Cold Warrior td-91

by Warren Murphy

  "Small world, isn't it?" he said dryly.

  "Pah! I have been betrayed by a rodent."

  "Not Mongo Mouse?" Remo asked in mock-horror.

  "He attempted to lure me to what he thought would be my doom."

  "I see you got his scalp," Remo said, nodding toward the black cap the Master of Sinanju now wore proudly atop his bald skull.

  Chiun adjusted the round-eared skullcap.

  "I now wear the crown of Beasley World, so that none will dare to harm me," he said.

  "Don't count on it. This entire place is a death trap. Further proof that the Beasley Corporation is behind the whole thing."

  "A base lie."

  "I hate to burst your bubble, Little Father," Remo said, "but check out the flag."

  Chiun followed Remo's pointing finger. It was directed toward the Sorcerer's Castle. Its pennant-like flag chattered in the morning breeze. Its was white. The design inside was black. A black circle, adorned by two smaller black circles.

  "Remember the flags we found underground?" Remo asked.

  "Mongol" Chiun gasped in horror. "It is true!"

  " 'Fraid so." Remo looked around. "The head cheese should clear this up. If we can only find him."

  "I have seen nothing of Uncle Sam."

  "And you won't. He's long in the ground. But someone's pulling the strings of this Punch and Judy horror show. My guess is it's the Beasley CEO, whoever that is. I can never remember his name."

  The Master of Sinanju gazed about, his mouse ears like questing radar dishes.

  "A chieftain might be expected to live in an edifice worthy of his domain," he said slowly.

  "The Sorcerer's Castle," Remo said, eyeing its fluted spires. "Sounds farfetched, but at this late hour I wouldn't doubt anything."

  The Master of Sinanju girded up his black skirts.

  "Come, Remo. We will take the castle and wrest the throne from the wicked ruler."

  "Come, Remo. We will take the castle and wrest the throne from the wicked ruler."

  "Who are these buffoons?" roared the Director, pounding the console with his fist. It was becoming a wreck.

  "No idea, sir. But Horrible House and the Tom Thumb Pavilion are no longer operational. We may not be able to open today."

  "Of course we'll open! Sam Beasley World is open three hundred and sixty-five days a year, come rain, come shine."

  "Not unless we can stop them cold in the next hour."

  The Director stood up suddenly.

  "Lure them into the Buccaneers of the Bahamas attraction."

  "What good will that do, sir?"

  "Do! It's the best damn ride in the park! And I'm going to be there to make sure those two walk the plank. Personally." He stood up, balancing on his silverfilagreed leg, and adjusted his eye patch.

  "Yes, Director."

  Captain Maus went to his microphone and began to issue terse instructions to the units in the field.

  From every nook and crevice of Beasley World, they emerged. A kangaroo hopped out from behind a plastic toadstool and shoved his 9-mm Glock back into his pouch. A Transformed Tae Kwon Do Teen Terrapin popped a manhole cover and scampered down, leaving his scimitar behind.

  Padded feet took flight all over the park. Every creature was headed in one direction.

  "Look, Remo!" squeaked Chiun. "The forces of the treacherous mouse are in retreat before us!"

  "Don't count on it."

  "But they are fleeing."

  "Looks to me like they're headed for the Buccaneers attraction."

  "Then we will follow them."

  "What if it's a trap?" asked Remo. "Not that there's any doubt."

  "Then they will die, and you and I will enjoy the sights of the Old West."

  "Old West?"

  "Yes. The Buccaneers of the Old West. Wyatt Burp. Buffalo Beef. Catastrophe Jane. And the other slowpokes."

  "I think you mean 'cowpokes,' and you're confusing buckaroos with buccaneers. A buccaneer is a pirate."

  "Let us not dawdle, for the sun climbs high. Soon it will be High Noon, a portentous time for buccaneers."

  Remo rolled his eyes and followed.

  They approached the Buccaneers attraction carefully. It was in the shape of a galleon that had run aground on an elkhorn coral reef. A Jolly Roger flapped and chattered in the wind.

  The greeters were jumping into the open cannon ports all along the ship's hull, which clapped shut after them. They ignored the tiny boats that sat in the water surrounding the mock-shipwreck.

  "What say, Little Father?" Remo asked, when they came to the water's edge. "Walk or ride?"

  "We are the rightful lords of this domain. We shall ride."

  "It's safer to walk."

  "A ruler who cannot pass safely through his own kingdom does not truly rule."

  "You're the one with the mouse ears," Remo said, drawing a boat to the shore for the Master of Sinanju to step aboard. Remo climbed in after him and shoved off.

  "I don't see any paddles," Remo said, looking about the gunwhales. The boat began to move. Remo went to the prow. He could see a submerged cable pulling them along. It dragged the boat around to the galleon's bow and passed waving mermaids on the shore. He returned to his seat.

  A dark stove-in section of hull came into view and they were pulled into it.

  As they passed into darkness, a mechanical jackdaw swiveled its beady eyes toward them and said, "Screw you jerks!" in a raucous voice.

  The Master of Sinanju decapitated it with a piece of gingerbread ripped from the boat's stern.

  Inside, they found themselves on a shakily illuminated underground stream. Fake rock walls reared up on either side of them. Indirect red lights shed a hellish, fitful illumination, bathing their frowning faces. Rusty, ill-smelling water lapped and sucked at the boat's knifing bow.

  The the song began.

  "Yo Ho Ho and a bucket of blood. . . "

  "That is not how the song goes," murmured Chiun suspiciously.

  "I don't give a hoot," Remo growled. "Anything to erase that other stupid song. I can't get it out of my mind."

  "What other stupid song?" Chiun demanded.

  " 'It's a short, short life, don't you know?' " Remo sang.

  Chiun looked puzzled. "That is not how that song goes, either."

  "Sue the management. I'm just here for the ride," Remo said sourly.

  They passed under an overhang of rock, and a mechanical pirate lowered his stockinged head and brought an arm slowly toward them. The hand clutched an antique flintlock.

  "Watch it, Little Father!" Remo warned.

  A shot disturbed the air. The pistol blossomed in a flash of fire, and a hard round ball like a lead grape whistled past them, to punch a hole in a papier-mache outcropping.

  As the boat slid by, Remo stood up and took hold of the pirate's head. He twisted. A spark flew out of the pirate's grinning mouth and when Remo sat down again, he was holding the corsair's glassy-eyed head.

  The Master of Sinanju looked his question.

  "Souvenir," Remo said nonchalantly.

  "It is my pirate you have beheaded," Chiun said thinly.

  "He might come in handy."

  He did. They rounded a corner into a wider stretch of river and as the "Bucket of Blood" song swelled in their ears, they were surrounded by pirates.

  They were stamping their feet to a mechanical fiddler crab sawing on a real fiddle, waving their muskets and flintlocks merrily. The weapons spat sparks and noise, but not balls.

  "These creatures do not look like buccaneers," Chiun muttered. "Where are their half-pint hats?"

  "I told you, you've got buccaneers mixed up with buckaroos. These are freaking buccaneers."

  Suddenly the robots gathered themselves and, in synchronization, brought their weapons into line with the slowmoving boat and tracked it.

  Remo brought the pirate head up in both hands and, from a sitting position, let it fly, like Wilt Chamberlain trying to sink a set shot.

  The h
ead struck the pirate captain in the face. Then there were two heads flying in two directions. Each struck another head, which in turn caromed off another. Within seconds the cavern was a chain reaction of mechanical heads rebounding in every direction.

  Without their heads, the mechanical buccaneers and corsairs fired randomly, peppering the flimsy rocks and one another with grapeshot and lead ball.

  A solitary head flew by their boat, forcing the Master of Sinanju to weave out of its path. It plopped into the brownish water.

  "Not bad, huh?" Remo said with a grin, as they left the carnage behind them.

  "One almost struck me," Chiun complained.

  "It's been a while since I was on this ride," Remo said dryly.

  Chiun made a wrinkled face. "This is terrible."

  "You can fix them when we're done, okay?"

  "That is not what I meant."

  Remo lifted an eyebrow. "No?"

  "This ride is a death trap. Therefore, impossible as it is to believe, what you have told me is true."

  "Why is it so impossible that the Beasley Corporation is the culprit? They're Big Business. Anything's possible, when that much money's involved."

  "It is not that."

  "No?"

  "It is that you were right," Chiun sniffed.

  "Gee, when has that ever happened?"

  "I do not recall," the Master of Sinanju said vaguely, as the tow cable pulled them from a stretch of darkness to another mechanical display.

  This time, it was a depiction of a plank-walking. The plank jutted out in their path. Perched on the wavering tip was a fat merchant, his hands lashed behind his back. A freebooter in a red costume was prodding him with a cutlass. The merchant swiveled his head fearfully, his mouth agape.

  As they came within hailing distance of the ship, every figure, including that of the terrified merchant, turned to regard them with unseeing glass eyes.

  The freebooter took a step back and lifted his cutlass.

  "Your turn," Remo prompted.

  The Master of Sinanju came out of his seat like smoke from a hookah. His hands reached up to intercept the blade. It gleamed along its edge.

  With both hands, Chiun reached around the wicked edge to grasp the pirate's cutlass arm by the wrist. He exerted little obvious effort, yet the arm, sword and all, came free, trailing multicolored wiring. It fell into the water and sank.

  He returned to his seat and he and Remo ducked under the plank.

  On the other side, they looked back to see the pirates hissing words at them.

  "Fuck you! Fuck you!"

  "Such language," Chiun sniffed.

  "They're pirates."

  "They swear like presidents."

  "Huh?"

  "Never mind. Look! Up ahead."

  Remo's gaze followed Chiun's indicating finger. Ahead, bathed in a dancing red radiance, was a scene called FREEBOOTERS IN HELL, according to a crude sign.

  Here, the pirates were getting the worst of it.

  They were shoveling coal into mock fires, and being prodded by pitchforks wielded by plump green imps and a scarlet Lucifer figure.

  "Looks like they got what they deserved," Remo said.

  "I see no guns," Chiun pointed out.

  "That's a good sign. They can't shoot us."

  But they could throw pitchforks and hot coals-which they proceeded to do.

  Standing up, Remo caught the pitchforks easily. He collected a handful with no more effort than if they had been stickball bats.

  He sent them back the way they had come, impaling devils and the damned alike. Sparks snapped. Wires uncoiled, hissing.

  The Master of Sinanju plucked the coals that fell into the thwarts of the boat with nimble fingers. A quick pinch with his fingernails and they sank hissing into the water.

  "Nice try," Remo called back.

  "Blow me," a pirate hurled back mechanically.

  "Is it not 'Blow me down,' Remo?" Chiun wondered.

  "Maybe they are buckaroos, after all," Remo said lightly.

  "I will be glad when we come to the end of the trail," Chiun sniffed.

  "No sweat. These guys aren't even in our class."

  "The ride's not over yet," a raspy voice called out. "Remo!" Chiun squeaked. "Who spoke?"

  "One of the marionettes."

  "That did not sound like a marionette."

  "I don't hear a heartbeat."

  The Master of Sinanju listened. Among the echoing sounds-the whine of hidden motors, and the buzz and click of relays-there was no gulping pump of a human heart.

  But there was a raspy breathing.

  "I hear lungs laboring," Chiun said thinly.

  Remo listened. "Yeah. Me, too. But no heartbeat."

  "How can there be lungs where there is no heart?"

  "Maybe we nailed a real pirate, and he's on his way out."

  "The voice that spoke did not sound dispirited in that way," Chiun pointed out.

  "You're right," Remo said, looking worriedly about. "It is kinda spooky, at that. And the voice sounded familiar somehow."

  Chiun narrowed his eyes to slits. "Beware, Remo. I sense great danger."

  "I hear you," Remo said. He was standing up, his hands loose at his sides. His thick wrists rotated absently, an unconscious habit he had in situations like this.

  Chiun pointed past the bow. "Look, Remo! There he is!"

  Remo had been watching their wake. He turned, saying, "Who?"

  "It is Uncle Sam. We have found him at last."

  Remo narrowed his eyes.

  Where the false rocks piled up, a lone figure stood balanced on a shiny peg leg. He wore a green felt sea captain's longcoat. His hat was a black tricorne, made rakish by a purple ostrich plume and a white skull-and-crossbones staring back from the upturned brim. He wore an eye patch.

  Other than the costume and patch, he was the spitting image of Uncle Sam Beasley, right down to the frosted brush mustache and twinkling grandfatherly eye. He offered a folksy smile.

  "It is him, Remo," Chiun said in a hushed voice.

  "It's another marionette," Remo shot back. "Beasley's long dead. I told you that."

  "I detect lungs."

  Remo listened, interested. "Okay. Lungs. But where's the heart? It's a marionette. The lungs must be a bellows."

  "The sound is coming from Uncle Sam."

  "It's a bellows. Maybe he's getting ready to exhale poison gas."

  "Why would he do that?" Chiun asked.

  "Remember last year, when they had to close this ride? Stuff got in people's lungs. I'll bet this guy's the culprit."

  "Very astute," said the pirate, in a cold voice.

  Chiun's eye went round. "He answered, Remo!"

  "Crap," said Remo. And as they watched, the pirate slowly lifted a hand to peel off his eye patch. It revealed a dark cavity like the orbit of a skull.

  "What is this?" Chiun asked uncertainly.

  "Offhand, I'd say a buccaneer who doesn't know his right from his left."

  Without warning, the dark socket exploded in a flash of searing light.

  Remo and Chiun were caught unawares. The light seared their eyeballs. It was no mere flashbulb. Their pupils irised down protectively, saving their sight. Still, the pain was excruciating. It sent synaptic needles into their brains.

  "Damn!" Remo said, clapping his hand before his eyes.

  The Master of Sinanju did the same. He expelled an angry breath past clenched teeth.

  Through their pain, they caught the dry ratcheting back of a flintlock hammer.

  Remo called, "Dive, Little Father!"

  His shout was drowned in a splash of water. Chiun, moving first. Remo followed him into the cold, brackish brine.

  A ball whupped into the water and knifed past them, sending rippling shock waves that made them separate like frightened dolphins.

  Another shot struck the boat, knocking a hole in its bottom. It began to sink.

  Remo, struggling to gain equilibrium, let his ears take him
in the direction of the Master of Sinanju. His eyes were still closed. They stung terribly, as if heated pins had been driven through them.

  When his bare arms felt the watery vibrations that told of Chiun's nearness, he reached out blindly. And got a wrist that was like a pair of long bones covered in loose chicken skin. It struggled.

  He held on. Chiun calmed down. Like two groupers under a coral formation, they waited, not inhaling, and exhaling only slow beads of carbon dioxide that would not be visible in the darkness.

  They waited. Through the water, the "Yo Ho Ho and a Bucket of Blood" song continued its rollicking cadence.

  Remo began to wish the other song would come back. At least it was kind of catchy.

  When the pain had lessened and he could trust his reflexes again, Remo let go of the Master of Sinanju and shot upward like a submarine-launched missile.

  He emerged from the water a foot from the rocky river edge, hung a moment before gravity could reclaim him, and then, like a cartoon figure, simply stepped from his vertical position to the papier-mache shelf.

  Remo still couldn't see. But he could hear.

  The marionette that strongly resembled Uncle Sam Beasley was still there, holding his smoking flintlock at the ready. The bellows sound and the smell of oldfashioned black powder told Remo that.

  At the sight of Remo, it cracked a hideous grin and brought the long-barreled pistol in line with Remo's chest.

  Remo stomped the papier-mache under his feet and it split.

  This stand of the outcropping collapsed, taking the peg leg pirate figure with it. He cursed like a cutthroat as he went down. Remo didn't hear a splash. But the bellows sound went away. He figured the mechanical thing was finally broken.

  Remo returned to the water and, taking Chiun's wrist again, began to swim, the Master of Sinanju in tow. Chiun had lost his mouse ears.

  They negotiated the underground river by feeling their way along the supporting shelf of slimy stone.

  When daylight lightened the inner pink of their eyelids, they knew two things: that they were outside the attraction, and that their sight was gradually returning.

  Remo was the first to the surface. The Master of Sinanju's bedraggled head surfaced a second later. His hazel eyes were like knife slits in his wrinkled visage as he released a squirt of brown water from his mouth.