"This is the smile that is always on the face of the Vice-President. "
"Yeah, true. But not like that. It looks kinda . . . fixed. You're starting to remind me of that joker fella, from the movie. Think you could relax just a little?"
The smile dropped two stops on the register. "Is this satisfactory?" the Vice-President asked.
"Better," the President admitted.
The smiled dropped another stop, with German lens precision.
"Is this best?"
"Good. Yeah, keep it like that."
I gotta make sure this guy gets a full psychiatric evaluation at Walter Reed, the President thought. He's acting loopier than ever.
"We are nearing a city," the Vice-President said as the mountains grew thinner around them.
"How do you know that?"
" I can smell the pollution. It is very dense. There are harmful elements in the air-sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxide, zinc particles, and fecal dust."
"Must be Mexico City," the President said, suddenly impressed by his Vice-President's keen sense of smell. " I understand on really bad days the birds actually drop out of the sky from the smog. Imagine that. Hey, we have an embassy in Mexico City. We'll go there."
"Will they assist our survival?"
"Damn right. They'll assure it."
"Then we will go there."
"Of course we will," the President said, sticking his hands between his thighs for warmth.
The train began to slow and shacks appeared on either side. They looked miserable, like something found on the outskirts of a war-torn third-world battle zone. The President had traveled through Mexico before, but had never seen the rural part up close like this. It was difficult to imagine that this kind of squalor existed only a few hundred miles below the Texas border.
A road appeared on the left, and as the train slowed, the road came closer and closer to the rail-bed until the train and the sparse traffic were running parallel to one another.
"Someone's gonna see us," the President warned.
"I will protect you."
"Glad to hear it, but that's not what I meant. Maybe they'll recognize us. Help us out."
A dull gray truck with a wooden flatbed rumbled past the train, going in the opposite direction. The President noticed it because the back was crowded with a dozen or more men standing up. As they zoomed by, they reacted with shouts and pointing fingers.
The truck executed a fumy U-turn and came up alongside the caboose. The men surged to the near side of the truck bed. One waved and shouted, "El presidente?"
"Si! Si!" the President answered, getting to his feet. He waved with one hand, clutching the rail with the other. "Soy el presidente de los Estados Unidos!"
A shout went up from the men, who wore dusty clothing. They looked like ragtag Mexican farmers.
The truck picked up speed and left them breathing its malodorous exhaust.
"They're going fox help!" the President shouted joyously. "We can relax, now. They must have been looking for us all along."
"They possess weapons which can harm you," the Vice-President said mechanically.
"Guns are real popular down here. It's that machismo thing."
The train was rounding a bend, giving the President an unobstructed view of the engine. The truck drew up alongside it. Suddenly a battery of rifles and automatic weapons came level, like a firing squad on wheels.
"Must be trying to get the attention of the engineer," the President ventured. "Fella probably can't hear them over the engine racket."
The guns opened up. The firing was intense, a rattling ineffectual pop-pop-pap mixed with the harsh snap of bullets bouncing off the heavy engine.
"What the hell are they doing?" the President said, ducking for cover. "That's a lot of shooting for a warning shot."
"We must escape," the Vice-President said with metallic urgency. The train was slowing down.
"For God's sake, what's going on?"
The train ground to a jerky halt and the truck came back, its human cargo shouting and caterwauling like Pancho Villa's army.
The President was no fool. He realized this was no rescue party. Before he could say, "Let's get out of here!" a firm hand took him by the waist and yanked him down behind the caboose, pushing him against a multiwheeled truck assembly.
"These wheels will protect you," he said. The Vice-President crept forward.
"Where are you going?" the President demanded anxiously.
The Vice-President did not answer. He disappeared between the couplings that joined the caboose to the rest of the train.
The President hugged his knees to his chest and tried to make himself as small as he could. He ruefully thought that whatever dangers had awaited him in Bogota, they would be infinitely preferable to what was happening right now.
He listened to the mixture of sounds-more excited shouting, the gunning of the truck engine, and the lengthy squeal of its tires in a wild turn. They were coming back.
The truck braked nearby, and feet hit the asphalt with hard leather slaps. They were jumping off the truck, yelling exultantly.
The President sneaked a peek around a heavy steel wheel rim.
He saw many booted feet. They surrounded another pair of feet-the Vice-President's. The Vice-President seemed to hold his ground as he was surrounded. They were the bravest feet the President had ever seen.
Nothing happened for a long moment, except excited shouting and questioning. One word was repeated: "Cabron." That meant "friend," the President recalled, thinking back to his high-school Spanish. No, wait-it meant "bastard," he decided, remembering his Texas oil days. They were calling the Vice-President a bastard, questioning him, but not hurting him. They repeated the words el presidente many times, with growing vehemence.
The President wondered if he should surrender. They might kill the Vice-President if he didn't answer-and it sounded as if he wouldn't. Brave fella.
As he was deciding, something happened. Two sets of boots suddenly left the ground. They just vanished. Then two broken bodies landed in the place where they had been. There came a scream. The President pulled his head back. He tried to make himself small again.
And the gunfire started in earnest.