Unite and Conquer td-102

by Warren Murphy

  Coatlicue herself gave voice to the fear rising in his mind. "The lightning approaches this place."

  "Send it away, Coatlicue."

  "I have no such ability."

  "But you are a god."

  "I am a survival android whose assimilation program is damaged. I cannot assume a more mobile shape. In my attempt to perpetuate my existence, I have taken on a greater and greater mass of surrounding matter, so as to protect my central processor from damage."

  "Central processor?" Lujan said dully. The rain sounds filled his ears. Bitter black rain ran down into his eyes, half blinding him. The cloudburst drummed against his skin like cold awakening fingers.

  "I am the tallest form for miles around, " Coatlicue was saying. "I will attract the lightning bolts and I am not grounded against lightning. "

  "Lightning cannot harm you."

  "Lightning is capable of disrupting my damaged circuits. I could be annihilated."

  "Annihilated? It is impossible."

  "I have never faced this situation before. Instruct me. I must survive."

  "Yes, I will instruct you. Let me think. Yes, what has my mother told true? When there is a lightning system, one lies down flat upon the ground."

  "I am unable to perform that function. My present form is not equipped with knees or other folding joints. If I become prone, I will be unable to rise again. "

  "Then jou must seek cover."

  "I am sixty meters in height. There is no cover."

  "When I was small, I would hide under a tree when it rained this fiercely," Lujan said.

  "I see no tree taller that my present form."

  "El drbol del Tule!"

  "Explain. "

  "There is a magnificent tree only a mile or three from here. A cypress, heavy with age, for it is said to be two thousand years old. The tourists flock to see it always. Go there. Stand beneath its Zapotec branches. It will protect you, if protection is necessary."

  Picking up one gargantuan foot, Coatlicue slowly and ponderously reoriented herself toward the southeast as black rain sluiced down her armored hide. She was slow and deliberate, and her slowness suddenly filled Rodrigo Lujan with a cold dread.

  For if Coatlicue feared the lightning, then it was truly something to be feared. And the circle of the horizon was ablaze with devilish pitchforks of electricity.

  "I will lead the way, Coatlicue," said Lujan, who dared not voice the selfish thought rising in the back of his mind.

  If he remained in the shadow of his Mother, any angry bolt that sought him would be drawn to Coatlicue herself. If by some black fate she should succumb, it would be a terrible tragedy, of course. But Rodrigo Lujan would carry on.

  For what was a god without priests to guide the faithful?

  Chapter 47

  The Mexican army utility chopper was sluggish. Winston Smith had to skim just above treetop level to make the flight to Oaxaca. But that was good, too. Too high made him subject to a sudden shootdown.

  The green hills and valleys of Mexico rushed beneath them. The Plexiglas bubble swam with a streaky dark rain.

  "Hope we can recognize Verapaz from the air," he muttered.

  "He moves with a mighty army. How can we not?"

  "Good point."

  Assumpta looked over pensively. "Why did you leave those two behind? I still do not understand."

  Smith frowned. He had dodged the question once already. "Okay, you deserve to know the absolute truth."

  "Yes?"

  "They were CIA killer agents."

  Assumpta's mouth became an oval. "Even the old one?"

  "He was the deadliest of them all. Knows super kung fu."

  "They did behave strangely at times."

  "You saw how they treated me. Like a kid. Me, the wild-haired warrior. Nobody treats the Extinguisher like a chump."

  "If they are CIA killers, why did you vouch for them to me?"

  "I couldn't be sure. But I got them to sorta admit it back when we were humping along the trail."

  "Romping?"

  "Military slang. Forget it."

  "I like this word homping. I would homp with you anywhere, Blaize."

  "Call me Winner. It's my real name. Short for Winston."

  "Would you homp with me anywhere, Weener?"

  Smith winced. Her pronunciation sounded too much like weiner. "Yeah. But first-we have to hook up with Verapaz."

  "Did I tell you that Juarezista women are allowed to take whatever man they choose, without asking permission of anyone?"

  "No, you didn't."

  She inhaled sharply. "I would take you."

  Smith swallowed. "You would?"

  "Si. And I am not ashamed to admit that if I were to make love to you it would be my first time."

  His hands trembling on the collective stick, Winston Smith muttered under his breath, "Mine, too."

  And deep in the pit of his stomach, he got a very ugly feeling; he didn't know what to do with it.

  Chapter 48

  Comandante Efrain Zaragoza kept one eye on the TV as his unit rolled toward Oaxaca. The evil rain came down, making reception difficult. If it wasn't the rain, it was the interference from the mountains. It didn't help that he was hunkered down in the back of a jouncing armored vehicle.

  Through the rain that was black, and the white snow on the screen, he could see his objective lumber on through the very strange rain. Coatlicue the animate.

  Lightning blazed. It cracked and crashed.

  "Santa Madre de Dios!" he cursed. "Why does the lightning not strike the demon and save us all from the terror of confronting her?"

  "Perhaps if we pray," a sargento suggested.

  "To whom?" Zaragoza spit. "To whom do we pray?"

  "Let half our number pray to the old gods and the other half to the saints. And let the most powerful gods prevail."

  It seemed reasonable, and so straws were drawn and, with the hammering of the rain from hell against the hulls of their APCs and LAVs, the unit prayed silently, nervous eyes on the horizon. Zaragoza monitored the screen.

  The monster Coatlicue made her painstaking way onward. She seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut of steel, her torso bearing the haphazard military markings of the armor she had absorbed. The very same insignia marked their own machines. It made one think terrible thoughts about the fate of their crews.

  Abruptly the screen exploded in a flash of fire.

  "Our prayers are answered!" Zaragoza cried.

  When the screen cleared, they saw Coatlicue standing stock-still, electricity running up and down her metallic skin. It evaporated with a spiteful snap and crackle.

  Then ponderously she continued her march.

  "No," said the sargento unhappily. "Ours were."

  The order was given to pray to saints, not the ancient ones whose loyalties were in question, and as their lips moved silently, all eyes were fixed on the monster they sought to fight but hoped never to behold through their very own eyes.

  Chapter 49

  It had been too easy, Alirio Antonio Arcila felt.

  His Juarezistas had filtered up from Chiapas to Oaxaca without hindrance. It was as if the army was allowing this.

  After some thought he realized this must be so.

  "They wish us to fight the monster Coatlicue," he told Kix as they paused to rest.

  A rain was falling. It was filled with black particles that made their brown uniforms clammy and gritty at once.

  "And we will. For are we not Maya?"

  The portable TV was brought out of its waterproof carrying case and turned on.

  The monster, now plated and scaled like an armadillo, lumbered toward an unknown destination. They fixed its position on their plastic recon maps.

  "We are less than thirty minutes' march from the demon, and it is moving steadily our way," he decided.

  "We will defeat it," Kix said. He sounded very sure of himself, so right then and there Antonio decided Kix would be the first to attack the monster.
/>   "But where does it go?" Antonio wondered aloud.

  "There can be but one destination," Kix muttered, tapping a point on the map. "The cypress of Tule."

  Antonio frowned. "Why would it go there? It is but a tree."

  "To get out of the fierce rain?"

  No better explanation presented itself.

  "We will move out now," Antonio announced, standing up. The moment of truth approached. If he defeated the stone mother, his image would be unshatterable. El Presidente himself would doubtless plead to join the Juarezista cause after that.

  Chapter 50

  High Priest Rodrigo Lujan tramped through the black rain along Highway 190 to Santa Maria del Tule.

  They were passing through hills luxuriant with vegetation that was turning an ominous black under a pelting rain. But he had no eyes for their ruined splendor.

  For one, he could hardly see. Two, he was having to lead the way through the rain, for Coatlicue did not know the route.

  But most difficult of all, he walked without his sheltering cloak and headdress. He had been forced to leave them by the side of the road when the black rain made them too heavy to bear.

  It was fortunate that he had discarded them, because the only warning he had of the impending lightning strike was the faint ozone tang and the rising of the hairs on his bare arms.

  The knowledge that an electrical connection had been made between earth and sky galvanized him. Panic took him. In his alarm he leaped between the legs of his great stone Mother.

  The bolt detonated. That was the exact sound. A ripping explosion, not a crack of lightning. Awesome to hear.

  Coatlicue stopped dead in her tracks, and her entire body rippled with blue-and-green sparks and splinters of light.

  When his ears cleared enough that he could hear again, Rodrigo heard the creak of her metal carapace as she resumed her untiring gait.

  "You live, Coatlicue! " he called out.

  "I survive. I must survive."

  "We will both survive," he cried, following.

  Not two hundred yards farther along, the second bolt struck.

  Again the hairs lifted along his arms. Again there was the bitter ozone in his nostrils, and again Lujan sought refuge under the skirts of his mighty Mother.

  This time he knew enough to plug his precious eardrums with his fingers.

  Still the boom threw him off his feet.

  This time Coatlicue crackled and sizzled like hamburger frying, her armadillo armor alive with violent electrical activity.

  When it abated, she did not move.

  Lujan crawled out to take in the fearsome sight. "Coatlicue! Mother! Do you still live?"

  The only answer was the driving rain pattering and spitting off Coatlicue's steel skin. It seemed to spit in the face of High Priest Rodrigo Lujan, telling him his dreams of empire had been dashed by a vengeful bolt from the angry heavens.

  Then the soldiers came.

  COMANDANTE Efrain Zaragoza saw the second bolt explode and heard silent aftermath of its elemental fury.

  He counted a full circle of sixty seconds by his watch. Two. Three.

  "Our prayers have been answered," he breathed.

  In a corner of the APC, a soldier cursed under his breath and Zaragoza knew the man had prayed for the other side. No matter. The saints had preserved Mexico, if not their lives.

  It left only the mopping up and the harvesting of glory.

  "Faster! Faster! Victory is ours!"

  THEY SURROUNDED the inert golem with their vehicles, leaving no route of escape. It would look very bold on the TV, Zaragoza knew. For the helicopters still patrolled the skies broadcasting all to a cowering nation in need of a savior. Himself, he hoped.

  Zaragoza was the first out. He approached the monster with only his H ne gun.

  A half-naked man cowered at the feet of the demon that was as tall as a house.

  "You are who?" Zaragoza demanded.

  "I am abandoned," the man sobbed.

  "You are indio. "

  "I am abandoned by my Mother," he repeated.

  The man looked so pitiful that Zaragoza decided to ignore him. Glancing over his shoulder, he fixed the orbiting helicopter camera ships and positioned himself so they would pick up his good side. Then, elevating his H ed fire on the monstrosity of baroque segmented steel plates.

  The bullets spanged and dented the armor. But they might as well have been but hard candy. Nothing happened. The monster did not fall over. Zaragoza had hoped the monster would fall over. The sight would appear spectacular on TV Azteca.

  "Soldados! Come! We must fire in unison if we are to topple this behemoth," Zaragoza cried, giving up on the hope of going down in history as Zaragoza the Giant Killer.

  His soldados were not eager to leave the safety of their armored vehicles, but they did so. They stood around in awe of the silent golem.

  "We will spray her breast with bullets so that she topples on her back, forever defeated," Zaragoza told them.

  They formed a firing squad and began firing. It was haphazard fire, but it had an effect.

  A section of armor cracked and dropped away. It struck sparks when it hit the road.

  " Viva Zaragoza!" Zaragoza yelled, hoping his men would pick up the cry and it would carry to the helicopter microphones.

  Whether that happened or not, was not to be known by Efrain Zaragoza. Or anyone else.

  As if they had fractured a weak spot, the armor began cracking and falling away in large, dangerous pieces.

  The pieces fell thudding, and it was all they could do to retreat before being crushed by the clanging plates.

  They backed up sufficiently that the truth of their situation at once became clear. The armor was not breaking under the stress of so many bullet strikes.

  It was breaking because the monster Coatlicue was shedding her hide as a snake sheds its skin.

  She was casting off the heavy confining shell as she resumed her lumbering walk toward her unknown destination.

  "Disparen!" Zaragoza ordered.

  And his men emptied their weapons into the newly exposed brown stone that chipped and gave off puffs of rock dust in some places and actually bled in soft spots, but otherwise showed no sign of flinching or surrender.

  Men made the sign of the cross as they backed away in mute awe.

  "She is Coatlicue," Zaragoza muttered.

  That was when sanity reasserted itself. They piled into their APCs and sent them scurrying south to Yucatan.

  Perhaps the cameras had picked up nothing through the drumming black rain after all. It no longer mattered. Efrain Zaragoza had learned an important lesson. Glory was nothing. Life was all. And he was not being paid to fight walking stones that bled like men.

  Chapter 51

  "I was just thinking," Winston Smith said over the combined noise of rotor wash and rain.

  "Si?"

  "We lead dangerous lives. Danger is our beans and rice. We could be snuffed out at any moment."

  "Yes, this is very true," Assumpta admitted.

  "Once we join up with Verapaz, nothing is guaranteed. Not tomorrow. Not even tonight. Surviving the next hour is strictly fifty-fifty."

  "This is so, chilito mio. "

  Winston blinked. "What's that mean?"

  "My little chili pepper." Assumpta smiled shyly.

  "Look, why don't we just land this eggbeater and do it now? That way, if we're killed or separated or anything bad happens, at least we can say we knew true love before the end came."

  "The gas is low ...."

  "Yeah, I was gonna mention it, but I didn't want it to sound like a line."

  "We will refuel and make passionate love as guerrilleros do."

  "Great," said Winston. "That clearing up ahead looks soft."

  The chopper skimmed lower and angled toward a landing.

  At the last possible moment the ship seemed to lighten, as if dropping a load of fuel. Maybe the engine needed an overhaul, Winston thought.

 
; After he shut it down, Winston Smith turned to Assumpta. "Well, here we are."

  Her face was a cameo against the backdrop of the rain-washed Plexiglas bubble beyond which the raindistorted green landscape seemed to waver and run.

  He leaned in to kiss her. Their arms bumped the controls. Assumpta laughed. Then her lips were pressed against his, and Winston wondered if he should stick his tongue in her mouth or wait until later. First kisses were logistical nightmares ....

  Somewhere the sound of knocking intruded on their silent interlude. He ignored it.

  It came again. Very loud this time.

  Assumpta drew away in fear. "What is that?"

  "Search me."

  He saw the shape behind her. A face. It swam behind the swimming Plexiglas.

  "Get down!" he cried, reaching for his Hellfire.

  Before he could reach his weapon, the cockpit door at his back opened, letting in driving rain and an irresistible hand.

  Smith was yanked out and dropped on his back. A foot stamped his gun into the mud. He looked up, his face furious.

  The face of his alleged father looked down. It was not a happy face.

  "Where the hell did you come from!" Winston raged.

  "A magician never tells," Remo told him.

  "Nice move. Your timing is fucking excellent."

  "Forget it, chilito. It's curfew time. We heard every word."

  "How's that possible?"

  Remo pulled him to his feet. Winston noticed the old Korean standing behind him, also unhappy.

  Assumpta shouted, "Let him go, jou-jou CIA yanquis! He has told me all about you. You will never defeat Lord Verapaz!"

  "Right now we have a bigger problem."

  "What's that?" Winston growled.

  "The monster. I need you to fly us to him."

  "Monster? Don't be stupid. The Extinguisher doesn't fight monsters. Try Raymond Burr."

  "He's dead, so you're elected." And Winston found himself placed in the chopper pilot seat like a baby dropped into his high chair.

  The old Korean climbed into the cockpit and, crossing his legs, sat on his steamer trunk.

  Winston looked to Remo standing in the rain. "What about you?"

  "Just take off. I'll hitch a ride on the skid."