"How is it your helicopters are so modern, but your planes belong in the junkyard?"
"Do you insult my country's military?" Guadalupe Mazatl demanded hotly.
"Just wondering," Remo said, folding his bare arms. He wasn't in the mood for conversation anyway. Not with Chiun, who felt that as long as no blame fell on his shoulders, it didn't matter what happened to the President of the United States, and especially not with a sullen Mexican cop with a chip on her shoulder almost as large as her inferiority complex.
The ground below was endlessly mountainous. Remo wondered if all of Mexico was this barren.
"The helicopter, it belonged to him."
"What's that?" Remo asked, roused from his thoughts by Guadalupe's sullen voice.
"That was Comandante Odio's private helicopter. I have heard that he bought it himself and merely lends it to his command."
"They must pay DFS commandants pretty well down here," Remo remarked.
"They do not," Guadalupe Mazatl said flatly.
Remo's eyebrows shot up. "You suggesting the comandante is on the take?"
" I suggest nothing. You are a smart norteamericano. You put dos and dos together.'
"Two and two."
"I said that."
"Well," Remo returned, "he was very helpful to us."
"He is not a man worthy of trust."
"Not my problem. I'll never see him again."
"Then I trust you said nothing during your telephone conversation that you would not want him to know. "
Remo eyed Guadalupe's masklike profile. "Why is that?"
"He was undoubtedly listening in on your call."
"How do you know that?" the Master of Sinanju said, taking interest in the conversation for the first time.
"He left me alone in the hall," Guadalupe explained.
"Circumstantial," Remo suggested.
"And he can afford a modern helicopter on less than three hundred pesos salary per month."
Remo looked across the aisle to the Master of Sinanju.
"What do you think, Little Father?" he asked.
"I think I will be happy when I am out of this wounded metal bird."
"You're a big help. By the way," he asked Guadalupe, "what do they call you for short? Guad?"
"Lupe. "
"Loopy," Remo said. "Doesn't fit you, you know."
The plane set down at Mexico City International Airport and ground personnel rolled out an aluminum stairway so they could deplane.
"I gotta find a phone," Remo told Lupe as they stepped onto the tarmac. "Come with me."
They entered the busy terminal and FJP Officer Mazatl found the operations manager. After exchanging swift words with him in Spanish, she led him from the office, telling Remo, "We will be outside."
"Listening in?" Remo asked. But he smiled when he said it. His smile was not returned.
"Let's see what Smith has to say," Remo told Chiun.
" I do not like this place," Chiun said suddenly while Remo waited for a U.S. operator to come on the line.
"Already? We haven't even left the airport."
"This is an evil place," Chiun insisted. "The air tastes like metal."
"I did notice the sky was kinda brown, at that," Remo remarked. Then, into the phone: "Smith? Remo. We're in Mexico City. Any news? . . . Really? . . . Here? Well, it's a lead. No word on the President? . . I see.... Okay. We'll register at a hotel. I have a police escort I'll need to ditch, but that shouldn't be a problem. Her nickname is Loopy."
Remo hung up.
"Smith says there was a report that the Vice-President was seen in Mexico City only an hour ago," he told Chiun.
"You see!" Chiun said triumphantly. "Proof of all I said. What dastardly crime has he committed now?"
"He was seen driving a bread truck through the city."
"Perhaps the bread is poisoned," Chiun said as he followed Remo from the office.
"We've got to get to the embassy," Remo informed Lupe.
"I will drive you," she said.
"Thanks, but no thanks. Just call us a cab."
"I am your host and protector while you are in Mexico," Lupe said stiffly.
"Thanks again, but we don't need protection."
Lupe's hard eyes flicked toward the Master of Sinanju. "The old one. He looks pale."