Warren Murphy: Survival Course

"That is not our fault!" the rebel leader said. "The oppressors have coerced the people into participating in their sham elections. They make them dip their fingertips in ink and then make marks on their ballots, so the oppressors know by their blue fingertips who has voted and who has not." He smiled wolfishly. "We know too."

Remo's deep-set eyes narrowed. "So you chop off a finger from a child here and a child there, and pretty soon the parents get the message."

"It works."

"It's barbaric."

"You do not understand, yanqui. We are forced to do these things. We tried shooting peasants as an example, but the survivors still insisted on voting."

"Imagine that."

"We find it puzzling too," Pablo mused. "But we are in the right. These children suffer so that future generations will grow up in a Maoist workers' paradise where there are no oppressors, and everyone thinks in harmony. As Chairman Mao once said, 'The deeper the oppression, the greater the revolution.' "

Remo yawned. This was taking longer than he'd expected.

"Mao's long dead," he said. "And Communism is on the march into the boneyard of history. Just ask Gorbachev. "

On hearing that name, the guerrillas spat into the dirt. Remo moved one Italian-made loafer out of the way of a greenish-yellow clog of expectorate.

"Capitalationist!" Pablo muttered.

"I guess word hasn't gotten this far yet," Remo said. "Look, this is really fascinating, conversing with you political dinosaurs, but how can I convince you that I'm really, truly a U.S. spy?"

"Why do you want to do that? You know we will execute you for that. We despise the CIA."

"Actually, I work for a secret organization called CURE."

" I have never heard of it," Pablo admitted.

"Glad to hear it. That's the way my boss likes it."

"And you have not answered my question."

"If you want the truth, it's because I know you'll take me to your leader."

"Who will kill you," Pablo said fiercely.

Remo nodded. "After the interrogation. Yes."

The guerrilla leader looked to his fellow companeros. Their mean close-set eyes looked quizzical. Pablo's blanketdraped shoulder lifted in confusion. Remo heard the word "loco" muttered. He didn't speak Spanish, but he knew what "loco" meant. Fine. If they thought he was crazy, maybe they'd get this show on the road faster.

The buzz of conversation stopped. In the background, the drone of insects continued like a subliminal tape.

Pablo wore a cunning look when he asked, "You have-what you call-DI?"

"It's ID," Remo said, "and what kind of spy carries ID?"

"A real one." The guerrillas nodded among themselves.

"Can you guys read English?" Remo asked suddenly.

"We cannot read at all, yanqui. That way we are not subject to faceless lies."

"And you want to lead Peru into the twenty-first century," Remo muttered. Louder he said, "Okay, sure. I got ID. It's in my wallet." He patted a pocket.

"Javier!"

One of the guerrillas reached into the right-front pocket of Remo's chinos and gingerly extracted a leather wallet. He brought it to the commander. The Peruvian pulled out a MasterCard in the name of Remo Mackie.

"That's my American Express card," Remo lied. "I don't leave home without it."

"I knew that," Pablo said.

"Good for you. And that white one is my social-security card."

"Ah, I have heard of the infamous Social Security police." The Senderista compared the two cards. "But why is the last name not the same? I can see that by the shape of the . . . how you say it?"

"We shamelessly literate Yankees call them letters."

"Si. By the letters. Por que?"

"Because I'm a spy, for heaven's sake," Remo said in exasperation. "I gotta have a lot of cover identities to get around people like you."

The Senderista blinked. Remo could tell he was getting through to him. Maybe by Tuesday the guerrilla would consent to take him to his commander. But Tuesday would be too late. The Bogota summit would be over by then.

So Remo decided to cut to the chase.

"Those are my CIA credentials," he told the man when the latter held up a library card in the name of Remo Loggia.

"You lie!" the Senderista spat. " I know the letters CIA. They are not on this card."

"You're too smart for me," Remo admitted cheerfully. "You're right. It doesn't say CIA. It says DEA. You see, when we CIA types go into the field, we never carry CIA ID. Otherwise, when we're captured-such as in this case the CIA would get the ransom demands or the blame, whichever applies. By carrying DEA credentials, the agency escapes the heat and the DEA picks up the bad PR."

The Senderista frowned like an Incan rain god about to pour his bounty upon the forest. His slightly crossed eyes almost linked up like a sperm and egg trying to become a zygote.

"You yanqui running dogs are full of treachery!" he snarled.

"That's us. We're even trained in the sneaky art of reading."

"How do we know you are not a DEA operative telling me this to confuse me?" Pablo demanded.

"Hey, I don't come with guarantees. And what difference does that make? CIA. DEA. CURE. PTA. Any way you slice it, I'm up to no good. You gotta take me to your leader for interrogation."

"You are too eager. I need more proof."

"Tell you what," Remo offered. "I left a conferedate back in town. He's a wiley old Korean. The jungle was too hot for him, so he stayed back in what passes for a hotel in whatever that town is called."

"It is called Uchiza, ignorant one," the Senderista leader snarled. And everyone laughed at the stupidity of the gringo americano who could read but could not name one of the most prosperous towns in the Upper Huallaga Valley.

"Whatever," Remo said dismissively. "Chiun-that's my friend's name-is a spy too. He'll vouch for me. Why don't you ask him?"

The Senderista nodded to two of Remo's captors. "Paco! Jaime! Vamos!"

The two guerrillas with the safeties off their FAL's hastened back in the direction of the town of Uchiza.

"Don't rough him up too much," Remo called after them. "He's over eighty, but he's a stone killer." He smiled to himself, thinking: Two down, five to go. He made a mental note to pick up a couple of garbage bags on his way back to town. Leaf-bag size. The two departing guerrillas looked about leaf-bag size.

"Well," Remo said, lowering himself to the spongy jungle floor, "I guess we wait. Hope it's not more than half a day."

"No. We take you to our delegate commander. We will receive our compadres' report there."

Remo shot back to his feet. "Fine by me," he said brightly. At last he was getting somewhere.

The guerrillas crowded behind him, their Belgianmade rifles prodding his back.

"You will walk with your arms raised high in abject surrender," the Senderista leader named Pablo ordered roughly.

"Not me," Remo said in a nonthreatening tone.

"We insist."

"Insist all you want," Remo countered. "Be thankful I'm going quietly. And whoever has my wallet, try not to lose it. I'll need my passport for the return flight. "

Pablo bared crooked teeth. "You will never see the Pentagon again, warmonger," he snarled.

"Amen to that. It's ugly and the basement is full of roaches. "

They walked through the jungle for nearly an hour. The guerrillas started to pant with exertion. Remo, not even sweating, picked up his pace. Time was wasting if he was going to interrogate the rebel commander before the drug conference.

Except for the long commute, it was a relatively simple assignment. U. S. intelligence had received tips that Colombian narco-terrorists had increased their long-standing bounty on the U. S. President in anticipation of this latest drug summit. Message-traffic intercepts indicated that they had offered the assignment to the Shining Path, with whom they had an uneasy alliance here in the Upper Huallaga Valley, and who levied so-called "people's taxes" on all shipments of coca paste going north.