece.] 
"Well, what about the time I was in jail, Cabanas Fortress in 
Cuba, paredon the death wall, etc.-we could tie that into the 
Brazilian prison scene we are working on. But we'll have to explain 
about political prison, so the readers don't think I was a criminal." 
And so it goes. When Piers hits a snag, he brackets it for Roberto 
to sweat and goes on. No doubt these letter/manuscripts will make 
fascinating reading for scholars at Syracuse University library, where 
Piers's papers are eventually collected. Perhaps in the twenty- 
second century A.D., when books are no longer written and the 
science of writing has become a lost art. This article was done the 
same way, so represents a capsule case-history of our system. 
Roberto goes over the manuscript and remarks on both the 
brackets and any other points that strike him. The result is a letter 
of comment about the same length as the manuscript itself. Piers 
plugs in all these corrections-a slow, tedious job, more like piecing 
together broken pottery than creating-then types the submission 
manuscript. After that the changes stop, for the publisher's 
deadline is upon us and the book must get there immediately. 
Unfortunately, some errors slip through. For example, in Mistress 
of Death Roberto typoed "crowd" as "crow." Piers didn't question 
it; he thought it was a nice touch. Thus we have crows clustering 
around the shops in Chinatown. May the Chinese Americans 
forgive us! 
The truth is that collaboration is hard work. Each of us puts 
about as much effort into a book as he would writing the whole 
thing alone, yet each gets only half the money. And the result is 
necessarily a compromise between our viewpoints. But we don't 

370 
argue much, not even about bosoms. It will be a long time, if ever, 
before Piers can tell a judo black belt how to perform a given technique, 
and perhaps as long before Roberto educates any English 
teacher on the nuances of the subjunctive mood. In the vast majority 
of cases we see eye to eye. And why not? We are both college 
educated married males with a number of common interests. 
Oh yes, we can be set off by outsiders. Once a bully started in 
on a smaller man in a post office, making ethnic slurs, and Roberto 
stepped in ready to fight. A version of that episode leads off our 
fourth novel, Ninja. If anyone goes after Piers' little girls, he comes 
running and ugly. The girls carry a whistle, just in case. But we 
regard these as natural provocations; we try to get along, and the 
last thing we want is trouble with each other. So we have none. 
Which seems to be half the secret of successful collaboration. 
But why bother to collaborate at all? Because we have complementary 
skills, so that together we can produce material that neither 
could alone. We don't care enough about the money to turn 
out cheap work. We try to do our best, even when it is straight 
adventure. We like to think that readers of discretion will recognize 
and appreciate a superior product, even if many editors don't. 
In the long run we believe that will pay-but even if it doesn't in 
terms of money, it will in satisfaction. As this article shows, we 
stand by what we do. 
AUTHORS' NOTE: This article was published in the magazine 
THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU, June 1975 issue. In 
the ensuing quarter century some things changed, dating the piece 
somewhat. Piers' daughters are no longer children, and the novel 
Dead Morn did find a publisher, for a good price. Piers' 16 novels 
became 116 and counting. Both authors now live in Florida, 
Roberto in the Miami area, Piers in the backwoods, actually a tree 
farm.
WINDBREAKER 

Chapter 1: 
Cry For Help 
Jose woke alertly. The clock said 6 a.m., but it was already too 
late. The door was opening, its warning buzzer expertly shorted 
out, and a Beretta was trained on him. This was a professional call. 
He sat up in bed, drawing the sheet up to cover his bulging 
naked belly. Jose was a dark, swarthy man with a slight Chinese 
look. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Se�ors?" he 
inquired. 
"Don't play cagey with me, spic," the gunman snapped. Two 
large, grim men trooped in behind him. "The details-now." 
Jose turned on him a gaze of bewildered innocence. He had 
black eyes in a fat face that enhanced the effect. "Se�or, I have no 
comprehension!" 
The man glanced at his gun. It was a .32 automatic with a 
silencer attached. Then he used it to gesture to one of his companions. 
That one drew a stiletto and approached Jose. The needle 
point touched the fat of the belly through the sheet. 
Jose sweated. He had an oily skin that made the sweat show 
up rapidly. He scratched nervously at the pimple on his nose. He 
smiled ingratiatingly, showing his prominent front gold tooth. 

374 
"Not the pot," the gunman said. "We don't have time for the 
fine points. Make him talk fast." 
The knifeman looked disappointed. He made a little gesture 
with the knife. Jose got the message. He stood up, a dribble of 
blood emerging from his navel where the point had lodged. The 
sheet fell away, and he was naked. 
The stiletto moved down to the exposed crotch. "First balk, 
one ball," the gunman said. "Second balk, other ball. After that it 
will get uncomfortable-but you will talk." 
Jose knew they were not bluffing. These were professionals, 
and the man with the knife was a sadist. The eagerness to carve 
shone in his face. He wanted his victim to balk. 
Jose smoothed back his greasy black hair. "Se�ors, the police 
are on their way," he said, "The alarm is under the bed. It went off 
when my weight lifted. If you leave right now-" 
The third man bent quickly to check the bed. Neither of the 
others moved; they watched suspiciously. 
"Bastard's right," the man said. "There's a spring-release contact 
under the front bedleg. Hand cutoff he didn't use. He suckered 
us."
"I'll take his ears for that!" the knifeman snarled, 
But the gunman shook his head, smiling. "We heard you were 
sharp, spic. I'd have been suspicious if you hadn't pulled something 
like this, You know we can't kill you and run, because we 
don't have the info out of you yet. And you'd like us to try to haul 
you out of here, with all your friends watching. We can't move 
you, dead or alive." He looked out the window, sighting down the 
alley. "And there's the police now, coming in quiet. One blocking 
off the back exit. Very neat." He paused momentarily. "But I think 
we'll bluff it out, this time." He nodded to the knifeman. 
The knifeman straightened, reversed his blade, and expertly 
sapped Jose above the ear. Jose pitched forward, his face crashing 
into the floor, and lay still. 
Then, rapidly, the men tied and gagged him. They did a competent 
job of both, putting tape over the gag so that he was barely
375 
able to breathe; his wrists and feet were tied together, with a cord 
stretching up into a noose around his neck. If he tried to kick, the 
motion would tighten the loop and strangle him. 
As the heavy footfalls of the police came down the hall, they 
propped Jose in the solid clothes closet, the hanging suits further 
muffling him. There would be no sound from him. 
Sergeant O'Brien entered. The three hoods were comfortable, 
drinking Jose's rum over a hand of poker. Two sat in chairs, the 
third on the bed. The radio played a jangly tune, a little too loud. 
"What's the story?" O'Brien demanded, It was an impressive 
opening, for he was a solid six-two with a red face, and spoke with 
the authority of twenty years on the force. 
All three looked up, startled, "You can't break in here!" the 
leader exclaimed righteous indignation. "This is a private apartment!" 
"Where's Juan Jose?" O'Brien snapped, 
"He stepped out to fetch some girls," the gunman said. "About 
ten minutes ago. He'll be back soon. This is his place, you know." 
"I know. We got the alarm signal and I answered it personally. 
What did do with him?" 
"Do? Us? Officer, we're his friends, just in for a game of cards 
and some fun." The man bounced on the bed. "He promised me a 
real Chicano girl, know what I mean? I can hardly sit still." 
Sergeant O'Brien looked at him, realizing that such bouncing 
could have triggered the alarm, especially if Jose were not there to 
neutralize it. Was this a false alarm? 
For a moment the policeman stood perplexed. He didn't have 
time to waste waiting around, and he didn't want to make a scene 
for nothing. The alarm had gone off, but Jose did have many odd 
friends, some distinctly thug-like. The chances were that this was 
legitimate. 
He turned-and heard a faint cry. "Help!" 
Immediately his gun was in his hand, cautioning the three 
men to silence and immobility. They were professionals in their 
business-but so was he. No one moved. The outside policeman 

376 
came in to help while O'Brien walked around the apartment, listening, 
He turned off the loud radio. 
Again it came, more distinct this time. "He-e-lp!" The voice 
was raspingly hoarse, and ended in a staccato croak, but the word 
was plain. 
The gunman went for his gun. It was a mistake. The officer's 
bullet caught him in the shoulder. 
O'Brien yanked open the closet door. There was Jose's posterior 
under the suits. In a moment they had him out. 
The sergeant got to work on the bonds, cutting the chokerope 
and freeing the hands and feet. Then he removed the tight 
gag and tape. Jose was purple from slow suffocation, and there was 
blood on his lip where the edge of the gag had sawed in. He gasped 
for air, then rubbed the circulation back into his hands and feet. 
"Thanks, Mick!" he grunted. "I was on the verge of suffering discomfort." 
"You were on the verge of ending all suffering," O'Brien said. 
"You should have better taste in friends." 
"Amigo, I shall heed your advice. Tomorrow." 
The three hoods stared. "He was still tied and gagged," the 
knifeman said, "He couldn't have called!" 
"Sure he couldn't!" O'Brien agreed heartily. "Good thing I 
imagined I was hearing a cry for help." 
"But I heard it too!" the third thug said, "But how could he 
have-?" 
"All right, you three. March!" the policeman said. But there 
was a brief delay while he saw to the bullet wound in the shoulder. 
O'Brien drooped the banter and looked at Jose with concern. 
"You okay now, Juan?" 
"Fine-now," Jose said. 
"Why were they after you? Or can you tell me that?" 
Jose shook his head. "Amigo, I do not know. If I had anticipated 
company, I would surely have been better prepared." He 
gestured apologetically at his nakedness. "I was merely reposing 
between assignments."
"God, the spic even lies to his friends!" the wounded gunman 
said.
Jose looked at him. "Not at all, senor. I do not lie to my 
friends-or my enemies. I did not lie to you. I do not know what 
you wanted of me-but now I shall do my best to find out." 
"Hey, none of that here!" O'Brien cautioned. "They're in police 
custody now, and one's wounded." 
Jose smiled. "Certainly, amigo. I meant only that I shall investigate. 
If this man and I should meet again, after he is free on bail, 
perhaps then I shall question him a trifle more firmly." 
The gunman sneered. "Fat chance, fat boy!" 
"The name is Juan Jose." Jose pronounced it the Spanish way, 
'Wan Hosay,' "Kindly remember it, for I shall remember you." 
"Hah! Flabby coward like you-" 
But the policeman was already herding them out. 
"How did he call for help?" the third hood echoed plaintively 
as they left. 
 
377
Chapter 2: 
Assignment 
Juan Jose rubbed his head where the butt of the knife had 
struck. He had not been knocked out, but it had seemed best to 
play dead. Amateurs could be tricked and overpowered, but he 
would have been shot if he had tried anything fancy on these operators. 
Well, perhaps not if he had moved quickly enough and neutralized 
the gun first. But that would have been a calculated risk 
that did not appeal. A man did not survive in this business long if 
he took unnecessary risks-especially when the solution to this 
particular problem had been so easy. One little cry for help! 
Still, the blow had hurt, and the bonds had not been comfortable 
Those men had really known how to tie a man so he stayed. 
He went to the bathroom and mopped his face in cold water. 
His fingers brushed over the wart on his cheek. It was smaller than 
it had been a couple of weeks before; he would have to work on it. 
He looked at his body in the full-length bathroom mirror. 
Bad, bad-he was getting too lean and muscular. He would have 
to do something about that, too. Another half inch of blubber on 
his belly, some fat under the jaw-if he cocked his head back he
379 
could still make a nice double chin, but it didn't look quite natural. 
Jose sighed. There was no way around it: he would have to go 
on a diet. Minimum of five thousand calories a day, mostly in 
sweets and pastries, until he regained his proper rotundity. 
Meanwhile he had dirt on his ass. He stepped into the shower 
and rinsed it off in lukewarm water. Then he hefted himself on the 
bar over the stall, doing pull-ups one-handed: six with the right, 
six with the left. Sure enough, it was too easy; the solid muscle was 
sheathed by only a thin layer of fat. 
He shook himself dry like a dog, feeling his entire gut swing 
back and forth with the motion. Then he stepped on the scale. 
Two hundred and thirty pounds. He shook his head sadly. 
This was sloppy as hell! At this rate his feet would hardly stay flat. 
He dressed. His undershirt had five gold buttons, and he left 
his topshirt halfway open so that those precious buttons would 
show. He put an identification bracelet on his wrist, briefly polishing 
the $5,000 diamond set into it. Two enormous rings graced 
his fingers. He was now a well-dressed Latin American. 
He slicked his hair back until it was a glistening black mass, 
made sure the welt over his ear didn't show, and stepped out of the 
apartment. A block away there was a small Mexican-American family 
restaurant that was excellent for weiwas gaining. It was time for 
breakfast. 
Jose settled himself in a corner table with his back to the wall 
and commenced his diet. His appetizer was a quart of sweet orange 
juice. Then he had a double order of ham and bacon with 
toast, with six eggs on the side. He washed these down liberally 
from a jug of cafe-con-leche, a mixture of coffee and milk in 50-50 
proportions. He then consumed a one-pound long loaf of Cuban 
bread with plenty of butter by forming it into sandwiches with 
round creamy yellow cheese and dunking these into the cafe-conleche 
for every bite. 
After the initial edge of his hunger had been blunted, he signaled 
the waiter, "Se�or-the telephone, if you please." The waiter 

380 
smiled and brought the phone on a long extension cord. This was 
a fairly regular ritual. 
First, a business call. He dialed the local police station. "Se�or 
Sergeant O'Brien, if you please, se�orita," he said to their switchboard 
operator. 
"Right, Mr. Jose," she said, recognizing his voice. 
In a moment Sergeant O'Brien was on the line, "Thought I'd 
be hearing from you, Juan. How's your digestion?" 
"The sound of your voice sweetens it considerably, se�or." Then 
Jose got down to business. "Is there any information from my 
visitors of the morning? I am wondering why they called on me so 
imperatively . . ." 
"Juan, they've all got records a mile long," O'Brien said. "But 
that's not what you mean, is it? You'll be glad to know that they 
haven't spilled a word about your mission. Won't say who hired 
'em or why. But they must have been well paid." 
"Se�or, I have no mission!" Jose protested. 
There was a trace of annoyance in the officer's voice. "Juan, 
you don't have to tell me anything! I know you get private international 
assignments, and I'm not prying. I'm just reporting on what 
these hoods-" 
Jose raised his free hand and waved a chorizo, a thick Spanish 
sausage, expressively before stuffing it into his mouth. "Se�or, you 
misunderstand! You are my friend! You save my life every day of 
the week and twice on Sundays! I do not lie to you, I do not accuse 
you. I have no mission!" 
There was a pause. "Sure, Juan, that's true," 0'Brien said at 
last. "Sorry I was edgy. We'll try to get something more for you, 
but it looks as if they think you have a mission. Or their boss 
thinks so. Unless it's some old enemy-" 
"These did not come for revenge, se�or. They came for information. 
Which I sadly lack. It is a mystery," 
"Well, you're good at mysteries, Juan!" He disconnected. 
Jose pondered for a full minute while he masticated his sausage. 
It was a mystery. Finally he shrugged and dialed a long dis-
381 
tance number, assigning the charge to his home phone. "St. Thomas 
Military Academy," a secretary answered. 
"Robertico, please, Se�ora," he said. 
"Right away, Mr. Jose!" 
In a moment Robertico was speaking. "Hi, Papi! Can I come 
home this weekend?" 
"Hijo, I think not," Jose said regretfully. "A matter of business 
seems to have intruded itself," 
"Aw, Papi, I'll help you fight the thugs! I'm doing real good in 
judo class, I could-" 
"Judo is not always enough," Jose said seriously. 
"Well, sure, you could pulverize my teacher with your vis- 
vis-" 
"Visceral control," Jose said. "I probably could-but do not 
forget I also know and respect the martial arts, judo among them. 
There is much for you to learn." 
"But I could learn much better from you, Papi!" 
"It is more than that, Robertico. I may be away for a few days, 
and it is not good for a young boy to be alone." 
"Papi, I'm nine years old! I can take care of myself!" 
"Flesh of my flesh, you know that and I know that. But the 
child welfare authorities, they don't know that! That is why I have 
to leave you in that hole of a school-" 
"Why don't you get married again, Dad? So I'd have-" 
"'Dad'? What is this word?" 
The boy ignored the interruption. "So I'd have a mother, and 
I could stay at home all the time-" There was a tremor in the 
young voice. Robertico really wanted a home. 
"This is no life for a woman, Son. She would-" 
"'Son'? What is this word?" 
Jose smiled privately. Robertico Jose was becoming a real infighter! 
"She would soon grow bitchy and jealous." 
"No she wouldn't! I could pick you a real good-looking wench, 
sort of stupid, who-" 
"Hijo!" Jose snapped. But his grinning face belied his voice. 

382 
"It is not right for any woman, even a stupid one, not to know 
where her man is, what trouble he is in. And you-you need a 
mama, not a wench! A woman who can cook and make beds and 
sing songs and sew and teach you manners." 
"Yuck!" Robertico exclaimed. "I'm better off at school!" 
"I will visit you soon," Jose said, smiling again. "Take it easy 
on the poor teachers, hellion. They are only trying to earn a living."
"Adios, Papi," the boy said sadly. 
Jose had spoken to his son sensibly, with many a Latin gesture 
and smile. Now he was sober, and there was a shine in his eyes that 
was not joy. He did want his boy with him-but marriage was too 
complex. What would have happened this morning, had those 
thugs found a woman in his apartment? Or his son? Jose himself 
would not have told the hoods anything even if he had known 
what they wanted. But if they tortured his only child- 
He shook his head. If only he could be a sensible family man, 
with regular hours and secure income. But he had tried that once, 
ten years ago, and now what did he have to show for it? 
He had Robertico. That made it all worthwhile. But he did 
not care to go that route a second time. No more marriages, no 
more serious involvement. 
He had one more call, to his answering service. "Yes, se�or," 
the girl said. "One just came in. I think it's an assignment. Call 
555-5837 and use the code name 'Windbreaker.'" 
"Thank you, se�ora." Jose put down the receiver and let out a 
bellow of laughter that startled the other diners. 
The waiter rushed up. "Are you well, sir?" 
"Very well, despite your abominable chorizo," Jose chuckled. 
"Bring me another link. One more call, se�or-then I shall return 
your poor tired telephone." The waiter left, perplexed. 
Jose dialed the number the answering service had given him. 
"Windbreaker," he said. 
"Who?" 
"Windbreaker. Warm sport jacket. Strong man who leads the
383 
way into the storm. Hedge or wall to break the-" 
"Enough, Jose!" the gruff male voice said. There was no other 
introduction, no formality, and no questions, "You're our man. 
Five thousand dollars plus expenses. You'll receive advance payment 
and instructions by registered mail, Agreed?" 
"No." 
Now there was a pause. "Seven-five, then," 
"Negative. It is not the money, se�or. I do not work for an 
anonymous employer. Or one who lacks proper confidence." 
"We have confidence! We know you're the best in the business. 
Our type of business." 
"Yet you tested me," Jose said flatly. 
"No, Windbreaker. There was a leak." 
"I do not work for leaky people. It is bad for my health." 
"Not exactly a leak. We let slip to a certain party that we had 
hired the most capable international agent available. We did not 
identify him. In this manner we verified a suspicion, and located 
the best man. The leak has been fixed-permanently-and we 
now propose to hire the man. You. If our competition calls you 
the best, that's good enough for us. And we rather like your style." 
"Se�or, my style stinks." 
"Yes indeed!" 
"Still, I must know you." 
"Very well. Fifteen minutes from now, alone." The man reeled 
off an address. "You have eidetic memory, don't you? See that you 
are not followed." 
Jose was not partial to either the man's attitude or his assumptions. 
As though any professional would allow himself to be followed! 
"Se�or, I am not finished with my breakfast. You come here 
to the La Campana restaurant, and we shall talk." 
"Listen, I'm paying you a lot of money." 
"Se�or, wad that money into a roll one inch in diameter and 
insert it in your-" 
"All right! I'll meet you there. This time." 
"And be prompt," Jose said. "See that you are not followed." 

384 
There was a stifled sound before the connection broke, Jose 
smiled broadly. Presumption deserved what it received. 
Still, he rather thought he would take the job. His prospective 
employer had a devious and ruthless mind, and a certain arrogant 
honesty. Jose liked that. He understood that type of mind. 
The code-name had been the signal, of course. It was the 
man's way of telling him that he knew about the contretemps of 
the morning, and how Jose had summoned help. Hence the man 
knew something of visceral learning. 
Few people realized that the so-called involuntary reflexes and 
systems of the body could become voluntary-with proper training. 
Fewer still could actually practice such control. Hardly any 
were adept at it. Juan Jose was one of these fewest. 
It had been an elementary matter to disrupt his own digestive 
processes so that gas formed. Then it was merely a matter of ejecting 
it with sufficient force to create a noisy vibration, while bringing 
certain muscles into play to shape the sound. The result: a 
crude cry for help. 
The resultant code name: Windbreaker. 
But this was not an ability Jose normally chose to advertise. It 
was not merely that many people found the notion objectionable, 
but that it was one of a complex of unusual abilities whose main 
virtue was surprise. Had the hoods known he could make that cry, 
they would have made sure he was all the way unconscious. 
Fortunately, they hadn't known, and O'Brien hadn't told them. 
It seemed that his prospective employer had had the discretion to 
keep his mouth shut on that matter, also. 
Juan Jose finished his meal, burped contentedly, and waited 
for the man to arrive.
SUMMARY OF REMAINDER: 
Juan Jose's employer turns out to be an American gangster 
who once operated a nightclub, hotel and casino in Havana. He 
had four partners with whom he theoretically split the proceeds 
evenly-but he cheated on them so that he actually amassed a 
considerable fortune. There were no real taxes in Cuba, and he had 
been adept at "skimming." Thus he amassed about five million 
dollars "retirement money" in thousand dollar bills and diamonds, 
buried in small watertight metal containers under a tree in his 
garden. 
But Castro came to power so suddenly that he was caught 
short-and probably a suspicious partner betrayed him. He was 
arrested, his apartment searched, and his worldly goods confiscated: 
about half a million dollars worth of loot was taken over by 
the state. They then deported him without realizing that they had 
missed the main portion. But he had no chance to recover the 
riches himself. 
Now about fifteen years have passed, and things have cooled 
off. The gangster has succeeded in eliminating his erstwhile partners, 
but his type of business has not been as good in America as it 
was in Cuba, and he needs that lost money. He can not trust any 
criminal hirelings to recover it for him, and they would betray 
him for it without qualm. He dares not show his own face in Cuba, 

386 
of course. So he is making a legitimate offer to Jose, who is known 
to be scrupulously fair to friends and enemies alike (though not to 
people who fit neither of these categories). 
Jose is to go into Cuba, dig up the hidden treasure, and bring 
it back. Perhaps a week's work, with all expenses paid, plus a fee of 
$7,500. Juan turns it down contemptuously; he has more enemies 
than friends in Cuba, and the government there does not like him, 
and the fee offered is a pittance. He bargains for half the loot, and 
settles for twenty percent: one million dollars. He doesn't need to 
trust the gangster; he will merely turn over all the money in excess 
of his million. With that money, Jose can retire and take proper 
care of his child. 
The mission, despite the gangster's description, is more than a 
week's work. It is possible to get into Cuba, but it can be fatally 
difficult to get out again, especially with five million dollars. Jose 
must arrange it so that no one suspects his mission. He obtains 
false papers and goes to Mexico, where he joins a guerrilla group. 
This is no picnic; he must prove himself to the tough and suspicious 
guerrillas by participating in a raid on a railroad station. He 
does, but other guerrillas get drunk and kill a number of people. 
They end up seizing the whole town and looting it, withdrawing 
only when government troops come. Jose, not yet fully trusted, is 
left to escape on his own. He does so by hiding in a refrigerator 
truck. He is able to lower his body temperature to survive the 
freezing interior. 
The guerrillas then follow Jose's subtle suggestion and hijack 
an airplane going to Mexico City, and take it to Havana. True 
revolutionaries still are welcomed in Cuba. But they are not taken 
on faith; they must prove themselves. This group is given a fair 
choice: work in the cane fields, or undertake more training for 
revolutionary activity in other countries. So they "volunteer" for 
the training. Jose uses his visceral control to pass a lie detector test. 
Actually, this training is exactly what he wants, because the training 
camp is near Havana, and Havana is where the gangster's cache 
is buried.
387 
They are taught how to use special C-3 grenades. One explodes 
prematurely and the instructor's head is blown off. The 
entire party is badly wounded. Jose gets shrapnel his arms; his 
right hand is wounded, and an artery in the left is cut. He can't 
apply a tourniquet, so controls the rain and bleeding through his 
unique talents and walks five miles to the militia post to get help. 
Then he lets the blood flow and collapses-in the arms of a beautiful 
Cuban girl-so that the authorities will not suspect his powers. 
He is hospitalized in Havana, and touted as something of a 
hero, because the help he summoned saved the lives of several 
injured men. He cultivates the association of the girl, Perla, who 
seems happy to be cultivated. Jose can be quite charming when he 
puts his mind to it, and his sexual talents are remarkable because 
of his visceral control. Perla thinks he likes her mind; the others are 
sure it is her body he likes. The truth is that she lives in the woman's 
dormitory that has been set up on the former estate of the gangster, 
and to which he needs unobtrusive entry. 
Actually, Perla does have a mind, and talents of her own. The 
government has researched Jose's background and discovered his 
real identity and abilities; the girl has been assigned to learn the 
nature of his current mission. Jose, adept at reading body language, 
suspects that she is a counterspy, but goes along with her 
for several reasons. First, her mission means she can be very helpful 
to him, because they can't find out what he is up to unless he is 
granted some leeway; second, he is not out to assassinate Fidel, so 
is innocent of their prime concern; third, he believes he can subvert 
her to his side if he has to. 
Perla catches him as he digs up the treasure. Now he has to 
deal with her. It would be awkward to kill her, and he has a strong 
aversion to that anyway. So he tells her the truth and offers to take 
her out of the country with him if she will join him. She agrees. Of 
course this may be part of her job as a counter-agent, but it gives 
him a chance to get moving efficiently. 
Unfortunately these negotiations take too long, and the other 

388 
girls of the dormitory discover them. Now there are no subtleties; 
the two have to fight their way out and flee to the jungle. Castro's 
troops pursue with much shooting. The two hide in the swamp. 
Jose alone could have gotten away easily, but Perla's presence makes 
it a narrow thing. They manage to board a patrol boat, naked and 
dripping. They get rid of the occupants and take the boat to sea, 
eluding further pursuit-only to run into a storm. 
They take refuge at Cay Sal, a small island in the Bahamas 
near Cuba that Cuba claims. The Cubans follow and there is a 
battle between the gunboats, while the British, who have the authority 
but not the will to break it up, look the other way. Jose's 
boat, undermanned, is no match; it begins to sink. He jumps off 
and swims with the money underwater. Such is his control, he is 
able to stay underwater some ten minutes, avoiding discovery. But 
once he is clear he reconsiders, drops the money in the deeps and 
goes back to rescue Perla. 
They escape-but the mission is now a failure. Jose reports 
this to the gangster employer, who is furious; he does not believe 
the money is really lost, and thinks he has been double-crossed. So 
he kidnaps Jose's son Robertico, supposing this will make Jose 
yield the fortune. 
Jose has to raid the gangster's estate, which is well guarded by 
sophisticated protective devices: vibration-sensitive attachments to 
doors and windows, anti-intruder screens, pressure-sensitive wires 
under carpeting, and electric-eye booby-traps. It requires all of 
Jose's ingenuity to get through, and some help from Perla and 
Robertico himself. He finally does prevail, though the gangster 
gets killed in the process. 
Now Jose has to sweat out the most difficult problem of all: 
that of Perla, who naturally expects him to marry her. He is determined 
not to remarry, especially not without money. But even 
Robertico is against him on this issue. So Jose is in trouble again, 
and as the novel ends his sweating is unfeigned. 
[This is the first novel of a projected series of adventures fea-
389 
turing the Windbreaker. Others will concern diamond mines in 
Brazil, Amazonian Indian slave exploitation, and voodoo and blood 
selling in Haiti.] 
AUTHORS' NOTE: Remember, a quarter century has passed 
since this piece was crafted. Today the corded phones have been 
replaced by cell phones. Real numbers have also been replaced by 
555 numbers, so we did update that. This project found no favor 
with publishers; perhaps they didn't like the notion that a leading 
character could break wind. 

SORCEX 
Sone is the bastard son of Togo, a veteran Samurai warrior. In 
June, 1281, the two are practicing Kendo, with Sone employing 
his fine sword against his father's staff. The old man fends off the 
attack easily, his long wooden pole blocking every thrust of the 
sword. "Are you a weakling? Strike harder! Harder! " he cries. Sone, 
an extremely powerful young man, aims a devastating blow at 
Togo's head, knowing that the sheer force of it will rock the man 
back and impress him. But the staff, though reinforced with iron, 
snaps in two, and the blade cleaves Togo's brain, killing him instantly. 
Togo's legitimate son Kato charges in and spies the disaster. 
He has little love for Sone, but it is plain that the killing was 
unintentional. Thus they argue, not about Sone's guilt, but about 
the diabolical cause of the accident. Kato claims that some magician 
has put a spell on Togo's weapons, so that they betrayed their 
master; Sone concludes that all weapons are innately perverse and 
not to be trusted. 
Both youths make oaths on the spot: Kato swears he will not 
settle down to his father's estate until he has avenged Togo's murder, 
while Sone swears never again to use a weapon. Kato demands 
that Sone join the vengeance quest, but Sone refuses, saying there 
is no one to wreak vengeance on. Kato is furious: "Not only are 

392 
you a bastard, you are too cowardly to avenge your own father, 
even when your own arm was ensorcelled for murder," he shouts. 
"Traitor! Get out of this house!" And Kato draws his own sword, 
forgetting all Samurai ethics and caution, and charges upon Sone 
with the blade uplifted. Sone, unarmed, defends himself by employing 
what in later centuries will be described as a judo shoulder 
throw, ippon seoi nage, and unfortunately snaps his brother's 
arm.
After this second disaster there is nothing for Sone to do except 
depart his sire's estate forever. "'When I recover, I will seek 
you out and kill you!" Kato screams, and Sone, shamed, can not 
even reply. He moves into a hut some distance away and sets about 
farming turnips, choosing the lowliest of occupations to expiate 
his grief and disgrace. But he is so strong that he accomplishes 
much in a short time, and his turnips sprout in days as if magically 
fertilized. 
Soon a beautiful girl approaches him, saying she is Miho, traveling 
from a distant land, who needs a place to rest for a few days 
before going on. This is suspicious, as she could obviously find 
much superior lodging; but Sone, mindful that his unknown 
mother might have been just such a visitor to his father's house 
twenty years ago, shares his hut. Miho shortly seduces him: no 
difficult task, as he is as lusty as he is muscular, and she has remarkable 
expertise. He obligingly marries her thereafter. 
Next day she goes into the village and buys a baby boy, whom 
she intends to adopt as their son. Sone is dismayed at the speed 
and nature of his progression into marriage and paternity, but she 
explains that it is all right: the baby is cursed with an incurable 
disease and will soon die. It occurs to Sone that fate is generously 
assisting him in his effort to expiate his shame through misery, so 
he shuts up and makes the best of it. 
Fate is indeed generous. Sone returns from a hard day's labor 
in the field to discover the bloody carcass of his new son. Miho is 
incoherent and can tell him nothing-but huge tiger tracks lead 
away from the corpse. Sone sees his duty and sets off after the
393 
animal. He carries only his pitchfork that he had been using to 
farm, together with a resin torch and fire case so that he can travel 
by night. The region is mountainous and the tracks head toward 
the chill (even in summer) upper reaches, so he wears a thick cotton 
jacket with leather underpadding: sturdy and warm. 
The trail is a strange one: terror, horror and grief remain where 
the creature has passed, but reports of its nature are inconsistent. 
Some call it a tiger, others a mad ape, still others a terrible snake. 
And the tracks vary accordingly. Sone suspects it is a demon creature, 
that can change its form. He can certainly do the world a 
favor by eliminating it. 
He finally runs it down and brings it to bay, and his suspicion 
is confirmed: it is a creature of hell. It assumes the form of a dragon 
and charges him. Instantly Sone fires his torch and jams the brightly 
flaring end into one of the dragon's eyes. Then be stabs it in the 
underbelly-its only vulnerable place-with the pitchfork. It 
changes into a tiger, breaking off the tines of the fork in the process. 
Sone fends it off somewhat using the handle, then gets on its 
back and applies a neck lock. The creature then changes madly 
into a variety of awful shapes, but Sone will not let go, and finally 
its struggles weaken and he breaks its neck, killing it. 
Another man would be joyful at his success, but Sone is grim. 
He has used torch and pitchfork as weapons; never again will he 
take up these things, for his oath forbids it. He must find his way 
home in darkness, and use some other tool for farming. And because 
his arms and hands were used to choke the creature, they too 
are weapons to that extent: be will not choke anything again. 
He makes it home, but alas, his lovely wife is gone, and in her 
place is a grossly ugly hag. She is able to tell him only that she is 
his wife, but placed under a spell; she will not regain her natural 
beauty until he has seduced a hundred beautiful women, each of 
whom has to know he is married and each of whom must undertake 
this humiliation because of envy of that wife. An impossible 
mission: who in Japan would envy such a wife, and who would 

394 
yield her virtue to a married man who could not take any new 
wives? 
Sone has been misfortunate, but he is not stupid. He now 
realizes that magic is involved, that has cost him his son and his 
wife's beauty. So maybe magic did kill his father, and Kato was 
right all along. In which case Sone must try to apologize to his 
brother, and seek out the guilty magician. The same sorcerer could 
have put a spell on his wife's tongue, so that she could not tell all 
she knew. 
Sone is slow to anger, but now he is angry, and even considering 
his vow against the use of weapons he is a formidable antagonist. 
If there is a magician behind all this trouble, that magician is 
very likely to be sorry, once located. Sone seeks his brother, but 
Kato has by now mended enough to start his own quest for vengeance, 
and though each brother is looking for the other, they 
miss each other. 
Sone heads for the Emperor's palace, hoping the court magician 
can give him some clues. The Regent of Japan at this time is 
Hojo Tokimune, and his magician is so powerful he was able to 
repulse the Mongol invasion of 1274 by summoning the demon 
Typhun to the aid of the Japanese. A good place to start. 
The journey to the capital is an eventful one, as Sone encounters 
a number of demons, aggressive warriors, and beautiful women, 
dealing with each as seems expedient. Sone doesn't much like 
magic, and avoids it when he can; but hostile magic can be difficult 
to nullify. And each time a warrior attacks him, Sone has to 
become more ingenious, defending him self with some tool or 
article never before used as a weapon. In this way a number of the 
unusual weapons of the later martial arts are invented. And Sone 
tells each girl that there is none in all the world quite like his wife, 
and a number of those girls rise to the challenge with excitingly 
novel techniques of seduction. Thus the so-called Hercules position 
of love, and others. One samurai warrior even gets a notion, 
and Sone is hard put to it to dissuade the man from his unfortunate 
amours. And at one point Kato shows up, and immediately
395 
goes after Sone with his sword, refusing to listen to any explanations. 
Sone is unable to clarify the matter, and gets away only by 
seeming like a coward. 
Finally Sone wins through to Regent Hojo's court, but the 
court magician is too busy to investigate his problem. The Mongols 
are making ready to attack again, already sailing for Japan with a 
huge armada and 165,000 warriors-and Kublai Khan's magician 
has somehow chained the demon Typhun so that he cannot save 
Japan this time. It will take a phenomenal effort of sorcery to loose 
the demon in time, and of course the Mongol magician is constantly 
making countermoves to prevent that. "Talk with Oichi," 
the magician snaps, dismissing Sone. 
Oichi turns out to be the daughter of one of the Emperor's 
wives. In the course of having his way with her-a perilous procedure, 
because of the alert palace guards-Sone learns that she is 
acquainted with much palace gossip. Her mother's closest friend, 
another wife of the Emperor, once told a strange story of how she 
had gone to visit her home-kingdom in Mongolia, for she was a 
princess in her own right. She had been attacked by thieves, her 
retinue slain, and she had barely escaped herself. But local villagers 
would not help her, because she was Mongol and did not speak 
their language. The nearby Samurai spotted her, half dead, and 
carried her to his estate where she received help. But there was a 
price on that help, and she had neither the power nor the inclination 
to decline, as her host was a most impressive man. She remained 
to bear his child, then had to hurry back to the Emperor's 
palace with a made-up story of her marvelous visit home. If Hojo 
had ever learned the truth, he would have slaughtered that bold 
Samurai warrior, and the princess, and the bastard baby, and all 
the household and maybe the nearby village too, bringing fire and 
shame upon the entire region. So the secret had to be kept-but 
before she died in a mysterious knife accident the princess confessed 
all to her friend. That was only a few weeks ago, and Oichi 
had overheard it, and now told Sone because he very much resembles 
that dead princess. 

396 
Sone is not slow to grasp the import; that princess was surely 
his mother, and now he knows his own lineage. And she died at 
the same time and in a similar manner to Togo-as if the same 
magician had struck. This is a strong hint where he should search 
next. So he gets off Oichi and proceeds to Mongolia, having more 
adventures on the way. He is in a hurry now that the trail is hot, so 
enlists the aid of some mermen who haul him rapidly across the 
sea. But he yields to the temptation to add a mermaid to his wiferedeeming 
tally, and the situation gets ugly. He is lucky to win 
through to the mainland with no more than some wounds and 
some waterlogging. 
When he reaches the Mongol kingdom-a land vassal to Kublai 
Khan-he learns that this minor court had an extremely powerful 
magician who served Kublai in war. This magician had a strikingly 
beautiful and talented daughter-but both vanished not long ago. 
They may have gone to the old Mongol capital of Karakorum to 
aid in some top-secret magic related to the war effort against Japan 
. . . 
Sone conjectures that that magician, Mifune, had been so busy 
serving Kublai Khan over the years, contributing to the Khan's 
enormous success, that only recently had he thought to check into 
the princess' situation and learned through his arts of her adultery. 
Outraged, Mifune must have set out to kill all the guilty parties. 
Naturally he would have kept the matter quiet, so as not to bring 
shame upon his kingdom and perhaps incur the wrath of Kublal 
Khan. That would explain the deaths of Toga and the princess. 
But why hadn't Mifune killed Sone too? Because the magician's 
specialty was enchanting weapons-and Sone had forsworn the 
use of weapons! Still, Mifune could have sent a demon to do the 
mischief for him. Sone realizes that this is what happened; the 
hell-tiger had come and killed his son, before Sone searched it out 
and killed it in turn. 
So it all fits-yet mysteries remain. Where did Miho come 
from, and why was she transformed? Why the hundred-seduction 
mandate? That was hardly doing the job of getting Sone killed! It
397 
was necessary to run down Mifune and get the truth from him- 
before killing him to avenge Togo and the princess. Maybe he 
could make Mifune explain Miho's transformation, or even undo 
it, if he was more powerful than whoever had done that to her. 
There is no problem about traveling across China and 
Mongolia; the Mongols have so pacified the entire continent that 
there is no violence or robbery apart from that practiced by the 
conquerors themselves. Unfortunately, the Mongols do protect their 
women, especially against handsome wandering Japanese! Soon 
Sone is in trouble again, and the Mongol pursuit is grim indeed. 
Nevertheless Sone wins through to Karakorum-only to discover 
that Mifune has removed to Kublai's summer capital of Xanadu 
(actually Shangtuho). Sone finally does locate Mifune in one of 
the special palace retreats the Khan has set up, and finds the magician 
quite ready to talk to him. Thus the full explanation: 
When Mifune spotted that long-ago shame of the princess, 
he did indeed set out to rectify the matter privately. But he was 
very busy chaining the demon Typhun and countering the Japanese 
magician's efforts to free that demon, so could only spare a 
limited amount of energy for this private project. When Sone's noweapons 
oath saved him, Mifune sent the hell-tiger. But Mifune's 
daughter Miho, a distressingly self-willed girl, learned what he 
was doing and decided it was unfair to punish the innocent child 
of the illicit union. (Sone-innocent? They both have a laugh over 
that.) So she flew to Japan to warn him, beating the demon by 
several days. But Mifune in turn discovered what she was up to, 
and laid a spell on her so that she couldn't betray any of his secrets 
to any outside party. Thus she couldn't warn Sone that the tiger 
was coming for his blood, that it had to taste before being freed. 
But Miho found Sone such an attractive specimen that she refused 
to give him up, so got him to marry her. 
That was significant, for it made Sone Mifune's son-in-law. 
Mifune, honorable to a fault (by his own admission), could not 
murder his own relatives. So he was forced to tell his erring daughter 
how to balk the demon: by providing it with the blood of 

398 
Sone's blood line, or his son. A technicality the demon was too 
stupid to fathom, so it was satisfied. 
But then Sone had gone after the demon himself. That didn't 
bother Mifune unduly; if Sone got himself killed on his own initiative, 
well and good! The problem was solved. Then Sone killed 
the demon, and the problem was unsolved. Mifune, still preoccupied 
with the ticklish Typhun situation, decided that he could not 
accomplish anything useful in regard to Sone before breaking up 
that marriage. To force a divorce from Miho, so as to get Sone 
unrelated and therefore killable, Mifune transformed her and set 
the terms of alleviation. If Sone didn't balk at her ugliness, Miho 
would balk at his infidelity. A beautiful plan-except that it didn't 
work. 
Sone, knowing the facts, can now kill Mifune. But there is a 
hitch: he, too, is honorable in his fashion, and he can't kill a relative 
either. He realizes he is balked, and must leave his father 
unavenged. But then half-brother Kato catches up, and Sone manages 
between dodges of the sword to explain some of the situation 
to him. Kato eagerly heads off to slay the magician. Both die in the 
ensuing struggle. This takes place on August 15, 1281. The moment 
Mifune dies, the storm demon Typhun is released, and 
Typhun proceeds to destroy the Mongol fleet, saving Japan after 
all. Thus Sone, through no special intent of his own, is his country's 
benefactor. 
Miho, too, is freed of the enchantment, though Sone has not 
yet (quite) completed the roster of 100 women. She is prepared to 
be tolerant about her father's demise, since she will inherit his 
wealth and power, and transports herself to Xanadu to reassure 
Sone. About to embrace her, Sone, who is not after all so smart 
about certain things, confessed that the spell on her wasn't really 
so bad. He rather enjoyed working it off with all those lovely girls, 
and is a bit sorry he didn't get to go the full hundred. 
Miho blacks both his eyes and bites a chunk out of his ear 
before he gets her down and wrestles her into a turbulent lovemaking. 
It is a very satisfying reunion.
JASON STRIKER MARTIAL ARTS SERIES VOLUME III 
AUTHORS' NOTE-Novels can be marketed on the basis of 
a straight summary, as this one was. To bad it didn't sell. 
 
399
BIOGRAPHY 
OF A 
TERRORIST 
(Chapter 2, "Three Misses," appeared as an article in the magazine 
THE DEADLY HANDS OP KUNG FU, May 1976.) 
AUTHORS' NOTE: This presentation was written in 1976, 
so is dated by a quarter century. But though the details have changed 
in 25 years, the essence hasn't. 

INTRODUCTION 
There is a rising tide of terrorism around the world. We see it 
in Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia-everywhere. The Irish violence 
has made headlines for years, and so have the Arab-Israeli 
exchanges between outright wars. There is the Basque separatist 
movement in Spain, and the "Death Squads" are practically an 
institution in Brazil. U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT estimates 
that 1,000 people have been killed in the world by acts of terrorism 
in the past ten years. Terrorism is big business. 
America is safer than most parts of the world, but it is hardly 
immune. From 1975 terrorism has been ravaging southern Florida, 
with rape, killing and destruction of property proceeding with 
seeming impunity. Recently a train carrying deadly chlorine and 
propane was derailed by sabotage. The Patty Hearst case was an 
example of another kind of terrorism, and so were the airline 
hijackings. Our political history was changed when President 
Kennedy was assassinated by a lone terrorist (though there may 
have been a Cuban connection there), and changed again when 
President Nixon engaged in the more subtle terrorism eventually 
exposed by the Watergate investigation. 
In fact, there are so many examples that individual cases are 
hardly news. Terrorism is endemic. It costs us far more than lives 
and property. It gnaws at one of the basic freedoms we believe in: 

404 
freedom from fear. The terrorist is not out for money or sexual 
gratification or notoriety; his interest is in frightening the average 
man into giving the terrorist power. 
Why isn't it stopped? It isn't that no one cares. It isn't that the 
police don't try. Terrorism is an insidiously difficult thing to control. 
Any person can take a gun and shoot at the symbol of his ire. 
He can take gasoline and a soft-drink bottle and fashion a devastating 
bomb. Or he can simply make a telephone call to the police, 
tipping them off about the massive bomb supposedly hidden 
in a major airport, and chuckle in the comfort of his home while 
havoc ensues. He has done almost as much damage to the system 
as a real bomber could have, without real cost or risk to himself. 
Terrorism: it takes many forms. Its practitioners range from 
do-it-yourselfers to complete professionals. No one is safe from it. 
The only way to begin to alleviate its menace is to understand it. 
Blindly oppressive measures will not do the job. What motivates a 
terrorist? How does he operate? Who helps him? What would deter 
him? 
Only one type of person knows the answers. That person is 
the terrorist himself. He is not necessarily a criminal, or even a 
violent man; he may be a fun-loving family man with a strong 
moral code and an unshakable belief in the rightness of his cause. 
In fact, he may be right, by the verdict of history, and the regime 
he opposes may be wrong. The selfish or casual destroyer is a criminal; 
the dedicated destroyer is a different and superior type, far 
more dangerous because of the resources, intelligence, and motivation 
he brings to his craft. A criminal is basically an amateur; a 
terrorist is basically a professional. He has committed his life to his 
cause. Idealism, not mere money, causes him to act. 
The successful terrorist of today may be the respected statesman 
of tomorrow. The Irgun terrorists who fought the British rulers 
of Palestine entered the government of the new state when the 
British departed; their last chief of operations became a member of 
the Israeli cabinet. The Arab PLA terrorists who oppose Israel are
405 
now treated with honor by the UN. Former terrorists now govern 
the nation of Cuba. Oh, yes-the rewards of victory are great! 
But these are long shots. For the average terrorist, the practical 
outlook is bleak. He knows he is likely to wind up in prison, or 
dead. Why does he choose to subject himself to the roulette that 
this profession is? 
Here is the story of a genuine terrorist. Roberto Fuentes, former 
terrorist, has worked with Piers Anthony, writer, on five successful 
novels of martial arts and several shorter pieces. The vast reservoir 
of experience on which Mr. Fuentes drew for the realistic detail of 
those books came from his other life-a life that entailed privation, 
fear, torture, imprisonment, nightmare, execution and sex 
for the former judo champion of Cuba. 
His story illustrates another facet of the trade. The terrorist 
may be an intellectual, at first reluctant to act despite the wrongs 
he sees about him. His conviction that he is right and that someone 
has to act draws him into a life he never anticipated or wanted. He 
comes to the difficult conclusion that there is no recourse remaining 
except violence; the orderly process of justice has broken down. 
And so, with mixed emotions, he does act, hating the necessity. 
Then, once he has tasted the water of violence, he becomes 
addicted to it. He develops a perverse fascination for this life outside 
the law, the sheer challenge of it. He is like nice Dr. Jekyll 
turning into evil Mr. Hyde, trying to swear off but always doing it 
again because of the fundamental human need he has tapped. His 
original ends are distorted as he indulges in greater violence for 
smaller reason. Sometimes, even, the means become the end. 
He is now committed to the sheer excitement of the forbidden 
life, the elite camaraderie he discovers there. His cause may be 
lost-but he continues, finding another cause, unable to give up 
this very special existence. The life he had before, as a staid lawabiding 
citizen, has entirely lost its flavor. Innocent Dr. Jekyll has 
been absorbed by the stronger personality he unwittingly loosed. 
Actually, this is just a theory about one type of terrorist. There 
are many motivations. The people involved are a highly mixed 

406 
bag. Many of them hardly comprehend their own drives. But 
Roberto Fuentes fits this description. He is a member of MENSA. 
the high IQ society, and he cares about human rights while also 
loving the decadent good life. A study of his descent into terrorism 
should provide an insight into the complex nature of this beast. 
This biography has been fictionalized to a certain extent, necessarily. 
Names have been changed to protect the identities of friends 
who might still be subject to reprisals. The details of certain events 
have been modified similarly; in some cases the accurate details 
would void any pretense of anonymity for the participants. Some 
material remains confidential for military reasons. The United States 
government has on occasion sued persons who reveal certain types 
of information too specifically. Therefore this biography must be 
considered about 25% fiction, with a number of deliberately 
planted errors. But the essence, and particularly the spirit, are 
correct. This is the only way it can be done; as will be evident, 
terrorism is not a gentle employment. Many of Mr. Fuentes' friends 
are dead, and more are dying violently as time passes; he does not 
wish to add himself to that total. He is already under sentence of 
death by the Castro government of Cuba, for one of the exploits 
covered in this book. 
To deal with an enemy, one must first know him. The essence 
of terrorism is similar wherever it occurs. Though the origins and 
original incentives of terrorists are diverse, once they are committed 
they are brothers under the skin. Roberto Fuentes was a Cuban 
terrorist, but he operated in much the same fashion as a Communist 
or fascist or splinter-group terrorist would in the United 
States. In fact, he was trained in the U.S.A. A bullet or a bomb 
knows no language but its own; it will do its job wherever it is 
directed. 
Roberto Fuentes' progress into terrorism began with idealism. 
The background political situation is documented in some detail 
here, to show that it was no casual whim that moved him into 
such a life. 
On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba.
407 
The seven year dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista had collapsed 
abruptly, and the revolutionists were victorious. It was a time of 
great expectations. At last the people of Cuba had thrown off oppression 
and taken the reins of government into their own hands, 
much as the people of America had done in 1776. There would be 
a new age of democracy and individual liberty in the island nation; 
Fidel had promised! The bearded charismatic leader stood for 
everything that was decent in government, and the people believed 
in him passionately. 
The Constitution of 1940, a model for good government, was 
going to be restored, and its precepts fully applied for the first 
time. No more political prisoners, no more unjust confinements. 
The death penalty was to be abolished. There would be justice for 
all. The wealth of the nation would be shared among the people. 
There would be a full and just Agrarian Reform, in which the idle 
land would be turned over to the working peasants. There would 
be complete personal freedom. Everyone would get a good education. 
There would be free elections within six months, just as soon 
as Fidel got things organized. 
The Constitution? Once he was in power, Castro decided Cuba 
didn't need it after all. 
Political prisoners? Their heyday came in Castro's regime, with 
hundreds of thousands of people locked away in old fortresses. 
Executions? Well, first there were a few necessary trials of war 
criminals-that is, those who had opposed Fidel by force of arms. 
These trials were very efficient, and there was no foolishness about 
the verdicts; they quickly justified the execution of the defendants. 
Sometimes the sentence of death was posted even before the trial 
was complete. In fact it became a blood bath, with people dying 
in virtual assembly-line precision-more than three thousand 
within six months as the result of trials. Somehow these "temporary" 
executions stretched out over the years, and never did stop. 
For a number of offenses, such as "crimes against the security of 
the state," which was a marvelous catch-all, the death penalty became 
mandatory. 

408 
But this was only the formal aspect. Informally it was worse. 
As early as January 3, 1959, two days after Castro's victory, eighty 
members of the Batista armed forces together with a number of 
civilians were simply machine-gunned to death in Sto. de Cuba. 
Justice for all? Castro had promised the armed forces of the 
prior administration that only those guilty of war crimes would be 
punished. Otherwise these troops might not have surrendered, 
and the war would not have been over. But consider the case of the 
43 airmen. Most Batista airmen escaped the country-easy enough 
to do, since they had the planes-and so the few on trial included 
transport pilots and mechanics who had not seen actual combat. 
The prosecutor could not find evidence against then, since they 
had committed no war crimes, so they were acquitted. 
Acquitted? Fidel was outraged. He denounced the verdict in an 
inflammatory television broadcast, and had them tried again. This 
time the judges got the message; 29 airmen were given prison 
terms of twenty years or more, and twelve received lesser sentences. 
The presiding judge of the first trial, the one who had blundered 
so badly as to find the men all innocent merely because there was 
no evidence, was found dead; the authorities said it was suicide. 
Perhaps it was. 
Another case was that of Major Sosa Blanco, accused of the 
crimes of another man, Mero Sosa. There was no proof; time and 
again the government's case against him was shown to be fallacious. 
Finally they had to stop televising the proceedings because 
the whole thing was "a Roman circus," making the government 
look ludicrous. But the case was not thrown out; it had gone too 
far for that. So the Major was convicted and sentenced in decent 
privacy. 
Sharing the wealth? True, assets were taken away from the rich, 
and the poor applauded. But somehow that wealth did not filter 
down to the poor people, and a precedent was set that in the end 
was ruinous. First the possessions of the remaining Batista supporters 
were confiscated. Very well, that's called the spoils of war, 
and it is customary around the world. It had not been Cuban
409 
policy before, however. Then the very rich were deprived, and the 
property of foreigners taken, especially Americans. Well, Americans 
weren't very popular in Latin America anyway; served them 
right. But after the spoils, and the rich, and the foreigners-who 
would be next? 
Agrarian reform? It became against the law to own more than 
3,000 acres of land in Cuba. Then the limits were reduced. In due 
course all private property-land, business, houses-was taken by 
the government, and no one could own his own home. With whom, 
then, was the land and wealth being shared? 
Personal freedom? From the outset Castro began to restrict it. 
He abolished gambling-yet doesn't freedom mean the right to 
choose for oneself whether to gamble, rather than having the government 
make the decision? Total press censorship was invoked. It 
became a crime for any writer to criticize the government, and 
citizens were sent to jail merely for listening to American radio 
broadcasts. Political parties were abolished with one notable exception: 
the Communist party. Unions were taken over, and strikes 
forbidden. Most Catholic priests were expelled. "Voluntary" membership 
in militia groups was required, and "voluntary" sugarcane 
cutting duty, and contributions of salary to the government for 
special purposes. 
As a result, there was a phenomenal exodus from Cuba by 
anyone able to move-until travel outside the island was prohibited. 
Doctors, lawyers, University graduates, the rich and middle 
class exited first; but as repression intensified it became a complete 
cross section of the population. Fishermen departed in droves, using 
their boats to cross the channel to Miami, Florida. To date, the 
number of exiles approaches one million-of a total population of 
six million at the time of Castro's takeover. In terms of per cent, 
that is one of the great migrations of modern history. One sixth of 
a nation, exiled. 
Education? First the religious schools were banned, then the 
private schools. Foreign magazines and newspapers were eliminated. 
Every child had to attend the government schools where literacy 

410 
was achieved by studying propaganda texts. But at first the process 
was subtle. Roberto Fuentes was a law student at the University 
of Havana in 1959. A small Communist clique tried to take 
over the University. Two of Fuentes' professors, Tony de Varona 
and Aureliano Sanches Arango, made comments that they were 
against Communism. An assembly was called, at which there was 
an attempt made to drive out these professors. Fuentes and a few 
others stood to rebut the Communists: "Since when is it a crime 
to be anti-Communist in Cuba?" he demanded. "If it is then you 
must expel me too, because I am also anti-Communist." The president 
of the law school, Major Maximo, replied: "Fuentes, it is not 
a crime." Then many others stood to declare their own anti-Communism, 
and the expulsion effort failed. But this showed the trend 
that was developing-and in due course, it did indeed become a 
crime to be anti-Communist in Cuba. 
Free elections? These were "temporarily" postponed, then abolished 
as unnecessary. In fact, Fidel's government from the start was 
hardly distinguishable from a dictatorship. He ruled by personal 
fiat.
Thus it was scarcely surprising that Roberto Fuentes, who 
had the background and training to appreciate the erosion of ideals 
and practice that was happening in Cuba, evolved gradually 
from a moderate skeptic into a confirmed enemy of the government. 
His father's family properties were confiscated-a manganese 
mine, tenement houses, and a small hotel in Sto. de Cuba- 
and his mother's family farm of 1,000 acres. His uncle was jailed. 
Roberto himself lost his job at the Havana tunnel, and his judo 
teaching position-for he was the judo champion of Cuba-and 
was expelled from the University of Havana. Oh, yes, Fuentes had 
reason to oppose the new order! 
But there was no freedom to protest the administration or to 
vote it out of power. So the idealists who had actually believed in 
the promises of the Revolution became disillusioned, and some of 
them gradually hardened into anti-Castro guerrillas. 
This is the story told in this book. It could happen to anyone
411 
with the courage to stand up for his convictions as he sees his 
country progressing into an alien philosophy, its traditions and 
freedoms despoiled stage by stage, while the majority of citizens 
merely accept it with sheeplike passivity. There are disturbing signs 
that it could happen in America. 
Such resistance is a hard course. Yet there is a certain psychological 
appeal to terrorism, as Fuentes says: "It is the great Ego 
booster. You might be a nerd, a failure at everything, but you 
know you are superior to all those lawyers making $50,000 a year. 
You can blow up twenty of them with a bomb, or you can change 
the world like Oswald, Sirhan and so many others. While you are 
doing it you are no longer a failure, no longer discriminated against, 
no longer a disappointment. You are the greatest." 
The authors hope that this book will help show the way to 
make the world safe from terrorism. But not too safe-so long as 
oppression remains. 

Chapter 1: 
Return 
We stood on the deck of a small yacht, peering through the 
night at the forbidden island. I was half-eager, half afraid; I wanted 
more than anything to destroy the Communist usurpers of my 
country, but I knew it was just as likely that they would destroy 
me instead. Already some of my closest friends had been gunned 
down, and I myself was marked by Fidel Castro's government for 
death. 
It really would have been easier, and a whole lot safer, to stay 
home. But where was home? In exile in Florida? My heart was in 
Cuba, so in a very real sense I was coming home. 
It was cool in that pre-dawn darkness, but most of the chill 
was in my mind. Beside me, Tomas and Nilo were impassive, even 
confident; they did not seem to have any weak-sister doubts. Tomas 
was to be our guide; I had been assured that he knew every inch of 
this area, so why should he worry? Nilo, an illiterate peasant, had 
stolen a gun and joined a guerrilla band the day his father's small 
farm in Las Villas province had been confiscated for incorporation 
into a larger "cooperative." If that was the agrarian reform that 
Castro had promised, Nilo did not want any part of it! When the 

414 
guerrilla leader, "Black Thorndyke," was surrounded in a cane field 
by 5,000 militiamen and burned alive, Nilo had led the surviving 
guerrillas in a daring raid on a government patrol boat and sailed 
it right into the Miami River with 25 men. He was extremely 
lucky to have survived at all-yet here he was, once more ready to 
give his life for his country. Nerve? He had proved he had it! 
I tried to keep my face positive, though I knew they could not 
make out my expression. My heart was racing, not exactly with 
enthusiasm. Who in his right mind would volunteer for a suicide 
mission like this? But there would be no backing out now. 
I was returning: that was my overriding thought. I had some 
fear, but as I explored it in my mind, I found it was not entirely for 
myself, though I knew the danger we faced. About half the missions 
into Cuba at this time were aborted, because of lights on the 
coast, the presence of a strange boat, noises or something similar. 
To my mind, these were flimsy excuses; the real reason was cowardice. 
Oh, sure, people get afraid in the presence of danger. That's 
natural; in fact fear is an essential human emotion. I have been 
afraid many times. I don't like the sensation, but I don't let it 
dominate me. So I had vowed to myself that no matter how afraid 
I might get, I would keep going. If my companions tried to back 
out, I thought I would pull a gun on them to make them go 
through with it. Because I was the leader of this mission; it was my 
responsibility. 
Another complication was the fact that I was virtually a newlywed. 
Just one month before, I had married the redheaded Nurmi. 
By day I trained in radio operation; by night I-well, it was a very 
busy time. 
Now I was riding high, as if I were drunk or on some drug; I 
felt like the most macho man in the world, the greatest, the bravest. 
So what if I might be going alone against ten thousand militiamen? 
Once I passed the test I would be a real man! 
We lowered a small fiberglass boat called a "Boston Whaler"
415 
and a rubber raft with a silent outboard motor. Five of us were 
going in; two would remain with the boat. 
Our mission was complex. On one level, it was to train guerrillas 
and saboteurs on the island. Many people opposed the Communist 
regime, but few were trained or equipped to act against it 
effectively. The expertise we brought was vital. Oddly, we were not 
to make contact with existing anti-Castro organizations. We had 
been warned that they were riddled by Fidel's G-2 Intelligence 
operatives and could not be trusted. 
On another level, our mission was to go in and learn as much 
as possible about a wild story concerning Russian missiles in Cuba. 
I was to be alert for railroad tank cars transporting liquid oxygen- 
"LOX"-which was fuel for large missiles. Of course the Soviets 
wouldn't dare put offensive missiles in Cuba, so this was a wild 
shot, probably dreamed up by some CIA man who fell asleep reading 
science fiction. Nevertheless, I would check it out as well as I 
could. 
And I was supposed to journey on to Havana, and contact 
some of my old collaborators there, men I could trust, and perhaps 
bring one of them out secretly for special training. 
We got into the rubber raft. My body performed automatically, 
doing the things it had been conditioned to do. My mind 
was still riding that high: we were committed, we were on our way 
at last! 
We were heavily laden. Besides the three of us in the raft, there 
were about 100 pounds of explosives, and two big oil drums containing 
twenty M-3 machine guns for the guerrillas we were to 
train. This, after all, was a complete Cuban exile operation for the 
MRR-Movement for Recovering the Revolution. We felt that 
Fidel Castro had betrayed the revolution he fomented, and delivered 
us all into a worse situation than we had before he came. So 
now we hoped to recover the original purpose. The founders and 
many members of the MRR had been in Fidel's "26th of July" 
fight against Batista. 
One of these founders was Captain Nino Diaz, who had been 

416 
a member of Raul Castro's column, before becoming disenchanted 
by the ruthless character of Fidel's brother. Another was Jorge Sotus, 
chief of the uprising against Batista in Sto. de Cuba in 1956, and 
leader of the first group of reinforcements Fidel received in the 
Sierra. Another was Sergio Sangenis, an anti-Batista guerrilla in 
Matanzas province and for a while chief of Fidel's military intelligence. 
And Manuel Artime, zone chief of INRRA in the Sierra 
Maestra. And Rogelio Gonzales Corso, once chief of Agriculture 
under Castro. These men had not intended to make the country a 
Communist satellite! So now we all worked to reconvert the Revolution 
into a Christian socialist movement for the benefit of all the 
people. 
We had substantial American help, of course, but no evidence 
of that was permitted to show. The Americans had their own motives, 
not necessarily the same as ours. The Bay of Pigs fiasco was 
still fresh in their memory. But since they also had a hell of a lot of 
money and equipment and know-how, we weren't in a position to 
be choosy. 
I dipped my hand in the water. It was pleasant, and its blackness 
made it seem to be immensely deep. Somewhere down below 
there would be fish, maybe sharks, sleek torpedoes of the sea. But 
I knew that sharks seldom attacked groups of men. My mind was 
mainly concerned with larger threats, such as thousands of militiamen 
waiting on shore to nab us. Better the sharks than that! 
And, in opposition to that threat, I had a vision of glorious victory: 
riding into Havana on a white horse, with cheering throngs, beautiful 
women such as Onelida in her white dress, saved especially 
for this occasion-of course I was recently married, but I was never 
much of a monogamist, and I knew some girls in Havana that . . . 
but right now there was nothing but darkness and water and hope. 
The real fascination was that these were the waters of home, that I 
had swum in as a boy, when Cuba was free. 
When Cuba was free . . . 
A wind came up. "Oh-oh," Nilo said. He was a young man,
417 
short and light but very strong. A killer with nerves of steel. A 
good partner for a mission like this. "Squall." 
He was right. I wish he'd been wrong. The last thing we needed 
was a storm! 
In moments the squall was upon us. These storms are called 
Turbonadas in Cuba, short but violent. Rain pelted down, whipped 
into our faces by the wind. It was just a little altercation of the 
weather, nothing serious-to anyone in a closed house on land. 
Here in an insubstantial rubber raft, overloaded on open water at 
night, it was like a damned hurricane. The black waves loomed up 
like traveling mountains, spraying us with their rabid froth, foaming 
over the sides, soaking us. 
Tomas grabbed a bucket. "Bail!" he exclaimed. I joined him, 
scooping out the water. We couldn't capsize, really, but we sure as 
hell didn't want to sit in a deepening puddle either. Supposedly 
everything was waterproof, but you can never be sure. Our weapons 
might have been damaged, and our maps and code books, and 
our radio could have corroded. 
I was wearing my poncho, but I was cold and miserable as the 
water sloshed over my ankles and the waves drenched us completely. 
Suddenly I needed to urinate; the suggestion can become 
extremely powerful in such a situation. Not that it would have 
made any difference, wet as my pants were already. I worried about 
my glasses and my steel calendar watch, necessary to keep track of 
the date when out of touch with civilization; the proper date was 
essential to make closely-timed prearranged radio contacts with 
the U.S.A. 
I remembered what a squall had cost me once before. I had 
been waiting in the Spanish Club in Havana with a BAR-Browning 
Automatic Rifle-ready to assassinate Fidel Castro as he came 
to a Chinese Exposition there. But just before Fidel arrived, a squall 
had struck, and he had returned to the dry Presidential Palace. 
But for that coincidence, I would now be safe and sound in the 
city-or snug in a grave. Assassination is a tricky business, even 
when successful. 

418 
So we bailed, while the fury of the tropical storm made our 
efforts seem futile. At least the exercise warmed us a little. After 
about fifteen minutes that seemed more like an hour, the squall 
passed. We had lost some headway, but now resumed forward 
progress. The Boston Whaler was just ahead. If this were the worst 
we had to contend with- 
Then our motor quit. "Singao!" Nilo swore under his breath. 
He jerked the starter cord, but the thing was dead. The rain had 
shorted it out. It was a five thousand dollar silent motor, supposedly 
proof against such malfunction. Yeah, sure! Maybe a little spy 
mission into the American manufacturing business was in order, 
to find out who was goofing off in the motor department. We were 
stalled on the ocean-and dawn was coming. We were running 
out of time. 
We were in the middle of some small keys that separated a 
kind of bay, with mainland Cuba not far beyond. No help there. 
The Boston Whaler realized our problem. It cut back, and 
Oreja Mocha threw us a tow-rope. That was the purpose in having 
it along: to make sure we got where we were going despite our 
dependence on American equipment. I could not pull a gun on a 
cowardly silent motor to make it perform! So now we were hauled 
along at reduced speed. 
But the delay was too much. It was getting light. Light was 
our enemy; we would surely be spotted if we tried to go ashore 
now. "We have to go back," Mario said. He was an old hand, about 
sixty years old, white haired. He was an intelligent conversationalist, 
in contrast to Nilo, but he had a yellow streak. 
My hand moved toward my special 9mm assassination pistol 
with the silencer. "No turning back!" 
"But the light-" 
"We'll hide out for the day in the largest key," I decided. "Tonight 
we'll go ashore." 
That was it. I was the leader, and I had the pistol. We were 
down to basics. The islet I saw was mostly swamp and mangrove,
419 
a good place to hide-except for one thing. It was close to a fishing 
village. 
We had no choice. We pulled in and anchored our two craft 
amid the huge boles of the mangroves, hidden from view of the 
mainland. Tomas, our guide, was an old man; we had to trust his 
experience. He assured us that he had brought fishermen here in 
the past, and that no one else ever came near. 
We had to stay concealed from the air, too; an occasional helicopter 
patrol could pass. But the overhanging trees seemed sufficient. 
Now for the long wait. The sun came up. It would have been 
nice to bask and get a tan, or at least to play a game of poker. But 
we had to remain silent and alert. I wished half our number were 
female; a lot can be done with a woman who has to keep immobile 
and quiet all day. Instead I leaned against a tree and swatted mosquitoes, 
snarling inwardly. We hadn't even started our mission, 
and here we were stalled. I had to watch to see that Mario didn't 
try to bug out, going back to the yacht. 
About mid-morning a boat came by. It contained two fishermen, 
and it was headed right for our island. We had nothing against 
fishermen, but if they discovered up it would be disastrous. One 
report to the authorities would bring Cuban gunboats swarming 
like flies. Deadly stinging flies! 
The boat stopped about 150 feet from where we were hiding 
and began to fish. If they came no closer, if those men did not see 
us, all would be well. Otherwise- 
Tomas came to me in agitation. "One of the fishermen-he is 
my nephew!" he whispered. 
"Good. He won't give us away," I said. 
"Not good! He is a rabid Communist, and the chief of the 
fishermen's militia!" 
Oh-oh. "You know what that means?" I asked him, giving 
him a hard stare. 
He nodded grimly. "He is no relative of mine any more-not 
since he turned traitor to his people." 

420 
A good attitude. Still, I worried. No man likes to contemplate 
the death of his own blood-kin. Could we trust Tomas now? 
The two fishermen kept drifting closer. Apparently the fish 
were biting better in our direction. Were they Communist fish, 
trying to betray us? I stood behind a dead tree trunk, nervously 
fingering my silent M-3 machine gun. How close could they come, 
without seeing us? If only they would go some other direction! 
Suddenly one of the fishermen turned. He gestured urgently 
to his companion. He had seen something! 
They started their motor and headed directly for us. There 
was no question now; they had spotted one of our boats and were 
coming to investigate. 
I lifted my rifle and aimed, feeling a cold necessity. Was there 
any alternative? I had experienced Fidel's prisons, and I had lost 
friends to Paredon, the wall of death. In the hands of the militia, 
my life would endure only long enough for their torturers to extract 
the dregs of my information. After me, my friends-those 
friends who were now waiting in Havana to help me. Some of 
them were young women-oh, the G-2 would like to learn their 
identities! Those sadists seemed to get an extra thrill from making 
a pretty girl scream . . . 
My rifle fired. The silencer worked perfectly; there was only 
the noise of the gun carriage going back and forth. It was as though 
the weapon had a mind of its own, and I was a bystander. First the 
Communist nephew fell, then the other. But the rifle wouldn't 
stop. The entire clip of twenty five bullets emptied into their jerking 
bodies. Blood spurted and stained the water. There were messy 
discharges from their bodily orifices. There is nothing pretty about 
violent death! 
It takes a special discipline to kill a human being. I had done 
it before, so I was hardened somewhat-but the first time brings 
nightmares for months. Those who like to watch violence on TV, 
or read about killings in comic books, have little appreciation of 
the real nature of it. It is not fun to take a man's life! But when it is
421 
his life or yours, and you know that from bitter experience, it 
happens. That's part of what combat is all about. 
The other part, for me, was this: now at last the shades of 
Virgilio and Antonino could rest in peace. 
Virgilio: April 13, 1961, the second day of the Bay of Pigs 
invasion. I was having breakfast in the house of Graciela, an elderly 
lady who had given me shelter for the night, and I was looking at 
headlines in the newspaper. Twenty-five counter revolutionaries 
had been shot in the Cabanas prison, and among them were Virgilio 
Campaneria and Alberto Tapia Ruano. They were former companions 
of mine in the resistance movement, and very good friends. I 
had broken down and cried over that newspaper, and in the grief 
and fury of impotence I swore to avenge them. Somehow, somewhere, 
sometime . . . 
Antonino: six months later, in my first retraining camp run by 
the DRE in Key Largo, I heard on the radio how my good friend 
and fellow student of law, Antonino Diaz Pou, had been shot in 
Matanzas prison. He had said goodbye to me a year before, leaving 
for the U.S.A., but had returned to Havana as a radio operator 
before the invasion. So we were both in Cuba again, but had not 
met. He had entered the Venezualan embassy for sanctuary, but 
left when the Movement needed him to maintain radio contact 
with Miami. He was waiting on a Matanzas beach to be picked up 
by friends-but was surprised by the enemy, wounded, captured, 
and given Paredon, execution. 
By my logic, I had now avenged my friends. 
There was no place to bury the bodies on the key, as it was 
mostly swamp and tree trunks. But we had to dispose of them 
somehow, for the corpses could give us away as surely as the living 
men. 
Nilo had an idea: "Send the cadavers back with Mario and 
Oreja. They can tow the fishing boat to the yacht after we land, 
then have the Cuban Exile radio report that the two fishermen 
defected and reached Miami safely in their small boat. No one will 
know the difference." 

422 
Excellent notion! So we set it up that way. We were fortunate 
that Tomas had recognized them, so we could give their full names. 
That night we crossed to the mainland without event in the 
Boston Whaler, leaving the rubber raft cached in the key. Tomas 
pointed out the designated landing place: a small beach. In the 
dark it looked just like a mud hole-but that was why we needed 
a guide. 
I got off the boat-and sank into the mud right up to my 
armpits. "What the hell kind of a beach is this?" I demanded, not 
in the best of humor. 
I could not move. I was burdened with all my equipment, so 
was quite heavy-but that is one of the problems on such missions. 
You have to carry everything you're going to need right along 
with you. I bore a radio set with batteries and hand generator- 
and this was not a miniature transistor receiver, but a substantial 
mass of equipment that covered my whole back, about fifty pounds 
total. I also had a canteen of water, a submachine gun with silencer 
and spare clips of ammunition, a .45 pistol, knife, five hand grenades, 
$30,000 in freshly-minted Cuban 20-peso bills, gold coins 
(good as gold anywhere!), first aid kit, maps, code books, compass, 
poncho, hunting knife, food rations, vitamins and personal effects. 
In short, I was so loaded down I could hardly move even in the 
best terrain. Now that the supposedly firm beach had turned out 
to be mush, I was really stuck. 
"Well, move," Nilo whispered in the dark. "We don't have all 
night." 
"Cono tu madre," I snapped. No, I won't translate that; it was 
an expletive calculated to make the ears of even a hardened terrorist 
burn. 
Nilo chuckled. "How lucky we are that Juan is in a good humor 
tonight-and so sure of foot." Juan was the name I used for 
this mission. We always used false names, so that we could not be 
identified if caught, and could not give away our companions. It 
also protected our families. I know this precaution saved my own
423 
skin once, for the police were combing Havana looking for "Juan"- 
who did not exist. 
After Nilo and Tomas had finished with their unfunny humor, 
they hauled me out of the gunk and back into the boat. I sprawled, 
a muddy mess from the chest down. They might have muttered 
something cute about that, but this was a serious mission where 
any words might be overheard, so we worked mainly in silence. 
We were too miserable and scared to engage in much light banter 
anyway. 
We floated further along the coast and landed again about a 
third of a mile beyond the scene of my accident. This time the 
ground was reasonably firm. The three men of our mission unloaded. 
Mario was terrified; he had wanted to turn back as soon as 
we hit the mud, but we wouldn't let him. Now he perked up; he 
was finally returning to the security of the yacht. There were no 
farewells; the boat left quickly. 
We were on our own. But our problems were only beginning. 
We started walking, following our guide. We tramped and 
tramped. How far did we have to go to make our rendezvous? 
We cached the radio in some forest bushes near the coast. That 
lightened the load somewhat, but we still had trouble. We had to 
cross a barbed wire fence. Nilo jumped over, then held up the 
bottom strand for me to squeeze through. I got hung up on a 
barb, wouldn't you know it, and had a hell of a time getting 
unstuck. We passed through a freshly plowed field; that was another 
mess. 
Tomas's age began to tell. He had increasing trouble walking, 
and finally we had to take his pack and half-carry him. Some guide! 
Suddenly Tomas fell on his knees, sobbing. "Kill me! Kill me! 
I lied, I am no guide, no guerrilla-I only came to bring my own 
family out! We are lost, I don't know where we are! Kill me!" 
No wonder we had landed in muck! Such rage boiled up in 
me that I grabbed for my gun. I actually put it to his forehead and 
took the safety off. It was my life the son of a bitch had finished. 

424 
Lost in enemy terrain-how would any of us survive? But Nilo 
stopped me. "There will be time for that later!" 
Some common sense seeped into my volatile temper. What 
would another killing gain us? More work to bury the body! It was 
understandable that a man would do anything to get his family 
out of Cuba, after all. Tomas was no traitor, only a desperate fool. 
So we let the matter drop, and we plunged ahead, more or less 
hopelessly. 
And for once we lucked out. We stumbled on the only part of 
the region our fake guide was familiar with-his own farm-so 
that suddenly we knew where we were. In the process, as we learned 
later, we had skirted a group of government militiamen on patrol
-and we hadn't even known they were there. 
I think ninety per cent of the success of such missions as ours 
is just plain blind luck-and we can't always tell the good luck 
from the bad. Had my landing in the mud delayed us just the 
amount needed to make us miss the patrol? 
We made our way to a thicket of thorns, a good hideout for 
the day. These thickets can be massive affairs, impenetrable, that 
nobody would fool with short of desperation; that was what made 
this one so good. Nilo and Tomas went to a small farm to contact 
the owner, who was a friend. I remained in the thicket, guarding 
our equipment. 
I had had a hard night, what with the mud and barbed wire 
and the weight of the radio and helping Tomas along, and I was 
tired. I tried to stay alert, but it was so nice being off my feet that 
soon I found myself nodding. I lay down to sleep. I shouldn't have 
done that. 
Suddenly I heard voices: Nilo and Tomas must be returning, 
looking for me. It was hard to tell one thorn thicket from another, 
which was another good thing about this hiding place. I made 
small clicking sounds that were our recognition code. The group 
approached-and I saw it was a bunch of militiamen on their 
rounds. 
I froze in terror. Had my confusion brought the enemy down
425 
on my head? But I was in more luck than I deserved. The militiamen 
had heard the clicking, but they thought it was a cricket. 
They passed me by. 
I had just about used up my quota of good luck. I did not 
sleep again. 
Later my friends arrived, carrying some goat meat and guava 
paste and fresh soft white cheese and Cuban bread in a bucket. It 
was a slops pail, so that it looked as if someone were going to feed 
the hogs-a good camouflage. Everything had to look innocent 
and natural; our lives depended on it. 
So at last we had good food to eat. Maybe guava paste from a 
slops pail doesn't sound like much, but I'll settle for it any day. 
Maybe I'm a hog at heart. 
We stayed there several days, giving out money and getting 
information from townspeople we could trust. I recovered my transmitter 
and sent a message out. It wasn't a bad time, as such things 
go. I remember walking to the edge of the thicket at night and 
watching the full moon over the palm trees. By day the heavens 
were an incredible azure, and the sun beat down on us; by night it 
was just as pretty. 
Of course there were some inconveniences. Natural functions 
were a problem. Out in the key or in the boat, the entire ocean 
was one big flush toilet; just poke your posterior over the edge and 
make your offering to nature, and no backtalk about pollution. 
But here on solid land it was no picnic. In the dark, amidst the 
thornbush, with dried mud caking my pants, I could hardly tell 
what was what. Mosquitoes zeroed in on my exposed anatomy like 
darts on a bullseye; they knew what was what! That forced me to 
slap on more repellent when I could find it. I had to wipe myself 
with huge plantain leaves, and let me tell you, toilet paper is much 
better! I buried my waste the way a cat does, for it was essential 
that we leave no traces at all. 
The routine life of a guerrilla is not exactly James Bond style 
adventure. In fact, there are times when it hardly seems worth it. 
Did you ever see James Bond using a plantain leaf? 

426 
Than we headed east at night-and stumbled on what we 
later learned was a Russian missile base. This was just one of those 
freaks of the trade; we hadn't really expected to find anything like 
that, despite our orders. 
The woods were full of trigger-happy militia. We had blithely 
walked into a hornets' nest. For this was the secret of the early 
1960's: the Soviet emplacement of intermediate-range nuclearwarhead 
missiles in Cuba. That daring ploy was intended to shift 
the balance of world power, and of course it was to precipitate a 
sudden East-West confrontation of greater significance than any 
other. 
I was, I believe, the first American agent to send hard information 
confirming this fantastic threat. I understand my report was 
shunted straight up to President Kennedy. Maybe I was the key 
link in the chain of events that saved the world from nuclear holocaust 
in 1962. 
At least, I like to think so. Call me terrorist, guerrilla or patriot: 
few of these can claim as much.
Chapter 2: 
Three Misses 
My father was arrested on July 26, 1960-ironically the seventh 
anniversary of Fidel Castro's own abortive first uprising and 
arrest. So the "26th of July Movement" applied about as well to 
me as to Fidel, for it started us both on our careers of anti-government 
activism. Only my opposition was to Fidel's government, 
which I felt was worse than the one he had overthrown in the 
name of the People. 
My father was no guerrilla, no terrorist. He was sixty five years 
old, a retired lawyer. All he did was pass out leaflets protesting the 
repression of the Catholic Church in Cuba. Young Communist 
toughs had attacked the crowd of women and old men leaving the 
Jesus de Miramar church after mass. 
It was not that we thought the Batista government that preceded 
Castro was good; it was notoriously corrupt. But Fidel made 
so many fine promises, and reneged on most of them as he brought 
Communism to Cuba. What had become of free speech, the free 
press? Abolition of the death penalty? Open elections? Restoration 
of the Constitution? Freedom of religion? My father's literature set 
the record straight. 

428 
But in a totalitarian state, anti-government propaganda is a 
serious offense, particularly if backed up by facts. Two waiters at 
the Spanish Club at the Havana beach had seen my father give 
some of the leaflets to a friend, and they called the G-2, or secret 
police. The G-2 searched and found some of this incriminating 
material at his house when they took him in. 
For such a heinous offense, the indictment demanded thirty 
years in prison. Considering his age, this was much the same as a 
death sentence. 
Of course the police were after me too, as I was my father's 
son, and active in the same movement. They assumed I would be 
guilty of the same offense. Guilt-by-association is one of the tenets 
of this type of government. They were mistaken: I was guilty of 
much worse. 
Before they came, I got my gun, gathered all the incriminating 
papers I could find, and gave the bagful of literature to the 
mother of a friend of mine for safekeeping. "Don't look inside!" I 
cautioned her. But she did look-women are that way, curious as 
cats-and almost had a heart attack, poor thing. Worse than pornography, 
that addictive literature of freedom! 
Of course another time I did worse than that: I left a shoe box 
containing live hand grenades with a girlfriend. Girls, despite appearances, 
are good for more than one thing. She didn't sleep a 
wink all night, but she kept them safe! 
So now I went into hiding, but all my friends knew where I 
was. I stayed at another girlfriend's house, of course. Disappearing 
does have its little rewards. 
When I learned the identity of the two informers who had 
gotten my father arrested, my hot Latin blood boiled up. I headed 
for the Spanish Club with my gun, determined to shoot those two 
waiters immediately. But my friends intercepted me and persuaded 
me to wait until my father's trial. Wise counsel; I might have made 
things worse for my father. 
All right. I waited. But that didn't mean I was letting it rest. I 
went to the club several times, and such was my temper I would
429 
probably have gone after them with my bare hands if I had seen 
them. I was then a nidan in the martial art of judo, a second degree 
black belt, champion of Cuba. It would have been a gross 
abuse of my skill, for judo should be used only for self defense, but 
I was young then, 25, and peril to a member of my family set me 
off. I'm older now, but I haven't changed. Fortunately the informers 
always hid in the kitchen when I showed up, except once when 
I saw one of them serving another customer. I went to him and 
said: "You know who my father is," and I turned away. He almost 
soiled his pants. 
I sent them a message, gentle enough considering my sentiments. 
"If my father is condemned, you are dead." I am not a very 
subtle person. To make sure it sank in, I had a friend burn their 
lockers with phosphorus. Phosphorous is nasty stuff; it burns so 
ferociously that nothing will put it out, and it starts suddenly like 
a Fourth of July sparkler. Very pretty, throwing living sparks in 
every direction, with white glaring light tinged with green from 
impurities. It makes clouds of acrid gray smoke, stinking of sulfur. 
It didn't melt down their lockers, but it destroyed their street 
clothes and everything else in there. 
They got the message. At the trial they recanted and testified 
that they had not actually seen my father do anything, and that he 
was a good man. Of course he was a good man-but not in quite 
the way they implied. So the case against him collapsed, and he 
went free. 
Naturally the authorities soon caught on to my part in the 
matter. A stenographer of the court who was a friend of our family 
later reported to me that a prominent member of the five man 
court had said "Let the old man go-it is the son we want." So? I 
wanted him, too! 
I disagree with Fidel Castro's politics, but I can say this about 
his ability: he organized one hell of an efficient police state. Because 
there were powerful opposing forces, like the Catholic 
Church, dissidents were not taken in as boldly as in Nazi Germany 
or Russia. A person would be summoned for questioning- 

430 
and not return. No noise, no violence, no shooting-nothing anyone 
could really point to. Nothing to justify a violent protest or 
uprising. 
So when, a week after my father's trial, my friend Pepito told 
me I had to go to a meeting, I was suspicious. "No thanks," I said. 
"That's the classic setup for an arrest. An informer sets up a meeting 
and the police ambush it." 
"No problem," he assured me. "This is a small group that 
always gets together to play dominoes. They know each other. You 
have to go, because you are SAC's military coordinator." 
SAC in this case did not stand for the American Strategic Air 
Command, but for something even more important-to me. Salvar 
a Cuba, "Save Cuba," a clandestine resistance movement, small 
but effective for its size. We were planning an attack on a naval 
base near Havana. We would raid the ten-man garrison and take 
their weapons to the Escambray mountains, where we would set 
up as guerrillas. I looked forward to that; I had not yet discovered 
the hardships of real country warfare. SAC was made up mostly of 
University students, my kind of people-those that were supposed 
to be the most ardent supporters of the Revolution. Ha! Did Fidel 
assume that to be educated was to be stupid? 
Pepito was right: I had to brief this group. It was risky-but 
counter-revolution is a risky profession. I was learning that the 
hard way. 
"We'll go fast, and get out fast," I said. 
We went. I was nervous, and I looked all around as we entered 
the house. There were half a dozen people playing dominoes and 
drinking beer-an innocent enough setting, but I was not reassured. 
In fiction, the hero may be supremely confident-but a 
real-life guerrilla is understandably jittery. He has no series-contract 
with a publisher to keep him alive indefinitely. I thought I 
heard noises outside. For a moment I was ready to bolt for it, 
diving out the window and running. But it was probably just my 
nerves. Why make a fool of myself? 
Then a man entered. He carried a Springfield rifle and ten
431 
militia uniforms we planned to use on our mission. I thought he 
was our contact-but he was a government man, who had found 
this incriminating evidence. "The house is surrounded," he announced. 
"Please come with me, quietly." 
We were outnumbered and unarmed. Any attempt to fight 
would have gotten us shot. The G-2 always brought overwhelming 
strength to bear in arrests. Why hadn't I thought to bring my 
gun? In my inexperience I had stupidly walked into the trap, and 
now there was nothing I could do. 
And so I was arrested-in the classic manner. 
I still hoped I could bluff it out. After all, we hadn't done 
anything very serious that they could prove, and the main arsenal 
of six or eight Belgian-made FALS rifles, several revolvers, two sawedoff 
shotguns, and some cartridges prepared with heavy buckshot 
and cyanide for assassination attempts-all this was safely hidden 
in another place. Oh, we might be given token sentences, but 
nothing serious. I hoped. Provided nobody cracked under questioning. 
But when we got to the G-2 offices, the first thing we saw was 
a long table loaded with weapons. My friend Tony went white. 
"My God-they found our cache! 
Then I knew we had had it. 
I was put in the "cold room" where the air conditioning was 
turned up so high I thought I would freeze to death. Maybe that 
doesn't sound like so much of a torture, compared to thumbscrews 
or hot irons or electric shocks through the genitals, but believe 
me, a week of such cold makes confession seem very attractive. A 
man can stand pain for a short period, but the long, slow, subtle 
debilitation of simple cold can wipe out much of his will to resist. 
I was dressed in only a light short-sleeved sport-shirt and summer 
slacks, since Havana ranged from 70�F at night to 85� in the day. 
I didn't crack. It wasn't that I was tough, it was that I knew 
that nothing they were doing to me as a suspect would approach 
what they would do to me as a confirmed enemy of the state. The 
G-2 is not a backward organization in this respect; if they had 

432 
thought I was important, they would have trotted out techniques 
of interrogation that would have made me crack in a hurry. I was 
better off shivering, and I knew it. Better to freeze as a small fish, 
than to roast as a big one. 
After that I was taken to the Cabanas, the fortress prison. It 
wasn't like an American penal institution, where cells are restricted 
to two to four inmates each. There were fifteen long Galeras or 
corridors hewn in the stone of the walls, like railroad tunnels, dank 
and cold at night. Each contained about 90 men in triple-decker 
bunks when I arrived, but later there were more. They were served 
by two toilets and wash bowls and showers. We had to turn in our 
original clothes for prison uniforms with the letter P on the backs. 
At the door new arrivals were greeted with the shout "Carne Fresca!" 
meaning "fresh meat!"-hardly reassuring. 
Meals were simple. They didn't starve us, but one time the 
meat was bad, spoiled. Our Galera was overcrowded then, and 
150 men had to use the two toilets all at once. Many had such 
indigestion they could not wait, and had to relieve themselves 
where they stood. The stench was terrible. 
The prison was a community in itself, with all sorts of ups and 
downs and personal interactions. Much of the life was brutal; some 
had its humorous aspects. One thing you have to realize about 
political prisoners: they do not consider themselves to be criminals, 
but men of conscience. They are the high officials who happened 
to back the wrong side, the reformers whose good works 
were not appreciated by the evil State, the innocent who were 
drawn in by random arrests or mistaken information. Or so they 
claim. 
The truth is that some are criminals, but many more are not. 
Some of the very best resources of a nation are in the political 
prison. A lot of political opportunists, too-counting on a change 
of government to provide high office for them on the strength of 
their imprisonment. It is a unique atmosphere, completely different 
from the conventional penal institution. 
When I was there, roughly one third of the prisoners were ex-
433 
Batista soldiers, another third were ex-Castro men, and the rest 
were civilians: lawyers, engineers, students, doctors, artists, Cuba's 
leading astrologer, the heavyweight boxing champion of the country, 
University professors, jewelers, chess players, and of course 
me, the judo champion. In short, an elite society, eclectic as it was. 
We tried to entertain ourselves with chess, checkers, dominoes, 
poker, Parcheesi, Monopoly, and exercises in the yard. Practice 
in self defense or martial art was of course forbidden. But 
interesting as these diversions may seem for a few weeks or months, 
the notion of continuing that life for twenty years or so was appalling.
Yet even the short haul was no picnic. There were fights and 
beatings and riots, with virtual warfare between the Batista men 
and the Revolutionists. Yes, each group carried its loyalties right 
into prison. And always the awful pall of the approaching trials. 
We knew many of us would die at the wall, Paredon, but always 
hoped selfishly that it would be someone else. 
Actually, my experience was far from unique. In Latin America, 
political prison is often a stepping stone for political power. Perhaps 
half the leaders are graduates of this type of school. Fidel 
himself served two years in Batista's prisons, and Batista's predecessor 
in power had also been in prison. Batista himself had the 
wit to skip the country fast with his money when his regime toppled, 
or he would have been in prison too-for the little while until he 
was executed. 
My watch was stolen. My two friends, Eduardo Bringas and 
Juan Pla, let it be known that if my watch were not returned in 
one hour, they were going to take action. Such was their reputation, 
even in prison, that my watch reappeared within the deadline.
Another friend, Ricardo Cruz, started beating up an informer. 
There are informers inside as well as outside, and they can make a 
lot of trouble. Once we made a tunnel through the wall of the 
prison, from the infirmary. We were almost through, when an in- 

434 
former spilled the news. Potential freedom, wiped out just like 
that. So tempers can flare when an informer is discovered. 
When I got to that fight, the soldiers were just coming to 
break it up. I got in the way, not exactly accidentally, and saved 
Ricardo from getting struck by a rifle butt, and it ended with 
Ricardo and me both getting arrested. Technically we were already 
under arrest, since we were prisoners-but as I said, this was like a 
community, and we were left pretty much to our own devices if we 
stayed out of trouble. 
We were taken to Teniente Manolo, the chief of the prison. He 
hated us, because he thought students were supposed to be more 
in favor of the Castro Revolution than the average citizen. Those of 
us who opposed Castro were thus doubly traitors, in his eyes. He 
was so furious I thought he was going to strike me across the face. 
I'm no hero, but my temper was ragged, and if he had touched me 
I would probably have thrown him against the wall and tried to 
beat him to death. You can do a lot of damage to a man in a very 
short time, if you know how, and I happen to know how. But that 
would have been the end of me, of course. Such heroics are much 
safer in fiction. 
Manolo must have heeded my expression and thought the 
better of it. He had much more to lose than I did. Instead he sent 
us to the Capillas. These were dark, cold, barren stone tunnels 
under the castle, a kind of solitary confinement cell-complex. Prison 
was bad, but the Capillas were worse! I would certainly be more 
careful in the future; I didn't want to be sent there again. 
Back in the main prison a week later, I found the mood changed, 
tense, ugly. The prison authorities feared that mood, so they started 
having sudden trials. Five people would be summoned at a time, 
and only one would return. "They gave me thirty years!" that one 
would cry joyfully. "Thirty years! Thank God!" This was not a 
strange reaction-for the other four had gone to the execution 
wall.
We were all sweating now. They could shoot us all if they 
wanted, just to clear the cells. Justice in Cuba was at such a state in
435 
Fidel's brave new order that all they needed were the bullets. In 
three short hours thirty men were condemned to death, including 
many of my friends. All but one of those were commuted to thirty 
years, however. Excellent psychological strategy: the black mood 
lightened, now that the axe had fallen, and there was no riot. 
But the single one who was shot was my friend Ricardo Cruz, 
my companion of the Capillas. 
When my own trial came, I was convinced I would get at least 
three years to nine years, while a part of me hoped for a lighter 
sentence, and another part carried the awful vision of Paredon. Oh 
God, not the Wall! Yet Ricardo had gone . . . 
My trial was around three in the afternoon, but the results 
were not announced right away, and at six we were returned to our 
cells. We did not know how long it would be; maybe in a couple of 
hours, maybe in a week. There was no point worrying about it, 
though of course we did worry; how could we stop it? I went to 
sleep early, around eight, my emotions played out-and at ninethirty 
they gave the results over the speaker system. 
The names of three of my friends were called out for release. 
Lucky bastards! Then someone woke me up: "Roberto, get dressed. 
You are free!" 
But I knew about that cruel joke. Wake someone, tell him his 
name has been called for release. A dream come true! His hopes 
rise sky high, he runs to the gate-and there he learns the truth. 
Everyone laughs heartily. Ha ha! Excruciatingly funny. For everybody 
but him, with his dashed hope. Maybe next day he goes to 
the Wall. How nice that his last day was brightened by this humor.
So I didn't believe this news. But the chief of the galley in our 
cell told me it was true, and he wished me luck. Then I believed. 
And so I went home, incredibly, a free man. 
Death had missed me, once. 

436 
* 
Some people might have given up counterrevolution after that 
experience. But I had tasted the water, and had been through too 
much. The blood of my friends was on the hands of the Fidelistas. 
I was more determined than ever to overthrow the Castro regime 
in Cuba. Maybe I would have been wiser to leave the country for 
Miami, as my friend Pepito did-to return four months later as a 
parachuter in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Ah, well, hindsight . . . 
The day after I got home, I went into hiding and started contacting 
my former associates. We were involved in terrorism-at 
least that was what the government called our activities. But for 
us, what we did was the first step in the process of freeing Cuba. A 
year and a half before, our pursuers had been doing exactly the 
same thing; then they were the terrorists. They had been the ones 
doing the bombings and shootings, trying to assassinate high government 
officers and averting disaster only very narrowly. Strange, 
isn't it, how last year's terrorist becomes this year's law-and-order 
man. Maybe next year I would be a high government official of 
Free Cuba, on my fine white horse, adored by lovely young girls, 
trying to suppress the nefarious Communist counter-counter-revolutionaries! 
I, the patriot! Ah, dreams . . . 
There was to be a patriotic dance in a small town near Havana, 
Guira de Melenas. If there was one thing I was not, right now, it 
was patriotic. Not for the Castro regime! So I welcomed the chance 
to break this up. 
A local boy knew the key electric post: the one that, if destroyed, 
would blacken the entire town. Beautiful! Just let them 
try to hold the dance, without any electric power. No light, no 
radio, no music-nothing that depended on the current. Maybe 
it wouldn't do much to topple Castro, but what a satisfaction to 
mess it up! 
Maybe James Bond type agents deal exclusively with worldshaking 
missions-but I was merely a garden variety protester. 
Later my horizons broadened. But at this time, darkening a village
437 
dance was my level of expertise. We all have to start somewhere, 
you know. 
The boy did not have the nerve to plant the bomb himself, 
and there was no one else with the critical knowledge, so it fell to 
me. We went in a car painted like a taxi, with Jorge, another friend 
of mine, driving. Friends are a great comfort to a terrorist. We got 
to the entrance of the town, and saw about ten militiamen with 
rifles stopping the incoming traffic. 
"God, they are searching the cars!" I exclaimed. There I was, in 
the front seat, with the bomb in my lap like a picnic basket. It 
consisted of five pounds of C-3 plastic explosive wrapped in newspaper. 
Five pounds may not sound like much, but it was equivalent 
to ten sticks of commercial dynamite: enough to destroy a 
house, let alone our carfull. 
I was eating Pan de Caracas, a dry cornbread, and my mouth 
got so parched the stuff stuck in my throat. The Chinese used to 
have a test of guilt: if a handful of rice held in the mouth remained 
dry, the suspect was guilty. I would have failed that test, for sure! 
I clutched my gun under my shirt. I looked out at the militiamen 
in front of the car. I will never forget his mustached face or 
the FAL rifle he carried. If he asks me what I have in the newspaper, 
or makes me get out of the car, I thought, I'll shoot him in the stomach 
and make a break for the woods! I was not being brave; I was terrified, 
but I knew I would never get out of prison alive a second 
time, because all of those caught with explosives were sent to 
Paredon. My temperament was such that I preferred to die fighting; 
I did not have the nuts to stand before the firing squad bravely 
defiant to the end. 
But Jorge, thank God, had a face of iron. "Companero," he 
said to the militiaman, "want me to open the trunk?" 
The man nodded. "Yes, please." This was routine, for him; he 
didn't expect to find any plastic explosive wrapped in newspaper 
like fresh fish. 
Jorge opened the trunk-and of course it was empty. 
"All right-go on," the militiaman said, bored. We were 

438 
through-but I'd had the worst scare of my life. 
We continued on into town. We found the pole with the transformers, 
wrapped the bomb around it (you can shape plastic explosive; 
it is very versatile, the bomber's best friend), tightened it 
with a belt, and touched a match to the three minute fuse. 
The fuse would not light. 
Of all the-! We tried again-and again. Once it started to 
burn, but it was only the outer casing, not the powder trail, and 
nothing happened. I had to go back, cut off the end, and try with 
a much shorter piece. I swear it took five excruciating minutes to 
ignite that thing, with us sweating all the time. Any chance discovery 
by tll bilitia- 
Finally it caught. Now all we had to worry about was getting 
blown up! We piled into the car and took off. I know we made it 
out of town within three minutes, because as we left we heard the 
explosion behind us and saw the lights go out. Success! 
Later I learned that one man, Tomas, who had helped us, had 
been caught and sentenced to 30 years. I had been tried in absentia 
and sentenced to death. That didn't bother me much; the sentence 
was meaningless so long as they didn't catch me. But how 
well I still remember that mustached militiaman who stopped our 
car: my second miss with death.
* 
Berty Andino, the MRR Action and Sabotage chief, called me 
one day; he had 20 pounds of C-3 explosive already made into 
bombs, and he wanted me to test a new kind of detonator. Would 
I do it? 
"Sure," I said. I like bombs. Watching a real blast is almost 
like a religious experience. "But can I keep the bombs until tomorrow? 
My brother is Christening his second son this afternoon, and 
I'm to be the Godfather." 
He paused. "No, it can't wait. I'll get another person." I knew 
he thought I was going to die soon-after all, I had been con-
439 
demned to death, and my luck couldn't hold out indefinitely- 
and he wanted me to have this one moment. This nice little family 
ceremony might well be my last. 
Maybe Berty would not have been so nice about it if he had 
known my other reason for begging off: I had lined up three luscious 
girls for a party with two friends that night. One was Hilda, 
one of the most beautiful black girls I have known: petite with 
lovely silky shoulder-long hair; another was her friend Toby, and I 
have forgotten the name of the third (a rose by any name would 
smell as sweet), but she had soft cloudy black hair and other attributes 
best left to the imagination. 
Terrorism has a strong effect on the personality, because of the 
constant threat of death. Some people turn religious; others develop 
an inordinate craving for sex. I was not religious. 
So I did not go on the bombing mission. Instead I attended 
my nephew's Christening, and my private party. My friend Enrique 
went to pick up our third man, Barreto, and for one whole glorious 
hour I was alone with all three girls. What a party! 
Suddenly we heard a tremendous explosion, that shook the 
buildings in a wide area. That would be Berty's crew, doing the 
job; for a moment I was sorry I was not in on it. But there are other 
things in life than bombs, and I was enjoying three of them right 
now; my regret was minimal. 
Next day I learned: the new detonators had been faulty. The 
two men had put the stuff in a car and driven toward their mission
-and the plastic had gone off prematurely. Twenty pounds of 
C-3! Pieces of men and car were scattered across a hundred yards 
of street, so mangled that nothing could be identified. 
Except for the Christening and my hot party, that bang would 
have been Enrique and me. My third miss with an appointment 
for death, because I was too busy making time with three lovely 
misses . . . 

SUMMARY OF REMAINDER: 
The following chapters will detail the life/death crises and complications 
of the protagonist, gradually filling in more of the background 
of the Cuban situation and clarifying the motives and philosophy 
of the terrorist. 
Roberto Fuentes was involved in several secret missions for 
Cuban exiles and the United States, and twice escaped Cuba by 
seeking refuge in a foreign embassy. Even that was not the sanctuary 
some might imagine; the Castro government knew how to 
bring a lot of pressure to bear to get him out, even trying to remove 
him by force. He was the only one to receive asylum from 
Castro twice in different embassies, those of Mexico and Uruguay. 
Several times he tried to kill Fidel Castro. One attempt was 
foiled by a sudden storm; another by Fidel's last-moment change 
of plane. He blew up a hotel Fidel was to visit, the Hilton-Havana 
Libre, almost catching an occupant who was later to become his 
wife, Grace. Another occupant was one of his best friends, counterrevolutionary 
leader Manolito Baro. Roberto also tried to kill two 
of Castro's top officers, again being balked by freak luck, such as a 
shotgun misfiring at point-blank range. 
He was involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, as a leader of the 
Cuban underground ready to start a concurrent insurrection in 
Havana. He shows why that effort failed, owing to incredible mis- 

442 
management. Had he followed the fouled-up script, he would have 
been dead-again. 
He tells how the assassination of President Kennedy stopped 
the next major effort to free Cuba. It is not known whether Fidel 
Castro had any part in the assassination-but the CIA tried to kill 
Castro, and Fidel was not a man to take that sort of thing lightly, 
and was himself an expert in such matters. Later, Bobby Kennedy 
was reviving part of the anti-Castro plan-when be too was killed. 
A grim coincidence-perhaps. 
Roberto also had a varied sex life, sleeping with white, black 
and brown women both pro and anti-Castro. One of them was the 
sister of a major in Castro's escort. Another was the wife of a major 
in Batista's army, and another the wife of a Cuban baseball star, 
and still another was a beauty queen. He shows how he turned 
from an apolitical intellectual hedonist who cared more about his 
next girlfriend than who was ruling his country, into a dedicated 
counter-revolutionist, a fanatic man of action. The kind of man 
the modern terrorist elsewhere in the world is all too likely to be, 
who will not be stopped by repressive measures. 
Roberto became one of that small minority who does the really 
dirty work and pays the penalty-if caught. He underwent 
deep psychological changes that still affect him today. His accomplices 
underwent similar changes; some of them remained active 
in America, and were among the original number whose arrest 
sparked the Watergate investigation that finally toppled the Nixon 
presidency. One of these men, Rolando Martinez, had taken 
Fuentes to Cuba several times on secret missions, risking his life 
many times. In this manner it is shown how the foreign exploits of 
the United States returned to make mischief in its own government. 
Another way in which these U.S.-trained killer-chickens have 
come home to roost shown in the recent rash of killings in Miami; 
done by professionals, they leave no hints for the police. But the 
Cuban community knows. Today some of these terrorists are turn-
443 
ing to drug traffic; they are good at that too. The drug problem 
will not be solved until the terrorist problem is solved. 
Thus the story of Roberto Fuentes campaign to free Cuba 
shows the devious but enormous ramifications that have affected 
not only Cuba, but all Americans. Patriots of other nationalities 
have similar modes of operation, and hardly a day passes without 
news of their actions. If we do not want the assassination of one 
American President and the resignation-in-disgrace of another to 
be merely the beginning of a wave of real terrorism, it would be 
wise to understand the message Mr. Fuentes brings.