At that, the face of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza broke into a broad smile. It was a benevolent, almost angelic smile. His large teeth glowed like luminous pearls.
And then it hit Remo. Suddenly. The man had smiled just moments before, but quietly. Still, the way his mouth muscles had quirked tripped a dormant memory.
Now, with the radiance of that hauntingly familiar smile washing over him, Remo knew where he had seen it before. In the Florida Everglades. On an entirely different face. Not the smooth brown face of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, but the ugly, reptilian, acne-cratered face of General Emmanuel Alejandro Nogeira.
As this was just sinking in, Esperanza and Chiun turned to go.
"Chiun, wait," Remo called.
The Master of Sinanju paused. "What is it?"
"I gotta speak to you." Remo eyed Esperanza. "Alone."
Chiun touched his wispy beard thoughtfully. "I have no secrets from my patron. Speak freely, Remo."
"Never mind," Remo said unhappily. "It can wait."
Chiun frowned. Esperanza's face was placid.
"Then let us go," he said.
They left. At the open door, Remo watched them start up to the big hacienda-style mansion.
Esperanza was saying, "I am certain we can concoct for your friend a suitable potion. I will call my servant. He will not mind a small interruption of his vacation."
"My friend will only need a weak dosage," Chiun put in. "His attractive powers are quite strong, it is just that the woman in question is very stubborn of will."
"Damn," Remo said after they'd disappeared into the house. "This can't be happening. I gotta call Smith."
He went in search of a phone. There was one on the kitchen wall. But when he picked it up, the line was dead.
Remo went through the house. He found no other phones. The smell of Oreo cookies was strong. It seemed to be coming, not from within the house, but through an open kitchen window.
Remo stepped out into the night. Yes, the smell was stronger out here. It was a hot smell. It overwhelmed the grape scent that made the air so heavy. The smell was cloying but unmistakable.
Moving stealthily, Remo followed it.
It was coming from some kind of long, low outbuilding on the opposite slope of the hill. A thin pipe of a smoke stack gave off the fresh hot smell.
There were no windows, so Remo simply went in the door.
A blast of hot air hit him in the face. It was thick with different smells-cooking chocolate, and other, more chemical odors.
No one noticed him enter, so Remo closed the door behind him and went to a pile of machinery. He crouched down, so he could see what was going on.
The place looked like a sweat shop. Hispanic workers toiled in the heat. One end was devoted to a number of brick ovens and other food-processing equipment.
Black chocolate wafers came rolling out of the open ovens, hot and malleable. They were stamped on one side by hand and flipped over like silver-dollar pancakes.
Remo saw what the stamping did to the wafers, and wondered why anyone would be counterfeiting Oreo cookies.
Nearby, giant vats bubbled with white matter. Over these, glassine packets were broken and their powdery contents shaken in.
Remo's nostrils detected their scent. The stuff looked like sugar, but it didn't smell like sugar.
"Coke," Remo said under his breath.
The white stuff was ladled off onto rows of black wafers set on long tables, making small, steaming mounds. Busy hands slapped identical wafers on top, and the finished cookies were set aside to cool before being packaged.
In one corner, there were boxes and boxes of Oreo cookies. Someone was opening them, tossing out the cookies, and replacing them with the counterfeit versions.
It's starting to make sense now, Remo decided. Cashman's addiction. The fervor with which the crowds cheer Esperanza's speeches as they munch on their give-aways. Everything.
Remo moved to the opposite end of the building. A different operation was under way there. Grim workers were doctoring long punch cards. They were adding extra punch holes.
Remo recognized them as voting cards. He wasn't sure how it worked, but he knew that every card was being fixed so that it registered a vote for Enrique Espiritu Esperanza when the voting lever was pulled.
He decided he had seen enough. Remo was on his way to the door when he spotted a cellular telephone lying on a work bench.
Unfortunately, the bench was almost completely surrounded by workers.
Remo decided it was worth any price to get that phone, so he simply straightened up and walked boldly toward it.
A sweaty-faced man shouted at him in Spanish.
Casually, Remo said, "No problem. Ricky sent me."
"Que?"
"Enrique," Remo repeated. "Carry on."
A varied collection of pistols and automatic weapons came out from under places of concealment as Remo laid a hand on the cellular telephone.
Remo smiled. No one smiled back. With his thumb, he activated the telephone and held down the one key.
In a moment, Harold Smith's tight voice was saying, "Remo! Thank God you called."
The voice spooked someone, because Smith's voice was suddenly drowned by a short burst of gunfire.
Remo twisted out of the way. He needn't have bothered. The bullets peppered the ceiling, making a hollow drumming sound.
Holding on to the phone, Remo faded back through the door, not bothering to open it. He simply bulled through.
On his way out, he batted the door back. It took its own frame back with it and slammed into three pursuing men.
Remo raced toward the mansion, the phone up to his face. He was shouting into the receiver.
"Smitty. You copy?"
"Remo, I hear shooting," came the anxious voice of Harold W. Smith. He burped.
"I'm at Esperanza's vineyard. Guess what? Esperanza isn't Esperanza. He's-"
"General Emmanuel Nogeira," said Smith bitterly.
"Huh? How'd you know that?"
"Fingerprints off the Everglade's body. They belonged to the true Esperanza."
"They must have kidnapped him and pulled the switch during the Baptism," Remo growled. "And I didn't see it because I was too busy ducking cameras. But can we prove it?"
A bullet track snarled over Remo's head. He cut off to one side and kept zigzagging. Up ahead, lights were going on all over the mansion.
"The real Nogeira has five general's stars tattooed on each shoulder," Smith shouted.
"Tattooed?"
"He took his rank very seriously," said Smith.
"Yeah, well his smile gave him away to me," Remo said.
"His smile?"
"Later," Remo said. "I just stumbled upon an Oreo counterfeiting plant, and they're doctoring voter registration cards."
"Why would they counterfeit Oreos?" Smith shouted over the growing din.
"They're loaded with coke!" Remo shouted back. "Instant voter support. Nogeira was turning California into a land of cokeheads," Remo added.
"My God! It's Bananama all over again."
"Skip the anguish," Remo said quickly. "The bad guys are hot on my heels, and Chiun's up ahead with Nogeira. He doesn't suspect a thing. What do I do?"
"Nogeira must be eliminated. We have no choice."
"But Chiun'll kill me," Remo protested. "He thinks Cheeta Ching is going to give birth to the next heir to the House, and now this."
"Remo, we can deal with Chiun later. You have your orders."
Up ahead a door opened, and from out of the house a contingent of Crips, Bloods, and Los Aranas Espana poured out. They had weapons in their hands and Oreo cookies in their mouths, and their eyes were filled with a crazy light.
"Nobody better shoot!" Remo warned them.
"Our man Esperanza says we gotta!" spat back a familiar voice. Dexter Dogget's.
And behind him, Remo heard the shout, "Viva Esperanza!"
It was his pursuers. Probably Colombians or Bananamanians. Maybe both.