Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

"You were in 'Nam? Cool! What was it like?"

"It was hell."

"You're lucky. I missed out on 'Nam."

"You missed out on common sense too. What are you doing down here?"

"He is a Juarezista," the girl inserted.

"That true?"

The Extinguisher looked away. "Let me talk to you in private, okay?"

Remo took him by the arm and into the jungle. In a thick part of the woods, he spun him around.

"Let's have it."

"I'm only pretending to be a Juarezista. "

"Like you're pretending to be the Extinguisher?"

"No, I'm really him. I mean I took on the nom de guerre to further my work."

"What work?"

Smith whispered, "I'm gonna wax Subcomandante Verapaz."

Remo looked at him. In the darkness Smith waited expectantly, his grimy face shining with an inner pride.

"Why?" Remo asked.

"What do you mean-why? It's what the Extinguisher does."

"If you don't stop referring to yourself in the third person, I'm going to shake you so hard your nuts are going to drop out your nostrils. Now, answer my question."

"I'm on assignment," Smith said grudgingly.

"Working for who?"

"That's classified."

Remo gave Smith's bicep a hard squeeze. Smith gritted his teeth, and sweat popped from his forehead. But he fought back his pain with such grim determination that Remo relented slightly.

"No. Really, I can't say who sent me. It's the first rule of black ops."

"The first rule of survival is to tell the truth when a bigger dog has you by the hind legs. Meet the bigger dog. Me."

"Okay, I'm with the UN."

"Nice try. No sale. Try again."

"It's true. I'm working for the UN. It's quasiofficial right now. If I dust Verapaz, I'll have a solid gig."

"Well, you can dust off your resume. Verapaz belongs to us."

"Us! what do you mean us? Who are you guys?"

"That is classified," Remo snapped.

"You're kidding, aren't you? I mean, my Uncle Harold sent you down to haul my sorry butt back to Folcroft, didn't he?"

Remo shook his head. "He's not your Uncle Harold, and we're here after Verapaz. Never mind why."

"Look, we'll team up. How's that?"

"I need a partner like you need an imagination. Forget it."

Smith turned. "Okay. Fine. Let me go and may the best man win."

Remo arrested him by the collar. "Look, you were a SEAL, right?"

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"You should know the score. You're a foreigner in a war zone loaded down with enough gear to get you stood up in front of a firing squad."

Winston Smith cracked a lopsided grin. "Yeah. That chicken-shit Mexican colonel tried that already. I still live."

"That girl save you?"

"She's not just a girl. She's guerrilla. There's no shame in being saved at the last minute by an ally."

"She saved your sorry butt and you conned her into taking you to Verapaz, am I right?"

"Right."

"And in the middle of making formal introductions, you're going to whip out that overgrown Pez dispenser of yours and blow them both away, right?"

"No. Just Verapaz."

"Then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"You heard me. After you blow Verapaz away, what are you going to do about the girl?"

Winston looked at his boots. His voice lost its bluster. "I haven't thought that part all the way through yet," he admitted.

"What if she pulls out her weapon and nails you?"

"She wouldn't do that! Would she?"

"You ask me, she's half in love with you."

Smith brightened. "You really think so?"

"Can the high school stuff. You shoot Verapaz, and she'll either nail you or make you shoot her. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know yet. This is only my second mission."

"Okay. Listen up. From now on, you follow my lead. Understand?"

"What're you planning?"

"Just follow my lead and stay out from underfoot."

Pushing the boy ahead of him, Remo rejoined the others.

The villagers were hanging back in fear. The dead were being pulled out of the shacks, and a fresh-blood smell hung in the air like a jungle miasma.

Remo lifted his voice for Assumpta's benefit. "Looks like we're joining the Juarezistas, Little Father."

And keeping his face away from the others, the Master of Sinanju, whose sharp ears had heard every word, winked broadly.

"I have always desired to defend the downpressed."

"It's oppressed, " Winston said dispiritedly.

"Jou are friends of El Extinguirador?" Assumpta asked.

"He thinks he's my father," Winston said.

"He is," Chiun said.

"Is he?" asked Assumpta.

Remo and Winston looked at one another.

"No way," both said in unison.

Turning to Assumpta, Remo asked, "Can you lead us to Verapaz?"

"If you are truly friends of Senor Blaize Fury, I will do this, for I trust him with all of my heart."

Remo shot Winston a glance. Winston looked everywhere but back.

"Okay," Remo said. "One last loose end and we're out of here."

"What is that?" asked Colonel Mauricio Primitivo.

"You."

The colonel squared his shoulder boards. "I am no loose end. I am a colonel in the Mexican federal army."

"No, you're a war criminal in a civil war." And Remo whistled for some of the lurking villagers to come padding up.

"Jou cannot do this. It is uncivilized."

"It is justice," Assumpta spat out the words.

A knot of Maya surrounded Colonel Primitivo. Assumpta spoke to them in a musical tongue that was not Spanish by the quizzical look on the Master of Sinanju's parchment face.

Someone dropped a rock on the colonel's head, knocking him out cold. Others grabbed his ankles and pulled him back into the village.

"What's going to happen to him?" Winston asked as they started off.

Assumpta shrugged. "He may be flayed while living, or burned with the old corn."

"Kinda drastic."

"It is what happens to all who oppose the righteous justice of the Juarezistas. "

Winston Smith looked uncomfortable.

Chapter 39

Oaxaca in the valley was all but empty of men when the flowing train of Coatlicue lumbered in.

The federal government had ceded the capital of the entire state. The immaculate city in the valley was virtually deserted.

Dust still hung in the air from the departed vehicles.

They stood in the center of the broad, tree-ringed Zocalo, the plaza that all Mexican towns and cities possess. This one was not as great as that of Mexico City, but to the eyes of High Priest Rodrigo Lujan, it was holy. Because it belonged to him.

Towering above him under a sky dark with sinister clouds was Coatlicue, in whose name he had taken the city built over sacred Zapotec soil. Her skin resembled that of an armadillo now, covered in steely plates absorbed from the army tanks that she crushed and absorbed. No conquistador was ever so formidable, Lujan thought proudly.

"We are victorious!" he sang out.

"We are not alone," Coatlicue said, her voice ringing hollowly, her eyes peering from armored slits.

" What!"

"I detect the body heat of meat machines in the surrounding structures. A high probability of a trap is indicated."

"But no trap can possibly harm you, Coatlicue," said Rodrigo, stepping into the shelter of the living idol he worshiped above all.

"You must investigate this situation."

"You promised to protect me."

"Very well," said Lujan, adjusting his feathered cloak. He had acquired more festive garments along the way. Others had, too. Nearby stood a knot of Aztecs in the brine-stiffened uniforms of the Jaguar Company. Eagle Knights were nearby, bedecked in feathers both real and artificial. They carried weapons ranging from the obsidian-bladed spears to heavy hardwood clubs capable of dashing a man's brains from his skull.

"Jaguars. Investigate these buildings."

They moved with alacrity. And why not-for they understood that loyal service meant that they needn't be eaten. Not that they would turn away from the prospect. But there were other ways to serve Coatlicue, their Mother.