Unite and Conquer

After the Extinguisher kills former Stomique warlord Mahout Feroze Anin, he approaches UN Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat seeking a paid operational role. A 1996 earthquake and volcanic eruption give insurgent Alirio Antonio Arcila an opening: Arcila fabricated the Subcomandante Verapaz persona and lets his followers identify him with Kukulcan. Harold W. Smith sends Remo and Chiun to stop the rebellion while Mexico’s unnamed President faces the crisis. Museum curator Rodrigo Lujan follows an animated Coatlicue statue; the story identifies it as a survival android with a damaged assimilation program that takes in people and material. Lujan organizes followers around the statue as it advances into Oaxaca.

Federal forces attack and retreat; Arcila redirects a rebel advance toward the statue, while Lujan’s adherents feed its growing mass. The Extinguisher is mistaken for Verapaz, captured, and nearly executed before a masked Juarezista frees him. He is later identified as Winston Smith, an AWOL former Navy SEAL who claims a provisional UN assignment to kill Verapaz. He meets Assumpta Kaax, a Juarezista from Escuintla; she guides him toward Verapaz, and the two become emotionally involved. Primitivo captures Assumpta and attacks villagers before Remo stops him and unmasks Winston. Remo and Chiun suspect a paternity connection, but the source leaves it as rumor without DNA confirmation.

Arcila and his followers reach Oaxaca after Coatlicue has occupied the city. Lightning repeatedly immobilizes the android, but it resumes moving after a priest’s cross is absorbed. At the Tree of Tule, a root attacks Arcila and forces a cold metallic object into his throat, leaving him brain-dead; the exact transfer path is not narrated. The apparent Verapaz later turns out to be Gordons inhabiting Verapaz’s body. Remo exposes Gordons’s central processor from the torso; Chiun slices and crushes it, and Remo drops the remains into Popocatepetl’s lava. During a helicopter struggle, Winston fires his Hellfire while the gun is diverted toward Assumpta; the shot kills her.

Remo later pulls Winston away from Gordons, but the text does not explicitly identify who first redirected the weapon. Remo disposes of Assumpta’s remains in the crater. The survivors fly to the Sun On Jo Reservation, where Remo introduces Winston as his son but says there is no DNA match and that they rely on rumor. Bill Roam, known as Sunny Joe and described as the tribe’s protector, agrees to take Winston in. Winston chooses “Winner” and leaves Smith as an unconfirmed former name.