El Padrino snapped his fingers and a steward entered the cabin.
"Prepare on excellent meal," El Padrino instructed. "We are having important guests. And see how the presidente's quarters are coming. I wish him to enjoy every civilized comfort during his journey to Colombia."
"Si," Padrino."
Chapter 23
Remo Williams noticed the missing videotape as he reached for the phone. It rang before he could ask Chiun about it. Frowning, he brought the receiver to his mouth.
It was Smith. "Remo!" he said tensely. "I've been trying to get you for hours!"
"We've been out working, remember?" Remo reminded him.
"Did you get any of my messages?"
"What messages?" Remo demanded.
" I left nearly a dozen. My God, didn't the front desk give them to you?"
"Smitty, you have a lot to learn about the way they do things down here," Remo said. "Look, we've got bad news. I hope you're sitting down."
"It's Gordons, isn't it?" Smith asked.
"How'd you know that!" Remo blurted.
"His voice was recorded by Air Force One's flight data recorder," Smith said testily, "but never mind that. Time is of the essence. Give me your report."
"The short version is: the guy running around pretending to be the Vice-President is Gordons," Remo said.
"You encountered him?"
"Yeah, but he slipped away. Last seen resembling Josip Broz Tito dipped in bronze."
"Beg pardon?"
"Read about it in my memoirs," Remo said glumly. "Let's stay on track here. We have only two hours. Gordons has set up a meet. He has some crazy idea that the President's survival is linked to his. He's willing to hand him over in return for certain guarantees."
"We cannot trust that man-I mean, machine."
"I know what you mean, but Chiun has him thinking we don't know who he is. If Chiun is right-"
"I am," Chiun said loudly enough for Smith to hear. "I never fail. When I have been sent to the proper place at the proper time. Unlike this mission."
"If Chiun's right," Remo went on, "Gordons may come along peacefully. Maybe we can make this work. Once we have the President, dealing with Gordons will be another matter."
"What does Gordons want?"
"Hard to say," Remo said. "Safe passage to the U. S. Diplomatic immunity. Fifty cases of Three-in-one oil. With that ambulatory junk pile, who the hell knows? I say we give him what he wants and sort out the casualties after the President is safe."
"Yes. Absolutely. Do what you have to, Remo. Offer him anything. Just bring the President back alive. "
"Just call me Frank Buck," Remo said. "You know," he added, "I can't believe this. How the hell did Gordons get involved in this?"
Smith expelled air into his receiver. "I did some backtracking, Remo," he said wearily. "You remember that Gordons had taken over that California theme park, Larryland."
" I remember it, well," Remo said. "He had the place rigged with that stolen Russian satellite, the one that sterilized people with microwave bursts. He thought he'd sterilize every visitor and eventually wipe out the human race. We'd all die out and he'd survive. Him and the cockroaches."
"The Army Corps of Engineers blew up Larryland."
"I was there too. I thought Gordons was gone for good. "
"As it happens, the previous President had been flying to his California ranch during that operation," Smith said. "Air Force One flew over the detonation site, apparently on orders from the President, who wanted to see the explosion from the air."
"What?"
"This is supposition," Smith went on, "but if Gordons' central processor survived the explosion, it could have been exploded upward, possibly high enough to attach itself to Air Force One."
"Christ!" Remo rasped. "You mean Gordons became Air Force One?"
"It is my best guess," Smith admitted.
"And two presidents have been riding around inside him?"
"It is a sobering thought, I know," Smith admitted.
"Sobering? It makes my blood run cold. What was he up to?"
"Think about it, Remo. Gordons exists to survive, and survives to exist. Air Force One has an excellent maintenance program and relatively light duty cycles. Gordons is a machine. As Air Force Ore, he would be the most pampered machine on earth. No one suspected him. No one molested him. In a way, it's unfortunate that this happened the way it did. The presidential plane is scheduled to be replaced in another year. Gordons would have been retired from service."
"We gotta nail him this time," Remo said fiercely.
"No. The President comes first. Gordons is secondary. "
"What happened to acing the President if he compromises national security?" Remo asked.
There was silence on the line. Remo started to say, "Hello?"
Smith spoke. "If anything goes wrong, that is your option of last resort. Some things are going on in Washington I do not understand, but we have an extremely sensitive political situation developing."
"Tell me about it," Remo sighed, a vision of the Vice-President-the real one-floating through his mind. "Look, one way or another, we should have this wrapped up tonight. Will the lid stay on that long?"
"Barely. The media are getting restive. Report back as soon as the situation is resolved."
"Gotcha. "
Remo hung up. He turned to Chiun. "We're a go for negotiating. But Smith says if it goes bad, the President is better off dead."
The Master of Sinanju's tired eyebrows lifted. "Ah, he is preparing to make his move at last."
"No. It's a last resort."
"Smith is clever," Chiun mused. "Perhaps this entire scheme is his doing."
Remo went to the door and looked out in the hallway. There was no sign of Guadalupe Mazatl. He shut the door.
"You were right," he told Chiun. "Lupe's cut out on us."
"If I was right about one matter, I might be right about another," Chiun said, getting up. He lifted to his feet like a column of scarlet smoke emerging from a floor heat register.
"Not about that," Remo said flatly. "What do you say we get to Teotihuacan early? Just in case."
"We risk much, the longer we breathe this foul air," Chiun warned.
"I'm feeling better," Remo said, rotating his thick wrists like an arm wrestler warming up.
Chiun nodded. "Now. Here. In this air-conditioned room within our bellies full of rice. But out there, the very air robs us of our strength, our mighty resources. Ordinarily, Gordons is a formidable foe. Under these circumstances, we are as ordinary men."
"So what do you suggest?" Remo wondered.
Chiun raised a lecturing finger. "We avoid combat at all costs. We negotiate, as Smith would have us do."
"Sounds reasonable to me," Remo admitted.
"And then, once back in the pure clean air of America, we will strike, for Gordons has cost us dearly in the past. He murdered the woman you knew as Anna and he robbed me of the seed of the future."
Remo's face grew sad. "Yeah, Anna. Funny, I hadn't thought of her in a long time. And Gordons did sterilize you that last time, didn't he?"
"We have much to repay Gordons for," Chiun said in a cold voice. "But we will do this in the time and place of our own choosing."
Chapter 24
Behind the pond-scum-brown smog that hung over the Valley of Mexico, the sun set like a smoky brazier. The stagnant air, fed by unregulated car exhausts and industrial smokestacks, stank of carbon dioxide. Millions of pairs of sore human lungs sucked in the unhealthy air. It scoured sinus passages and caused spontaneous nosebleeds. Scarlet tanagers, one moment winging past the Pemex Towers, simply folded their wings and plummeted to their deaths, their immune systems succumbing to toxic chromium levels.
It was just another afternoon in Mexico City.
Except for a series of seemingly unrelated events.