Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

"Are you kidding?"

Looking back to where the other passengers were hastily pooling their funds in order to bid on the destination of their choice, Chiun hissed, "Hurry. Lest we are marooned in some godforsaken place."

"Godforsaken," said Remo, coming out of his seat, "just about describes every part of the Mexican experience."

Remo beat two businessmen and a nun to the cabin and shut the door behind him for privacy.

Recognizing Remo, the captain and copilot clapped their hands over their ears in self-defense.

Instantly the yoke tipped forward, and the aircraft went into another dive. Remo reached across, hauled it back and pried the captain's fingers from his ears.

Guiding by the wrists, he forced them to curl around the control wheel again.

"What is your wish, senor?" he gasped.

"I'm thinking of San Cristobal de las Casas."

"San Cristobal de las Casas is an excellent destination. Do jou not think so, Vergillio?"

The copilot, Vergillio, sat unhearing. Remo pried a hand off an ear so the captain could repeat his statement.

"St. San Cristobal de las Casas is very excellent. But we must allow the other passengers to make their offer. It is the democratic way."

"It is the way of Mexico," agreed the captain.

"It's called institutional bribery," Remo countered.

"The way of Mexico," the captain repeated blandly.

Sighing, Remo said, "I'll top any offers."

"Done," the captain and copilot said in unison.

"You take Visa or Discover?"

"Si."

THE AIRPORT at San Cristobal de las Casas, it turned out, was neither open nor large enough to accommodate a 727, but for five thousand dollars American the captain and his copilot were willing to risk it.

They dropped airspeed, the turbines spooling down, and lowered the landing gear.

They made a first pass, decided the runway was only a thousand yards too short and came around from the north.

The 727 set down perfectly, rolling and rattling across the weed-grown asphalt. The overhead bins shook. Three popped open, dropping luggage onto passenger heads. Everybody held on for dear life.

Just when it started to look like a good landing, the wings started coming off.

First it was the right wing. It struck a cypress tree and was instantly sheered off. All eyes went to the starboard side of the plane. Faces went white.

And so everyone except the Master of Sinanju missed the startling sight of the port wing as it was yanked free by another tree.

As it turned out, losing the wings was the best thing that could have happened. Passengers realized that when the lumbering cabin was suddenly bumping through what amounted to a lane in a dense green forest.

This went on for what seemed an eternity, but couldn't have been much more than a minute.

In the end the 727 didn't so much brake as run out of momentum.

"Welcome to the Lacadon forest," said the captain in a relieved voice. "Jou have survived another flight on Azteca Airlines. Thank jou and we hope that jou will fly with us again soon."

The cabin burst into applause.

The stewardess threw open the cabin door, and a wave of sultry heat came in, instantly overpowering the airconditioning.

Remo got to the door first and looked out. There were no air stairs naturally. Below was soft soil. It supported a dense growth of forest that was a strange mixture of tropical jungle and pine forest. Firs jostled cypress trees and weirdlooking palms.

Peering ahead, Remo noticed the nose of the 727 had stopped about twenty feet short of a bank of some trees he couldn't begin to classify, because he'd never seen bark so red and peeling.

The captain popped his head out the cabin door.

"Hokay?"

"Are you crazy? You crashed the plane for three grand! They're going to fire you."

"It does not matter. Since NAFTA, my salary equals twelve dollars American a day. On three thousand, I can retire. Happy landings, senor. "

"You could have gotten us all killed, you know."

The copilot smiled with all of his teeth. "Next time, perhaps. Adios."

Remo dropped to the ground and, using the edge of his hand, started chopping away at the bole of a fir tree. He cut it on opposite sides the way lumberjacks did, and when he had the cut he wanted, he took up a position and gave the fir a single hard side-kick.

It splintered, toppling to fall parallel with the cabin.

It was no coincidence that the bole provided the perfect first step for the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun stepped off the plane and looked around. His face was a parchment mask.

"Not bad for a guy with short fingernails, huh, Little Father?"

"Do not forget my trunk," said Chiun, his voice dripping with ingratitude.

Remo's face fell.

"Next time whistle up your own air-stairs," he snapped.

"Next time," said Chiun, stepping off and settling to the ground like a tiny green mandarin making landfall after a long sea voyage, "we will not come to Mexico."

As they prepared to leave the airport, someone accosted them and tried to charge them for cutting down the fir tree. No one seemed overly concerned about the demolished plane, but the tree was another matter.

"Stuff it," said Remo.

The local authorities were summoned, and Remo found himself confronted by a knot of hard-eyed Mexican soldiers in wilted uniforms.

"Jou are under arrest," a sergeant announced.

Remo had one of Chiun's traveling trunks slung over one shoulder. It had been a major miracle to convince the old Korean to travel this lightly, so he wasn't about to complain. Normally the Master of Sinanju insisted that all seventeen steamer trucks accompany him during his foreign travels. This time Chiun had expressed an irrational fear that should America sink beneath the waves in their absence, their precious contents would be lost forever.

Only by personally promising to scour the sunken ruins of Massachusetts for the other sixteen had Remo prevailed. That settled, Chiun had ordered Remo to carry the trunk with the lapis lazuli phoenixes rampant against mother-of-pearl panels.

With infinite care, Remo lowered the trunk to the ground.

"Look, we don't want trouble," he said.

"You wish to avoid trouble, senores?"

"Always. "

"That will be five hundred dollars American."

"In other words, you want a bribe?"

"We call it la mordida. Little favor."

"Five hundred isn't a little favor. It's highway robbery. "

"Nevertheless, it will be five hundred dollars or a night in jail. Perhaps two."

Chiun regarded the soldiers with a cold disdain. "Do not pay these brigands, Remo."

"Careful, old one. Or jou may be shot attempting to escape."

"It is not I who will be attempting to escape if you do not step from my path, uniformed one," Chiun warned.

"I'll handle this," said Remo.

Stepping up to the sargento, Remo lowered his voice and said, "Can you say 'commotio cordis'?"

"Eh?"

"If you can say 'commotio cordis' three times fast, I'll give you five hundred each."

The three soldiers looked interested. They had watched Mexican versions of US. game shows where incredible amounts of money were given away simply for correct guesses to simple questions.

"Say this phrase again?" the sargento asked.

"Commotio cordis, " said Remo.

"Como-"

They made a good effort. One of them almost got the second word out.

Remo reached out and, timing his blow to perfection, struck two of the soldiers' chests during the precise millisecond when their heart muscles were poised for the next beat. This moment was called the T-wave by physicians. Typically it lasted only 30 one thousandths of a second, and humans were completely unaware of this most vulnerable state of the heart muscle, when the cells electrically depolarize themselves before the next contraction.