My left hand, and the assault rifle it was holding, moved so quickly it was blur. The barrel smashed into the old kahuna's throat with a horrible crunching sound, still accelerating out and up. And fragged if it didn't tear his goddamned head clean off! The kahuna' s body went one way, his head went another, and my own body went a third, flung off its feet by the violence of my motion. I hit the ground hard, driving from my lungs what little stale air they still contained. I gasped in an agonizing breath ...