Chiun regarded the soldiers with a cold disdain. "Do not pay these brigands, Remo."
"Careful, old one. Or jou may be shot attempting to escape."
"It is not I who will be attempting to escape if you do not step from my path, uniformed one," Chiun warned.
"I'll handle this," said Remo.
Stepping up to the sargento, Remo lowered his voice and said, "Can you say 'commotio cordis'?"
"Eh?"
"If you can say 'commotio cordis' three times fast, I'll give you five hundred each."
The three soldiers looked interested. They had watched Mexican versions of US. game shows where incredible amounts of money were given away simply for correct guesses to simple questions.
"Say this phrase again?" the sargento asked.
"Commotio cordis, " said Remo.
"Como-"
They made a good effort. One of them almost got the second word out.
Remo reached out and, timing his blow to perfection, struck two of the soldiers' chests during the precise millisecond when their heart muscles were poised for the next beat. This moment was called the T-wave by physicians. Typically it lasted only 30 one thousandths of a second, and humans were completely unaware of this most vulnerable state of the heart muscle, when the cells electrically depolarize themselves before the next contraction.
But Remo was aware. He could hear the pause through the rib-sheathed chest walls. For him it was beyond timing now. It was sheer instinct. He struck swiftly, the chest walls slammed into the quiescent heart muscles and nature took her unforgiving course.
The two coughed, turned blue and collapsed, hearts beating wildly and out of control. Physicians called this ventricular fibrillation. Most people just said heart attack and let it go at that.
The third soldier was on the o of cordis when his T-wave started. Remo slammed his rib cage with the hard heel of his hand, and he pitched forward to join the agitated pile.
One by one their out-of-control heart muscles, unable to recover normal rhythm, surrendered and went still.
That left their Humvee free for the taking, so Remo carefully laid the trunk into the backseat and opened the door for the Master of Sinanju. Chiun settled into the seat. Remo took the wheel.
"You employed the Thunder Dragon blow," Chiun said. "Why did you call it 'commotio cordis'?"
"Commotio cordis is Latin for heart concussion," Remo explained. "I read about it in a newspaper article once."
"It is the Thunder Dragon blow. Remember that."
"A soldier by any other name wilts the same."
"That is not the saying."
"It's my version, okay?" And Remo sent the Humvee wheeling away to the town called Boca Zotz.
Chapter 10
As Colonel Mauricio Primitivo of the Mexican federal army saw it, oppression of the indigenous peoples of Mexico had been a mistake most terrible.
It was a five-hundred-year old mistake. And now it had come back to haunt his proud but still-struggling nation.
The uprising in Chiapas was the result.
Oh, there had been uprisings before. Always they were put down harshly and severely. The Indians had always gone back to being the oppressed, and the lords of Mexico had returned to dutifully oppressing them.
It was actually quite a good system. Except it had gone on far too long.
"We should have exterminated them as the norteamericanos did their indigenous parasites," he said, pounding the table at Fonda del Refugio, an elegant restaurant in the Pink Zone of Mexico City. They were in the dim back dining room, where the powerful dined and discussed business that could not stand the light of day over sangria and chicken in chocolate sauce.
"There are still indios in America," his host corrected. His host wore mufti. But he sat like a military man. He was a very high-ranking general in the Interior Ministry. Alacran was his last name. General Jeronimo Alacran. No more than this did Colonel Primitivo know for certain.
"Yes, in harmless pockets called reservations. The greater portion of them were buried long ago with the genes of future generations that have never come to pass. That is what we should have done. Exterminate the dirty indios. "
"Let us be politically correct in our speech," General Alacran said softly. "They are los indigenos. "
The colonel swirled a collop of chicken in its piquant brown sauce as he nodded. "Of course."
"But who would harvest the coffee and the beans if this is done?" the general inquired.
"Those that remain. The totality of los indigenos are unkillable. If there were fewer of them, they could be more easily controlled. But there are so many that the men cross the border at will and work in America while the women stay behind to raise the unwanted children. Now the situation is worse. There are so many indios, there are more men than work to be done. They sit around idle, drinking pulque and mescal. And in their drunken idleness they turn to revolution time and again."
Primitivo downed the last of his sangria to quench the hateful thoughts troubling his fevered brain.
"And they will be put down again," General Alacran said.
"Not so easily. For now there are foreign media and meddlers from other nations. They will not sit idly by while we exterminate the vermin." Colonel Primitivo shook his heavy head. "It is too late. We are outnumbered."
"These are very interesting sentiments, Colonel. How would you like to go to Chiapas and deal with this unfortunate insurgency?"
"Gladly. But it is too late. I would not be allowed to do my duty. Look at the upstart Verapaz. His communiques come out of the jungle to pollute our newspapers. His masked face is on every magazine cover now. Women swoon over it, though he may be as pocked of face as the dark side of the moon. He himself gives press conferences to foreign journalists. I say send me to one of these so-called press conferences disguised as a reporter and I will exterminate them all. Especially the journalistas."
"That would be politically unacceptable. If Verapaz is murdered, there would be an international uproar. To say nothing of the problem of the dead journalistas. "
"Bah. I care not for politics. Only of my duty to Mexico. No, I must turn down your very tempting offer to go to Chiapas to kill Mayans and others of their ilk. If I succeed, I will be scapegoated. If I fail, I will be humiliated. Mark my words. Chiapas will be the Vietnam of Mexico. And all because the motherless ones who came before us had not the stomach to exterminate the indios. "
The general had first spoken to Colonel Mauricio Primitivo about this difficult duty in the spring after the first Chiapas uprising, when Verapaz had been on the cusp of becoming a hero to mestizo and indio alike.
Now, two springs later, the situation remained essentially unchanged. In stalemate. The new Mexican government, if anything, was more timid on the subject of Verapaz. They were in intense negotiations with the bandit with the jade green eyes. He was all but untouchable now, the repercussions of his assassination too delicate to risk.
The opportunity to deal correctly with him had been lost. At least until a true hombre once again took hold of the reins of power.
Then came the Great Mexico City Earthquake, which shook hacienda and hovel alike.
Colonel Primitivo's phone rang within the hour. It was the general who had first contacted him two springs earlier.