The exposed face was young and angular, the short hair dirty blond. And to Remo's eyes it looked very familiar.
"Chiun, I think we have a problem."
"It is not my problem," Chiun said from the branch above. "For he is not my son, but yours."
Chapter 38
Remo dragged the man who called himself the Extinguisher to his feet.
The Master of Sinanju dropped from his branch, as light as a green parachute descending, to land beside them.
"This idiot isn't my son," Remo said in a disgusted voice.
"Hey, I resent that!"
"No son of mine would parade around tricked out like a walking Swiss army knife. Or pretend to be some phoney dime-novel superhero."
"The Extinguisher is a legend. How do you know he isn't real?"
"Because I have a working brain. Your name is Winston Smith. Until last year you were with the Navy. Now you're AWOL."
"No. Wait. Think about it. Everybody knows the Extinguisher's name. It might be a cover to con the bad guys thinking that they have nothing to be afraid of."
"They do not," Chiun retorted. "For we spied your clumsy clanking and clunking and ambushed you before you could unleash your ridiculous toy gun upon us."
"Hey, I have an excuse. I have the trots."
"What is this witless one talking about?" Chiun asked Remo.
Winston Smith lowered his voice. "The screaming shits to you."
Chiun sniffed the air delicately. "Is it you who has befouled the jungle?" he asked.
"Not my fault. I drank some bad water."
"This is Mexico," Remo said. "All the water is bad."
"Yeah, well, now I know. That doesn't change who I am."
"Kid, I was reading Blaize Fury when I was in Nam and your highest ambition was to crawl up a fallopian tube."
"You were in 'Nam? Cool! What was it like?"
"It was hell."
"You're lucky. I missed out on 'Nam."
"You missed out on common sense too. What are you doing down here?"
"He is a Juarezista," the girl inserted.
"That true?"
The Extinguisher looked away. "Let me talk to you in private, okay?"
Remo took him by the arm and into the jungle. In a thick part of the woods, he spun him around.
"Let's have it."
"I'm only pretending to be a Juarezista. "
"Like you're pretending to be the Extinguisher?"
"No, I'm really him. I mean I took on the nom de guerre to further my work."
"What work?"
Smith whispered, "I'm gonna wax Subcomandante Verapaz."
Remo looked at him. In the darkness Smith waited expectantly, his grimy face shining with an inner pride.
"Why?" Remo asked.
"What do you mean-why? It's what the Extinguisher does."
"If you don't stop referring to yourself in the third person, I'm going to shake you so hard your nuts are going to drop out your nostrils. Now, answer my question."
"I'm on assignment," Smith said grudgingly.
"Working for who?"
"That's classified."
Remo gave Smith's bicep a hard squeeze. Smith gritted his teeth, and sweat popped from his forehead. But he fought back his pain with such grim determination that Remo relented slightly.
"No. Really, I can't say who sent me. It's the first rule of black ops."
"The first rule of survival is to tell the truth when a bigger dog has you by the hind legs. Meet the bigger dog. Me."
"Okay, I'm with the UN."
"Nice try. No sale. Try again."
"It's true. I'm working for the UN. It's quasiofficial right now. If I dust Verapaz, I'll have a solid gig."
"Well, you can dust off your resume. Verapaz belongs to us."
"Us! what do you mean us? Who are you guys?"
"That is classified," Remo snapped.
"You're kidding, aren't you? I mean, my Uncle Harold sent you down to haul my sorry butt back to Folcroft, didn't he?"
Remo shook his head. "He's not your Uncle Harold, and we're here after Verapaz. Never mind why."
"Look, we'll team up. How's that?"
"I need a partner like you need an imagination. Forget it."
Smith turned. "Okay. Fine. Let me go and may the best man win."
Remo arrested him by the collar. "Look, you were a SEAL, right?"
"Yeah. What's it to you?"
"You should know the score. You're a foreigner in a war zone loaded down with enough gear to get you stood up in front of a firing squad."
Winston Smith cracked a lopsided grin. "Yeah. That chicken-shit Mexican colonel tried that already. I still live."
"That girl save you?"
"She's not just a girl. She's guerrilla. There's no shame in being saved at the last minute by an ally."
"She saved your sorry butt and you conned her into taking you to Verapaz, am I right?"
"Right."
"And in the middle of making formal introductions, you're going to whip out that overgrown Pez dispenser of yours and blow them both away, right?"
"No. Just Verapaz."
"Then what?"
"What do you mean?"
"You heard me. After you blow Verapaz away, what are you going to do about the girl?"
Winston looked at his boots. His voice lost its bluster. "I haven't thought that part all the way through yet," he admitted.
"What if she pulls out her weapon and nails you?"
"She wouldn't do that! Would she?"
"You ask me, she's half in love with you."
Smith brightened. "You really think so?"
"Can the high school stuff. You shoot Verapaz, and she'll either nail you or make you shoot her. Is that what you want?"
"I don't know yet. This is only my second mission."
"Okay. Listen up. From now on, you follow my lead. Understand?"
"What're you planning?"
"Just follow my lead and stay out from underfoot."
Pushing the boy ahead of him, Remo rejoined the others.
The villagers were hanging back in fear. The dead were being pulled out of the shacks, and a fresh-blood smell hung in the air like a jungle miasma.
Remo lifted his voice for Assumpta's benefit. "Looks like we're joining the Juarezistas, Little Father."
And keeping his face away from the others, the Master of Sinanju, whose sharp ears had heard every word, winked broadly.
"I have always desired to defend the downpressed."
"It's oppressed, " Winston said dispiritedly.
"Jou are friends of El Extinguirador?" Assumpta asked.
"He thinks he's my father," Winston said.
"He is," Chiun said.
"Is he?" asked Assumpta.
Remo and Winston looked at one another.
"No way," both said in unison.
Turning to Assumpta, Remo asked, "Can you lead us to Verapaz?"
"If you are truly friends of Senor Blaize Fury, I will do this, for I trust him with all of my heart."
Remo shot Winston a glance. Winston looked everywhere but back.
"Okay," Remo said. "One last loose end and we're out of here."
"What is that?" asked Colonel Mauricio Primitivo.
"You."
The colonel squared his shoulder boards. "I am no loose end. I am a colonel in the Mexican federal army."
"No, you're a war criminal in a civil war." And Remo whistled for some of the lurking villagers to come padding up.
"Jou cannot do this. It is uncivilized."
"It is justice," Assumpta spat out the words.
A knot of Maya surrounded Colonel Primitivo. Assumpta spoke to them in a musical tongue that was not Spanish by the quizzical look on the Master of Sinanju's parchment face.
Someone dropped a rock on the colonel's head, knocking him out cold. Others grabbed his ankles and pulled him back into the village.
"What's going to happen to him?" Winston asked as they started off.
Assumpta shrugged. "He may be flayed while living, or burned with the old corn."
"Kinda drastic."
"It is what happens to all who oppose the righteous justice of the Juarezistas. "