Survival Course td-82

by Warren Murphy

  "I will protect you."

  "Glad to hear it, but that's not what I meant. Maybe they'll recognize us. Help us out."

  A dull gray truck with a wooden flatbed rumbled past the train, going in the opposite direction. The President noticed it because the back was crowded with a dozen or more men standing up. As they zoomed by, they reacted with shouts and pointing fingers.

  The truck executed a fumy U-turn and came up alongside the caboose. The men surged to the near side of the truck bed. One waved and shouted, "El presidente?"

  "Si! Si!" the President answered, getting to his feet. He waved with one hand, clutching the rail with the other. "Soy el presidente de los Estados Unidos!"

  A shout went up from the men, who wore dusty clothing. They looked like ragtag Mexican farmers.

  The truck picked up speed and left them breathing its malodorous exhaust.

  "They're going fox help!" the President shouted joyously. "We can relax, now. They must have been looking for us all along."

  "They possess weapons which can harm you," the Vice-President said mechanically.

  "Guns are real popular down here. It's that machismo thing."

  The train was rounding a bend, giving the President an unobstructed view of the engine. The truck drew up alongside it. Suddenly a battery of rifles and automatic weapons came level, like a firing squad on wheels.

  "Must be trying to get the attention of the engineer," the President ventured. "Fella probably can't hear them over the engine racket."

  The guns opened up. The firing was intense, a rattling ineffectual pop-pop-pap mixed with the harsh snap of bullets bouncing off the heavy engine.

  "What the hell are they doing?" the President said, ducking for cover. "That's a lot of shooting for a warning shot."

  "We must escape," the Vice-President said with metallic urgency. The train was slowing down.

  "For God's sake, what's going on?"

  The train ground to a jerky halt and the truck came back, its human cargo shouting and caterwauling like Pancho Villa's army.

  The President was no fool. He realized this was no rescue party. Before he could say, "Let's get out of here!" a firm hand took him by the waist and yanked him down behind the caboose, pushing him against a multiwheeled truck assembly.

  "These wheels will protect you," he said. The Vice-President crept forward.

  "Where are you going?" the President demanded anxiously.

  The Vice-President did not answer. He disappeared between the couplings that joined the caboose to the rest of the train.

  The President hugged his knees to his chest and tried to make himself as small as he could. He ruefully thought that whatever dangers had awaited him in Bogota, they would be infinitely preferable to what was happening right now.

  He listened to the mixture of sounds-more excited shouting, the gunning of the truck engine, and the lengthy squeal of its tires in a wild turn. They were coming back.

  The truck braked nearby, and feet hit the asphalt with hard leather slaps. They were jumping off the truck, yelling exultantly.

  The President sneaked a peek around a heavy steel wheel rim.

  He saw many booted feet. They surrounded another pair of feet-the Vice-President's. The Vice-President seemed to hold his ground as he was surrounded. They were the bravest feet the President had ever seen.

  Nothing happened for a long moment, except excited shouting and questioning. One word was repeated: "Cabron." That meant "friend," the President recalled, thinking back to his high-school Spanish. No, wait-it meant "bastard," he decided, remembering his Texas oil days. They were calling the Vice-President a bastard, questioning him, but not hurting him. They repeated the words el presidente many times, with growing vehemence.

  The President wondered if he should surrender. They might kill the Vice-President if he didn't answer-and it sounded as if he wouldn't. Brave fella.

  As he was deciding, something happened. Two sets of boots suddenly left the ground. They just vanished. Then two broken bodies landed in the place where they had been. There came a scream. The President pulled his head back. He tried to make himself small again.

  And the gunfire started in earnest.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Like distant firecrackers.

  More screams. It went on for a long time. There were other sounds-meaty twisty ripping noises. Fleeing feet. Commotion.

  The President waited tensely for it all to die down. He knew better than to run when bullets were ripping the air, although his nerves screamed for him to flee.

  The gun sounds were still ringing in his ears when he heard footsteps coming for him. They crushed the railbed gravel.

  The President's eyes snapped open. He got ready to duck under the caboose.

  To his astonishment, the Vice-President-his eyes still holding that perpetual hurt light that never changed from debate to photo op, his clown grin almost ghoulish in its unwavering fixity-stepped into view.

  "We are safe now," he said, reaching down. "We have survived." He held a bent putter in his other hand.

  The President let himself be helped to his feet. His ankles and knees felt like Slinky toys waggling in opposite directions.

  "What happened?" he asked shakily.

  "The meat machines have been neutralized."

  "Meat machines?" the President asked. Steadying himself against the caboose, he peered around to the other side.

  He gagged. For he could see why the Vice-President had called their erstwhile attackers meat machines. They had been torn limb from limb. The fortunate ones. Their ham-bone joints gleamed white at the torn-off shoulders and knees.

  The President threw up his water. The Vice-President straightened the putter's shaft with a quick two-handed motion and restored it to his bag.

  "You did all that with a putter?" the President said incredulously.

  "Yes. Why?"

  The question was asked with such a straight face that all the President could do was mutter, "Well, not much loft in a putter." He felt very weak. " I don't think I can go on," he said.

  "We must survive," said the Vice-President.

  "Amen," said the President fervently.

  " I will carry you."

  "No, no-you've done enough."

  But the Vice-President was having none of it. Like a caveman, he took the chief executive around the waist and hefted him onto his hip like a feather pillow.

  "This isn't really necessary."

  The Vice-President stepped out into the road and started walking with a steady metronomic gait.

  "Isn't there a more dignified way to do this?" the President wanted to know as he bounced on the Vice-President's anvil hip.

  "You are too weak to walk. I am strong. I am very strong. "

  "Thank goodness for that. Those fellas were trying to kill us. You just took them apart."

  "Yes. We cannot go to the embassy now. We must enter the city undetected if we are to survive."

  "How are we gonna do that:"

  " I will find a way," the Vice-President said. "We must seek sanctuary."

  "Let's find one with food. I'm getting hungry."

  "What would you like?"

  "Anything. "

  The Vice-President's camera-lens eyes regarded an approaching truck. "Bread?" he asked.

  "Sure. Anything. Even plain white bread would taste good."

  No sooner were the words out of the President's mouth than he was set onto the roadside. His head no longer hanging upside down over the concrete, he looked around him.

  The train was not far behind. It stood there like a long inert worm of metal. Passengers' screams were more audible, but no one had ventured from the cars.

  The Vice-President stepped into the middle of the road, his arms raised. He was trying to flag down a blue-and-white van coming up the road.

  The van stopped and the Vice-President stepped up to the driver's side. The driver rolled down the window and asked, "Como esta?"

  Without warning, the Vice-
President delivered a straight-arm punch. The driver's head slumped out the window, unconscious.

  When the Vice-President came back for him, he was wearing that idiot Alfred E. Neuman grin of his, as if nothing had happened.

  "Did you have to hit him like that?" the President complained.

  " I did not speak his language, and we can trust no one," the Vice-President said, and under his arm went the President again. He was bundled into the back of the van. The door slammed and darkness closed over him.

  "Hey!" the President shouted.

  "Enjoy your meal," said the Vice-President's voice.

  The truck started up. It rattled worse than the caboose.

  The President became aware of the tantalizing smell of fresh bread. On one hand and both knees, he felt around in the back, encountering plastic wrapping on shelves upon shelves of plastic wrapping.

  He tore one open and began to devour handfuls of soft aeirated bread. It tasted like Wonder Bread. It would have tasted better, but the awful exhaust smell was coming up through the floorboards. Still, it was good to eat solid food again.

  After he had filled his stomach, drowsiness set in. The President fell promptly asleep. His last loggy thought was to wonder what had come over the Vice-President. The guy had become a positive tiger.

  Chapter 14

  The plane that ferried Remo and Chiun to Mexico City International Airport was a rickety propellerdriven Douglas C-47 of museum vintage.

  After a long period of silence-among the three passengers, but not the rattling cabin-Remo commented on that fact.

  "How is it your helicopters are so modern, but your planes belong in the junkyard?"

  "Do you insult my country's military?" Guadalupe Mazatl demanded hotly.

  "Just wondering," Remo said, folding his bare arms. He wasn't in the mood for conversation anyway. Not with Chiun, who felt that as long as no blame fell on his shoulders, it didn't matter what happened to the President of the United States, and especially not with a sullen Mexican cop with a chip on her shoulder almost as large as her inferiority complex.

  The ground below was endlessly mountainous. Remo wondered if all of Mexico was this barren.

  "The helicopter, it belonged to him."

  "What's that?" Remo asked, roused from his thoughts by Guadalupe's sullen voice.

  "That was Comandante Odio's private helicopter. I have heard that he bought it himself and merely lends it to his command."

  "They must pay DFS commandants pretty well down here," Remo remarked.

  "They do not," Guadalupe Mazatl said flatly.

  Remo's eyebrows shot up. "You suggesting the comandante is on the take?"

  " I suggest nothing. You are a smart norteamericano. You put dos and dos together.'

  "Two and two."

  "I said that."

  "Well," Remo returned, "he was very helpful to us."

  "He is not a man worthy of trust."

  "Not my problem. I'll never see him again."

  "Then I trust you said nothing during your telephone conversation that you would not want him to know. "

  Remo eyed Guadalupe's masklike profile. "Why is that?"

  "He was undoubtedly listening in on your call."

  "How do you know that?" the Master of Sinanju said, taking interest in the conversation for the first time.

  "He left me alone in the hall," Guadalupe explained.

  "Circumstantial," Remo suggested.

  "And he can afford a modern helicopter on less than three hundred pesos salary per month."

  Remo looked across the aisle to the Master of Sinanju.

  "What do you think, Little Father?" he asked.

  "I think I will be happy when I am out of this wounded metal bird."

  "You're a big help. By the way," he asked Guadalupe, "what do they call you for short? Guad?"

  "Lupe. "

  "Loopy," Remo said. "Doesn't fit you, you know."

  The plane set down at Mexico City International Airport and ground personnel rolled out an aluminum stairway so they could deplane.

  "I gotta find a phone," Remo told Lupe as they stepped onto the tarmac. "Come with me."

  They entered the busy terminal and FJP Officer Mazatl found the operations manager. After exchanging swift words with him in Spanish, she led him from the office, telling Remo, "We will be outside."

  "Listening in?" Remo asked. But he smiled when he said it. His smile was not returned.

  "Let's see what Smith has to say," Remo told Chiun.

  " I do not like this place," Chiun said suddenly while Remo waited for a U.S. operator to come on the line.

  "Already? We haven't even left the airport."

  "This is an evil place," Chiun insisted. "The air tastes like metal."

  "I did notice the sky was kinda brown, at that," Remo remarked. Then, into the phone: "Smith? Remo. We're in Mexico City. Any news? . . . Really? . . . Here? Well, it's a lead. No word on the President? . . I see.... Okay. We'll register at a hotel. I have a police escort I'll need to ditch, but that shouldn't be a problem. Her nickname is Loopy."

  Remo hung up.

  "Smith says there was a report that the Vice-President was seen in Mexico City only an hour ago," he told Chiun.

  "You see!" Chiun said triumphantly. "Proof of all I said. What dastardly crime has he committed now?"

  "He was seen driving a bread truck through the city."

  "Perhaps the bread is poisoned," Chiun said as he followed Remo from the office.

  "We've got to get to the embassy," Remo informed Lupe.

  "I will drive you," she said.

  "Thanks, but no thanks. Just call us a cab."

  "I am your host and protector while you are in Mexico," Lupe said stiffly.

  "Thanks again, but we don't need protection."

  Lupe's hard eyes flicked toward the Master of Sinanju. "The old one. He looks pale."

  "Don't let that fool you," Remo retorted. "He's healthier than I am. Right, Chiun?"

  The Master of Sinanju said nothing. He sniffed the air with concern.

  Remo looked more closely. "You do look a little pale, at that."

  "I do not like this place," Chiun said again.

  "Fine," Remo returned. "Let's be on our way."

  Officer Guadalupe Mazatl led them out to the drop-off area, where she flagged a cab.

  "No official vehicle?" Remo asked as they got in.

  "An FJP jeep might arrive in five minutes or five hours. This taxi is here now."

  They pulled into traffic a moment later, and were soon traveling through a rundown area of scabrous stucco buildings; there was a general air of forlorn hopelessness about the people walking along the streets.

  Remo kept an eye on the traffic, looking for bread trucks. Smith had told him the brand name. What was it again?

  "You ever heard of Bimbo Bread?" he asked Lupe suddenly.

  "Si. It is a well-known brand here in the Distrito Federal. Why?"

  "Oh, nothing," Remo said evasively.

  They turned on an artery called Viaducto. Remo wondered if it was Spanish for "viaduct," and if it was, why it was called that.

  After a while the avenue sank into the ground and their view of the city was cut off by ugly gray concrete walls lifting on either side, like a viaduct that carried traffic instead of water.

  The city was incredibly congested, Remo saw. Noxious exhaust poured from the tailpipe of every car and truck. It was worse than New York or L.A. But there was something different about it, too.

  As they turned off Viaducto, under a huge electric pinwheel of a sign-"TOME COCA-COLA"-back into ground-level traffic, a blue VW Beetle slithered out of their way, causing a chain reaction of near-collisions.

  Their cabdriver kept going as if this were an everyday occurrence. Remo looked back. Miraculously, no one was hurt. Then it hit him.

  "Don't the cars have horns down here?"

  "Si," Lupe said. "Why do you ask?"

  "In New York, you'd hear a million
car horns during a near-disaster like that."

  A faint smile touched the corners of Lupe's lips.

  "Perhaps we are more civilized in Mexico than you would think," she said.

  "Matter of fact," Remo added, "I don't hear any horns. It's unnatural."

  The cabdriver spoke up. "Many drivers, senior, they carry pistolas."

  "So much for civilization," Remo said smugly.

  Lupe Mazatl said nothing. In the front seat, beside the driver, the Master of Sinanju was equally silent.

  Remo looked around for trucks. He saw none that said "Bimbo Bread." Then he realized that it might not say "bread" at all.

  "What's the Spanish for 'bread'?" he asked Lupe.

  "Pan."

  "How about 'bimbo'?"

  " 'Bimbo'?"

  "Yeah. 'Bimbo.' What's that in English?"

  Lupe shrugged her uniformed shoulders. " 'Bimbo' is . . . 'bimbo.' "

  "In the U. S. a bimbo is a girl who's not very bright. "

  Lupe's brown forehead puckered. "She is dark?"

  "No, unintelligent. Dumb. You know, stupid."

  "Ah, senorita estupida. 'Stupid girl.' That is what you wish to know?"

  "Maybe," Remo said, frowning. He didn't think that anyone would invent a brand name that meant "stupid girl." Maybe Lupe was right. Maybe "bimbo" was just "bimbo." He decided on another tack.

  "What color are the Bimbo Bread trucks down here?"

  A dark notch formed between Guadalupe's thick brows.

  "Why this concern with Bimbo Bread?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Nothing special," Remo said innocently. "Just trying to soak up local customs."

  "Why do you not ask about our fine culture, then? Our great city? Do you know that Mexico City is the most populous in the world?"

  " I can believe it," Remo said, looking out at the congestion. They were stopped at an intersection where a traffic cop in a chocolate-and-cream uniform was attempting to unsnarl traffic with a white baton. It looked hopeless. The red "ALTO" signs were being ignored in both directions.

  "We have the longest avenue in the world here in Mexico City," Lupe said proudly. "It is called the Avenida Insurgentes. And our Chapultepec Park is unrivaled for its magnificence."

  "Skip the tourist-brochure stuff;" Remo said. "I'm already here."

  When they got going again, Remo noticed that the Master of Sinanju was staring out the window, his face a frown of wrinkles, like a parchment death mask left too long in the sun.