Warren Murphy: Survival Course

Smith detected only a feeling of unease. There were reports of a major speech to be delivered by the Vice-President. Officially, it was tied in with the President's trip. Unofficially, there were a thousand unconfirmable rumors. Smith was picking up anonymous tips that it was much more than that.

He sweated as he scanned these rumors reaching him. They ran the gamut from the Vice-President's intended divorce to his impending resignation for medical reasons. The resignation story was the one most rife. And it was coming from credible sources at State, from Treasury, and out of the White House itself.

Nothing was breaking in the media. The noon news broadcasts had come and gone, but the evening newscasts were being prepared. And there was no story to report. No arrival of Air Force One. Reporters were burning up the phone lines with questions.

And there were no answers.

A blinking screen light warned Smith of an informant's tip emanating from Washington. Smith keyed into it. The gist was brief. Smith absorbed it at a glance.

It was an NTSB preliminary report. He almost dismissed it. What had happened to Air Force One would be a matter for tomorrow. The President's fate was today's crisis.

And then Smith saw the remarks about the cockpit voice recorder's final recording. A strange voice that said over and over: "Survive . . . survive . . . must survive."

And Dr. Harold W. Smith's grayish visage paled three times, each time losing another shade of gray.

He sat at his terminal, white as the proverbial ghost. Because what he was reading told him that a ghost from CURE's past had returned-a ghost of plastic and aluminum and fiber optics.

A ghost named Mr. Cordons.

Smith reached for the telephone and began dialing Mexico City. His fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons. He hung up, took a deep breath, and tried again.

Chapter 21

Remo Williams began to appreciate the size of Chapultepec Park after he had been walking along a winding pathway between bands of ancient cypress trees for twenty minutes and saw no sign of the other side.

It was vast. Like New York's Central Park squared. Sad-faced Mexicans of all varieties, from prosperous businessmen to blanket-clad Indians selling tortillas and refrescos from little wheeled carts, milled about. There were so many people roaming the park, Remo wondered if it was some kind of Mexican holiday.

So many people that it was difficult to move quickly through them and impossible to spot the Vice-President-if in fact he were mingling with the jostling crowd.

Remo looked around for someone who might speak English. He spotted a well-dressed blond woman feeding ducks in a pool so large it might pass for a small lake, and worked his way toward her.

"Excuse me," Remo began.

" Si?" the woman asked in Spanish. She turned around and Remo saw the caramel coloring of her smooth skin. He realized her hair had been dyed.

"Habla ingles?" Remo asked.

The woman shook her head, murmuring, "No ingles. Sorry. "

"Thanks anyway." Remo moved on. His head hurt and he lowered his respiration cycle to keep out the pollutants. Unfortunately, this also decreased the amount of already-sparse oxygen getting to his lungs. The effect was like starving the fire that was the sun source burning deep within his solar plexus, the true seat of his soul, as he had been taught by Chiun.

Another few yards, another blond head bobbed. Remo pushed through the crowd to reach her.

"Excuse me," he called. "Help out a fellow American?"

" I am not an americana," she replied.

"But you do speak English," Remo prompted.

"Does it not seem that way to you?" she asked demurely.

"Yeah, yeah," Remo said impatiently. "Look. Have you seen the Vice-President around here?"

"No. Perhaps you should go to the Presidential Palace. "

"No. I mean my Vice-President."

"Your Vice-President?"

"Yeah. The U. S. Vice-President. Comprendo?"

"Comprende," the Mexican blond corrected. "And I do not know what he looks like."

"I thought everyone knew his face."

"You gringos are such egotists. Can you tell me what the Mexican Vice-President looks like? Or our President?"

Remo winced. "Point taken," he admitted. "The guy I'm looking for really stands out in a crowd. He's got a golf bag over one shoulder and-"

"Golf? What is golf?"

"It's a game. Played with clubs. You know-fore?" Remo pantomined Arnold Palmer teeing off. He got a quizzically raised eyebrow that was twenty shades darker than the hair above it.

"I am sorry, senor. I cannot help you."

Remo started to go, then remembering something. "How about Robert Redford? See any sign of him?"

"No," the blond said brightly. "Is Senor Redford in Mexico?"

"I doubt it," Remo said sourly. He stalked away.

He decided that his best bet was to climb one of the towering cypress trees. He went up the nearest bole.

By the time he reached the crown, his hands were dusty with pollution particles that had come of the leaves and branches like tomb dust.

He looked at his fingertips. The stuff resembled fine ash, but it gleamed with metallic traces.

"Unbelievable," Remo grumbled. "Even the trees are dirty." He looked around, stepping from branch to branch to get different views of the park.

There was no sign of the Vice-President, nor of anyone carrying a golf bag. Not that even Remo's sharp eyes could have easily picked one man out of the teeming throng.

Releasing a defeated sigh, Remo started to climb down off the tree.

He heard the helicopter before he saw it. The sound made him jump back to the grass. He looked up.

To the north, a helicopter lifted free of the cypressdotted horizon. It vectored away toward the concrete tower that was the Hotel Nikko.

Remo recognized it as Comandante Odie's personal ship. The markings and mounted machine guns gave it away.

He started to run back to the Reforma. After his lungs began to burn, he changed his mind and dropped back to a trot.

By the time he reached the exit gate, he was walking.

The Master of Sinanju was waiting impatiently in the brick park where Remo had last seen him.

Remo approached wearing a frown. Something was wrong. He could tell it by the dark expression on his mentor's yellow face. Officer Mazatl was likewise troubled. Her flat eyes were dazed, almost wounded.

"Who took off in the chopper?" Remo asked breathlessly.

"Josip Broz Tito," Guadalupe Mazatl said flatly.

"Who's Josip Broz Tito?" Remo wanted to know.

Lupe pointed to the dais, now empty. Big bronze letters said "JOSIP BROZ TITO," and under that were the dates "1892-1980." He saw the shiny newpenny patches where the statue's feet had been. And it came to him what was wrong. The statue was missing.

"Okay," Remo said. "I have a headache and we're getting nowhere. I see the pedestal and I see that there's no statue there anymore. In twenty-five words or less, what the hell happened?"

"It was Gordons," Chiun said, brittle-voiced.

"Impossible!" Remo exploded.

"Who is Gordon?" asked Guadalupe Mazatl.

"Completely impossible!" Remo repeated.

"I spoke with the statue known as Josip Broz Tito," Chiun began.

"Wait a minute-what about the Vice-President?" Remo wanted to know.

"Gordons is the Vice-President. Or he was. Now he is this Tito thing."

"Who is this Cordon?" Guadalupe asked again.

Remo snapped at her, "Stay out of this, will you, please!"

"Interventionist americano!" Lupe muttered. "Whose country is this, anyhow?" But she shut up. She looked as unsteady as a dandelion in a freshening wind.

"The statue talked to you?" Remo asked Chiun.

"Yes. He wished to know why we were pursuing him. I explained this to him. It was then that I recognized the childlike mind of the man-machine Cordons. I was very clever, Remo. I did not let on that I knew he was Gordons, not Tito."