"You take Visa or Discover?"
"Si."
THE AIRPORT at San Cristobal de las Casas, it turned out, was neither open nor large enough to accommodate a 727, but for five thousand dollars American the captain and his copilot were willing to risk it.
They dropped airspeed, the turbines spooling down, and lowered the landing gear.
They made a first pass, decided the runway was only a thousand yards too short and came around from the north.
The 727 set down perfectly, rolling and rattling across the weed-grown asphalt. The overhead bins shook. Three popped open, dropping luggage onto passenger heads. Everybody held on for dear life.
Just when it started to look like a good landing, the wings started coming off.
First it was the right wing. It struck a cypress tree and was instantly sheered off. All eyes went to the starboard side of the plane. Faces went white.
And so everyone except the Master of Sinanju missed the startling sight of the port wing as it was yanked free by another tree.
As it turned out, losing the wings was the best thing that could have happened. Passengers realized that when the lumbering cabin was suddenly bumping through what amounted to a lane in a dense green forest.
This went on for what seemed an eternity, but couldn't have been much more than a minute.
In the end the 727 didn't so much brake as run out of momentum.
"Welcome to the Lacadon forest," said the captain in a relieved voice. "Jou have survived another flight on Azteca Airlines. Thank jou and we hope that jou will fly with us again soon."
The cabin burst into applause.
The stewardess threw open the cabin door, and a wave of sultry heat came in, instantly overpowering the airconditioning.
Remo got to the door first and looked out. There were no air stairs naturally. Below was soft soil. It supported a dense growth of forest that was a strange mixture of tropical jungle and pine forest. Firs jostled cypress trees and weirdlooking palms.
Peering ahead, Remo noticed the nose of the 727 had stopped about twenty feet short of a bank of some trees he couldn't begin to classify, because he'd never seen bark so red and peeling.
The captain popped his head out the cabin door.
"Hokay?"
"Are you crazy? You crashed the plane for three grand! They're going to fire you."
"It does not matter. Since NAFTA, my salary equals twelve dollars American a day. On three thousand, I can retire. Happy landings, senor. "
"You could have gotten us all killed, you know."
The copilot smiled with all of his teeth. "Next time, perhaps. Adios."
Remo dropped to the ground and, using the edge of his hand, started chopping away at the bole of a fir tree. He cut it on opposite sides the way lumberjacks did, and when he had the cut he wanted, he took up a position and gave the fir a single hard side-kick.
It splintered, toppling to fall parallel with the cabin.
It was no coincidence that the bole provided the perfect first step for the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun stepped off the plane and looked around. His face was a parchment mask.
"Not bad for a guy with short fingernails, huh, Little Father?"
"Do not forget my trunk," said Chiun, his voice dripping with ingratitude.
Remo's face fell.
"Next time whistle up your own air-stairs," he snapped.
"Next time," said Chiun, stepping off and settling to the ground like a tiny green mandarin making landfall after a long sea voyage, "we will not come to Mexico."
As they prepared to leave the airport, someone accosted them and tried to charge them for cutting down the fir tree. No one seemed overly concerned about the demolished plane, but the tree was another matter.
"Stuff it," said Remo.
The local authorities were summoned, and Remo found himself confronted by a knot of hard-eyed Mexican soldiers in wilted uniforms.
"Jou are under arrest," a sergeant announced.
Remo had one of Chiun's traveling trunks slung over one shoulder. It had been a major miracle to convince the old Korean to travel this lightly, so he wasn't about to complain. Normally the Master of Sinanju insisted that all seventeen steamer trucks accompany him during his foreign travels. This time Chiun had expressed an irrational fear that should America sink beneath the waves in their absence, their precious contents would be lost forever.
Only by personally promising to scour the sunken ruins of Massachusetts for the other sixteen had Remo prevailed. That settled, Chiun had ordered Remo to carry the trunk with the lapis lazuli phoenixes rampant against mother-of-pearl panels.
With infinite care, Remo lowered the trunk to the ground.
"Look, we don't want trouble," he said.
"You wish to avoid trouble, senores?"
"Always. "
"That will be five hundred dollars American."
"In other words, you want a bribe?"
"We call it la mordida. Little favor."
"Five hundred isn't a little favor. It's highway robbery. "
"Nevertheless, it will be five hundred dollars or a night in jail. Perhaps two."
Chiun regarded the soldiers with a cold disdain. "Do not pay these brigands, Remo."
"Careful, old one. Or jou may be shot attempting to escape."
"It is not I who will be attempting to escape if you do not step from my path, uniformed one," Chiun warned.
"I'll handle this," said Remo.
Stepping up to the sargento, Remo lowered his voice and said, "Can you say 'commotio cordis'?"
"Eh?"
"If you can say 'commotio cordis' three times fast, I'll give you five hundred each."
The three soldiers looked interested. They had watched Mexican versions of US. game shows where incredible amounts of money were given away simply for correct guesses to simple questions.
"Say this phrase again?" the sargento asked.
"Commotio cordis, " said Remo.
"Como-"
They made a good effort. One of them almost got the second word out.
Remo reached out and, timing his blow to perfection, struck two of the soldiers' chests during the precise millisecond when their heart muscles were poised for the next beat. This moment was called the T-wave by physicians. Typically it lasted only 30 one thousandths of a second, and humans were completely unaware of this most vulnerable state of the heart muscle, when the cells electrically depolarize themselves before the next contraction.
But Remo was aware. He could hear the pause through the rib-sheathed chest walls. For him it was beyond timing now. It was sheer instinct. He struck swiftly, the chest walls slammed into the quiescent heart muscles and nature took her unforgiving course.
The two coughed, turned blue and collapsed, hearts beating wildly and out of control. Physicians called this ventricular fibrillation. Most people just said heart attack and let it go at that.
The third soldier was on the o of cordis when his T-wave started. Remo slammed his rib cage with the hard heel of his hand, and he pitched forward to join the agitated pile.
One by one their out-of-control heart muscles, unable to recover normal rhythm, surrendered and went still.
That left their Humvee free for the taking, so Remo carefully laid the trunk into the backseat and opened the door for the Master of Sinanju. Chiun settled into the seat. Remo took the wheel.
"You employed the Thunder Dragon blow," Chiun said. "Why did you call it 'commotio cordis'?"
"Commotio cordis is Latin for heart concussion," Remo explained. "I read about it in a newspaper article once."
"It is the Thunder Dragon blow. Remember that."
"A soldier by any other name wilts the same."
"That is not the saying."
"It's my version, okay?" And Remo sent the Humvee wheeling away to the town called Boca Zotz.
Chapter 10
As Colonel Mauricio Primitivo of the Mexican federal army saw it, oppression of the indigenous
peoples of Mexico had been a mistake most terrible.
It was a five-hundred-year old mistake. And now it had come back to haunt his proud but still-struggling nation.
The uprising in Chiapas was the result.
Oh, there had been uprisings before. Always they were put down harshly and severely. The Indians had always gone back to being the oppressed, and the lords of Mexico had returned to dutifully oppressing them.
It was actually quite a good system. Except it had gone on far too long.
"We should have exterminated them as the norteamericanos did their indigenous parasites," he said, pounding the table at Fonda del Refugio, an elegant restaurant in the Pink Zone of Mexico City. They were in the dim back dining room, where the powerful dined and discussed business that could not stand the light of day over sangria and chicken in chocolate sauce.
"There are still indios in America," his host corrected. His host wore mufti. But he sat like a military man. He was a very high-ranking general in the Interior Ministry. Alacran was his last name. General Jeronimo Alacran. No more than this did Colonel Primitivo know for certain.
"Yes, in harmless pockets called reservations. The greater portion of them were buried long ago with the genes of future generations that have never come to pass. That is what we should have done. Exterminate the dirty indios. "
"Let us be politically correct in our speech," General Alacran said softly. "They are los indigenos. "
The colonel swirled a collop of chicken in its piquant brown sauce as he nodded. "Of course."
"But who would harvest the coffee and the beans if this is done?" the general inquired.
"Those that remain. The totality of los indigenos are unkillable. If there were fewer of them, they could be more easily controlled. But there are so many that the men cross the border at will and work in America while the women stay behind to raise the unwanted children. Now the situation is worse. There are so many indios, there are more men than work to be done. They sit around idle, drinking pulque and mescal. And in their drunken idleness they turn to revolution time and again."
Primitivo downed the last of his sangria to quench the hateful thoughts troubling his fevered brain.
"And they will be put down again," General Alacran said.
"Not so easily. For now there are foreign media and meddlers from other nations. They will not sit idly by while we exterminate the vermin." Colonel Primitivo shook his heavy head. "It is too late. We are outnumbered."
"These are very interesting sentiments, Colonel. How would you like to go to Chiapas and deal with this unfortunate insurgency?"
"Gladly. But it is too late. I would not be allowed to do my duty. Look at the upstart Verapaz. His communiques come out of the jungle to pollute our newspapers. His masked face is on every magazine cover now. Women swoon over it, though he may be as pocked of face as the dark side of the moon. He himself gives press conferences to foreign journalists. I say send me to one of these so-called press conferences disguised as a reporter and I will exterminate them all. Especially the journalistas."
"That would be politically unacceptable. If Verapaz is murdered, there would be an international uproar. To say nothing of the problem of the dead journalistas. "
"Bah. I care not for politics. Only of my duty to Mexico. No, I must turn down your very tempting offer to go to Chiapas to kill Mayans and others of their ilk. If I succeed, I will be scapegoated. If I fail, I will be humiliated. Mark my words. Chiapas will be the Vietnam of Mexico. And all because the motherless ones who came before us had not the stomach to exterminate the indios. "
The general had first spoken to Colonel Mauricio Primitivo about this difficult duty in the spring after the first Chiapas uprising, when Verapaz had been on the cusp of becoming a hero to mestizo and indio alike.
Now, two springs later, the situation remained essentially unchanged. In stalemate. The new Mexican government, if anything, was more timid on the subject of Verapaz. They were in intense negotiations with the bandit with the jade green eyes. He was all but untouchable now, the repercussions of his assassination too delicate to risk.
The opportunity to deal correctly with him had been lost. At least until a true hombre once again took hold of the reins of power.
Then came the Great Mexico City Earthquake, which shook hacienda and hovel alike.
Colonel Primitivo's phone rang within the hour. It was the general who had first contacted him two springs earlier.
"Colonel, I bring your greetings from the capital."
"It stands?"
"It shakes. I myself am shaking now. I admit it. But my duty calls, so I must steel myself and move swiftly to deal with this crisis."
"How bad?"
"Muy terrible. Popo smokes like a bad cigar now. I fear an epic eruption. I need your help, Colonel Primitivo."
"I do not know how to fight volcanos, but I and my men will do whatever is asked of us."
"Then go to Chiapas and exterminate the renegade Verapaz. "
"This order comes from El Presidente?"
"No, this comes from my lips to your ears. Not even God must hear these words."
"I understand."
"Within the hour, Verapaz has issued a communique. He is deserting the jungle and forests. His goal is nothing less than Mexico City-all Mexican cities ultimately."
"He is drunk with pulque and arrogance."
"He understands the central government has been plunged into a crisis from which it may never emerge. Victory may be his if steps are not undertaken. I am ordering you into Chiapas. Find and intercept this man. Kill him. Make it seem as if he perished in the earthquake. That way no embarrassment will attach itself to you or I or El Presidente. "
"I spit upon El Presidente. "
"That opportunity, too, may arise very soon," the general said dryly. "For all of Mexico is up for grabs, and it is incumbent upon the strong to crush the less strong with all of our might before we fall to the weak."
"I go to Chiapas. Subcomandante Verapaz has issued his last flowery communique. "
"Go with God, Colonel. Just do not allow Him to witness what you do."
"Understood, General."
That very hour a column of tanks and APCs left Montezuma Barracks in Oaxaca at full speed, heading south into Chiapas, where destiny awaited Colonel Mauricio Primitivo.
Destiny lay in ambush for Subcomandante Verapaz, as well. But it was a different destiny. A cold, wormy one.
Chapter 11
A funny thing happened to Alirio Antonio Arcila on the way to the revolution.
It was not so much funny as it was tragic. Yet it was also funny. There was no avoiding this. It was a great joke, a cosmic joke. The gods might have conceived such a joke, except Antonio did not believe in any gods, Mexican, Christian or otherwise.
His gods were Marx and Lenin and other dead white European males whose economic philosophy had seized the twentieth century by the throat.
Alirio Antonio Arcila was a Communist. He was a brother in spirit to Che and Fidel and Mao, and so ached to follow in their booted footsteps.
Then came Gorbachev. The Berlin Wall fell. It was a calamity. And the calamity was followed by other, more calamitous calamities. The Eastern Bloc disintegrated. The mighty USSR fragmented into the powerless CIS.
Just as Alirio Antonio Arcila was poised to reap the violent fruit of ten years spent planting the seeds of discontent in the Lacandon jungle, the international Communist movement was no more. There was no more communism, in fact. Democracy had gripped Moscow with its unshakable iron grip. Even the unbending gray mandarins in Beijing were embracing capitalism even as they clutched Mao's little red book.
And those who clung to the socialist path were overnight bereft of sponsors and funding. Havana became a basket case. Pyongyang an isolated embarrassment. Hanoi lurched into the capitalistic camp. And in Peru the Maoist Shining Path had been hurled reeling and broken, by an elected dictator into the mountains that gave them birth.
Al
l was lost. All was for naught.
Except Alirio Antonio Arcila had been trained as a socialist revolutionary. He had no other talents, no marketable skills, no vocation. There was no other path to follow in life. He knew only revolution and its bloody talents.
So even though the cause was lost, there was no reason that he could think of not to throw a revolution anyway.
It was either that or take over his father's coffee plantation. Antonio would never do that. His father was an oppressor. Antonio would rather make futile revolution than become an oppressor like his evil father, who had amassed a fortune on the backs of illiterate peasants and sold his product to capitalists who in turn sold it to others at obscene profits in a cycle of exploitation without end.
For months after that last stipend had come, Antonio brooded in the jungle, thinking that all he needed was a cause. If only he had a cause.
But what cause?
Oh, he had convinced the Mayan peasants that their cause was liberation and economic justice. But those were only words. Antonio intended to liberate them only to deliver them into the hands of the new Communist rulers of Mexico, of whom one would be no less than Alirio Antonio Arcila.
Then had come NAFTA.
He did not perfectly understand the North American Free Trade Agreement. It involved free trade, obviously. That equaled capitalism. Therefore, it was bad. If not evil.
And so he'd addressed his Maya on this looming evil.
"I have heard this day of a plot called NAFTA," he had told them. "It is a scheme to oppress you as never before."
They regarded him with their sad, stony eyes. Those eyes were the eyes of Mexico, full of soul-deep contradictions and conflicting emotions.
"In this new NAFTA world, the farms of the capital-I mean the norteamericanos-will be placed on the same footing as your meager corn and bean fields. This is fundamentally unfair. For they farm with fierce machines while you have but your strong backs and rude hoes. This is betrayal. Worse, this is treason. We must fight this unfairness."
The Maya heard these words and they nodded in their mute way. They were not men for talk. Talk wasted the breath. They knew that their allotted breaths were fewer than those who breathed the machine-fouled air of the cities. This, too, was unfair. But it was undeniable.
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