Survival Course td-82

by Warren Murphy

  It was vast. Like New York's Central Park squared. Sad-faced Mexicans of all varieties, from prosperous businessmen to blanket-clad Indians selling tortillas and refrescos from little wheeled carts, milled about. There were so many people roaming the park, Remo wondered if it was some kind of Mexican holiday.

  So many people that it was difficult to move quickly through them and impossible to spot the Vice-President-if in fact he were mingling with the jostling crowd.

  Remo looked around for someone who might speak English. He spotted a well-dressed blond woman feeding ducks in a pool so large it might pass for a small lake, and worked his way toward her.

  "Excuse me," Remo began.

  " Si?" the woman asked in Spanish. She turned around and Remo saw the caramel coloring of her smooth skin. He realized her hair had been dyed.

  "Habla ingles?" Remo asked.

  The woman shook her head, murmuring, "No ingles. Sorry. "

  "Thanks anyway." Remo moved on. His head hurt and he lowered his respiration cycle to keep out the pollutants. Unfortunately, this also decreased the amount of already-sparse oxygen getting to his lungs. The effect was like starving the fire that was the sun source burning deep within his solar plexus, the true seat of his soul, as he had been taught by Chiun.

  Another few yards, another blond head bobbed. Remo pushed through the crowd to reach her.

  "Excuse me," he called. "Help out a fellow American?"

  " I am not an americana," she replied.

  "But you do speak English," Remo prompted.

  "Does it not seem that way to you?" she asked demurely.

  "Yeah, yeah," Remo said impatiently. "Look. Have you seen the Vice-President around here?"

  "No. Perhaps you should go to the Presidential Palace. "

  "No. I mean my Vice-President."

  "Your Vice-President?"

  "Yeah. The U. S. Vice-President. Comprendo?"

  "Comprende," the Mexican blond corrected. "And I do not know what he looks like."

  "I thought everyone knew his face."

  "You gringos are such egotists. Can you tell me what the Mexican Vice-President looks like? Or our President?"

  Remo winced. "Point taken," he admitted. "The guy I'm looking for really stands out in a crowd. He's got a golf bag over one shoulder and-"

  "Golf? What is golf?"

  "It's a game. Played with clubs. You know-fore?" Remo pantomined Arnold Palmer teeing off. He got a quizzically raised eyebrow that was twenty shades darker than the hair above it.

  "I am sorry, senor. I cannot help you."

  Remo started to go, then remembering something. "How about Robert Redford? See any sign of him?"

  "No," the blond said brightly. "Is Senor Redford in Mexico?"

  "I doubt it," Remo said sourly. He stalked away.

  He decided that his best bet was to climb one of the towering cypress trees. He went up the nearest bole.

  By the time he reached the crown, his hands were dusty with pollution particles that had come of the leaves and branches like tomb dust.

  He looked at his fingertips. The stuff resembled fine ash, but it gleamed with metallic traces.

  "Unbelievable," Remo grumbled. "Even the trees are dirty." He looked around, stepping from branch to branch to get different views of the park.

  There was no sign of the Vice-President, nor of anyone carrying a golf bag. Not that even Remo's sharp eyes could have easily picked one man out of the teeming throng.

  Releasing a defeated sigh, Remo started to climb down off the tree.

  He heard the helicopter before he saw it. The sound made him jump back to the grass. He looked up.

  To the north, a helicopter lifted free of the cypressdotted horizon. It vectored away toward the concrete tower that was the Hotel Nikko.

  Remo recognized it as Comandante Odie's personal ship. The markings and mounted machine guns gave it away.

  He started to run back to the Reforma. After his lungs began to burn, he changed his mind and dropped back to a trot.

  By the time he reached the exit gate, he was walking.

  The Master of Sinanju was waiting impatiently in the brick park where Remo had last seen him.

  Remo approached wearing a frown. Something was wrong. He could tell it by the dark expression on his mentor's yellow face. Officer Mazatl was likewise troubled. Her flat eyes were dazed, almost wounded.

  "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 tur
istas 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."

  "Tough," Remo said through a mouthful of rice.

  "Tell her, Remo," Chiun said suddenly. "Why-"

  "Because I am eating and I would rather suffer through your words than her nagging."

  "What is 'nagging'?" Lupe demanded.

  "What you were just doing," Chiun replied. "Remo."

  Remo put down his rice. "All right," he began. "Years ago there was this crazy female NASA scientist. She liked to drink and she liked to make robots almost as much. Her dream was to create a thinking robot to send on long-distance space flights. Instead of sending people, NASA would send robots. Or androids. I guess Gordons is an android."

  "I know this word 'robot,' but not 'android,' " Lupe admitted.

  "It's like a robot, except it looks and acts almost human," Remo explained. "Linda like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, this woman scientist invented Mr. Gordons. This was after Mr. Seagrams and Mr. Smirnoff didn't work out."

  "Those are liquor brands," Guadalupe said doubtfully.

  "Didn't I mention she liked to drink? Well, that's what too much Gordon's gin will do for you. Gordons walks and talks like a man. He thinks like a six-year-old. But he knows how to do one thing well--survive. That's what he's programmed to do, and that's what he does."

  "Survive . . . ?" Lupe repeated. Remo nodded. "Survive. That's where the real trouble with Gordons all began. When NASA funding was curtailed back in the seventies, the Gordons project was defunded. Gordons figured he'd be turned off, so he escaped. He's been on the loose ever since. "

  "He is a menace?"

  "Menace and a half," Remo said ruefully. "For a guy who's only interest is getting through the day, he's caused a junkyard's worth of trouble. We chased him to hell and gone in the U. S., all the way to Moscow, where the Russians shot him into space. We thought that was finally the end of him. He came back as a Russian space shuttle, later turning up, variously, as a car-wash machine and an amusement park. "

  "You are making no sense," Lupe said.

  Remo snapped his fingers. "Right. I forgot a step. Gordons is an assimilator. He assimilates things in order to survive. That means he becomes them. Any object, inanimate or living, that he can get his plastic hooks into-bingo, it becomes Gordons. That's how he was able to look like the Vice-President. That's how he survived falling sixteen stories. He's selfrepairing. He just picked himself up and lit off. He must have become the statue of Tito as camouflage.'

  "This is an incredible story-too incredible to be believed. "

  "We've got Gordons as the Vice-President on that videotape over there," Remo said, jerking a thumb back to a nightstand. "And you were the one who talked to Tito, not me."

  Lupe closed her eyes. " I still shake when I hear that statue speak in my mind," she said hollowly.

  "Wish I'd been there," Remo said fiercely, picking at his rice. " I would have ripped his head off."

  "And the secret of the true President's fate would have perished with him," Chiun pointed out. "Unless his brain is in his little toe this time, in which case your attack would have been for nothing."

  "Touche," Remo said. And seeing Guadalupe's puzzled brows knit together, added, "It's French."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Search me," Remo said.

  "You want me to search you? What will I find?" Remo closed his eyes. "Never mind. Look, we've only got another couple of hours before we go to . . . What is it called again?"

  "Teotihuacan. It is a ruin."

  "Unlike Mexico City, which is only a disaster," Remo muttered. "Right. So we've got to get orders from home."

  "From Smith?
"

  "We don't know any Smeeth," Remo said blandly.

  "You are making fun of me," Guadalupe accused. She pronounced it "fon."

  "Anyway, we have to make a private phone call," Remo continued. "Mind waiting outside until we call you back in?"

  "We who are working together should have no secrets. May I stay?"

  "Can you say 'juniper juice jelly is yummy' three times fast without making a mistake?" Remo asked.

  Guadalupe got to her feet stiffly. Such rudeness, she thought. These Americans ordered people around in their own nation like they were the landlords of the earth.

  "Yust as you say," she said with studied formality, " I will go." She backed away from them, plucking the videotape off the nightstand while they were engrossed in their rice.

  She left the room without another word.

  After the door shut behind her, Remo finished the last of his rice, washing it down with mineral water.

  "She is not coming back, you know," Chiun said pointedly.

  "Better for us. Better for her," Remo said, reaching up for the telephone. He wondered how Smith would take the news.

  Chapter 22

  Jorge Chingar, alias El Padrino, arrived in Mexico City in a Lear private jet that was waved to a private hangar by the ground crew.

  Mexican customs inspectors were already waiting for him as the hatch of his Lear dropped, revealing the lambskin-carpeted steps on its underside.

  El Padrino stepped off the plane, grinning darkly.

  "Buenos dias, muchachos," he cried, flinging out his arms grandly.

  He came off the plane before his personal guard. Although he was a wanted man back in Colombia, and technically here in Mexico, El Padrino was unafraid.

  The customs officers stepped forward, their faces very serious, as is the way of customs men the world over.

  "Have you anything to declare, senor?" one asked.

  "Any weapons? Any drugs? Any illegal contraband?" asked the others.

  El Padrino reached into his silk Versace jacket, extracted an alligator-skin wallet, and began peeling off American hundred-dollar bills.

  He presented two to each of the customs men and then handed the leader a sealed envelope.

  "For your amigos," he said graciously.