The Color of Fear

"You Americans?" he asked.

"That's us. You the Beasley guy?"

"That's me."

"You're coming with us," said Remo.

"What about the you-know-what?"

Remo blinked. "We don't know what."

"The cybernetic hypercolor eximer laser eyeball."

Remo blinked. "Say that again in English? My French is real rusty."

"That was English. I'm talking about the eyeball the Beasley boys had me make. It was for some radioanimatronic project."

"It was for Sam Beasley," said Remo.

"Yeah. That's who I work for."

"No, I mean it was for Uncle Sam Beasley himself."

The tanned face looked doubtful. "But he's dead."

"I wish," said Remo as the Master of Sinanju pulled the prisoner from the cell by the front of his peach jumpsuit.

"Your name?" Remo asked.

"Rod Cheatwood."

"Make you a deal-you tell us everything you know, and we'll get you back to the good old U.S.A."

"EUD," hissed Dominique. "You must say EUD while in my country. It is the law."

"Stuff it," Remo told her. To Rod, he said, "How about it?"

"Done deal."

"That was quick. Whatever happened to company loyalty?"

"Are you kidding? You think I'd stack my neck out for those ducking bastards? They mugged me the minute I walked through their front door."

"Okay, let's go," said Remo.

"I wish you would have waited another hour," Rod said as they called for the elevator.

"Why?" asked Chiun.

"They're showing the finale of 'Star Trek: the Next Generation' this afternoon."

"You can catch that anytime," said Remo.

"I keep trying to, but it never happens."

"It would only be in French," said Remo. "Only Jerry Lewis movies work in French."

"Jairy est Dieu, " sighed Dominique before being yanked bodily into the elevator.

Chapter 28

Commander Luc Crocq of the French Foreign Ugion forces surrounding Euro Beasley was confident in his men and materiel. They had encircled the park with a ring of steel. The tanks and APCs sat snout to rump and rump to snout all around the place of defilement. Commander Crocq considered it a defilement because although he had nothing against American culture in particular, he was a lifelong fan of Coulommiers cheese, which was made in this very area. That many of the farms that produced this cheese among cheeses were razed to prepare the land for the Euro Beasley park was in Commander Crocq's eyes the desecration of desecrations.

Secretly he hoped for word to roll in and raze Euro Beasley from the face of France.

But no such order had come. All was quiet since the last attempt to close the ring of steel had been met with a pinkish radiance that took the fighting piss out of his legionnaires.

There had been an altercation in which a French army helicopter had descended into the park, only to lift off again later. Nothing more was known about this operation, but Crocq suspected DGSE involvement.

All the commander understood was that he was to hold his ring of steel in place, tightly and without faltering, so that none could exit the hellish enclave of American junk culture.

He did not expect a wave of forces sneaking up from his rear to wash over his ring of steel and retake the park. The objective was not to defend Euro Beasley, Commander Crocq later pointed out to the military board of review. If they had wanted him to defend the park from external threats, as well, should that not have been included in his orders?

So pleaded Commander Crocq in vain before they court-martialed him.

There were many other reasons Commander Crocq was not responsible for what later transpired.

First there were crowds. They came by auto, by truck-even by metro line. The terminus of the A RER train line was called Parc Euro Beasley. Daytrippers who came to sample the place of cultural perfidy employed it. Although the park was under cultural quarantine, still they came to look, to gawk, perhaps to catch a glimpse of Mongo or Dingbat or one of the others who dwelled here no more.

It was a festive time, so when men dressed as soldiers of Napoleon III began to appear among the growing crowd, it was not a cause for concern, never mind interest. And since all attention was focused inward, not outward, just as his orders dictated, Commander Crocq was completely oblivious to the increasing preponderance of soldiers dressed in the fashion of a bygone century.

That is, until they attacked.

THEY CAME SCREAMING unintelligible sounds. Not curses, not imprecations, not defiance. Just sheer bloodcurdling noise.

This arrested the attention of all in the awkward moment when they came pouring over ring of steel in waves of blue and gray.

They carried no guns, no rifles, no pistols. To that, Commander Crocq swore to his dying day.

But when they poured under the ring of steel, the ring of steel lay helpless. Multiton tanks and APCs could not move as fast as a man. Not from a cold start. Not when parked snout to rump and vice versa.

"Defend your positions!" Commander Crocq cried. Too late. Their position had already been overrun. Soldiers of the past, including fez-hatted Zouaves not seen since the 1800s, poured into the gates of Euro Beasley.

"Fire at will!" Commander Crocq sputtered when he realized his line had been breached before he could respond to the insult.

That was when the horrible event transpired.

His men were chambering their weapons. Not a shot had been fired. Not by either side. That was the remarkable thing, the terrible thing.

The infiltrators turned, dropped into crouches and pulled masks of lead over their eyes. The peculiar quality to these masks was that they bore no eyeholes. The infiltrators were digging into defensive positions utterly blind.

Then they unleashed the terrible power of what looked from the near distance like universal remote controls.

There came flashes, pulses, strong lights. All hues and colors imaginable were represented. The lights bombarded Commander Crocq and his unflinching Foreign Legionnares like a light show with the kicking power of a thousand mules.

Some men ran for their lives, unhurt. Others lost their nerve and their consumed rations before succumbing to vivid green flashes. Still others, subjected to red, became beside themselves with anger, which they took out on their comrades-in-arms.

It was a horrible, unearthly thing. The ring of steel held strong, but the men manning it collapsed like paper dolls before a firestorm. A firestorm of rainbow colors.

For his part Commander Crocq, who sat high in the turret hatch of his tank, ducked down and pulled the hatch after him. He would later protest this was not an act of cowardice, but the reasonable response of a commander who needed to preserve his wits in order to marshal his forces.

For all the good it did him, Commander Crocq might as well have taken his medicine like a soldier of France.

The awful lights penetrated the tank's thick plate armor, showing the utter futility of France's engines of war before new technologies.

He received a simultaneous burst of pink and yellow.

Commander Crocq leaped from his tank and ran off into the scattering crowds of onlookers. He was very, very frightened by the yellow light that seemed to have deep-fried his brain in sizzling butter.

But under that mindless fear lay a peaceful feeling that all would be right once he got far away enough. It was a very peaceful feeling. And somehow it was pink.

MARC MOISE SAW the French defenders fall back in confusion and a wide spectrum of emotions. A few, pinked, actually came toward them. They were hued by cavalry who had control of the yellow universal units or by artillery, which had red.

They fell back, fighting among themselves.

When the commotion had died down, Marc led his Zouaves into the Sorcerer's Chateau and down into Utilicanard, while the California Summer Vacation Musketeers and the Florida Sunshine Guerrillas stood picketed at all approach roads.

The smell in Utilicanard was very ripe. Marc had to pink himself just to keep going. The Zouaves took it in stride. They had come for a fight, fresh from their triumph at the Third Battle of the Crater.

When Marc got to the main control room he found drying vomit and smashed hypercolor controls. Frowning, he got on the satellite phone and reported to the first person who answered.

"Cheatwood is gone. And someone smashed the controls."

"Any idea what happened?" a gruff, frosty voice demanded.

"No. But there's vomit. Could he have greened himself?"

"Not in his own control room. Check the video logs."

Marc replayed the tapes until he saw Rod Cheatwood succumb to his own video screen. The flash of green in the tape was enough to make Marc feel a little queasy, but he held down the food he'd last eaten. It wasn't hard. Although train fare, it was French.

"Looks like the French acquired the technology," he reported.

"Was it a woman?"

"Yeah, looks like."

"Damn her eyes. She must have figured out how to make the orb operate. Okay, hold the fort. We're coming in."

"Sir?" said Marc. But the line was already dead.

So Marc Moise sat down in the chair before the main viewer, trying to reconcile the crusty voice that had spoken to him with the childhood memory of Uncle Sam Beasley.

Uncle Sam was coming here. But why? That hadn't been in Marc's premission briefing.

FRENCH MINISTER of Culture Maurice Tourette was the first to hear of the rout at Euro Beasley.

"Who?" he sputtered. "Who is responsible for this outrage?"

"According to reports," the informant told him, "the attackers were dressed after the style of Napoleon III."

"Napoleon III?" Tourette chewed the leathery inside of his cheek as he processed that bit of intelligence. This was absurd; therefore it could not be. But it was. Therefore, it was an American absurdity. And checking the latest Le Monde, he saw the photographs of what the French press were calling l'affaire Crater.

The soldiers had come from America, he concluded. They had come to further insult the French Republic. And for that they would pay.

Picking up the telephone, he put in a call to the general of the air army.

"Mon General, I have distressing news. But if you act in a timely manner, all might be saved. The cultural Chernobyl has been retaken. Perhaps this matter can be settled once and for all by turning it into a true Chernobyl. Do you, by chance, have any nuclear weapons at your disposal? Ah, you do. Very good. Now listen..."

THE HELICOPTER was jet black and skimmed low over the outlying farms and hills of Averoigne before settling into Euro Beasley.

Marc Moise watched it by manipulating the surveillance cameras. When the craft had settled, he was not surprisedbut still it was a shock-to see Bob Beasley step out of the helicopter, look around and help Uncle Sam Beasley from his conveyance.

Uncle Sam Beasley wore a white uniform with gold trim and shaking gold-braid epaulets that made Marc Moise think of an Italian admiral of the fleet. Clumping along on his silver peg leg, he returned every salute thrown at him by the other regiments whose forage caps were decorated by black felt mouse ears.

It was a ridiculous sight, but it filled Marc Moise with foreboding.

At least, he saw, Uncle Sam wore a white eye-patch over the place where his left eye should be. Marc didn't think he could stare into that strobing steel organ ever again ....

WHEN DGSE DIRECTOR Remy Renard heard the door to the security room open even though he had buzzed no one in, he whirled around anxiously.

The door came bouncing in, its plate-glass window fracturing merrily.

Dominique Parillaud was thrust in along with the captive Beasley operative, Cheatwood.

After them came two of the strangest individuals ever to intrude upon DGSE preserves. One, American and therefore a bit of an oaf, and the other very old and very Oriental.

"He has come for the satellite," Dominique cried.

"Yeah, I've come for the satellite," said the white oaf. "Where is it?"

"You will never wrest it from us," Remy Renard said, placing his body between the interloper and the great vault door.

The white American approached the door, after first picking Remy up by squeezing his elbows to his- hips and setting him off to one side like a coatrack.

Remy swallowed hard to keep down the ugly feeling in his stomach. He had never felt more helpless than at that moment. It was as if he were nothing to this man.

"That vault is eight inches thick," he sputtered. "The combination is known to but two men in this building and it requires two to open it. I am the only one with the combination here."

"It is thick," admitted the oafish American, scrutinizing the door with a perplexed expression.

"Then you realize the futility of even attempting to breach the vault door?"

"Yeah, it's too much for me," he agreed. "Wait here, Little Father." And he exited the room.

Remy Renard strove to relax. If he could just get through the coming moments, all would be well. Reinforcements would soon arrive. And there was no way these men could leave the building. Not unarmed as they so obviously were.

From down the hall came an awful cacophony of sounds. A punch press might have started the racket, but then a jackhammer sound blenders in. Plaster groaned and lath screamed protestations. A metallic lamentation followed-awful, tortured, indescribable.

Then came a rattling series of sounds that, if Remy Renard had not known better, he would have vowed could only have been coming from inside the impregnable vault. But the vault was soundproofed to noise, and the great door, the only way in, was firmly sealed.

When it all ended, the white American appeared in the door, spanking plaster dust off his lean, bare forearms.

When he was done, he opened his right palm for all to see, and the supreme idiot said, "I couldn't find any satellite, but I did find this."

And Remy Renard could not contain his gasp of astonishment.

The American was holding the orb of many potent colors.

"C'est impossible!" Remy gasped.

"C'est la biz, cheri, " the idiot said, grinning.

"We are going now," the ancient Asian told him coldly. "But I leave you with your life and this warning, which may be more valuable than your life."

"What could be more valuable that my life?" Remy blurted.

"The knowledge that the Master of Sinanju works for the Eagle Throne of America and will treat any further aggravation harshly."

Remy Renard was strong of heart and spine. But he felt the blood drain from his sturdy legs and he realized the truth of the old Korean's warning.

For although Remy Renard was prepared to lose his life for France, he wasn't prepared to lose France herself.

And that was the gist of the Master of Sinanju's warning, which hung in the dusty air of the vault room long after the Master of Sinanju and his train had departed.

When he heard no sounds of shooting or commotion, Remy Renard knew it was safe to step out of the stagnant puddle of his own urine.

He immediately got on the telephone to the president of France. This was a far graver matter than defending French culture. National survival was at stake. The minister of culture could be of no value in such a war.

Chapter 29

Outside DGSE HQ, Dominique Parillaud said, "You will never escape France."

"Don't say that," Remo said fervently. "I have to find a father I don't even know."

"I am serious. You will be shot."

"Beats being stuck here," said Remo, looking around for the cab. It was no longer in sight. He turned to Dominique. "Parked around here?"

"I will nevair reveal where."

"Never?"

"Nevair!"

Then a hand Dominique never saw drifted up to tweak one earlobe.

Dominique screamed. She thought she screamed so loudly that half of Paris must have heard her. But when she paused for breath, she realized she was emitting no noise, only pain. And when she realized that, she began nodding frantically, hoping that the unseen power that had inflicted such exquisite agony would release her.

"I think she's changed her mind, Little Father," said Remo to the unseen force.

Then the pain withdrew.

Clapping a hand over her throbbing earlobe, Dominique whirled to confront the force.

She caught a glimpse of the Master of Sinanju's long fingernails as his hands sought the black velvet tunnels of his closing kimono sleeves and understood.

"Now you know how it feels," Rod Cheatwood told her tauntingly.

"I am parked in ze garage," she admitted.

They walked down the street where she was pointing and came to the main garage door. It was closed, but there was a foot-wide space beside the door, completely unguarded and large enough to admit a thin person.

"Wait here," said Remo to Chiun, and guided Dominique into the garage.

Not a minute later the door rolled aside, and they came out in a diamond blue Citroen, stopped, and the car doors opened for the Master of Sinanju and Rod Cheatwood.

"Dominique agreed to drive us to the airport," said Remo.

"I 'ave no choice," Dominique said in a pouting voice.

"We take our agreements any way we can."

"I am confident we will nevair get to ze airport," Dominique said, slipping into traffic. She took her foot off the gas momentarily and touched a floor button that cut in the hidden microphones that would broadcast their conversation back to DGSE HQ. "We will be intercepted."

"We don't intercept easily," Remo said airily.

"I am certain ze airport will be surrounded by tanks and other vehicles. And soldiers."

"Won't be the first time," said Remo, noticing through the window that they were taking down a street sign that said Rue Edgar Allan Poe and replacing it with one which that said, Rue Auseuil.

The wail of French police sirens came all at once. It seemed to be all around them.

"Voila!" Dominique cried triumphantly. "Just as I 'ave told you. It is time you ended zis charade."

Remo took a sudden left up a street that was posted with a short white bar in a red circle.

"You idiot! That sign meant no entry."

"Sue me. I can't read French."

"That was not French. It was a sign. It is iconography."

"Can't read that, either," said Remo, leaning on the rude horn so the oncoming cars knew enough to get out of the way.

They emerged on a busy street and practically into a converging swarm of red-striped white police Renaults whose blue bubble-top lights flashed angrily.

"We're screwed!" Rod Cheatwood moaned.

Remo tapped the brake, sent the wheel turning right, then left, then right again. The car, responding, performed a seemingly impossible maneuver that caused it to spin in place.

Suddenly it was facing the other way and rocketing forward.

A long line of police cars was coming the other way. Remo warned, "Hang on," and prepared to hang a U-turn designed to bring the two converging groups of vehicles at one another.

But the approaching police cars suddenly turned off the boulevard and disappeared from sight.

Remo drove past, saying, "What was that all about?"

In the rearview mirror the pursuing cars also turned up that road. It was marked A4.

"Where does that road go?" Remo asked.

"It goes," Dominique said thinly, "to ze eastern suburbs."

"Euro Beasley lies that way, doesn't it?"

"It does," said Dominique.

"It was pretty quiet when we left it," Remo said.

A line of military helicopters skimming the low skyline also broke eastward.

"Something's up out there. Something big."

Remo turned on the dash radio.

He immediately got an excited crackle of French that didn't sound like a disk jockey speaking.

"What's he saying?" said Remo.

Dominique listened intently. Her face began to come apart like a house of cards.

From the rear Chiun spoke up. "He is saying that reactionaries have attacked Euro Beasley."

"Whose reactionaries?"

"The American reactionaries who fomented civil war."

"Reactionaries! You don't mean reenactors, do you?"

"It is possible I meant that."

"What the hell are Civil War reenactors doing attacking Euro Beasley?" shouted Remo.

When no one offered a ready answer, he pulled over to a pay phone and called America.

"Smitty, Remo. We got the Beasley guy, but something's up."

"I am receiving sketchy reports of soldiers dressed in the uniforms of the old French Second Empire Army breaching the quarantine line surrounding Euro Beasley. What can you add?"

"Try Civil War reenactors."

"What!"

"That's what the French radio is reporting."

"It all fits," Smith said in a dull, barely comprehending voice.

"Not to me," said Remo.

"No, I mean the Beasley employees-transportation charges. They entered France via the Chunnel."

"So what's their game? There's already a Beasley park over here."

"Remo, my reports are the French forces were routed by very strong colored lights."

"We wrecked those controls before we left."

"I wrecked them," Chiun called from the car.

"The reenactors were obviously carrying their own devices," Smith said briskly. "Remo, this has gone too far. The Beasley Corporation is controlling those Civil War units. I have no doubt of that. And what they have done is nothing less than an act of war."

"Okay, but that's between Beasley and France, right?"

"I do not think that distinction can be made here. In the eyes of much of the world, the Beasley Corporation is America."

"Every time that idiot Beasley launches a plan, he ends up dragging us to a hot war somewhere," Remo said bitterly.

"Remo, if you have to kill every Civil War reenactor at Euro Beasley, you will do this. Do you understand?"

Remo hesitated.

"Remo," Smith said, his voice like flint. "We cannot have a war with France over an entertainment company's mindless plans for global expansion. I want you to break their backs to the last man."

"All right."

"And if Uncle Sam Beasley is anywhere in that place, you will render him completely and totally immobile. Do you understand?"

"You want me to kill him."

"I want him destroyed to the last atom."

"Got it," said Remo, hanging up. He walked back to the car with his eyes strange, and when he got behind the wheel, his voice was thick.

"We've got our marching orders," he said, pulling away.

"Yes?" said Chiun.

"Waste the reenactors."

"Then we will waste the reenactors. "

"And kill Uncle Sam Beasley forever," Remo added.

"That will be your task."

"Why me?"

"Because you are afraid to do this, and you can only conquer that fear by doing the very thing that you dread."

And as they drove toward Euro Beasley, Remo knew that was exactly what be was going to have to do.

He just wondered if he could do it. Years ago he had been one of Uncle Sam's biggest fans.

TASK FORCE GROUP LEER Marc Moise moved among his Zouaves.

It was the beginning of the second hour of the retaking of Euro Beasley, and now that the French soldiers and the crowd had been scattered, they seized the ring of tanks and APCs that surrounded the park. In effect, they were expanding their sphere of control.

The tank-mounted howitzer and machine-gun barrels that had been pointing inward were rotated outward, covering all roads with overlapping fields of fire.

No one could approach without coming under annihilating fire. And if by chance a few did, his Zouaves would meet them with an irresistible rainbow of steel.

There was just one problem with all this. It was expressed to him in the form of a question as he moved among his charges.

"Do we wear our lead masks up on our foreheads or in front of our eyes?"

"Up on your foreheads, of course."

"And if we are attacked and must resort to showing our true colors?"

"Down before your eyes, of course."

The word was passed up and down the line. If attacked, the eye shields were to be worn on the forehead while defending with howitzer and machine gun. And if forced to pull back, the masks belonged in front of the eyes.

Marc Moise checked with every third man to be certain they understood their instructions. But in his heart he wondered about their willingness to kill. They were, after all, only Creole reenactors who had sided with the California Summer Vacation Musketeers back in Virginia because they had been offered reenactment jobs at Beasley U.S.A. Having closed ranks with the Corporation against the protesters, they had been hired on the spot.

And as they hung off the French military equipment-the first line of defense against attack-their fezzes askew, their manner excited, they looked for all the world like cannon fodder.

When the attack came, it arrived in a solitary diamond blue Citroen that coasted to a stop well short of the tank that squatted before the colorful entrance to Euro Beasley.

The doors popped open and four people got out.

They started toward the tank. They walked calmly and without fear. Except maybe for a blond guy who took up the rear. His knees were definitely knocking.

"GOD, IF THEY HUE us I hope they don't use Supergreen," said Rod Cheatwood in a nervous voice.

"Me, too," said Remo.

"Yellow, I think I could stand."

"Perhaps they will use pink," said the Master of Sinanju.

"I'd enjoy that," said Remo.

"Me, too," said Rod.

"You are all insane." Dominique Parillaud spit. "Zey 'ave machine guns and howitzers. Zey will annihilate us."

"I'd rather be annihilated than greened," said Remo.

"Or yellowed," said Chiun.

Dominique rolled her eyes. "I am not afraid of their gauche color. Only of French bullets."

"Bullets, we have covered," said Remo in a casually fearless tone.

They continued walking. Machine-gun barrels lined up on them, and excited words were shouted down.

"What're they saying?" asked Remo.

"I 'ave no idea," Dominique admitted. "It sounds like French, but no French zat I have ever heard before." She gasped. "Mon Dieu! I think zey speak franglais!"

No one fired, so they kept walking.

"No use to close our eyes," said Remo.

"How will closing your eyes protect you from bullets?" asked Dominique.

"I don't mean bullets. I mean the color stuff."

"Hypercolor," said Rod. "Too bad we don't have any lead masks," he added worriedly.

"Why do you say that?" asked Chiun.

"Lead is the only thing saturated color can't penetrate. It's too dense. When I used to work on the first hypercolor lasers, I'd wear a lead mask without any eyeholes to keep from getting hued."

" 'Hued'?"

"That's the technical term for it. Invented it myself."

"Little Father, do you see what I see up ahead?"

"I see clown soldiers wearing lead masks under their red fezzes."

"If we can get one or two of them, we're all set."

"If you wear masks without eyes, how can you fight?" demanded Dominique.

"We don't need eyes to fight with," said Remo.

"Yes," added Chiun. "We fight with our hands and our feet, not our eyes."

"You can be our eyes," said Rod.

"I will be no one's eyes," Dominique swore.

And suddenly, several 35- and 50-caliber machine guns pivoted in their direction, tipped downward, lining them up for slaughter.

Dominique Parillaud stopped dead in her tracks. Rod bumped into her and bounced back. Before the fear could overtake her, the two American agents surged forward.

They started walking calmly forward. Suddenly they shot ahead, leaping onto the main tank and breaking the machine guns with short, hard chops that looked ineffectual but caused steel gun barrels to snap and roll clanking off the armored side of the tank.

The Zouaves, seeing this, began recoiling in surprise and dug into their colorful sashes for black objects that looked to Dominique's eyes like TV remote-control clickers.

Before their weapons cleared, hands reached out to relieve them of their masks, which they were trying to simultaneously pull down over their eyes.

MARL MOISE WAS STANDING not six yards away when the strange pair appeared atop the main blocking tank. The way they broke the machine guns was awful to behold.

But the way they avoided being hued was incredible.

His Zouaves followed orders exactly. At the first sign of trouble, they simultaneously reached up for their lead masks and into their sashes for their clippedon hypercolor lasers.

They got the weapons out in time to fire short bursts of pacifying pink.

The trouble was the Zouaves were quicker on the trigger than they were on the masks. Or perhaps it wasn't their fault, after all.

Zouave hands that reached up to their foreheads encountered only warm flesh, not cold lead shields.

When their first pink bursts came, the lead masks were firmly in place-over the eyes of the attackers.

The Zouaves reacted to the pink flashes in an entirely unexpected manner, although Marc understood it after the third burst.

Smiling, they brought their lasers up to their expectant faces, pinking themselves happily.

" Let de good times roll!" they murmured in Creole.

The pink reached Marc's brain through his open eyes-he had been so stunned by what he had witnessed that he had forgotten to yank down his own lead mask-relaxing him instantly.

Marc unclipped his laser, dialed up pink and hued himself in quarter-second bursts.

When the strange pair ran past him, he didn't care anymore. And why should he? He had been offered up as cannon fodder, and Sam Beasley didn't pay dick.

Chapter 30

"We have a penetration, Director."

Uncle Sam Beasley turned to face the man who had spoken. Bob Beasley sat at the grid of video screens that monitored Euro Beasley.

"Are those damn Cajuns pinking themselves?" Uncle Sam barked.

"It seems so, Director."

"Damn. They're supposed to be our trip wire. They're no good to us now. Get the Florida regiment out there."

"Yes, Director."

Uncle Sam Beasley turned his attention back to the damaged control board where a Beasley technician was laboring.

"Aren't we back on-line yet?" he asked gruffly.

"The Hotpink button is enabled."

"I need offensive colors, damn it. What if the fucking Foreign Legion come parachuting back in?"

"Hotpink had the least damage."

"When I want excuses, I'll ask a vice president. Now, get to work."

"Yes, Director."

Bob Beasley spoke up. "Director, we have intruders on Main Street, U S.A."

Uncle Sam Beasley moved to the screen in question. He saw two men walking calmly down the cobbled street, one white, the other Asian. Both wore lead masks over their eyes that didn't seem to slow them down.

"Those are the ones!" he howled.

"The ones who interfered at Third Crater?"

"Third Crater, my pink ass. They interfered at Second Bay of Pigs! Must work for the government. Order them empurpled."

"Uncle Sam-"

"Call me Director when we're on an operation."

"Director, you know how risky empurpling a subject can be. Purple combines the effects of red and blue. Anything could happen, especially with opponents as dangerous as them."

"Empurple their asses!"

"At once, Director." And snapping a switch, Bob Beasley leaned into a console mike and said, "Two intruders in Zone 12. Empurple them. Repeat, empurple them. And don't forget to mask first."

REMO WILLIAMS RAN THROUGH a world of darkness. Although his sight was blocked by a lead shield, he was not by any means blind.

His nose detected scent molecules too faint for the ordinary human nose, his hearing picked up the steady pounding of the Master of Sinanju's heartbeat and pumping lungs beside him and his bare skin received a multiplicity of sensations-nearby body heat, draft eddies and the negative pressure of large, stationary buildings.

All of which combined to make Remo a running radar dish.

A wall of heartbeats converged on the unseen road ahead of him.

"Masks down, men!" a voice shouted.

"Here we go, Little Father."

And as they raced forward, their sensitive ears detected the tiny closing clicks of relays signifying hypercolor lasers were being brought to bear upon them.

Fixing the position of the forest of heartbeats, Remo calculated angles of attack. He went for the rotator cuffs, jamming them with stiffened fingers, puncturing flesh and muscle.

Men howled and gave way. The plastic clatter of hypercolor laser units dropping to the cobbles came distinctly. Remo and Chiun crushed them underfoot wherever they could.

The first wave of attackers fell back.

"THE FLORIDA SUNSHINE Guerrillas have been thrown back, Director," Bob Beasley shouted.

"Those pansies!" Uncle Sam Beasley scowled. "What's wrong with them?"

"Well, they are blind."

"So are those two pains-in-the-rear!"

"Being blind doesn't seem to bother them."

"Look at them turn tail like scared little mice. I expect more from my employees."

"They were complaining about the pay a while back."

"Don't they know they work for Sam Beasley, the greatest private company ever to export good old American fun?"

"We pound it into them at the monthly pep drills, but I don't think it motivates them as much as better wages would."

"Greedy bastards. Okay, turn out my elite musketeers."

"Director, as long as those two have their eyes shielded, we can't stop them with extraordinary means."

"Then shoot them!"

"We didn't bring any guns. Couldn't risk them not getting through French customs."

Uncle Sam Beasley stared up at the screen and saw the two people he most hated in the world approach the Sorcerer's Chateau, blind yet unchallenged and seemingly unstoppable. His exposed eye scrunched up like an agate in a fist.

"There's gotta be some way to kill 'em," he snarled.

"We could lead them into a trap."

"What traps do we have here?"

"Not much. All Beasley offensive capability is topside. We never planned for a Utilicanard penetration."

"Don't call it that. God, I hate these sissy French words. Where did they dredge them up?"

"Same place we did. From the Latin."

"I want solutions, you sycophant. Not language lessons."

"There is the LOX chamber."

"We have a deli down here?"

"Not that kind of LOX. Liquid Oxygen. We use it to create faux steam clouds for the Mesozoic Park volcanoes. It's nasty, subfreezing stuff. A cloud of it will cause your skin to crack off in sheets."

"Hey, I like that."

"We'll have to decoy them in."

Uncle Sam Beasley turned to address a trio of his loyal musketeers, who had entered the control room in Union blue, their mouse-eared forage caps carried respectfully in their hands.

"I need a volunteer. Hazardous duty. Who will stand up for his Uncle Sam?"

The California Summer Vacation Musketeers looked down at their boots and up at the ceiling--anywhere to avoid the cold gray stare of Uncle Sam's single exposed eye.

"I'll double the pay of the man who undertakes this mission."

No one responded.

"What's the matter, isn't double enough? Don't I pay you competitively?"

When no one answered, Uncle Sam Beasley snarled, "Draw straws if you're going to be that way. But I want a man ready for action before those two bust in."

Uncle Sam returned to the video grid. "What are those two doing to my best guerrillas?"

"Looks like the white one is just poking them in the shoulder area."

"Then why are they dropping like DDT'd flies?"

"Maybe there's a sensitive nerve center there," Bob Beasley said, stabbing buttons.

"What's the old gook doing?"

Bob Beasley craned up in his chair to see the screen in question.

"I think he's eviscerating them, Director."

"With what?"

"His fingernails, I suppose," Bob Beasley said in a thick voice.

"They're going to be in the chateau any second."

Bob Beasley reached for an insulated lever. "I'll raise the drawbridge."

"Don't bother. I want 'em where I can LOX 'em."

REMO KICKED a kneecap to pieces and stepped over the dropping foe. He paused, turning in place, to orient himself.

The wind was out of the northeast. There was a blockage of dead air in that direction, and only the Sorcerer's Castle was big enough to create it, Remo decided.

He turned, not seeing but sensing the Master of Sinanju.

"Chiun! Shake a leg. The castle is this way."

"I will be along," said Chiun, and the ugly crunch of human bone and brittle plastic came unmistakably. "These evil tools must be destroyed."

"You just don't want to have to deal with Beasley."

"Do not fall into the moat."

"Fat chance," said Remo, running toward the blockage. He smelled the water in the moat, and the scent of the wooden drawbridge, still damp from a recent rain, guided him over the moat and into the castle's cool, gaping maw.

There were no guards. No obstacles. Remo ran with all senses alert for any click, thud or electrical whirring of booby traps or snares.

Surprisingly there were none.

From the last time he had penetrated this place, Remo knew there was a spiral aluminum stairwell going down. From memory, he arrowed toward it. There was an updraft, cool and dank. That helped.

Pausing at the top step, Remo listened a moment. No traps. No human ones anyway.

Remo started down. His skin temperature began to cool in anticipation of what he had to do ....

"DIRECTOR, hostile subject entering Utiliduck."

Uncle Sam Beasley turned to his waiting musketeers. "It's the moment of truth. Who's my brave volunteer?"

Feet shuffled and gazes were averted guiltily.

"Damn you slackers! You work for me!"

"Yeah," a musketeer returned, "but we aren't going up against that guy. Look what he did to the Florida Sunshine Guerrillas."

Uncle Sam made a fist of stainless steel and flexed it several times. It whirred like metallic butterfly wings. "It's not as bad as what I'll do to you bunch if I don't get my volunteers."

"How about we all volunteer?" one asked suddenly.

Uncle Sam blinked. "All?"

"Yeah. That way we'll have a better chance."

"All except the technician," Bob Beasley called over his shoulder. "We need him."

"Good luck, men," said Uncle Sam as the musketeers filed glumly from the room. When the door hissed shut, he turned to his nephew. "Punch up the corridor screens. I want to see this."

On the screen appeared the image of the skinny white guy with the thick wrists and high cheekbones walking down the white approach corridor, his arms swinging with deceptively casual ease.

"Doesn't look like much," muttered Bob Beasley.

"I don't know who he is, but his ass is mine."

At his console Bob Beasley swallowed hard.

"And here come my trusty musketeers," said Uncle Sam.

REMO WILLIAMS SENSED the footfalls of the approaching men. He counted six sets of feet.

They came around a bend in the corridor carefully, their hearts beating hard but not in the high pounding of a preattack rhythm. There was no residual gunpowder smell, so they carried no weapons Remo needed to worry about.

"Out of my way and nobody gets hurt," warned Remo, advancing on them.

"You looking for Uncle Sam Beasley?" a voice asked.

"That's right."

"Three doors down," said the voice.

"On the right," added another.

"Can't miss it," said a third.

"Who are you?"

"Ex-employees of the Sam Beasley Corporation."

"Since when?"

"Since we gave him up just now."

"How do I know it's not a trap?" asked Remo.

"We're supposed to lure you into a trap."

"What trap?"

"LOX room. Liquid oxygen. It's all the way at the end of the corridor."

"You guys are pretty free with information."

"You would be, too, if you worked for these cold corporate ducksuckers."

"Much obliged," said Remo, passing on.

"TRAITORS!" Sam Beasley screamed, stamping the floor with his stainless-steel peg leg. "What's wrong with them? I'm Uncle Sam. I practically raised those ungrateful brats!"

"They've been pretty unhappy since you froze cost-of-living raises companywide," Bob Beasley noted.

"Then why did they come all the way over here if they weren't behind this damn operation?"

"You promised not to fire anyone who signed on."

Uncle Sam Beasley rolled his eye down to the back of the head of his nephew. Stainless-steel fingers whirring, he snared a fistful of hair and yanked the head back sharply so he could glare down into Bob Beasley's upside-down face.

"Whose side are you on?"

"Yours, Uncle. You know that."

"Prove it."

"How?"

"You look a lot like me, you lucky stiff. You decoy him into the LOX room."

"But-but-"

Uncle Sam released the hair. "Do it!"

Shivering, Bob Beasley climbed out of his chair and backed out of the control room. "I won't fail you, Uncle."

"Not if you don't want those bratty kids of yours served up as cold cuts at the next company picnic."

The door opened and closed with a hiss, and Uncle Sam climbed into the seat his nephew had vacated.

"How's that control panel coming?" he snapped over his shoulder.

The hypercolor technician said, "I've raised orange."

"When you've got Supergreen, let me know. The French should be regrouping soon. I can't beat them back with pastels, you know."

"Yes, Director."

THE MASTER of SINANJU stepped up to a pounding heartbeat that blocked his path and aimed at the point where he knew the man's belly would be. The nail of his smallest finger went in like a needle into butter, and a disembodied voice said, "Urrk. "

The Master of Sinanju described the sign of Sinanju-a trapezoid bisected by a slash-in his abdominal wall and left the unseen foe lying in a heap of his own smoking bowels.

He moved on. The way to the castle was clear. He did not need anything other than the personal scent of his pupil to guide him.

But as he approached, a drone came from the north.

A nearby voice cried, "It is a bomber."

Chiun paused. "How do you know?"

"I know a French bomber when I see one," said Dominique Parillaud.

"What is it doing?"

"It can have only one purpose."

"Yes?"

"To bomb."

Then Dominique said, "Ze bomb bay doors are open. Somezing is coming down."

And the Master of Sinanju snared the wrist of the French woman agent and pulled her along.

"Hurry!"

"Are you mad? Zere is no escape."

And from above came a mushy poom of a sound that brought a squeal of fear from Dominique Parillaud's throat.

It was followed by a great fluttering as if a thousand origami wings had taken flight.

Chapter 31

Remo moved down the corridor blind, but every other sense operating at peak efficiency.

A figure popped out of the third door on the right, paused and ran deeper into Utilicanard. The door hissed shut.

A muffled voce said, "You'll never catch me." It sounded like Uncle Sam's voice.

Remo Williams heard the beating heart and laboring lungs and started after it.

But when Remo got to the door, he suddenly swerved and, holding the flat of his palm before him like a ram, broke it down.

The door screeched coming out of its grooves, and Remo was in.

There were two heartbeats, one fast and normal, the other unhurried, metronomic-the animatronic heart of Uncle Sam Beasley.

"Nice try," said Remo, facing the unnatural sound. "But no sale."

"I'm unarmed. I surrender peacefully," said Uncle Sam.

"It's not going to be that way."

"You're an American agent, right?"

"Right."

"So I'm surrendering to you. You have to take me alive."

"Who says?"

"It's the way the game is played. Don't kid me."

"Not my game," said Remo.

"What game is that?"

"Counterassassin."

"Counterassassin? What's a goddamn counterassassin doing on my trail?"

"For special cases, we drop the prefix," said Remo.

Uncle Sam switched to a wheedling, ingratiating voice. "You wouldn't kill your old Uncle Sam? First time we crossed paths, you were going to. But you couldn't, could you?"

"You should have stayed in that padded cell," Remo said, adjusting to each shift of his opponent's body so he blocked the door.

"You couldn't do it because you remember those long-ago Sunday nights squatting before the old TV in your pj's, watching my TV show. Watching me."

"Stuff it. You aren't that Uncle Sam anymore. He died when you should have."

"You're pretty brave behind that mask. There's no hypercolor laser units here. Let's see if you can look me in the eye before you do it."

"Sorry. No time."

"Coward."

"Don't call me that."

"Uncle Sam is calling you a coward. Are you a man or a little mousie?"

Remo hesitated. "I don't have time for games."

"I'm not afraid to look into your eyes. Why are you afraid to look into mine? Only have the one, you know."

"No sale," said Remo, stepping up in the welcome darkness to do the job he had to do.

A whirring warned of the steel hydraulic fist coming up, seeking Remo's mask, but it was too slow by weeks.

Zeroing in on the regular pumping of the animatronic heart, Remo drove the hard heel of his fist toward the sound.

Uncle Sam tried to block the blow. Remo felt the initial pressure wave. But Uncle Sam might as well have been trying to block a steam shovel with a plastic drinking straw.

"Punk! I raised you! I raised you better than your own parents. And you know it. You can't kill me! You wouldn't dare."

"Shut up! You don't know anything about my parents."

"I know they mistreated you. Admit it. They tanned your helpless butt and left you to cry your little eyes out. And when you thought no one loved you, I was there. Me and Mongo and Dingbat. And if we'd asked you to shoot your folks back then, you'd have done it. Because we molded your mind, just as we molded the little minds of every American generation since the Depression. You think you can kill me? Don't make me laugh. We're family."

In the darkness of his mind, Remo was silent for half a minute. Then in a low, barely contained voice, he said, "Thanks. You just made it easy for me."

Remo's palm drove out, smacking Uncle Sam once over the mechanical heart, and it gulped twice. And with a gurgle it ceased all function.

Uncle Sam shuddered on his feet, a long hiss coming out of his slack mouth. He fell back, struck the console and slid to the floor.

He was still breathing, but with a dead heart that was just a matter of time.

Blindly, Remo turned to the other individual in the room. "Who're you?"

"Laser technician. I'm just here to do my job."

"Your job," Remo told him, "is over."

The flutter of skirts up the corridor brought Remo to the door.

"Chiun! I'm in here."

"Remo, Remo, look! Read this."

"Is it safe to take my mask off?"

"Oui," said Dominique Parillaud.

"No," said Chiun.

"Well, which is it?"

"Look, look!"

Remo lifted the lead shield. Chiun thrust a white sheet of paper into his hand. Remo took it, glanced at the side with writing, frowned and turned it around. No matter how he turned it, he couldn't read it.

"French?"

"Oui. It is a warning from ze army air force. Zey say if all American nationals do not surrender within two hours, zis park will be-how you say? -frappe. "

"Frappe? You mean frapped?"

"Non, I mean, oh what is ze word for what you barbarians did to Hiroshima?"

"Nuked?"

"Oui. "

"The French are willing to nuke Euro Beasley?"

"Zey are very angry over zis transgression. Besides, it is ours to bomb or not bomb as we see fit."

"We'd better check in," Remo told Chiun. "Come on."

They reentered the control room. Remo went to the satellite telephone and punched in the country code for the U.S.A. and then Smith's contact number.

"Smitty, we just did Beasley."

"You just did the fiend Beasley," said Chiun, hovering curiously over the slumped form of Uncle Sam Beasley, who stared ceilingward with his good eye and gurgled like a clogged sink drain. His chest rose and fell more and more slowly with each breath.

"And the French have just leafleted the park. They've given us two hours to surrender or they nuke it."

"Nuke?"

"Nuke."

"You say Beasley is dead?"

"Well, he's still breathing, but his heart is dead and his brain is sure to follow."

"Have you accounted for the Beasley operatives?"

"Not all of them."

"Remo, it would be best if there were no survivors to tell any tales."

"Hope that doesn't include Chiun and me."

"You have less than two hours to take care of business and evacuate the park."

"Gotcha. We're in motion."

Hanging up, Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju, who still regarded Uncle Sam Beasley curiously.

"He is not yet dead," said Chiun.

"He's got a mechanical heart. He's not going to die like an ordinary guy. Besides, I figure by stopping his heart, I'm not really killing him. I just broke a machine part. If that kills him, fine. He should have packed a spare."

"He looks so pitiful," Dominique said. "An old man."

"Don't let that fool you," warned Remo. "Now, let's get to work."

Remo started to turn away, his eyes clinging to the seamed features of Uncle Sam Beasley, once a hero of young America and now a broken travesty of himself.

"Finish me...." Beasley croaked.

"Finish yourself," said Remo. His eyes were fixed on the one gray orb that was rolling up into the heavy lid, when from behind the white Mongo Mouse eye patch came a tiny click.

The warning was enough. Shutting his eyes, Remo started backing away, certain that Chiun would follow suit. Too late.

From behind the patch came a burst of Supergreen.

THE MASTER of SINANJU heard the click, and while his pupil moved backward to protect himself from the unknown danger, he moved forward to meet it head on.

The seated figure was slumped against the console.

The Master of Sinanju, his right hand forming the sharp point of a spear, moved in for the kill ....

WHEN HE AWOKE, Remo first checked his internal clock. Over one hundred minutes had passed. Then he sat up and looked around.

The Master of Sinanju lay facedown. So did Dominique and the hypercolor technician. They had emptied their stomachs on the stainless-steel floor.

Uncle Sam Beasley sat slumped forward, his neck in his lap. The stump was red and raw and showed a cross section of sheared vertebrae and biological plumbing.

There was no sign of his head. But the hypercolor technician was dead. Lying facedown, he had choked on his own vomit.

Remo went to the Master of Sinanju and shook him gently awake. "Get up, Little Father. We were scammed."

Chiun blinked awake. He snapped to his feet like a tornado rearing up. "The fiend tricked us," Chiun said. "There was a false eye behind the patch."

"Yeah. We never suspected a spare."

"But he was too slow. I removed his head before the terrible color could whelm me."

"Well, he's dead for sure this time. And we have less than an hour to get the hell out of here before the bomb falls."

Chiun looked around worriedly.

"Where is the head?"

"Head?"

"Yes. I removed the fiend's head. Now it is nowhere to be seen."

"Forget the head," said Remo, lifting Dominique across his shoulders. "Let's save our behinds."

"The body is here, so the head must also be here."

"Look, you see the body. It's dead. So the head is dead. Now, let's shake a leg."

Reluctantly the Master of Sinanju followed his pupil from the control room.

"If we can get to the car, we might be able to outrun the blast," Remo said.

"The French would not destroy such a place as this."

"Don't count on it," said Remo.

They ran through the attractions, their legs carrying them in floating fashion that ate up the yards.

The drone of a bomber came distinctly. It grew. Its roar bounced off Big Rock Candy Mountain, the second-highest point on Euro Beasley, filling the park with thundering sound vibration.

"That's it," said Remo, not looking up because there was no time to waste. "We either make it or we don't."

"Run now, worry later," Chiun puffed.

They accelerated, becoming to the eye like a slowmotion film of two men running at high speed. It was as if the air offered no resistance to them, inertia ceased to exist and gravity was repealed.

They tore up Main Street, U.S.A., leaving their shoes and sandals behind because in the fractions of seconds they had, even those were an encumbrance.

The entrance gate with its iron scrollwork replica of the Beasley signature came into view. They ripped through that and into the parking area where French tanks and APCs stood sentinel.

Atop a tank was Rod Cheatwood, a hypercolor eximer laser in each hand. He pointed them up into the sky, shouting "Bastards! Bastards!" over and over again.

"Forget it! It's too high. You can't hit that bomber from this range. Run!"

"Bomber? I'm talking about the company. They stole my idea!"

On his way past, Remo reached out and snatched Rod Cheatwood up, tacking him under an arm.

"See this?" Rod complained. "I invented this. It's a remote-control finder. The ducking bastards ripped me off again!"

Out on the highway Remo bore down. The thunder of the bomber was bouncing all over the place. By his internal clock it was 118 minutes since the leaflets had been dropped.

"We're not going to make it, Little Father."

"Never give up!" Chiun growled tightly.

They heard the whistling, even though it was very high in the sky.

"Goodbye, Little Father," Remo whispered.

They were less than a mile from the Euro Beasley gate when the bomb struck Big Rock Candy Mountain, collapsing it.

The sound wasn't great. More on the order of a dull thud. There was no blast, no roar, and certainly no angry fist of atomic fire lifting up to spread horror and deadly radiation.

The shock wave was nonexistent.

"Do we stop?" Remo asked Chiun.

"It may yet go off."

"It takes an explosion to detonate a nuclear device. I think the explosive charges failed."

"We take no chances," Chiun snapped.

Five miles down the road, they finally stopped. Remo set Rod Cheatwood onto the side of the road and rolled Dominique off his shoulders.

He looked at Chiun, looked toward the Norman ramparts of Euro Beasley and back at Chiun again. "Guess it was a dud, huh?" said Remo.

Before Chiun could answer, the entire park suddenly erupted in a dozen synchronized balls of consuming flame. They dropped to the ground because there was nothing else they could do, and waited for the end.

A rolling wave of heat mixed with cinders and a napalmlike smell came up the road, and except for the sudden lack of oxygen, it was tolerable.

"Wonder what happened?" Remo said, getting to his feet.

"THE FRENCH never armed the bomb," said Harold Smith when Remo called him from a roadside telephone.

"It was a bluff?" asked Remo.

"We may never know. Whatever their intentions, the decision not to arm the device came very late in the event."

"Nonevent, you mean."

"We may have Jerry Lewis to thank for averting disaster."

"Jerry Lewis?"

"When the French minister of culture announced the deadline to surrender the park, Lewis issued a statement vowing never again to set foot in France should the French ultimatum be carried out."

"They backed down because a freaking comedian threatened to boycott them?" Remo exploded.

"Mr. Lewis is revered over there. Also, it appears that the president of France interceded."

"With whom?"

"With the minister of defense. Apparently there are elements there more loyal to the culture minister than the government itself. Those elements are being purged even as we speak."

"The culture minister ordered a nuking?"

" 'Inspired it,' might be the more precise term. He has been arrested."

"I would hope so. The guy tried to nuke his own country."

"Actually the charge was violating La Loi Tourette."

"Huh?"

"Er, it appears he personally wrote the ultimatum leaflet and used an outlawed word that had a French equivalent."

"What word is that?"

"Nuke."

"Let me get this straight. The French minister of culture was arrested for using the word nuke, not for trying to use a nuke?"

"It would appear so."

Remo squeezed the roadside telephone receiver for a long, strange moment.

"Ze French, zay are a fonny race," he muttered. "So what blew up Euro Beasley, if not the French?"

"You say you smelled napalm?"

"Yeah. I know that smell from Nam"

"Someone inside the park activated a self-destruct program. It is the only possible explanation."

"But who?"

"Remo, are you certain Sam Beasley is dead?"

"Decapitated. It's better than dead."

"Because a helicopter lifted off from Euro Beasley over an hour ago. French police helicopters gave chase but lost it."

"Could have been anyone."

"Spotters say a man resembling Uncle Sam was seen in the cockpit."

"Probably that nephew of his. What's his name? Roy?"

"Robert. I have no computer audit trail showing he has left the country, Remo."

"Uncle Sam is lying back there in the castle in two unequal parts. Trust me. Right, Little Father?"

"Except that we could not find the head."

"What was that?" asked Smith.

"Nothing."

"Was something said about Uncle Sam's head?"

"Chiun said he couldn't find Uncle Sam's head. We had him cornered and he greened us, but Chiun got him before we blacked out. When we woke up, he was sitting on the floor without his head."

"Did you look for it?"

"Who had time? We were about to be nuked."

"Remo, I want you to go back and be certain Uncle Sam Beasley is dead."

"Too late. The castle is ashes by now."

Smith sighed. "At least the technology was destroyed with it."

"What about this guy Cheatwood?"

"Who?"

"Rod Cheatwood. He invented the hypercolor laser. Said all he was trying to do was come up with a foolproof TV remote-control finder, but the Beasley Corporation turned it into something else."

"There must be no repetition of this event."

"How about we just wipe out his memory?"

"Wipe out whose memory?" Rod Cheatwood asked from the side of the road.

"And get back as soon as you can," said Smith. "Americans are still persona non grata in France."

"I am Korean," said Chiun, "and welcome everywhere."

Remo hung up and walked over to Rod Cheatwood. He took the hypercolor lasers from his hands and squeezed them until they popped and imploded to shards of plastic and microchips.

"You didn't tell us you built a second cybernetic eyeball."

"Of course I built two. A radio-animatronic robot needs two, doesn't he?"

"Fair enough. You're not a bad guy, just foolish. So we're not going to kill you."

"I appreciate that," Rod said. "Really."

"We're going to wipe out your memory so you're not a danger to anyone's national security."

"Can you wipe it out back to 1986?"

"Why then?"

"So I can watch every episode of 'Star Trek: the Next Generation' all over again fresh."

Remo looked at Rod Cheatwood a long moment and said, "It's your memory." And while Rod Cheatwood closed his eyes, a goofy smile coming over his face, Remo tapped him in the exact center of his forehead. Rod crumpled to the ground, and the Master of Sinanju crouched down and began whispering into his ear.

"You will forget you were ever born."

"Hey, that's not what I promised him!"

"That is why I am making certain this cretin troubles us no more with his idiocies."

When the Master of Sinanju was through, he stood up and said, "What about her?"

"Might as well break the happy news." Remo knelt down, lifted her head off the ground and massaged the back of Dominique's neck.

Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself being held off the ground by a strong hand at the back of her neck. She was looking into Remo's dark brown eyes.

"Good news. We didn't get frapped. "

"Non?"

"Jerry Lewis saved us."

"Jairy? Jairy is here! Where?"

"But he's gone back to America. He promised never to darken your shore again if France didn't patch things up with the U.S.A."

"EUD," Dominique corrected.

"It's my country. I'll call it whatever I want."

"And you are in my country and should observe our cultural prerequisites."

Remo released her head. It went bonk! on the asphalt of the road. Dominique sat up holding her skull.

"We are going now," said Chiun. "You will remind your masters of my warning. Sinanju stands by the throne of America. Let there be no further trouble between your emperor and mine."

Dominique picked herself up off the road. "I will do zis for Jerry. But only for Jerry."

"Just as long as you do it right," said Remo, looking around for a car to borrow.

He spotted the Pare Euro Beasley RER train stop.

"You know, Little Father. I'll bet we can get to London by train faster than it would take us to book Air France out of here."

"I have always enjoyed trains. Did I ever tell you about my first train ride? It was before you were born, of course."

"Tell me about it on the train," said Remo.

And barefoot, they started off.

Chapter 32

Two days later Remo answered the ringing telephone in his Massachusetts condo.

"Remo, Smith."

Remo glanced over to the Master of Sinanju, who sat on a reed mat in the far corner of the tower meditation room, writing on a parchment scroll held flat on the floor with jade beads at each corner. "What's the latest?" he asked.

"The President of the US. and his French counterpart have agreed to a summit to discuss outstanding Franco-American issues."

"I didn't know there were any left."

"There is tentative agreement that French will be more widely taught in US. secondary schools and universities."

"That's an awfully big concession. Think of all those poor kids repeating French I over and over again."

"In return, France has lifted all restrictions on English-speaking visitors to their country. Provided Euro Beasley is defanged and renamed Beasleyland Paris."

"Sounds like our side caved in-again."

"That is not important. All that matters is that the crisis is over, and with Uncle Sam Beasley dead, we can only hope the Beasley Corporation goes back to being nothing more than an entertainment industry."

"Any news from that quarter?"

"There are rumors of an internal shake-up. CEO Mickey Weisinger has been demoted, and Beasley nephew Bob has assumed operational control in actuality, if not title."

"Just so long as Sam Beasley remains dead."

There was a long pause on the line.

"You have no ill feelings over having liquidated him?"

"I didn't do it. Chiun decapitated him."

From across the room, a squeaky voice called out, "You broke his heart. Therefore, you dispatched the beloved Uncle Sam."

"He wasn't dead when you lopped off his head, so you killed him."

Chiun's head snapped around, his hazel eyes hot. "That is slander!"

"It's the truth, and you know it."

Chiun shook his goose-feather quill in the air, spattering the walls with black droplets of ink. "The truth is what is written in the true histories of the House of Sinanju, not what actually happened."

"You'd better not be hanging Beasley's death on me in your freaking scrolls," Remo warned.

"I am the victor. The victor writes the histories. Therefore, I will write as I wish."

"Yeah? Well, I'm thinking of starting my own set of scrolls."

"It does not matter what you write," Chiun sniffed.

"We'll see about that."

"Because you will write junk in junk American," cackled the Master of Sinanju. "And no descendant of yours or mine will be able to read such drivel."

"Why not?"

"Because in only a mere two or three thousand more years, yours will be a dead language."

"Did you hear that, Smith?" Remo called into the telephone.

But Harold W Smith had already hung up.

So Remo hung up and walked over to the Master of Sinanju, determined that history tell his side of the story.

EPILOGUE

History recorded that the Franco-American Conflict of 1995 lasted but three days and both began and ended with the bombing by French warplanes of Euro Beasley.

The combatants, as combatants always did, patched up their differences at the cessation of hostilities, signed meaningless treaties, awarded chestfuls of medals to the deserving and undeserving alike, promised future cooperation and exchanged hostages.

No history book, however, recorded the fate of the instigator of the conflict. No history book ever knew his name.

Mickey Weisinger knew his name.

He walked into his office the morning after the last day of the conflict and noticed a workman scratching his name off the office door.

"What the hell's going on?"

"You're now the second-highest-paid ex-CEO in America," said an affable voice he knew only too well.

It was coming from inside his office. Mickey entered.

Bob Beasley was seated comfortably at his desk.

"Who gave you authority to take over?" Mickey shouted.

"Uncle Sam gave me the authority. I speak for Uncle Sam. Always have, always will."

"Uncle Sam! Isn't he dead? I wean, nothing's official, but I was monitoring the transmissions from France. And you came back alone."

"Not alone," drawled Bob Beasley, laying a hand on an insulated box resting on his desk-formerly Mickey Weisinger's desk. There was a small pressurized tank attached, and on it stenciled a word Mickey didn't normally associate with tanks: LOX.

"He's not dead?"

"Well, let's say he's not anything right at the moment."

"Say what?"

"Our medical people tell me I dipped him in liquid oxygen in time to prevent brain death. All we need is a suitable body to hook him up to, and the Sam Beasley Corporation will be back to business as usual."

And Bob Beasley turned the insulated box around, exposing a clear window on the other side. The window through which stared the frozen one-eyed head of Uncle Sam Beasley.

Behind him Mickey Weisinger heard the office door shut with a flat finality that meant no escape. None at all...