"The blood of the Inquisition was no less red," Guadalupe retorted.
Comandante Oscar Odio only laughed.
He set the helicopter down in the path of the approaching Americans.
" Hola!" he called through the open bubble. "Que pasa ?"
Remo came up first.
"Look," he shouted over the rotor whir. "I've got no time to go into details. We need to get to a phone. Pronto!"
"Your Secret Service have-how you say-ceyular telefonos at the crash zone."
Remo shook his head vigorously. "No. I don't want theirs in on this."
"Ah," said Comandante Odio. "It is mucho top-secret, no?"
"Just give me a lift back to your base, okay?"
"At once," Comandante Odio said as the two climbed aboard.
The helicopter lifted up at an angle, the big rotor blade tipping in the direction they were traveling, like a buzz saw chewing through the dry air.
"Officer Mazatl tells me you have found a shack," Odio said nonchalantly.
"That's right," Remo said woodenly.
"And there were dead men in this shack."
"Right again," Remo said, looking down at the ground.
"Is there anything you would like to tell me about this matter?" Odio said good-naturedly.
"No." Remo folded his arms stubbornly.
FJP Officer Guadalupe Mazatl clenched her strong teeth. This was Mexico, not Texas. Who did these gringos think they were?
Then the old one spoke up.
"Where do these lead?" he asked, pointing to the railroad tracks below.
Comandante Odio glanced down.
"That is the Central route to Mexico City," he offered. "They call the train El Aguila Azteca-the Aztec Eagle. Despite the name, it is a very slow train. In Mexico, everything runs slowly --- comprende?"
"Except helicopters, I hope," Remo put in.
Taking the hint, Comandante Odio shut up. He concentrated on his flying. He felt the burning gaze of Officer Mazatl boring into him. He could also read the brown Indian woman's mind. She was thinking: How dare you let these gringos push you around in your own land?
He bestowed on her a dazzling smile, causing her to look away in abrupt anger.
Twenty minutes later, Comandante Oscar Odio was turning the full radiance of his Latin smile on Remo and Chiun as he escorted them into his simple office.
"Yentlemen, mi oficina es su oficina, as we Mexicans say."
"Thanks," Remo said brusquely, grabbing up the telephone.
"The switchboard operator will connect you to a U. S. operator," Comandante Odio added, closing the door behind him.
Fortunately for Remo, the operator spoke English. Remo gave the U. S. operator the number of a fictitious comicbook company in New York City, which relayed the call automatically to the office of Dr. Harold W. Smith on an untappable line.
While Remo listened to the line buzz, the Master of Sinanju spoke up.
"Do not forget to tell Emperor Smith that I had deduced the terrible truth before we found proof of the Vice-President's perfidy," he hissed.
The line clicked. Remo waved Chiun away.
"Smith, Remo. The President isn't dead."
"What!"
"We don't have him, but we think we know where he's heading."
"Is your line secure?" Smith asked suddenly.
"Screw security," Remo snapped. "Do you want to know about the President or don't you? I've had it with bureaucratic bullshit. We're talking about our President!"
Smith subsided. "Go ahead, Remo," he said in a sober voice.
"We followed some tracks to a little shack in the middle of nowhere," Remo explained quickly. "Found three dead terrorists there. Middle Easterners. Probably Palestinian. They had the President, but he went off with someone else."
"Who?"
Remo took a deep breath. "This is going to be hard to believe."
"Go ahead, Remo."
"Do you know where the Vice-President is right at this minute?" Remo asked in an odd voice.
"As a matter of fact, yes. They've got him on a photo opportunity tour at a drug-rehabilitation center. It's part of the White House's plan to keep him occupied until we have definite word of the President's fate."
"Well," Remo said, "sometime in the last ten hours, he was here in Mexico. He rescued the President from the terrorists."
"No!" Chiun broke in. "Remo, you are telling it wrong. The President of Vice is a conspirator. He merely dispatched his unnecessary underlings after they did his will and abducted the unfortunate President. "
Remo clapped one hand over the receiver. "Let me tell it, will you, Chiun?"
"What's this?" Smith asked, his voice twisted with concern.
"At the shack we found a videotape of the abduction," Remo explained. "The President was carried from the wreckage alive. The terrorists were filming him inside this shack when the Vice-President burst in swinging-I know how this sounds-golf clubs. He took the terrorists apart. It was a massacre."
"The Vice-President of the United States?" Smith asked doubtfully.
"No," Remo shot back sarcastically. "The Vice-President of Exxon. I've got the tape to prove it, too. "
"Remo," Smith said firmly, "the Vice-President was awakened this morning in his own bed, by his own handlers and at the request of the White House, and bundled off to this drug-rehabilitation-center appearance."
Are you sure he's the real Vice-President?" Remo asked.
"How do you know the man on the tape is?" Smith countered.
"Looks like him, right down to the golf swing."
"The Vice-President would never plot against the country."
"No? Remember that stock-market thing we dealt with a few months back? And the secret English descendants infrastructure that was dedicated to selling the US out to Great Britain? The Vice-President was on the list of secret British loyalists."
"That threat has been terminated. I cannot believe the Vice-President would act to undermine this country. "
"Well, something's screwy down here. Look, we think they hopped a train to Mexico City."
"Then go to Mexico City. But keep this to yourself."
"From my lips to God's ears," Remo said, hanging up.
In the next room, Comandante Oscar Odio waited for the extension receiver to click before he hung up. His face wore an uncharacteristic frown. It was astonishing, what he had overheard. The American Vice-President in Mexico? A coup underway in the United States?
But most intriguing was the intelligence that the President himself was not dead, but alive somewhere in Mexico. It was very, very valuable information to a man who knew how to disseminate such things correctly.
He left the room of his secretary and rejoined Officer Mazatl in the hall outside his own office. Mazatl stood there, her brown thumb hooked into her black belt like some caballero de pulqueria. She did not at all resemble a woman, Odio thought.
Nevertheless, he smiled at her pleasantly. The smile was not returned. If anything, Mazatl's obsidian eyes grew harder.
"If you would like to use the men's room, Officer, it is down the hall." His smile didn't waver as he delivered the insult.
"Hijo de la chingada!" Mazatl spat venomously.
The comandante only laughed. He grew sincere when the americanos stepped into the hall.
"We've got to get back to our embassy," the one called Remo said urgently.
"By all means," Comandante Odio said. "I understand perfectamente. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your beloved presidente," he added sorrowfully.
"Thanks," Remo said distantly.
"And," Comandante Odio added, "as a gesture of solidarity with you in your bereavement, please allow Officer Mazatl to escort you back to Mexico City."
Officer Mazatl whirled.
"I am not under your command!" she spat.
"Of course not, senorita," Odio said oilily. "But I am certain your superiors would want you to see that the American diplomats are well taken ca
re of. You would not want them to become lost in our very large country."
"We can take care of ourselves," Remo said flatly.
"But the officer will expedite your trip," Odio insisted. "I am certain you do not wish to wait for a Mexicana flight, since they often meet with unfortunate delays. I will arrange military transportation for you."
"Okay," Remo relented, "but only because we're in a rush."
Odio turned to Officer Mazatl. He smiled. "Senorita?"
"I will go with these two," she said sullenly, "but not because you expect it."
"As you wish, Officer Mazatl."
The comandante departed to make the arrangements.
FJP Officer Mazatl stepped up to Remo and Chiun. She looked Remo hard in the eyes.
"You are concealing something," she hissed. "I can tell that."
"Prove it," said Remo, feeling the hard edge of the videotape in the small of his back.
Chapter 12
Jorge Chingar sat beside his telephone in his palatial hacienda outside the Colombian town of Cali. All morning long the calls kept coming in.
"Padrino, the U.S. President has not yet arrived."
"Padrino, still no sign of Air Force Uno."
"Padrino, the other conference representatives are beginning to wonder what is keeping the presidente."
All morning long. But no concrete word on the U. S. President's fate. It was maddening. His spies in Bogota faithfully updated him every half-hour. But there was yet no word from his Palestinian compadres. Surely they would have called by this time. Perhaps they had been captured in Mexico. It was a pleasant thought. Death to the American President, and Jorge Chingar could keep the money promised for the deed. The Palestinians were fools of a sort, after all. No one else in their business would have undertaken such a daring task without first obtaining a substantial down payment.
But these men had been so eager to make their reputation that all that seemed to matter was getting the job.
Jorge Chingar, known as El Padrino-"The God father"-already had a reputation. He also had a million-dollar estate outside of Bogata-until the Colombian Army, backed up by U.S. DEA agents, swooped down upon it in the middle of the night, forcing El Padrino to flee into the hot jungle wearing only his silk underwear.
He was not without resources, principally caches of money and armaments. It had been a simple enough matter to set up again in a safe house, one unknown to the Colombian government.
But the indignity of it offended EI Padrino and he had sworn, even as his bare feet slipped on the wet jungle grasses that evil night, that he would make the President of the United States pay.
The phone rang again. He grabbed it with his many-ringed right hand.
"Si?"
"El Padrino?"
"Si."
"This is Comandante Odio. From the Mexican DFS. We have done business before."
"Of course. How may I be of service to you, comandante?"
"Ah," said the smiling voice. "You are mistaken. It is how I may be of service to you."
"Go on. I am listening."
"Your hatred of the American presidente is not unknown to me. I thought you might be interested in knowing that Air Force One crashed in the Sierra Madres last night."
"Ah!" said El Padrino with only a slight lifting of his voice. "This interests me. Pray, go on."
"The Americans have secured the crash site. They believe their presidente is dead."
"Muy malo," chuckled EI Padrino.
"They cannot find the body."
"Muy triste," EI Padrino said with mock sadness.
"But I happen to know that the President is very much alive."
El Padrino snapped to attention. "Que? How you know this? Tell me!"
"He has been taken to Mexico City, apparently by the Vice-President, his subordinate. I do not understand it myself, but even now there is a coup under way in Washington."
"A coup?"
"Engineered by the Vice-President, Padrino."
"Preposterous."
"I have this on excellent authority. Impeccable authority. "
"What does the Vice-President intend to do with the President?"
"I do not know, Padrino."
"I would like to know. And I would pay exceedingly well the man who brings me such information-or proof that the presidente is dead. Comprende?
"I will contact you directly that I have good news for you, Padrino," Comandante Oscar Odio said briskly. "Adios."
''Vaya con Dios," said EI Padrino, replacing the receiver. He snapped his fingers twice and a hulking bodyguard stepped in from the next room.
"Polio," he commanded. "Gather your best pistoleros. You are going to Mexico City. There is someone I would like you to kill there."
"Si, Padrino."
Chapter 13
It was the most miserable ride in the President's memory.
Going down in flames in the South Pacific during World War II had been no moonlight cruise, to be sure. But except for some bad moments bobbing in the water, it had been over quick.
The train ride through the brown desolation of rural Mexico seemed to go on forever, and nothing he said to the Vice-President, no plea, no veiled threat, could persuade him to enter the caboose.
"But I'm the President," he muttered, his teeth rattling like castanets. The springs on the caboose were either old or sprung. If it even had springs. "This is a friendly country, real friendly. People down here know my face. Hell, I got grandchildren who are Mexican."
The Vice-President turned his perpetually wounded eyes on him like blue lasers. "My prime directive is survival. Entering the train is not conducive to our survival. Must survive. Must ensure your survival. Your survival will ensure my survival. My survival will guarantee your survival. Our survival-"
"I getcha," chattered the President. The poor guy was still rattled. He'd been going on and on about survival like a tape-message loop. "But if I don't have some water soon, I don't know if I'm gonna survive. "
That got a reaction. "Wait here. I will get water."
And the Vice-President came to his feet like his knees had sprung. He clambered up an attached ladder to the caboose roof and disappeared. Over the clickety-clack of the rails, the President heard his feet clump away heavily.
"Amazing!" the President said, his newfound awe of his Vice-President swelling. "When this is over, I'm gonna put that guy up for a Congressional Medal of Honor. And screw those jerks who called him a draft dodger."
The President huddled at the metal railing of the caboose platform. He clung to it with one hand, fearful of falling off. It was warm. Not hot. The sun was high and eye-stingingly bright, but he could stand it. The wind cut through his poplin windbreaker relentlessly.
The Vice-President came down the caboose carrying a plastic cup. He offered it, saying, " I found this. "
"Thanks," the President said, taking quick gulps. The water tasted good. "Want some?"
"No. I do not need water."
"Great," said the President, who really hadn't wanted to share in the first place. He drained the cup.
"Damn! That was good. Wish I had more."
"I will provide more water," the Vice-President said. "Water is important for your survival."
"No, no," the President said quickly. "Stay put. No sense risking your neck again running along the train top."
" I will not need to do that. I now carry a reserve supply."
The Vice-President took the plastic glass, and turning his back on the President, did something with it. The President's brow wrinkled at the sound of gurgling water. He sneaked a look. The Vice-President held one hand over the glass. He thought he saw water dribbling off the man's fingertips.
The glass came back into his hand, and the President took a tentative sip. He made a face.
"Tastes oily," he said.
"It will not harm you. Nothing will harm you while I am with you. It is important that you know that."
"Know it?" the President said
, draining the glass in quick gulps. "I'm gonna see that you get the best thank-you note ever written. The very best. What do you think of that?"
"The job of protecting you is a job," the Vice-President said blankly.
"Great, Dan," the President said with concern. "Could I ask you why you've got that smile on your face?"
"This is the smile that is always on the face of the Vice-President. "
"Yeah, true. But not like that. It looks kinda . . . fixed. You're starting to remind me of that joker fella, from the movie. Think you could relax just a little?"
The smile dropped two stops on the register. "Is this satisfactory?" the Vice-President asked.
"Better," the President admitted.
The smiled dropped another stop, with German lens precision.
"Is this best?"
"Good. Yeah, keep it like that."
I gotta make sure this guy gets a full psychiatric evaluation at Walter Reed, the President thought. He's acting loopier than ever.
"We are nearing a city," the Vice-President said as the mountains grew thinner around them.
"How do you know that?"
" I can smell the pollution. It is very dense. There are harmful elements in the air-sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxide, zinc particles, and fecal dust."
"Must be Mexico City," the President said, suddenly impressed by his Vice-President's keen sense of smell. " I understand on really bad days the birds actually drop out of the sky from the smog. Imagine that. Hey, we have an embassy in Mexico City. We'll go there."
"Will they assist our survival?"
"Damn right. They'll assure it."
"Then we will go there."
"Of course we will," the President said, sticking his hands between his thighs for warmth.
The train began to slow and shacks appeared on either side. They looked miserable, like something found on the outskirts of a war-torn third-world battle zone. The President had traveled through Mexico before, but had never seen the rural part up close like this. It was difficult to imagine that this kind of squalor existed only a few hundred miles below the Texas border.
A road appeared on the left, and as the train slowed, the road came closer and closer to the rail-bed until the train and the sparse traffic were running parallel to one another.
"Someone's gonna see us," the President warned.
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