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  On either side of them, huge mountains reared up. They were traveling through a mountain range. "Is it safe here?" the President asked, hanging on to the railed back of the platform.

  "Safe here it is," the Vice-President said, his fixed-smile face lifting to the sky, visible above the caboose's roof overhang.

  Two helicopters zipped past like harridan vultures. They flew low, but from this vantage point the President could make out only their sun-shadowed underbellies. There were no markings visible.

  "This is awful," the President groaned. "We're in deep doo-doo."

  "I do not understand 'doo-doo,' " the Vice-President said without evident humor.

  "You will," the President said unhappily as the desolate landscape unfolded around them. "Down here, it's everywhere you go."

  Chapter 9

  They could smell the bodies before they sighted the desolate shack.

  Remo and Chiun had stepped up on a tumble of dusty rocks in an effort to see more clearly.

  Chiun spotted the forlorn-looking shack in the brown foothills.

  "The smell of death," he intoned, pointing. "It comes from there."

  "Come on!" Remo said, rushing for the cabin.

  "I do not understand your unseemly haste, Remo," Chiun said as they sprinted through the scrub desert, their light feet leaving only the merest prints on the sand.

  "He's the President," Remo hissed.

  "But we work for Smith."

  "And Smith works for the President," Remo added.

  "But is not answerable to him."

  "That's the way the organization was set up in the first place. So no one could abuse CURE. America isn't a police state."

  "A good thought. Only Smith is privileged to abuse the organization."

  "Smith would never do that. That's why he was chosen for the job."

  "He is a mere man, and therefore corruptible."

  "I'll give Smith this," Remo said. "He does his job. Sometimes too well. But he does it."

  "I still fail to understand your concern. You have lost a President. But they are like rugs. You dispose of them every four years. Sometimes every eight years. But they are clearly superfluous. I have heard some boast that any waif can grow up to be President. If that is true, then there is nothing special about any of them. They are not a bloodline, so no dynasty is threatened by the death of this President. He is voted in. And is voted out. So? This one has been voted out by terrorists."

  "Terrorists don't vote," Remo said grimly. "And I don't believe he's dead. Yet."

  "I smell death," Chiun warned. "You should be prepared. "

  Remo should have slowed down when he got within range of the cabin. But the Master of Sinanju saw with a frown that he did not. Remo plunged into the open door like some ninja blunderer.

  Chiun had no choice but to follow him in, and he did.

  He found Remo ranging around the single room, upsetting tables and chairs and ignoring the three Middle Eastern corpses that were flung around the interior like so many unwanted dolls.

  "No sign of him!" Remo said anxiously.

  The Master of Sinanju strode immediately to one of the chairs Remo had upended in his controlled fury.

  It was damaged, and lengths of snapped twine clung to the pieces.

  "He has been here," Chiun said loudly. "And he was alive. No one binds a corpse to a chair."

  Remo stopped what he was doing. He accepted frayed ends of twine from Chiun's long-nailed fingers.

  "So who freed him?" Remo wondered. "And where did they go?"

  "I do not know," said the Master of Sinanju, looking about the room. His eyes gleamed and he brushed past his pupil. Remo followed him with his eyes.

  The Master of Sinanju reached down and lifted a black video camrecorder.

  "Probably taken from Air Force One," Remo suggested.

  "How do you work this device?"

  "If it's one of those that give you instant playback, you rewind it and just press the trigger like on a gun. Then you look through the viewfinder."

  "I cannot find this so-called viewfinder," Chiun complained.

  "Give it here."

  The Master of Sinanju retreated away from Remo's outreaching hand, saying, "No! I will do this myself."

  Remo folded his arms in annoyance. "You won't see anything useful anyway. These ragheads probably stole it just to hock it. They wouldn't actually record the abduction. They're not idiots."

  The Master of Sinanju paid no attention to his pupil's prattle. He found the proper buttons and lifted the device to one eager hazel eye. He depressed the trigger.

  And before his eyes an amazing procession of images was displayed.

  "I see the President!" Chiun cried in triumph.

  Remo started. "You do?"

  "He is answering questions put to him by unseen interrogators."

  "Oh," Remo said, subsiding, "press-conference stuff."

  "Wait! There is more!"

  "What?" Remo said, reaching out again. Chiun faded back even though one eye was closed and the other was glued to the viewfinder.

  "I see these three corpses lying dead about us, but in life."

  "You do?"

  "Yes. And they are recording the abduction of the true President, who appears to be unconscious, much like your President of Vice, except that the President's eyes are closed."

  "He's alive!" Remo blurted.

  "They are carrying him off, the imbeciles."

  "Yeah?"

  "Now they are posing with him," Chiun squeaked. "The President is bound to the chair with twine and a belt."

  "Are they torturing him?"

  "If he were awake, it could be called that," Chiun snapped.

  Remo's fists clenched. "No!"

  "They are capering around him like baboons, making inane comments and acting in jest. They are truly imbeciles." Chiun stopped speaking.

  "What's happening now?" Remo demanded.

  "I am coming to that," Chiun said, turning the video camera this way and that, as if to get a better view. "Ah!" Chiun breathed. Then, in a hard voice: "Oh! Oh, no!"

  "What? What?" Remo asked anxiously.

  "It is a plot!" Chiun cried in triumph. "I was right. "

  "What? About what?"

  "Behold," the Master of Sinanju said, quickly passing the video recorder to Remo.

  Remo caught it up to his eyes. He pressed the trigger. He saw the late Abu Al-Kalbin at the exact moment he was beheaded by a number-one wood, wielded by familiar hands.

  "It's the Vice-President," Remo said in disbelief.

  "The schemer!" Chiun added indignantly.

  "My God, he's pulverizing these terrorists."

  "A subterfuge," Chiun cried. "He is disposing of his underlings so they cannot betray him. We will be vindicated in Emperor Smith's eyes, after all. He sent us on a ferocious goose quest."

  "Wild-goose chase."

  "The very same!" Chiun's voice rose with the indignation of it all. "And while we were dealing with foreign enemies, this stripling, this callow pretender to the throne, was manipulating his hireling killers, who performed the dastardly deed for him. And now the President of Vice has taken the true President off to some dank dungeon for possible execution or some worse fate."

  "I see it, but I don't believe it," Remo said in a low voice.

  "Believe it. Sony would not lie."

  "He's gotta be almost as strong as us," Remo said doubtfully.

  "Not if he must use mere tools to work his wicked will," Chiun countered. "Sinanju has not employed implements of destruction in generations."

  "I never heard of killing someone with a golf club."

  "There is no limit to what certain persons will stoop to in the unholy quest for ill-gotten glory," Chiun said sagely. "We must hasten back to America to warn Smith. No doubt the treacherous President of Vice is even now preparing to assume the Eagle Throne."

  "No," Remo said as the tape ended. He popped the cassette from the camcorder. "We gotta find the Pre
sident. He can't have gotten far."

  A sudden voice came from the open door.

  "Who could not have gotten far?"

  Remo's hand shot behind his back, concealing the cassette.

  "Whoever did this," he told Federal Judicial Police Officer Guadalupe Mazatl without skipping a beat. Beside him, Chiun's hands joined within his scarlet kimono sleeves.

  Guadalupe Mazatl stepped into the shack.

  "I do not understand this," she said, indicating the stiffening terrorists with a toss of her short hair. "Who are these pistoleros?"

  "Terrorists," Remo said. "From the Middle East. Looks like they were the ones who knocked down Air Force One."

  "How did you know to come here?" Guadalupe asked suspiciously.

  "Hunch," Remo said evasively.

  "Because we are who we are," Chiun said in the same breath.

  "And who are you really? CIA?"

  "Maybe," Remo admitted because it was far enough away from the truth to be comfortable.

  "And what have you behind your back?"

  Remo's hand came around. Empty. The cassette nestled in the waistband of his chinos. "Nothing. I had an itch." He grinned faintly.

  "To another dog with that bone," Guadalupe said disdainfully.

  "What?"

  "It is an expression," she said. "And I believe you know what it means."

  "Not me," Remo said honestly.

  "We must report this matter," Guadalupe Mazatl said.

  "Fine," Remo said. "Go ahead. We'll just wait here. "

  Officer Guadalupe Mazatl did not move.

  "I do not trust you yanquis. You are op to something."

  "Who, us? Op to what?" Remo forced a light tone, but the anxiousness in his voice came through like a drill.

  "I am not leaving without you," Officer Mazatl said firmly.

  Remo looked to Chiun. Chiun looked back. Their expressions matched like red and green socks.

  "Look, maybe I can level with you," Remo ventured.

  "Remo," Chiun warned. "She is not to be trusted."

  "Hah! Who said that of me?" Guadalupe demanded hotly.

  "Comandante Odio," Chiun returned smugly.

  "That puerco! Everyone knows that the DFS is corrupt. "

  "Funny, they say that about you Federales," Remo retorted.

  "It is not true!" Guadalupe flared. "Of me!" she added in a metallic tone.

  "Time's getting away from us here," Remo said quickly. "Listen, we have reason to believe these are some of the men responsible for shooting down the President's plane. You get word back to the others. Tell them to be on the lookout for . . ." Remo's voice trailed off as he realized what he was about to say. His eyes went to the putter sticking up from one terrorist's shattered skull.

  "si?"

  "Anyone suspicious," Remo added carefully. "Have them scour every mountain. Extend the search area. If there are others, they're probably on foot. They couldn't have gotten far."

  "You cannot get far on foot either."

  "That's our problem," Remo shot back. "Not yours. We're outta here. Come on, Little Father." Officer Guadalupe Mazatl followed them outside.

  "Those gringos are op to something," she muttered as she watched them sprint away.

  Then, clutching her pistol in its side holster, she began running back to the crash site, pacing herself so that she did not run out of breath.

  Chapter 10

  The chief of staff met with the other Cabinet members in the White House conference room.

  "Gentlemen, you all know the situation. Our President is no longer with us."

  No one spoke a word. Their faces were gloomy.

  The chief of staff went on. "Technically, the Vice-President is our new chief executive."

  To a man, their faces drained of color. They looked like unhappy corpses.

  "Has he taken the oath yet?" asked the Secretary of Defense uncomfortably.

  "He has no inkling what has transpired."

  "Wish we could keep it that way . . ." someone muttered.

  "At this moment, Air Force Two is taking him to a Detroit location, where he will deliver a prepared speech. He knows this speech is important, but he does not know its contents. His handlers don't even know. "

  "Does it matter?"

  "It matters very, very much," said the chief of staff. "I have had the staff prepare a speech in which the Vice-President immediately tenders his resignation for health reasons."

  A husky gasp raced around the conference table.

  The chief of staff silenced it with a raised hand. "I believe he can be persuaded to give this speech on one condition."

  "What is that?"

  "That he believes it is the President's wish that he resign. "

  "My God, you're talking about a palace coup!"

  "No," the chief of staff countered. "I am talking about a necessary political preemptive strike. The Vice-President resigns. Then and only then do he and the nation learn that the President has died."

  "But consider the political firestorm."

  "Imagine, worse still, the Vice President taking his rightful place at the head of this table."

  "But the next in line is what's-his-name-the Speaker of the House-a Democrat."

  " I can't help that. You all know the Vice-President. He can't chew gum and walk at the same time."

  "Hell, we lived through one of those presidencies back in the seventies. And the VP's a much better golfer than that guy was. At least the Vice-President never brained anyone with his nine-iron. "

  The Secretary of Housing gave a nervous little laugh. It came out like a giggle. He swallowed it.

  "Gentlemen, if you have any arguments that might persuade me not to put this plan into operation, give them now. Just remember that your party is your party, but we're considering the future of America. Can the ship of state navigate these uncertain times with such an unseasoned man at the helm?"

  The Cabinet exchanged unhappy, sick-eyed glances.

  They talked among themselves in low, urgent tones.

  The chief of staff waited, his fingers steepled. He knew their decision even if they did not as yet. It was the only decision that could be made. Once again he rued the day the President had made his choice of a running mate without consultation. If only he had picked one of the other aspirants.

  The decision was reached and the chief of staff looked up from his grim thoughts.

  "Do what you have to," he was told.

  "Thank you, gentlemen. I would join you in a prayer at this time, but every moment counts. Feel free to go ahead without me."

  And as the chief of staff left the room, the remaining Cabinet members folded their hands and closed their eyes. Their lips moved, but no audible words came forth.

  Chapter 11

  Federal Judicial Officer Guadalupe Mazatl strode across the flat sierra, her broad face a copper mask of resentment.

  Overhead, the helicopters were clattering like tiny Erector Set dragonflies. The sight of their Estados Unidos insignia made her blood boil.

  She did not hate the norteamericanos. She merely resented them, just as she resented the criollos who had subjugated her Indian ancestors four hundred years ago under Cortez and his mad dogs. No, she despised the criollos, who considered themselves more Mexican than the pure-blooded Indians, even though they were Spanish.

  Glancing back over her fawn-colored shoulder, she saw the gringo and the old Asian he called papacito-"Little Father"moving through the twisted, tortured cacti like the almighty lords of the desolation.

  And as much as she despised the criollos, they had already done their damage. That was in the past. The norteamericanos threatened manana.

  She hurried back to the crash site to speak with the arrogant criollo, Comandante Odio. More was happening under the hot Mexican sun than an American airplane accident.

  Remo Williams' eyes read the flat sierra like an open book.

  The winds had disturbed the sand little. It was dark, hard-packed stuff,
retaining footprints in shallows, but not in the flat crusty stretches where rainwater had stiffened the sand.

  "Two men," Remo said, his eyes on the broken ground as he walked.

  "Yes," Chiun said. "But one walking strangely."

  "Maybe the President," Remo muttered, looking up toward the nearby mountains. "Wounded."

  The Master of Sinanju shook his frail old head. "He walks heavily, but not from injury. He walks with heavy tread. As if grossly fat."

  " I wondered about that," Remo said. " I thought mabye he was wearing heavy boots or something."

  "Boots made of lead might leave such marks," Chiun intoned.

  "Doesn't make sense," Remo said. "Let's just see where they lead us."

  They led into a passage cut between two towering mountains, where ancient and rusted railroad tracks followed sunbleached ties.

  "Footprints stop here," said Remo. "See how the toes dig in, then vanish? He hopped the train."

  The Master of Sinanju placed one delicate ear to a rusty rail.

  "Anything?" Remo asked, looking down the tracks, which converged at the horizon line.

  "There is no vibration," Chiun intoned. "The train passed some time ago."

  "Well, we got something," Remo said as Chiun stood up and looked back toward the crash site. "Now all we have to do is find out where that train went, without tipping our hand."

  "We should inform Smith."

  "You carrying a telephone up one sleeve?"

  "Of course not," bristled the Master of Sinanju.

  "'Then finding a phone has to be step one. Let's get back to the site."

  They had covered most of the distance back to the blue-and-white broken-backed bird that had been Air Force One when a Mexican Army helicopter suddenly lifted up and roared toward them.

  Inside the helicopter, Comandante Oscar Odio smiled broadly beneath his mirrored sunglasses. "You will be very wise to keep silent," he told FJP Officer Mazatl. "These matters must be handled with diplomacy. I will do all the talking, mestiza."

  "I am no mongrel mestiza!" Officer Mazatl spat. "I am pure azteca."

  "Still, you will remain silent." He patted her knee. "And I would not be so proud of ancestors who cut the hearts out of the living, thinking their blood fueled the sun."