“You’re a big help. By the way,” he asked Guadalupe, “what do they call you for short? Guad?”

  “Lupe.”

  “Loopy,” Remo said. “Doesn’t fit you, you know.”

  The plane set down at Mexico City International Airport and ground personnel rolled out an aluminum stairway so they could deplane.

  “I gotta find a phone,” Remo told Lupe as they stepped onto the tarmac. “Come with me.”

  They entered the busy terminal and FJP Officer Mazatl found the operations manager. After exchanging swift words with him in Spanish, she led him from the office, telling Remo, “We will be outside.”

  “Listening in?” Remo asked. But he smiled when he said it. His smile was not returned.

  “Let’s see what Smith has to say,” Remo told Chiun.

  “I do not like this place,” Chiun said suddenly while Remo waited for a U.S. operator to come on the line.

  “Already? We haven’t even left the airport.”

  “This is an evil place,” Chiun insisted. “The air tastes like metal.”

  “I did notice the sky was kinda brown, at that,” Remo remarked. Then, into the phone: “Smith? Remo. We’re in Mexico City. Any news?...Really?...Here? Well, it’s a lead. No word on the President?...I see...Okay. We’ll register at a hotel. I have a police escort I’ll need to ditch, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Her nickname is Loopy.”

  Remo hung up.

  “Smith says there was a report that the Vice-President was seen in Mexico City only an hour ago,” he told Chiun.

  “You see!” Chiun said triumphantly. “Proof of all I said. What dastardly crime has he committed now?”

  “He was seen driving a bread truck through the city.”

  “Perhaps the bread is poisoned,” Chiun said as he followed Remo from the office.

  “We’ve got to get to the embassy,” Remo informed Lupe.

  “I will drive you,” she said.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. Just call us a cab.”

  “I am your host and protector while you are in Mexico,” Lupe said stiffly.

  “Thanks again, but we don’t need protection.”

  Lupe’s hard eyes flicked toward the Master of Sinanju. “The old one. He looks pale.”

  “Don’t let that fool you,” Remo retorted. “He’s healthier than I am. Right, Chiun?”

  The Master of Sinanju said nothing. He sniffed the air with concern.

  Remo looked more closely. “You do look a little pale, at that.”

  “I do not like this place,” Chiun said again.

  “Fine,” Remo returned. “Let’s be on our way.”

  Officer Guadalupe Mazatl led them out to the drop-off area, where she flagged a cab.

  “No official vehicle?” Remo asked as they got in.

  “An FJP jeep might arrive in five minutes or five hours. This taxi is here now.”

  They pulled into traffic a moment later, and were soon traveling through a rundown area of scabrous stucco buildings; there was a general air of forlorn hopelessness about the people walking along the streets.

  Remo kept an eye on the traffic, looking for bread trucks. Smith had told him the brand name. What was it again?

  “You ever heard of Bimbo Bread?” he asked Lupe suddenly.

  “Sí. It is a well-known brand here in the Distrito Federal. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Remo said evasively.

  They turned on an artery called Viaducto. Remo wondered if it was Spanish for “viaduct,” and if it was, why it was called that.

  After a while the avenue sank into the ground and their view of the city was cut off by ugly gray concrete walls lifting on either side, like a viaduct that carried traffic instead of water.

  The city was incredibly congested, Remo saw. Noxious exhaust poured from the tailpipe of every car and truck. It was worse than New York or L.A. But there was something different about it, too.

  As they turned off Viaducto, under a huge electric pinwheel of a sign–“TOME COCA-COLA”–back into ground-level traffic, a blue VW Beetle slithered out of their way, causing a chain reaction of near-collisions.

  Their cabdriver kept going as if this were an everyday occurrence. Remo looked back. Miraculously, no one was hurt. Then it hit him.

  “Don’t the cars have horns down here?”

  “Sí,” Lupe said. “Why do you ask?”

  “In New York, you’d hear a million car horns during a near-disaster like that.”

  A faint smile touched the corners of Lupe’s lips.

  “Perhaps we are more civilized in Mexico than you would think,” she said.

  “Matter of fact,” Remo added, “I don’t hear any horns. It’s unnatural.”

  The cabdriver spoke up. “Many drivers, senior, they carry pistolas.”

  “So much for civilization,” Remo said smugly.

  Lupe Mazatl said nothing. In the front seat, beside the driver, the Master of Sinanju was equally silent.

  Remo looked around for trucks. He saw none that said “Bimbo Bread.” Then he realized that it might not say “bread” at all.

  “What’s the Spanish for ‘bread’?” he asked Lupe.

  “Pan.”

  “How about ‘bimbo’?”

  “‘Bimbo’?”

  “Yeah. “Bimbo.’ What’s that in English?”

  Lupe shrugged her uniformed shoulders. “‘Bimbo’ is...‘bimbo.’”

  “In the U.S. a bimbo is a girl who’s not very bright.”

  Lupe’s brown forehead puckered. “She is dark?”

  “No, unintelligent. Dumb. You know, stupid.”

  “Ah, señorita estúpida. ‘Stupid girl.’ That is what you wish to know?”

  “Maybe,” Remo said, frowning. He didn’t think that anyone would invent a brand name that meant “stupid girl.” Maybe Lupe was right. Maybe “bimbo” was just “bimbo.” He decided on another tack.

  “What color are the Bimbo Bread trucks down here?”

  A dark notch formed between Guadalupe’s thick brows.

  “Why this concern with Bimbo Bread?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing special,” Remo said innocently. “Just trying to soak up local customs.”

  “Why do you not ask about our fine culture, then? Our great city? Do you know that Mexico City is the most populous in the world?”

  “I can believe it,” Remo said, looking out at the congestion. They were stopped at an intersection where a traffic cop in a chocolate-and-cream uniform was attempting to unsnarl traffic with a white baton. It looked hopeless. The red ALTO signs were being ignored in both directions.

  “We have the longest avenue in the world here in Mexico City,” Lupe said proudly. “It is called the Avenida Insurgentes. And our Chapultepec Park is unrivaled for its magnificence.”

  “Skip the tourist-brochure stuff,” Remo said. “I’m already here.”

  When they got going again, Remo noticed that the Master of Sinanju was staring out the window, his face a frown of wrinkles, like a parchment death mask left too long in the sun.

  “You’ve been awful quiet, Little Father,” he said solicitously.

  “I have a headache,” Chiun’s voice was muted.

  “You!” Remo said aghast, and the shock in his face was not lost on Guadalupe Mazatl.

  “Is this serious?” she asked.

  “Is it?” Remo asked Chiun solicitously.

  “This is a foul place,” Chiun said brittlely. “I have a headache and my breathing rhythms are not properly centered.”

  “Does it hurt behind the eyes?” Lupe asked.

  Chiun turned. “Yes. What do you know of this?”

  “It is a pollution headache,” Lupe explained. “Many turistas get these things. They are not used to the thin air or the smog. Our smog, I regret to say, is also famous. Mexico lies in a high valley and the mountains that surround it form a natural–how you say–cop.”

  “Cup, not cop,” Remo said absently. He was looking at Chiun. He had never seen his teacher ill a day in his life. As old and frail as the Master of Sinanju appeared, under the wrinkles and semitranslucent skin, he was a human dynamo. “Are you going to be all right, Little Father?”

  “We must leave this place as soon as we can,” Chiun croaked. “The air is bad and the oxygen thinner than Tibet’s.”

  “Soon as we accomplish our mission,” Remo assured him.

  “Mission?” Lupe asked.

  “Did I ask you what color a Bimbo Bread truck is?” Remo said quickly.

  “Sí. And you would not tell me why you thought this important.”

  “Forget it,” Remo said. “An idle question.”

  “Blue,” said the Master of Sinanju. “Blue and white.”

  Remo leaned forward. “How do you know that?”

  “Because there is one in front of us.”

  Remo followed Chiun’s pointing finger–it trembled almost imperceptibly–and saw the back of a blue-and-white bread truck. The word “Bimbo” was plainly visible, as were a loaf of bread and a fluffy white cartoon bear.

  “Driver,” Remo said urgently, “try to pull up on the driver’s side of that truck.”

  “What is this?” Lupe demanded.

  “Later,” Remo said. “Driver, do it!”

  The traffic was thick, but the driver tried. He jockeyed in and out of the traffic flow with a kind of wild precision.

  At a traffic light, they pulled up alongside the truck.

  Remo rolled down the window, getting a faceful of noxious warm air. He put his head out, but all he could see was a patch of sky reflected in the breadtruck driver’s mirror.

  “Can you see anything, Little Father?” he demanded.

  The Master of Sinanju put his head out. He looked up, and Remo saw his beard hair tremble. His tiny mouth dropped open.

  And before Remo could react, Chiun burst out of the car, shaking a tiny furious fist.

  “You!” he shrieked. “Traitor!”

  Remo started to open his door, calling, “Chiun, what are you doing?”

  The bread truck surged ahead, cutting off the taxi. The Master of Sinanju leapt after it.

  Remo flew out of the back and gave chase, oblivious of Guadalupe Mazatl’s shouting after him.

  Up ahead, the Master of Sinanju was running like an octogenarian Olympic torchbearer, fists pumping high, legs working like spindly pistons under his flopping kimono hem.

  The truck veered crazily, causing near-accidents at every turn. Still, not a horn honked. Not a curse was shouted in any language. Unless one counted the excited imprecations of the Master of Sinanju as he hauled after the zig-zagging truck.

  Remo drew abreast of the Master of Sinanju, his own running motions controlled and tight.

  “Chiun! What did you see? Who’s driving?”

  “The...puff...President of...puff...Vice,” Chiun wheezed. His voice rattled.

  “You sure?”

  “I would know that callow, treacherous visage anywhere!” Chiun wheezed.

  “Look, you’re not breathing right,” Remo pleaded. “Leave this to me.”

  “No!” said Chiun, sprinting forward.

  “Oh, great,” Remo said. “Now he’s got to show me up…”

  The Bimbo Bread truck came to a rotary of sorts, dominated by a huge white column surmounted by a gold-leaf angel. Remo grinned, knowing that the driver would have to slow down to manage the sharp curve.

  But he did not slow down. With almost computerlike precision he sped into the circle and began orbiting the massive column like a satellite on wheels.

  “What’s he doing?” Remo muttered, falling in behind the truck. He stayed with it for one orbit. Midway through the second, he decided to cut across the monument. The noxious fumes of the exhaust were starting to make him feel woozy.

  Remo sprinted across the monument, up the shallow steps, and back down again.

  He alighted on the opposite side–just in time to intercept the speeding truck.

  His eyes flicked once toward the Master of Sinanju, pelting around in the truck’s wake.

  He saw a winded, red-faced Chiun, slowing down, his arms jerking unsynchronously, like those of a Boston Marathon runner at Heartbreak Hill, his legs wavering.

  “He’s in trouble,” Remo muttered worriedly.

  Suddenly, the Master of Sinanju stumbled, a big green colectivo bus only yards behind him.

  Remo’s eyes jumped to the approaching bread truck and went back to Chiun. The sun on the windshield obscured the driver’s face.

  Swearing to himself, he let the truck roar past and raced back to rescue his mentor.

  The green bus was not stopping. The driver’s dark eyes were fixed on the traffic, not the road. The Master of Sinanju was raising himself of the asphalt with trembling arms, his face dazed.

  Remo’s mind raced, making instinctual mental calculations he could not have duplicated with pen and paper. The speed of the truck, his own velocity, even the air resistance pressing against his chest. They all coalesced into some deep untranslatable knowledge.

  Remo picked up speed, bent at the waist, and without pause scooped up the Master of Sinanju with bare inches between them and a big bus tire.

  The bus whizzed by, sucking at the hairs at the back of Remo’s head.

  He deposited the Master of Sinanju on the grass of a little square park. He felt his own lungs burning slightly, as if he had somehow inhaled fire.

  “Chiun! Are you all right?” he said with difficulty.

  “The air is poison here!” Chiun wheezed. His eyes were closed, his thin chest heaving with each breath.

  “Yeah. I’m starting to feel it too.” Remo settled back. He concentrated on his own breathing. The air was heavy. He had been aware of it ever since leaving the airport, but he hadn’t noticed the thin oxygen content. The pollution particles had masked that deficiency.

  Now, in the strange humming drone of Mexico City traffic, he became slowly aware that his head was beginning to throb.

  “This is not good,” said Remo Williams, who had not had a headache or a cold or any other common minor infirmity since achieving the early stages of the art of Sinanju. “And that Lupe is probably looking for us right now. Are you up to ditching her?”

  “I am up to returning to America,” Chiun said weakly.

  “Soon as we can,” Remo promised. He stood up, looking for a taxi.

  He flagged down a yellow VW Beetle with black and white checks on the doors as it came around the circle.

  “Where are the best hotels?” Remo asked the driver. “The ones with air-conditioning.”

  “In the Zona Rosa, señor. The Pink Zone.”

  “Then take us to the Pink Zone,” Remo said, assisting Chiun into the back.

  “Zona Rosa, sí,” the driver said. The cab scooted down a street and back up another. They passed streets with European names like Hamburgo, Genova, and Copenhague.

  “You feeling any better, Little Father?” Remo asked.

  “I will live,” Chiun said stiffly. His eyes were closed. He looked very old all of a sudden, Remo thought. He always looked old. But Remo had long ago learned to trust–and respect–the power that flowed under the wizened shell of the man who was his teacher. He sensed that power ebbing, and it worried him.

  Sooner than Remo expected, they were tooling down a street called Florencia, where a row of tall palms dominated a center island. They passed trendy looking boutiques and even some American restaurants.

  Remo was about to ask the driver why it was called the Pink Zone when he noticed that the cobbled sidewalks were faintly pink from paint that had been worn thin by rain and the tread of countless feet.

  Abruptly the driver pulled up to a corner. He turned around, saying, “Two hundred pesos, señor.”

  “How do you know this is where I want to get off?”

  The driver shrugged, muttering something Remo didn’t catch.

  “What did he say, Chiun?”

  The Master of Sinanju put the same question to the driver, and translated the reply.

  “He said, ‘This is a good place to get off,’” Chiun explained.

  “Why not?” Remo said, getting out. He paid the driver in coins, knowing he was overtipping but not caring. He was sick of the heavy Mexican money rattling in his pockets. It all came out of his CURE operating expenses anyway.

  The cab pulled away. Remo looked around. He was standing before a boutique called Banana. The roof had been done over to resemble Jungleland. A giant version of King Kong clutched a hairless mannequin against the backdrop of papier-mâché trees.

  “Let’s find a hotel,” Remo said, stepping around the corner onto a street called Liverpool.

  The first hotel he came to was in an area dotted with earthquake-shattered buildings. The glass face of the Hotel Krystal was undamaged.

  “Looks fine to me,” Remo said. “So long as the earth doesn’t move.”

  They checked in and, once in the air-conditioned room, began to feel less light-headed. Remo poured out the contents of a bottle of complimentary purified water into two glasses and gave one to the Master of Sinanju. That helped too.

  Chiun sat up in one of the big beds.

  “I recognized the President of Vice, Remo.”

  “No kidding,” Remo said dryly, looking out at the Mexican skyline. It was magnificently broad and seemed to extend as far as the ring of distant mountains. The sky was darkening to a steely elemental color, as if it was about to rain toxic metals.

  “But there is something else,” Chiun added.

  “Yeah?”

  “He recognized me. That is why he ran.”

  “Can’t be. He’s never seen us. He shouldn’t know we exist.”

  “The look in his eyes told me that he recognized me,” Chiun insisted. “Not in his face. It was like the mask of a clown, always grinning. But his eyes. They told me that he knew my face and feared me.”

  “Impossible!”

  “It is so,” Chiun repeated firmly.

  “Look, I’m going to need you on this,” Remo said anxiously. “Are you up to it, or not?”

  “I will serve my emperor,” the Master of Sinanju said weakly.

  “I’d better call Smith.”

  “Tell him what I have told you.”

  “He’s not going to believe any of this,” Remo muttered, punching the telephone keypad.