“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 fingers touching his temples. He rubbed them methodically.

  “No. That is la contaminación. 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 Teotihuacán. 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. “Kinda 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 self-repairing. 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.”

  “Touché,” 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?”

  “Teotihuacán. 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 Twenty-two

  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 días, 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, señor?” 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.

  “Muy bien, señor,” said the chief customs officer.

  They nodded their heads politely and, their duty fulfilled, left the hangar.

  El Padrino clapped his bejeweled fingers, bringing his personal guard.

  They came carrying weapons and looking fierce.

  “Guard the plane. No one comes in or out. You cannot trust these Mexicans, no matter how much you pay them.”

  His men deployed around the hangar with military precision, as well they should. They had been trained by Israeli mercenaries.

  El Padrino turned on his heel and reentered the cabin. In his private cabin he worked the phone.

  El Padrino played the telephone like a master musician, his voice smooth almost to the point of unctuousness. He never overdid it. And so received quick polite answers.

  But they were not answers he liked. Comandante Odio was dead, the DFS told him. It was most regrettable. No, there were no further details available at this time.

  “This is unfortunate,” said El Padrino to the primer comandante of the DFS. “Comandante Odio was a very valuable man. I fear I cannot replace a man so valuable as he.”

  “Perhaps we could work something out,” suggested the primer comandante.

  “Ah, I was hoping you would say that,” said El Padrino, who understood that in Mexico, at least, money did not talk. It beguiled.

  “If you would like to discuss this further, you may come to my office,” the primer comandante was saying.

  “I would much prefer that you experience the hospitality of my fine aircraft. The wines are French and the food is Andalusian.”

  “I shall join you directly,” said the primer comandante. The phone went click.

  Yes, thought El Padrino. These Mexicans were so very easy to do business with. Perhaps in a few years, if business continued to expand, he would move his operation to Mexico City. Colombia was more refined, but the government very, very entrenched. In Mexico they were more flexible. They even had a saying that governed their code of behavior: “Money does not stink.”

  El Padrino snapped his fingers and a steward entered the cabin.

  “Prepare an 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.”

  “Sí, Padrino.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  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 One, 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.”