"Yeah, all you ever saw him do was wolf down Oreo cookies by the fistful."
"I understand those addicted ones often experience strange pangs and hungers," said Esperanza sadly.
They resumed walking down the stairs.
"What is that smell?" Chiun asked, sniffing the air doubtfully.
Remo answered. "Smells like Oreos."
"I keep a goodly supply here," explained Esperanza. "Once the election is over, I will donate the remainder to charity."
"Yeah," Remo said sourly. "A lot of starving people want nothing better than to sit down to a heaping bowl full of chocolate cookies."
"Remo!" Chiun admonished. "Watch your tone. This man is our patron."
"Sorry," Remo said, frowning. Something was bothering him. Something that danced along the edges of his memory. He couldn't think what it was.
Down in the parlor, Enrique Esperanza said, "My servant is away. Why do you not take this fine house for the duration of your stay with me?"
"Suits me," said Remo.
"A protector should always be at his patron's side," said Chiun flatly.
Esperanza considered. "I know: You may come with me, and your friend may remain here."
"It is proper," said Chiun.
"Okay," said Remo.
At that, the face of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza broke into a broad smile. It was a benevolent, almost angelic smile. His large teeth glowed like luminous pearls.
And then it hit Remo. Suddenly. The man had smiled just moments before, but quietly. Still, the way his mouth muscles had quirked tripped a dormant memory.
Now, with the radiance of that hauntingly familiar smile washing over him, Remo knew where he had seen it before. In the Florida Everglades. On an entirely different face. Not the smooth brown face of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, but the ugly, reptilian, acne-cratered face of General Emmanuel Alejandro Nogeira.
As this was just sinking in, Esperanza and Chiun turned to go.
"Chiun, wait," Remo called.
The Master of Sinanju paused. "What is it?"
"I gotta speak to you." Remo eyed Esperanza. "Alone."
Chiun touched his wispy beard thoughtfully. "I have no secrets from my patron. Speak freely, Remo."
"Never mind," Remo said unhappily. "It can wait."
Chiun frowned. Esperanza's face was placid.
"Then let us go," he said.
They left. At the open door, Remo watched them start up to the big hacienda-style mansion.
Esperanza was saying, "I am certain we can concoct for your friend a suitable potion. I will call my servant. He will not mind a small interruption of his vacation."
"My friend will only need a weak dosage," Chiun put in. "His attractive powers are quite strong, it is just that the woman in question is very stubborn of will."
"Damn," Remo said after they'd disappeared into the house. "This can't be happening. I gotta call Smith."
He went in search of a phone. There was one on the kitchen wall. But when he picked it up, the line was dead.
Remo went through the house. He found no other phones. The smell of Oreo cookies was strong. It seemed to be coming, not from within the house, but through an open kitchen window.
Remo stepped out into the night. Yes, the smell was stronger out here. It was a hot smell. It overwhelmed the grape scent that made the air so heavy. The smell was cloying but unmistakable.
Moving stealthily, Remo followed it.
It was coming from some kind of long, low outbuilding on the opposite slope of the hill. A thin pipe of a smoke stack gave off the fresh hot smell.
There were no windows, so Remo simply went in the door.
A blast of hot air hit him in the face. It was thick with different smells-cooking chocolate, and other, more chemical odors.
No one noticed him enter, so Remo closed the door behind him and went to a pile of machinery. He crouched down, so he could see what was going on.
The place looked like a sweat shop. Hispanic workers toiled in the heat. One end was devoted to a number of brick ovens and other food-processing equipment.
Black chocolate wafers came rolling out of the open ovens, hot and malleable. They were stamped on one side by hand and flipped over like silver-dollar pancakes.
Remo saw what the stamping did to the wafers, and wondered why anyone would be counterfeiting Oreo cookies.
Nearby, giant vats bubbled with white matter. Over these, glassine packets were broken and their powdery contents shaken in.
Remo's nostrils detected their scent. The stuff looked like sugar, but it didn't smell like sugar.
"Coke," Remo said under his breath.
The white stuff was ladled off onto rows of black wafers set on long tables, making small, steaming mounds. Busy hands slapped identical wafers on top, and the finished cookies were set aside to cool before being packaged.
In one corner, there were boxes and boxes of Oreo cookies. Someone was opening them, tossing out the cookies, and replacing them with the counterfeit versions.
It's starting to make sense now, Remo decided. Cashman's addiction. The fervor with which the crowds cheer Esperanza's speeches as they munch on their give-aways. Everything.
Remo moved to the opposite end of the building. A different operation was under way there. Grim workers were doctoring long punch cards. They were adding extra punch holes.
Remo recognized them as voting cards. He wasn't sure how it worked, but he knew that every card was being fixed so that it registered a vote for Enrique Espiritu Esperanza when the voting lever was pulled.
He decided he had seen enough. Remo was on his way to the door when he spotted a cellular telephone lying on a work bench.
Unfortunately, the bench was almost completely surrounded by workers.
Remo decided it was worth any price to get that phone, so he simply straightened up and walked boldly toward it.
A sweaty-faced man shouted at him in Spanish.
Casually, Remo said, "No problem. Ricky sent me."
"Que?"
"Enrique," Remo repeated. "Carry on."
A varied collection of pistols and automatic weapons came out from under places of concealment as Remo laid a hand on the cellular telephone.
Remo smiled. No one smiled back. With his thumb, he activated the telephone and held down the one key.
In a moment, Harold Smith's tight voice was saying, "Remo! Thank God you called."
The voice spooked someone, because Smith's voice was suddenly drowned by a short burst of gunfire.
Remo twisted out of the way. He needn't have bothered. The bullets peppered the ceiling, making a hollow drumming sound.
Holding on to the phone, Remo faded back through the door, not bothering to open it. He simply bulled through.
On his way out, he batted the door back. It took its own frame back with it and slammed into three pursuing men.
Remo raced toward the mansion, the phone up to his face. He was shouting into the receiver.
"Smitty. You copy?"
"Remo, I hear shooting," came the anxious voice of Harold W. Smith. He burped.
"I'm at Esperanza's vineyard. Guess what? Esperanza isn't Esperanza. He's-"
"General Emmanuel Nogeira," said Smith bitterly.
"Huh? How'd you know that?"
"Fingerprints off the Everglade's body. They belonged to the true Esperanza."
"They must have kidnapped him and pulled the switch during the Baptism," Remo growled. "And I didn't see it because I was too busy ducking cameras. But can we prove it?"
A bullet track snarled over Remo's head. He cut off to one side and kept zigzagging. Up ahead, lights were going on all over the mansion.
"The real Nogeira has five general's stars tattooed on each shoulder," Smith shouted.
"Tattooed?"
"He took his rank very seriously," said Smith.
"Yeah, well his smile gave him away to me," Remo said.
"His smile?"
"Later," Remo said. "
I just stumbled upon an Oreo counterfeiting plant, and they're doctoring voter registration cards."
"Why would they counterfeit Oreos?" Smith shouted over the growing din.
"They're loaded with coke!" Remo shouted back. "Instant voter support. Nogeira was turning California into a land of cokeheads," Remo added.
"My God! It's Bananama all over again."
"Skip the anguish," Remo said quickly. "The bad guys are hot on my heels, and Chiun's up ahead with Nogeira. He doesn't suspect a thing. What do I do?"
"Nogeira must be eliminated. We have no choice."
"But Chiun'll kill me," Remo protested. "He thinks Cheeta Ching is going to give birth to the next heir to the House, and now this."
"Remo, we can deal with Chiun later. You have your orders."
Up ahead a door opened, and from out of the house a contingent of Crips, Bloods, and Los Aranas Espana poured out. They had weapons in their hands and Oreo cookies in their mouths, and their eyes were filled with a crazy light.
"Nobody better shoot!" Remo warned them.
"Our man Esperanza says we gotta!" spat back a familiar voice. Dexter Dogget's.
And behind him, Remo heard the shout, "Viva Esperanza!"
It was his pursuers. Probably Colombians or Bananamanians. Maybe both.
Remo threw himself on the ground as two fans of bullet tracks filled the air over his head from opposite sides. Rounds actually struck one another in midair, making short, ugly sounds and sending hot needles of lead spraying all around.
A few struck Remo's Hispanic pursuers. But only a few.
The pursuing Colombians did better. They chopped down about a third of the gang members in return. This brought further retaliation, and as he lay flat, cradling the cellular phone, Remo realized he had been forgotten. It was eye-for-an-eye time-which suited Remo just fine.
The firefight swelled into a crescendo of blood and bullets.
Moving low, Remo circled the mansion, the sound of firing covering him. He wondered why Chiun hadn't shown.
The Master of Sinanju listened thoughtfully as his patron explained the future.
"You will work for me. Exclusively."
"This is possible," replied Chiun. They stood before the dormant fireplace of the great parlor.
"I will pay you very, very well," continued Esperanza. "You will no longer need to work for the U.S. President."
"I do not work for him."
"Then who?"
"I cannot say."
Esperanza nodded. "I understand. I will expect the same loyalty."
Chiun inclined his head. "Of course."
"There is just one other matter," added Esperanza.
"Yes?"
"The one called Remo. He works for the government. He is CIA?"
"Possibly."
"He will be a hindrance to us. You must sever all ties with him."
Chiun touched his wispy beard in preparation before speaking.
Just then, the night exploded with the sound of automatic weapons fire.
Remo went in the back door. He brought it down with a flying kick and was past it before it quite hit the floor.
"Chiun!" he called. "Where are you?"
From a nearby room the Master of Sinanju's voice came, thin and unwelcoming.
"In here."
Remo veered toward the sound. He came up short, in a spacious parlor decorated in the Spanish style of old California. He pointed in the direction of Enrique Esperanza.
"That guy's a phony," he said hotly. "He's not Esperanza."
"It is true," admitted Enrique Esperanza. "I have taken the place of the real Esperanza, who had the misfortune to share a meal with a swimming reptile." He looked to the Master of Sinanju. "With your history, you must appreciate my cleverness. I had plastic surgery to make my face resemble his."
"Not to mention a dermabrasion," Remo inserted.
Esperanza smiled. "My new face is so much more photogenic, no?"
"No," said Remo flatly.
Esperanza shrugged and went on. "My plan is quite simply foolproof. I have recruited the very illegals I have helped to smuggle into this country in my-how you say?-previous life. The homeless will vote for me, too, because I have registered them under the names of the dead. Those who enjoy my cookies will also vote for me. Those I have frightened with my vision of the future of California will, sadly, not vote for Esperanza. But I think many of them have other plans for their own futures, which do not include California."
"Let's not forget the doctored voter punch-cards," Remo added darkly.
Chiun's wrinkled features acquired a questioning cast.
"Once I have my people put them in place," Esperanza explained, "they will insure that even those who vote against me will be casting a vote for Esperanza. Brilliant, no?"
The hazel eyes of the Master of Sinanju shone in appreciation. "Yes, it is very brilliant."
Remo shouted, "Chiun! What are you saying?"
"Merely the truth. This is a ruler after my own heart. He understands power. And he will achieve it."
"That mean you're sticking by him?" Remo demanded tightly.
"Only a fool would not," replied Chiun. "He is what is called 'a sure thing.' "
"Then call me a fool," growled Remo.
Chiun shrugged. "You are a child yet, Remo. You will learn that the true leaders are those who take power, not accept it from the fickle populaces."
Esperanza smiled broadly. "You are too late," he told Remo. "He is with me. There is no changing that."
"Too bad," Remo said. "Emperor Smith wanted him taken out."
Esperanza looked blank.
"Smith is my emperor no longer," Chiun said coldly. "Our most recent contract has expired. It will not be renewed. Better work has come along."
"He'll be sorry to hear that," Remo said. "Especially when he hears that you let a golden opportunity slip through your fingers."
Chiun cocked his head to one side. "What opportunity?"
"The one that atones for my earlier screw-up, when I let Nogeira get eaten by that alligator."
"What has that to do . . . ?"
"Because that's Nogeira right there," Remo said, pointing.
Chiun turned to the man he knew as Enrique Esperanza. "This is true?"
"Not at all," said a smiling General Emmanuel Nogeira. "I do not know what this man is saying."
"There's one way to prove the truth," Remo said. "The real Nogeira has five general's stars tattooed to each shoulder."
General Nogeira squared his shoulders.
"Nonsense," he said, tightening the cord on his terrycloth robe. "CIA lies."
"Then you would not mind disproving this accusation," Chiun said slowly, his eyes going as narrow and steely as knife blades.
"Seems to me, I recall a clause in that contract that covers unfinished business," Remo said pointedly.
The man who called himself Enrique Espiritu Esperanza looked from Remo to Chiun, to Remo again. His mouth fell open like a hungry frog's. "I refuse," he said, sweat forming on his smooth forehead. "I am Esperanza. I do not need to prove anything. To anyone. And when my men finish shooting at shadows, they will deal with that pig of a CIA agent," he added, indicating Remo.
"I see," said the Master of Sinanju, turning away. His hands slashed back like the talons of a striking eagle. Nails ripped the terry cloth away, exposing the broad brown shoulders of General Emmanuel Nogeira-and five bluish-green stars on each shoulder, where the artist's needle had inscribed them.
Before anyone could react, in from the front door poured a knot of triumphant Colombians. They burst into the room, holding their weapons at the ready for instruction.
General Nogeira pointed at Remo Williams and said, "Kill that blanco!"
Then the blood erupted from his naked throat, as the right index fingernail of the Master of Sinanju opened it with a seemingly careless slice.
As the once-again-dead dictator of Bananama started to tip forward into a fountain of his own gore,
Remo went to work on the Colombians.
They were handicapped by the need not to fill the parlor with flying lead and hit their own leader, so they began backing around for clean shots even as Nogeira's throat split open.
Remo danced in. He kicked high, and sent the jaw of one Colombian crashing up through his own palate. His foot had barely touched the rug on the rebound when the attached ankle twisted, and Remo's other foot went for a handy temple. The kick didn't tear the second Colombian's head off his shoulders. It only dislocated it. But the result was the same. The floor began to collect fallen Colombians.
The Master of Sinanju was more direct. He stepped up to each of his intended victims, batting their impotent weapons away, and punctured them at critical points. A paralyzing stab to a heart muscle here. A jugular-severing slice there.
It took less than two minutes. Nobody got off a single shot. When it was over, Remo and Chiun were the only ones left standing among the dead and dying.
They bowed once to one another formally. Remo bowed a second time. The Master of Sinanju returned it. But when Remo started a third bow, Chiun made a disgusted face and said, "Enough! Only a Japanese would indulge in such an unseemly display of emotion. Do not be a Japanese, Remo."
"Sorry, Little Father. It's just that I thought you had gone over to Esper- I mean, Nogeira's side."
"That," intoned the Master of Sinanju, "is a decision I would have made after the election, not before."
"That's a relief."
"Besides," Chiun added, "if I abandoned you, Remo, who would raise my grandson?"
"Uh, I hope that's not the only reason you made that decision," Remo said uncomfortably.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because there's something you need to know about Cheeta Ching . . . ."
And over the expanse that was the Esperanza vineyard, where men lay dead and dying, a piteous cry of despair rose up to the moon-burdened sky.
Chapter 34
The blackened patch of ash nestled in the Santa Monica foothills was still being hosed down by fire apparatus when Remo pulled up to the fire-barrier sawhorses.
In silence, he got out. The Master of Sinanju, face still, hands concealed in the sleeves of his brocaded kimono, followed a decorous two paces behind.
A fire marshal stopped them.
"Sorry. Off-limits."
Remo flashed his secret service ID, and the fire marshal changed his tune.
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