The next rocket scored a direct hit. Hot metal flew. Flesh and bone turned to shrapnel. The screams were terrible yet beautiful. It was so incredibly Mexican. It was the most Mexican sight Rodrigo Lujan had ever beheld.
More bullets and then more rockets came, to snap and crump at the human anthill. And the more death gnawed, the more the indios strove to join it.
"Death!" they sang. "Bring us death so Coatlicue may live. We live through Coatlicue. Our blood illuminates the world!"
"Your blood illuminates the universe!" Rodrigo Lujan shouted to the dark, impersonal heavens as he crouched by the shoulder of the road, his bare skin now red from the rain that was not rain.
At length the helicopter gunships depleted themselves of missiles.
Perhaps it was also that the pilots had become sickened by the slaughter. For whatever reason, they broke formation, each retreating in a different direction.
"We have done it!" Rodrigo Lujan shouted to the cold stars above. "We have succeeded! We are Zapotecs!"
"And Aztecs," a man reminded.
"Maya," another said.
"I am Mixtec."
"We are all brothers in blood," Rodrigo said generously.
"And sisters," a woman said, licking a smear of blood off her naked forearm.
Others, seeing this and remembering tales of ancestral blood sacrifice, began eyeing the dead not as fallen human beings to be buried reverently in the earth but as something else.
The hungry look in his fellow indios' eyes gave Rodrigo Lujan the courage to say and do what in the past he could only imagine down in his deepest Zapotec dreams.
"Coatlicue has reminded us. We are no longer men. We are not women. We are not human. We are her servants. We are meat machines. And if we are but machines made of meat, we may partake of other machines whose meat is no longer of use to them."
And to show the truth of his words, Rodrigo Lujan picked up the severed arm that had only minutes before belonged to a comely Maya maiden and took a ferocious bite out of her warm bicep with his strong white Zapotec teeth.
Chapter 15
Remo made good time rolling down Highway 195 in Chiapas State until he ran into a Mexican federal army patrol.
"Uh-oh," he muttered as the patrol rounded a bend in the road.
Beside him the Master of Sinanju said, "Pretend we are innocent of any suspicion. They will not see us."
Eyeing Chiun's emerald-and-ocher kimono, Remo said, "I have a better idea."
He floored the Humvee. It surged ahead.
The oncoming armored column consisted of a toylike LAV followed by two light tanks. It slithered up the winding, mountainous road.
"We can outrun these guys," Remo said confidently.
As he accelerated, the Master of Sinanju reached out to hold on to the swaying machine. His balance was perfect. He could have remained comfortably seated through an ordinary turn. But the Master of Sinanju was familiar with his pupil's driving. He knew what was coming and didn't care to be flung from the vehicle.
Remo took the corner on two wheels. The narrowness of the road made that mandatory. Jerking the wheel hard to the right, he brought the wide Humvee all the way up on its right tires.
It was an impossible maneuver. Low-slung vehicles can't run up on two wheels unless they are out of control.
In a sense, Remo had thrown the heavy machine out of control. It would have crashed. No question of that. But Remo was master of his own body and balance, and as long as he could control that, he could control the hurtling juggernaut that was the Humvee.
At the apex of the turn, the Humvee was canted at an extreme perpendicular, running on rims of rubber. Chiun turtled his head between his thin-boned shoulders to protect it.
"Okay now," Remo said tightly.
In unison, they shifted left. The Humvee wobbled on its spinning tires, then like a gyroscopically controlled toy began righting itself in a smooth descent that looked like gravity taking hold but was really Sinanju.
When the left-side tires touched asphalt, Remo let the vehicle freewheel a hundred yards, then floored it again.
Behind them the armored column was laboriously turning around.
"They will never catch up to us," Chiun said with satisfaction.
"Not in a million years," Remo agreed.
A whistling came from behind, arced over their heads and landed with a bang that threw up dirt and clods of red soil.
They heard the cannon detonation somewhere in the middle of the whistle.
"They are shooting at us," Chiun remarked.
"Are they crazy? They don't know who we are. We could be on their side, or anyone."
"Yes, anyone driving a pilfered army jeep."
"They call them Humvees now."
"They are trying to stop their Humvee with whistles," said Chiun as another shell screamed over their heads. This one slammed into the road before them. It erupted in a shower of dirt and asphalt chunks.
Remo eased to a halt. Looking back over his shoulder, he threw the Humvee into reverse and stepped on the gas.
The machine responded, barreling back up the road and into the teeth of a tank gun.
"Why are you driving the wrong way?" Chiun asked without evident concern in his voice or face.
"Because I'm hungry, aggravated and most of all pissed off."
"And because of these temporary inconveniences, you have decided to commit suicide and are taking me with you?"
"I left out one thing."
"And what is that?"