Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

Meanwhile, the direct-line telephone to the National Center for the Prevention of Disaster kept ringing.

"Excellency, we have no power in San Angel."

"Excellency, there are looters in the Zona Rosa."

"Excellency, what do we do?"

To each of these pleas the president of Mexico could only offer soothing words of encouragement while inwardly cursing the cruel fate that had granted him the ultimate political power he had sought all of his adult life, only to precipitate the avalanches of NAFTA, devaluation, inflation, unemployment, rebellion and now earthquake upon his insufficient shoulders. It was more than his predecessor could have imagined. If only, he reflected, these things had transpired on the watch of the Bald One, now enjoying a comfortable but undeserved exile in the United States.

Then came a call that seemed to be delirium given voice.

"Excellency, this is General Alacran."

"Yes, General."

"Yes, it walks again."

"What is this?"

"The stone statue. From the museum. You will recall the rumors of her previous escape."

The president did. Vaguely. There had been whispers that the great idol had disappeared from the Museum of Anthropology only to be found at Teotihuacan some time later, broken and shattered. It had been a national treasure in a nation in which the dominant culture and the subservient culture had been smelted together in a kind of schizophrenic amalgam.

"The city lies is ruins and you talk to me of statuary? We will find it later-if there is a later."

"She is not missing, Excellency. For I have found her."

"Then what is the problem, Alacran?"

"She is on the Pan American Highway. She is walking. She is leading a veritable army of indios. They walk half-naked and singing, casting their crucifixes under the feet of the idol."

"The stone statue walks like a man?"

"No, Excellency. Like a god. It is like nothing you can imagine. If my sainted mother, who was Aztec, could see it now, she would swear that the old gods of Teotihuacan had returned to this land."

"You are drunk!" the president accused. "Are you drunk?"

"Before God, I am not drunk. I have film. Cameras do not hallucinate."

"If the earthquake has liberated the old gods, then that is beyond the scope of my duties. I preside over a nation of men and must see to their mortal needs. I will view this film another time. Thank you for your report."

"There is more, Excellency."

"Speak. I listen."

"I ordered rocket attacks against this walking Coatlicue."

"Why?"

"Because I do not believe in the gods of old Mexico. Thus, I surmised it was something to be suppressed."

"Pray continue."

"The antitank rockets failed. The machine guns were to no avail, either."

"How can this be?"

"The indios threw themselves before this living Coatlicue with great abandon. They were slaughtered by the rockets and machine-gun bullets. You should have seen the blood. Madre! It is river. And the flesh and the bones. They litter the highway as if it were the road to a slaughterhouse."

"Enough," said the president, sickened by the things his dark Mexican imagination brought before his eyes.

"The indios worship Coatlicue. They will do anything for her. And they are thousands strong. This is a dire security threat. As even now the subversivo Verapaz is reported headed this way."

"Yes, yes. I see. Tell me, General. What do the indios do at this moment?"

"They feast."

"Where do they find food on the highway?"

"They find food among the slain," said the general, whose voice very suddenly sounded sickened, as well.

"If they move, inform me."

"And if they do not?"

"If they do not, we will deal with them some other way than slaughter. There is death enough in our country this night."

"I fear that death has only begun to dance across the face of Mexico, Excellency."

Chapter 17

By the time night had clamped down and the drunken Mexican moon had climbed into the night sky, the Extinguisher abandoned his borrowed vehicle and took to the jungle.

He was in his element now. The jungle was his realm. Long ago the Extinguisher had experienced his baptism by fire in the war-torn jungles of Southeast Asia.

Pausing by a pool, he blackened his angular face with camo paint until it no longer shone. His Hellfire supermachine pistol hung from a Whip-it sling under his right armpit. His backup pistol gleamed snug at the small of his back. A Randall survival knife was jammed into one boot.

As he moved, he clinked. But that was okay. In the jungle it was good to clink. Clinking was not a jungle sound, but clinking would scare off predators. The Extinguisher had no quarrel with the natural predators, only the two-legged ones. He preferred to avoid the natural ones.

Especially jaguars.

Tucked into his war book was an article ripped from the library copy of the World Book Encyclopedia. It was all about jaguars. They were a cat to be respected. The Extinguisher had no interest in crossing fangs with any jaguar.

And so he clinked with each step.

As the night deepened, it grew cool, then cold. Spring was still weeks away. But this was the Lacandon jungle. The Extinguisher had expected warmth. His Intel said nothing about pine trees and damp, chilly jungle breezes.

His nose began to go numb. And his ears.

"Son of a bitch!" he hissed. "I'm freezing my tailbone off here."

Reaching into a slash pocket of his black combat suit, he extracted the black balaclava that protected his identity when he was in full-Extinguisher combat mode. He drew this on. It muffled his entire head, except for a V-shaped slit that framed his icy blue eyes.

Soon the warm wool absorbed his body heat, warming his cool skin in return.

The Extinguisher moved on.

There was a calculated risk to wearing the feared mask where the ski-masked forces of the insurgent Juarezistas were being hunted. But since the Extinguisher was one of the hunters, that shouldn't matter.

Maybe he would stumble across one of the unlucky bastards, take him hostage and extract the whereabouts of Subcomandante Verapaz from his trembling body.

The mission would go a lot more smoothly with better intelligence, he reflected. God knew there wasn't a lot of raw Intel to be found lying around in the jungle. It was worse than fucking Stomique.

The night wore on, and the Extinguisher grew thirsty. Reconnoitering the area, he found a pool of water. He looked it over with the aid of a penlight. Not brackish. It didn't seem poisoned. He scooped up a cupful with a tin cup taken from his rucksack. Into this he dropped two haldozone tablets. He let the water sit awhile, then drank his fill.

Then the Extinguisher moved on.

After a while, he realized he had to take a whiz real, real bad. No problem. There were plenty of trees.

The Extinguisher was in the act of relieving himself when the ominous click of a hammer drawing back reached his sensitive, battle-honed ears.

Warily he looked right, then left.

As the warm stream petered out against the base of a fluted mahogany tree, he saw why he had heard it with such distinctness.

There was an FAL rifle pointed at his right temple and another pointed at his left. Behind them loomed two men in uniform.

Hard words rattled at him. He froze. They were repeated. The language was Spanish but spoken so fast nothing registered. Nothing sounded like the phrases he had memorized from Wicked Spanish for the Traveler.

He wondered what to do-zip up or raise his hands?

He decided to zip up first. The Geneva Convention must cover this situation. Somewhere.

It was the wrong move. A rifle swapped ends and slammed into the back of his skull. That was actually good. The wool balaclava protected his scalp.