"I'll take that over Fu Manchu fingernails any day."
"The day will come when the lack of talons will be your undoing."
"Not as long as I have you by my side, Little Father."
"That day, too, is coming," Chiun said aridly.
Remo said nothing. It was the truth. Nobody lived forever. Not even a Master of Sinanju.
Chapter 16
The president of the United States of Mexico had never seen such times. He had never heard of such times. His beloved Mexico had suffered much in times past. She had suffered incredibly. Sometimes, during the centuries since the conquest, it seemed that she was cursed to endure endless cycles of hope and desperation, desperation and hope. Every time the golden sun came within reach, she was cast down into perdition. Each time she had sunk into the lowermost depths of Hades, a ray of light would filter down to stir that cruel demon hope once again.
The straining toward the sun would resume, and so would the casting down into torment.
It was muy Mexican. It was quintessentially Mexican.
The president of Mexico knew that condundrum now. He felt it keenly as he paced his ruined office in the National Palace, fielding the frantic telephone calls as he saw through the shattered windows the city that was his capital lying in ruins under an ashy shroud.
It was a gray city now. Its whiteness was all gone. It was like the end of the world. Pompeii must have resembled this landscape. But Pompeii had never suffered so before being extinguished.
Mexico City suffered interminably, and the boon of extinction refused to come over it.
The initial earthquake had been the worst ever. Aftershocks ran as high as 6.9 on the Richter scale. This number was repeated over and over into his numbed ears. No one could say what that meant. Damage was extensive. Many of the same buildings that had been weakened in the 1985 convulsion were crushed once more. The dead were beyond counting.
Then after the earth had settled down, Popocatepetl had erupted in warning, and the earth shook anew.
Buildings that tottered precariously had fallen into rubble. The survivors, trapped but awaiting rescue, had been snuffed of all life. Fires not yet banked had roared anew.
Then came the ash.
Mercifully it had cooled somewhat while descending. It burned hair and blistered flesh, but did not consume. There were scattered fires as a result. But people could breathe the brown air if they held wet cloths to their faces. They could see if they blinked often enough.
The shroud of gray covered everyone and everything.
There was no escaping it for long because the aftershocks resumed soon after. People who had fled into their homes seeking shelter soon flowed back into the streets to brave the ashen rain rather than be crushed by stone and concrete and stucco.
And the fear that clutched at every heart took the form of an unanswerable question: Will Mount Popo truly erupt this time, raining lava and fire and meteors of death?
Meanwhile, the direct-line telephone to the National Center for the Prevention of Disaster kept ringing.
"Excellency, we have no power in San Angel."
"Excellency, there are looters in the Zona Rosa."
"Excellency, what do we do?"
To each of these pleas the president of Mexico could only offer soothing words of encouragement while inwardly cursing the cruel fate that had granted him the ultimate political power he had sought all of his adult life, only to precipitate the avalanches of NAFTA, devaluation, inflation, unemployment, rebellion and now earthquake upon his insufficient shoulders. It was more than his predecessor could have imagined. If only, he reflected, these things had transpired on the watch of the Bald One, now enjoying a comfortable but undeserved exile in the United States.
Then came a call that seemed to be delirium given voice.
"Excellency, this is General Alacran."
"Yes, General."
"Yes, it walks again."
"What is this?"
"The stone statue. From the museum. You will recall the rumors of her previous escape."
The president did. Vaguely. There had been whispers that the great idol had disappeared from the Museum of Anthropology only to be found at Teotihuacan some time later, broken and shattered. It had been a national treasure in a nation in which the dominant culture and the subservient culture had been smelted together in a kind of schizophrenic amalgam.
"The city lies is ruins and you talk to me of statuary? We will find it later-if there is a later."
"She is not missing, Excellency. For I have found her."
"Then what is the problem, Alacran?"
"She is on the Pan American Highway. She is walking. She is leading a veritable army of indios. They walk half-naked and singing, casting their crucifixes under the feet of the idol."
"The stone statue walks like a man?"
"No, Excellency. Like a god. It is like nothing you can imagine. If my sainted mother, who was Aztec, could see it now, she would swear that the old gods of Teotihuacan had returned to this land."
"You are drunk!" the president accused. "Are you drunk?"
"Before God, I am not drunk. I have film. Cameras do not hallucinate."
"If the earthquake has liberated the old gods, then that is beyond the scope of my duties. I preside over a nation of men and must see to their mortal needs. I will view this film another time. Thank you for your report."
"There is more, Excellency."
"Speak. I listen."
"I ordered rocket attacks against this walking Coatlicue."
"Why?"
"Because I do not believe in the gods of old Mexico. Thus, I surmised it was something to be suppressed."
"Pray continue."
"The antitank rockets failed. The machine guns were to no avail, either."
"How can this be?"