And as much as she despised the criollos, they had already done their damage. That was in the past. The norteamericanos threatened manana.
She hurried back to the crash site to speak with the arrogant criollo, Comandante Odio. More was happening under the hot Mexican sun than an American airplane accident.
Remo Williams' eyes read the flat sierra like an open book.
The winds had disturbed the sand little. It was dark, hard-packed stuff, retaining footprints in shallows, but not in the flat crusty stretches where rainwater had stiffened the sand.
"Two men," Remo said, his eyes on the broken ground as he walked.
"Yes," Chiun said. "But one walking strangely."
"Maybe the President," Remo muttered, looking up toward the nearby mountains. "Wounded."
The Master of Sinanju shook his frail old head. "He walks heavily, but not from injury. He walks with heavy tread. As if grossly fat."
" I wondered about that," Remo said. " I thought mabye he was wearing heavy boots or something."
"Boots made of lead might leave such marks," Chiun intoned.
"Doesn't make sense," Remo said. "Let's just see where they lead us."
They led into a passage cut between two towering mountains, where ancient and rusted railroad tracks followed sunbleached ties.
"Footprints stop here," said Remo. "See how the toes dig in, then vanish? He hopped the train."
The Master of Sinanju placed one delicate ear to a rusty rail.
"Anything?" Remo asked, looking down the tracks, which converged at the horizon line.
"There is no vibration," Chiun intoned. "The train passed some time ago."
"Well, we got something," Remo said as Chiun stood up and looked back toward the crash site. "Now all we have to do is find out where that train went, without tipping our hand."
"We should inform Smith."
"You carrying a telephone up one sleeve?"
"Of course not," bristled the Master of Sinanju.
"'Then finding a phone has to be step one. Let's get back to the site."
They had covered most of the distance back to the blue-and-white broken-backed bird that had been Air Force One when a Mexican Army helicopter suddenly lifted up and roared toward them.
Inside the helicopter, Comandante Oscar Odio smiled broadly beneath his mirrored sunglasses. "You will be very wise to keep silent," he told FJP Officer Mazatl. "These matters must be handled with diplomacy. I will do all the talking, mestiza."
"I am no mongrel mestiza!" Officer Mazatl spat. "I am pure azteca."
"Still, you will remain silent." He patted her knee. "And I would not be so proud of ancestors who cut the hearts out of the living, thinking their blood fueled the sun."
"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."