"Who took off in the chopper?" Remo asked breathlessly.
"Josip Broz Tito," Guadalupe Mazatl said flatly.
"Who's Josip Broz Tito?" Remo wanted to know.
Lupe pointed to the dais, now empty. Big bronze letters said "JOSIP BROZ TITO," and under that were the dates "1892-1980." He saw the shiny newpenny patches where the statue's feet had been. And it came to him what was wrong. The statue was missing.
"Okay," Remo said. "I have a headache and we're getting nowhere. I see the pedestal and I see that there's no statue there anymore. In twenty-five words or less, what the hell happened?"
"It was Gordons," Chiun said, brittle-voiced.
"Impossible!" Remo exploded.
"Who is Gordon?" asked Guadalupe Mazatl.
"Completely impossible!" Remo repeated.
"I spoke with the statue known as Josip Broz Tito," Chiun began.
"Wait a minute-what about the Vice-President?" Remo wanted to know.
"Gordons is the Vice-President. Or he was. Now he is this Tito thing."
"Who is this Cordon?" Guadalupe asked again.
Remo snapped at her, "Stay out of this, will you, please!"
"Interventionist americano!" Lupe muttered. "Whose country is this, anyhow?" But she shut up. She looked as unsteady as a dandelion in a freshening wind.
"The statue talked to you?" Remo asked Chiun.
"Yes. He wished to know why we were pursuing him. I explained this to him. It was then that I recognized the childlike mind of the man-machine Cordons. I was very clever, Remo. I did not let on that I knew he was Gordons, not Tito."
"If it were anybody but that walking GoBot," Remo muttered darkly, "I'd wonder who fooled whom. But Gordons has the reasoning powers of a six-year-old."
"There is more," Chiun added.
"Look, my head is ringing like Quasimodo's bell," Remo complained. "Let's get back to our hotel, where the air isn't carcinogenic and we can talk to Smith. Let him figure this out."
As they turned up the Reforma, Officer Guadalupe Mazatl asked a question:
"Who is Smith?" She pronounced it "Smeeth."
"We do not know anyone named that," Chiun said flatly.
Remo said nothing. He pinched the bridge of his nose, between his closed eyes. They felt like ball bearings.
After a twenty-minute ride during which Remo had personally rolled up every car window, Remo and Chiun were back in their room at the Krystal.
"The first item on the agenda is order room service," Remo said, pushing aside the videotape of the President's rescue to get at the phone. "We haven't eaten since this thing started."
"Yes, food will help you," Lupe said.
Remo got the order clerk. "I'd like two portions of boiled rice. Just the rice. No salt, no pepper. No nothing. Just rice. Better make it two double portions. Gracias," he added, using the only word of Spanish he felt sure of.
After he put down the receiver, Remo noticed Guadalupe looking at him with a mixture of wonder and pity.
"What's the matter now?" be demanded.
"I do not understand."
"Join the club," Remo said distractedly. "I thought Gordons was dead for good."
"I do not know this Gordon, but this is not about him."
"About what, then?"
"If neither of you has eaten, how could you sufer from the turistas?"
"Is that what they call this bad air-sickness?" Remo asked, throwing himself onto the bed. Chiun lay atop the other one, his eyes closed, his fiingers touching his temples. He rubbed them methodically.
"No. That is la contaminacion. The turistas are what you gringos call Moctezuma's Revenge."
"Montezuma," Remo corrected.
" I am pure Aztec," Lupe insisted. "It is Moctezuma, no matter what the ladinos or norteamericanos might say."
"I'll take your word for it," Remo said sourly. "And Montezuma's Revenge isn't what ails us."
"Then why did you order only rice?" Lupe asked, puzzled.
"We always eat rice. It's like spinach to Chiun and me."
"Spinach?"
"You know, Popeye, the Sailor Man."
"Ah. Popeye. But I still do not understand."
"Let's keep it that way." Remo glanced over to the Master of Sinanju. "Okay, Chiun, let's have the sordid details. And talk slowly. I'm going to have to explain this to Smith."
"Gordons is the President of Vice," Chiun said hollowly. "He has been the President of Vice all along. This explains many things, not least the selection of a callow youth as the true President's prince."
"He's not a prince and I don't buy that," Remo retorted. "The Vice-President didn't just pop out of the fifth dimension one day. He has a wife and family. He was a senator for years. No, Gordons may have been impersonating the Vice-President, but he is not the Vice-President. The Vice-President is still in the U.S. Smith said so."
"It is possible Smith is mistaken," Chiun sniffed.
"I doubt it."
"You and I were mistaken. We thought we had destroyed Gordons. Four times we believed this true, and still he returns to trouble our lives."
Remo folded his bare arms in annoyance. "Yeah. That's strange. We know he can be destroyed. All we have to do is wreck his central processor, or whatever it's called. Trouble is, it's not always in the same place. Once it was in his head, and another time in his heel. Last time it was in his left hand."
"No, it was not!" Chiun snapped. "That thing you dismembered last time was not Gordons, but an automaton created by Gordons. His true brain was in the deadly satellite, which I vanquished at the same time you battled the false Gordons."
"No, that was Gordons," Remo said with conviction. "I nailed him. And he went down. End of story. "
"I destroyed his brain," Chiun insisted, "and the false Gordons collapsed. It had nothing to do with your blow, ineffectual as it was."
"Wrong. "
"Right. I am always right."
Remo sighed. "Listen, I thought we settled this argument. "
"We did," Chiun retorted. " I dispatched the true Gordons."
"Yeah?" Remo countered. "Then what is he doing running around Mexico City tricked up to look like the Vice-President?"
"I do not know," Chiun sniffed. "But we can ask him later."
Remo sat up. "We can?"
"I have arranged a meeting with Gordons-the true Gordons-at the place called Teotihuacan. It is there we will negotiate for the safety of the President. And it is there that Gordons will tell you the truth of our last encounter with him."
" I can hardly wait," Remo said sourly. "So what does Gordons want?"
"What Gordons always wants. What he is programmed to want. To survive."
"Right. Survival. The prime directive." Remo's face darkened. "You know, I'm really, really sick of him coming back to haunt us."
The food arrived at that moment. Guadalupe Mazatl, who had been an interested but puzzled listener to the conversation, let the hotel waiter in. She shooed him away with a quick burst of Spanish and a fat tip.
Remo and Chiun got up and attacked the rice. Spurning the wheeled serving cart, they set the silver tray on the rug and assumed lotus positions before it as they dug in.
They ate in silence, and quietly Guadalupe joined them on the floor.
" I have been listening to your conversation," she said tentatively.
"Must be a local custom," Remo grumbled.
They ate with what Guadalupe thought was peculiar intensity, like men about to go into battle.
"I have listened to you discuss this hombre Gordon," she persisted. "Sometimes you talk of him as if he were a man. Other times as a machine. Which is it?"
"Both," Remo said.
"Neither," Chiun said.
"I would like to know more about this creature."
"It's our President," Remo said. "And our problem."
"And I will remind you that this is my country," Guadalupe replied tartly. " I am a law-enforcement officer. It is my duty to deal with internal threats."