Not that Remo hadn't tried. He read the basic college geology book, the primer, from cover to cover. When he was finished, his memory floated with cartoons of rocks, water and very stiff people. He understood everything he had read; he just didn't care about it. He forgot 85 per cent of the book the day after he read it, and 14 per cent more the day after that.

What he remembered was the modified Mercalli intensity scale. He did not remember what it was, just that there was a thing geologists called the modified Mercalli intensity scale.

He wondered about it as he stood on the cliff overlooking an outcropping of green moss-covered rocks. Maybe he was standing on a modified Mercalli intensity scale. Well, whether he was or not, the little grass air strip that began about one hundred yards farther on along the edge of the cliff and cut into the flat face of the cliff top was where at least five men would die. They would be killed very well and very quietly; in the end no one would think it anything but an accident.

Killing, Remo knew very well.

He lounged against a gracefully curving tree, feeling the fresh salt air of the Caribbean warm his body as it massaged his soul. The sun burned his strong face. He closed his deep-set eyes, folded his arms over his striped polo shirt. He lifted one leg to rest beneath his buttocks on the tree trunk. He could hear the voices of the three men sitting near their little farm truck. They were sure, man, that no white fellow could sneak through the jungle near them. Certain, man. They were also sure, man, that the delivery was soon. If there was any trouble, however, they had their carbines and could put a hole in a man at two hundred yards and do it right proper. Yessirree. Right proper. Through his bloody genitals, eh, Rufus?