Chapter 16: The Invitation and the Rejection
The silence left by Che Guevara's disappearance was heavier than the heat of the desert. Jonathan stood motionless on the ledge of the Arizona canyon, his hand still close to the handle of his machete. Down in the narrow pass, the five bounty hunters were still waiting in their ambush, oblivious to the ghost encounter that had just occurred overhead.
Jonathan took a step to continue his hunt, but a calm voice stopped him again.
"Awesome."
Che had not disappeared. He had moved. Now he was standing on a different ledge, twenty meters away, watching him with a new intensity.
Che Guevara stared at Jonathan. I no longer looked at him with simple curiosity. He saw it as a strategic asset. In his decades of guerrilla warfare, he had seen brute force, fanatical loyalty, and tactical skill. But I had never seen this.
He did not see a sixteen-year-old boy; He saw a weapon on par with the largest forces on the planet. He saw the "Bog Machete," the Russian ghost, a prodigy of stealth who possessed a pure, unadulterated killer instinct. And, from what he had just heard, a weapon with no allegiance to any flag.
Che broke the silence, his voice traveling clearly through the dry air. "You have a power that could bring down governments, kid." His gaze drifted to the snipers below. "And you're wasting it."
He took a step toward the edge of his own ledge, his hands clasped behind his back. "I fight for something," he said, his voice echoing with the conviction of a prophet. "I fight against the oppressors. I fight to free people who can't fight for themselves. I fight to use power against those who hoard it."
His piercing eyes locked back on Jonathan.
"You have incredible power, perhaps more than any man alive who is not a Hanma. But you use it to hunt mice for money."
He took a step closer, the invitation clear in his voice.
"Join me." "Stop hunting mice and start hunting kings. With your skill and my strategy, we could really change the world."
…..
Jonathan listened patiently. He did not interrupt. He kept his innocent and charismatic smile on his face as the legendary revolutionary offered him a place in a holy war. His murderous instinct remained calm; Che was not a threat, he was negotiating.
When Che finished speaking, the offer to "change the world" was suspended in the hot air of the canyon.
Jonathan shook his head, a slow, polite movement.
"I appreciate the offer, Mr. Guevara," Jonathan said, his voice light, almost casual. "Really. Sounds... very noisy."
Che frowned, not understanding the boy's strange choice of words.
Jonathan became serious, his innocent smile fading, allowing Che to see a fraction of the fifteen-year fatigue he had inside. "You see my power," Jonathan explained, "and think about how to use it to change the world. I see my power and think about how to use it so that the world will leave me alone."
He pointed vaguely to the east, in the direction of Russia. "I spent fifteen years in a cage. A cage where they told me why I had to kill. They told me that it was for 'the State', for 'the protocol', for 'a greater good'".
His gaze turned cold. "Now that I'm free, the only person giving me orders is me."
He looked at Che directly, recognizing the man but rejecting the mission. "Their 'cause' is just another cage. It's a nice cage, with good ideals, but it's still a cage. You want me to fight for your ideology."
Jonathan shrugged, tension leaving his body as he returned to his own simple truth. "I don't fight for flags, or for causes, or for 'the people.'" "I don't care about their fights, or theirs, or anybody's."
He pointed to the cannon where the mercenaries were waiting. "They are hunting me for money. I'm hunting them down to stop bothering me. It's simple."
His charismatic smile returned, but this time with a hint of his "lustful" nature. "My only goal is to survive, earn enough money to move around the world and live without worries."
…..
The brutal honesty of Jonathan's answer hung in the hot air. It revealed a philosophy so simple, so selfish, and yet so pure, that Che Guevara was momentarily speechless. I had expected denials, justifications, or perhaps a counteroffer. I didn't expect the unadorned truth from a controlled hedonist.
Suddenly, Che laughed. It was a genuine, deep, dry laugh that echoed briefly off the canyon walls. He saw the irony: he, the ultimate ideological revolutionary, trying to recruit the pure definition of non-ideology.
"No worries, huh?" Che said, wiping a tear of amusement from the corner of his eye. "Of all the tyrants in the world, and your ultimate goal is carefreeness."
He stood, his smile still present. "You're a real 'free man,' kid."
Che studied Jonathan, not as an asset, but as a phenomenon. "You're a force of nature, aren't you? You can't be directed." He saw the truth in the boy's eyes. This young man wasn't fighting for money, like the mercenaries below. He did not fight for power, like the capos he hunted. "You are not corrupted by money or power," Che reflected. "Just... you are."
He recognized in Jonathan the same absolute freedom that he himself sought, although they sought it by diametrically opposed paths.
Che nodded, accepting the rejection completely. "Very good," he said. His tone became serious for a moment. "The world will try to cage you anyway. He always does it with free men. Be careful."
He took a step back, toward the deep shadow cast by a twisted juniper on the edge of the ledge.
"We'll see you, God of the Machete."
He gave Jonathan one last look of respect, and then simply disappeared. There was no sound. There was no blast of dust. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, absorbed by the shadow.
….
The moment Che Guevara's presence faded, the air on the ledge seemed to return to its normal temperature. Jonathan's innocent smile faded. His body, which had been relaxed in a conversational posture, tensed up and then relaxed into something different: a predatory mode.
The philosophical conversation was over.
Her gaze drifted, cold and analytical, to the canyon pass below, where the five bounty hunters were still waiting.
His mind calculated. 'Five targets,' he thought, his instinct painting sight lines and weak spots in his vision. 'They threaten my survival. They threaten my way to Japan. They threaten my peace. Therefore, they are obstacles.'.
In a silent motion, his hand slid over his shoulder and grabbed the rough hilt of the rusty machete. He took it out of the case without making the slightest noise.
Metal hummed silently in the dry desert air as its Touki, its perfected internal energy, flowed into the blade. The rust didn't go away, but the edge now glowed with pale energy, preparing it to cut through steel.
Jonathan slid off the ledge, his feet finding silent grips on the canyon wall. It was a shadow moving over the hot rock. The conversation about peace and freedom was over.
Now the work to secure it began.
He landed in the canyon sand without a sound. The ambush team was two hundred yards ahead.
Jonathan sneaks up on the first sniper, who was comfortably lying face down on a tarp. The man was staring through the scope, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the barrel Jonathan should have taken. He was completely oblivious, breathing rhythmically, waiting for his prey, not knowing that the real predator was already behind him.
- - - - - - - -
Hello everyone!
Sorry if I've been a bit quiet lately. I started a new job that is taking up a lot of my time, so I haven't had as much time to write and edit as I would like.
However, I managed to make good progress this weekend.
Here on Webnovel, the schedule will remain the same: 1 chapter from Monday to Friday.
For those supporting me on Patreon, I will be publishing 2 daily chapters during this week to make up for the delay.
Thanks for reading and for your patience.
Mike.
@Patreon/iLikeeMikee