"No! No! Not that pain in the ass! The other one!"
The soldiers who had been pointing their weapons at Remo redirected them at Fidel. Their opposite numbers executed the opposite maneuver.
Uncle Sam Beasley stood up, howling, "No! No! No! You're getting it all wrong! Listen to me, I'm the director here! Ten-hup! Right shoulder arms!"
Like marionettes, the soldiers clapped the AR-15s to their immaculate white shoulders. Their chins lifted at attention.
It was the perfect opportunity, so Remo swept in and grabbed the President of Cuba by his long gray beard. Without pausing, he gave a flick of one thick wrist, and suddenly the giant Cuban was whirling around Remo's head like a bull roarer. And emitting much the same howl.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Beasley yelled. "The trial isn't over yet!"
Remo released the beard. And the howling man flew, polished hobnailed combat boots first, toward one line of soldiers. They collapsed in a heap of bruises and broken bones.
Uncle Sam was screaming inarticulate orders now.
Remo was moving between the dining tables, casually flinging them about like oversized frisbees. They lopped off heads, broke rifles, and made short work of the white-uniformed soldiers with the corn-fed faces still on their feet.
Not a single shot was gotten off.
Remo stepped up and reached into a pile of tangled white arms and legs, to pull out a kicking olive-drab figure.
"I'm not done with you yet, Bushy," he growled.
He dragged the moaning President of Cuba back to the long banquet table, where assorted copyright and trademark characters sat very, very still.
"That was nice work," said Uncle Sam in a too-calm voice.
"Thanks," Remo said absently. He slammed the President of Cuba into one of the few still standing chairs.
Sam Beasley stood up. "No, I mean it."
Remo refused to look in the man's direction. "Okay, you mean it. I'll get to you in a minute."
"Seriously, I'd like to shake your hand, my boy."
Remo hesitated.
"Come on, come on. I won't bite. I know when I'm licked. I'm big enough to admit it."
Remo looked at the hand. It was empty. His ears picked up the bellows sounds of the man's ancient lungs. There was no heartbeat, but a steady humming from deep within his chest.
"What the heck," Remo said, reaching out his hand. "I used to be one of your biggest fans."
"And now you're the biggest chump on earth," snarled Uncle Sam, as he began to squeeze Remo's outstretched hand with the constrictive force of a trash-compacter.
Remo was so shocked by the unexpectedness of what was happening to him, that he did something he had not done in years. He screamed in pain.
The Master of Sinanju heard the scream while he was making the soldiers of Ultima Hora hors de combat. These were not evil men, so he had been going among them dislocating their shoulders. He did this by the deceptively simple action of grasping them by their shoulders and separating the arm bones from their rotator cuffs as he dodged their ineffectual blows. The motion was as simple as removing the lens cap from a Kodak.
Although the soldiers did scream louder than a camera would.
The sound of Remo's scream was unmistakable and unforgettable. Chiun had dragged such complaints out of Remo during the early difficult phases of Remo's training in Sinanju, when he had stubbornly persisted in eating meat and breathing incorrectly.
He flung himself up from the lower holds, where Ultima Hora awaited the signal to emerge and take unprotected Havana, and flashed toward the sound of Remo's agony.
Remo Williams was unaccustomed to pain. On the one hand, his nerves had been trained to sublimate ordinary pain. On the other, his entire body had been raised to enormous levels of sensitivity to external stimuli. And he had been caught by surprise.
Excruciating agony made his highly refined nervous system explode into white noise. His senses shut down. Red sparks danced before his eyes. He could feel his finger bones and metacarpals grinding together under a handshake that he realized too late was composed not of ordinary flesh and bone but of some powerful hydraulic mechanism sheathed in a realistic-looking fleshlike covering.
Worst of all, he couldn't pull loose.
"Left my right hand in the freezer, as it were," a familiar voice chuckled. "But the animators gave me a new one. Like it?"
Waves of pain rolled through Remo's stunned brain. His training told him to lash out at the source of the agony, but his mind warned him that he would be killing Sam Beasley; Uncle Sam. The kindly old Uncle Sam who had told him stories way way back in another life, spent around an old staticky black-and-white TV set, watching cartoons with his fellow orphans.
And as he hesitated the pain redoubled, and Remo had lost his chance to strike. No longer in control of his body, he went down on one knee, his teeth clamping tight and a black cloud passing over his thoughts.
Then another voice came. High and commanding.
"Hold!" it said. Chiun!
Uncle Sam's voice turned icy with anger. "I'd like to know who the hell you two are."
"I am the Master of Sinanju," Chiun said in his most dramatic voice. "And that is my son you are harming. Release him at once!"
"My pink ass!"
And through the roaring in his ears, Remo heard the tiny gasp that came from Chiun's offended mouth.
"You are not Uncle Sam!"
"The hell I'm not!"
"Uncle Sam would never use such language."
"A lot you know. And who are you two clowns, CIA?"
The question was ignored. Chiun pitched his voice to Remo's roaring ears. "Remo. This man is an imposter. Smite him at once."
"I-I can't!" Remo gasped.
"Banish the pain," Chiun urged.
"It's not the freaking pain. This is Uncle Sam! The real one! I can't hurt him!"
"Nonsense."
"He's got an animatronic freaking heart!"
"Radio-animatronic," Uncle Sam corrected in his famous professorial tone. "Use the correct terminology, please."
"Radio?" It was the dazed voice of the President of Cuba.
The hand slackened its excruciating grip. Remo forced his eyes open. He looked up. Uncle Sam, dressed in the Stars and Stripes, loomed over him, grinning wickedly.
"Controlled and kept beating indefinitely by an outside signal. No need to change batteries, or replace defective parts. They say I've got another ninety years in me, at least."
"You are a machine," Chiun accused.
"I'm just as human as the next guy. I've only been augmented."
"Chiun," Remo gasped. "Don't just stand there debating. Do something!"
The Master of Sinanju's eyes became slits. Coldly, he intoned, "Remo, stand up. Do not shame me before this bearded ruffian of a tyrant. Show that you are worthy of the training bestowed upon you."
"I can't kill him! You know who he is!"
"You must!"
"Look, you do it!"
"Remo! I cannot have the children of Sinanju believing that I dispatched their favorite white in all the universe. You must do this yourself."
Remo started to rise. The hydraulic hand clamped down hard.
"Another move like that," Beasley warned, "and I'll squeeze his hand to bloody pulp."
"Another word like that, and my pupil will grind you into powdered bone meal," Chiun countered.
"I can't do it, Chiun!"
Across the room the Master of Sinanju stood his ground, his hands having retreated to their concealing sleeves. He looked to his pupil, humbled before the very eyes of Mongo Mouse and the others. It was unseemly.
He noticed the bearded tyrant. Castro struggled to his feet.
"Jou," he groaned, addressing Chiun. "I will give jou anything jou name if jou save me from this loco gringo."
"Have you gold?" asked Chiun, interest flavoring his voice.
"Si. Si. As much as jou wish."
"Five billion," Chiun said quickly.
"Que?"
"Five billion in gold. Will you pay?"
"No! It is a preposterous amount. Who do jou think jou are?"
"I am the Master of Sinanju," Chiun said haughtily, eyeing the tyrant to see what his reaction was.
"By the beard of Che! I have heard of you!"
Chiun smiled thinly. "I thought you would."
"Jou are a North Korean."
"Correct."
"The last of my trustworthy allies," the Cuban President said hollowly. "Have they strayed from the Socialist path, as well?"
"I am no tool of Pyongyang," Chiun spat.
"Then who do jou work for?"
"Your mortal enemy."
Castro groaned. "Then I am a dead man."
"Only if this is my wish," Chiun said dryly.
Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta had had enough of this charade. Every moment delayed his assuming the presidency of Cuba, his beloved island.
He stood up, saying, "Enough. It is time to yudge the tyrant. I say, 'Death to Castro!' " He turned his thumb downward. "What say jou, members of the yury?"
One by one, the others followed suit. Mongo turned his white-gloved thumb downward. Dingbat dropped a webbed hand. Wacky Wolf lowered his shortest claw.
The verdict was unanimous. Except for Uncle Sam Beasley. His thumb was occupied at the moment, as he continued to squeeze the white man's fist into submission.
"I say when we vote!" he snarled.
"We are wasting time," Revuelta complained. "We must launch our attack. My Ultima Hora jearn to liberate Cuba!"
"No," said Chiun. "They writhe and groan in the holds below. I have accepted their surrender."
"Bullshit!" said Beasley hotly. He squeezed his unfeeling hand in anger, producing a yelp from Remo.
"Look," Revuelta protested. "I am to be the new El Presidente!"
"Think again," snapped Beasley. "You're just a puppet. I'll pull the strings and you'll dance."
Revuelta looked horrified. "What are jou saying to me?"
"And if you get out of line," Beasley added, "I'll just have my Concepteers make an animatronic copy of you. One that won't get out of line."
"Jou are a fraud!" cried Revuelta, reaching for Beasley's throat. "Jou-"
Beasley was too quick. With his free hand, he whipped off his eye patch. Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta's face was less than a foot in front of the exposed electronic eye. When it exploded like the biggest flashbulb in the universe, he was looking directly at it.
Revuelta reeled back, howling and covering his eyes.
"Blind! I am blinded!"
He stumbled in the direction of the Master of Sinanju, who calmly tripped him and stepped on his writhing neck. A dull crunching came, and Revuelta was still after a moment's busy quivering.
Remo Williams drained the pain coming down his right wrist into the rest of his body, diffusing it, absorbing it. His teeth ground together. Sweat was coming off his brow. He was regaining control. With his free hand, he clutched the tablecloth. It slipped off the table.
And he happened to see a black box under the long banquet table. It looked like a boom box, except there was no speaker or tape deck. But there were lights and digital displays.
One continued to count off numbers sequentially until it got to 26. Then the indicator reset to zero, and started over.
A spectrographic indicator coursed up and down a calibrated scale. It matched exactly the humming vibration coming from the chest of Uncle Sam.
Through the receding pain, Remo Williams made a connection. Between the bar and the heart hum. Between the number twenty-six and the human heart.
He steeled himself for more agony. And reached under the table for the black box.
"What the hell are you doing down there?" Sam Beasley roared suddenly.
Remo's fingers touched something. Then the pain came slamming back, and he was being hoisted off his knees.
But not before he turned a dial.
Remo was lifted face-to-face with Sam Beasley. The man's stale breath was in his face, filling him with revulsion. But Remo had already made up his mind. He knew what he had to do.
This was not Uncle Sam. Not the Uncle Sam of his childhood. Maybe that Uncle Sam had never really existed. Maybe he was just as much a fantasy as Mongo Mouse. Whatever he was, he had to die. Even if the act would haunt Remo Williams for the rest of his life.
Remo's free hand formed the tip of a spear. He willed his fingers into absolute rigidity. There was no telling what they would have to penetrate-soft loose flesh or armor plate. He brought the hand up with deliberate control. He would have only one shot. It had to be good.
Uncle Sam Beasley snarled at him. Then, his face went pale. His mouth opened and closed spasmodically. His good eye rolled up into his head. The other, a machined steel orb with a pulsing red light in the center, began to dim.
"You bastard!" he hissed, and the red pinpoint pupil exploded in a laser burst designed to destroy the sight of anyone looking into it.
Remo, hearing a cybernetic relay click, shut his eyes a split-second ahead of the red-hot flash.
The light seared through his eyelids, and his vision became a very shocking pink color riddled with delicate red veinwork.
Sam Beasley emitted a strangled sound and began to wheeze like an accordion. His vise-like hand stopped squeezing Remo's hand, and he began to gasp and flail with his free hand. It reached up for his own throat.
And while he was doing that, Remo reached out blindly and pried the hydraulic fingers free of his own hand. One snapped off.
He stepped back, clutching his mangled fingers in a fist.
The Master of Sinanju rushed up to meet him. He grasped Remo's hand, turned it over and back, examining it critically.
"I do not think it is broken," he muttered.
"I can't tell," Remo gasped.
"There is one way to find out," said Chiun, suddenly unbending Remo's clenched fist.
Remo screamed louder than ever.
Chiun beamed back. "The bones work. It is fine."
Which was more than could be said for Uncle Sam Beasley. He lay on the ground, thrashing and gasping like a beached fish. His teeth chattered as if from cold. He was turning blue.
His assorted creations hovered around him, crying plaintively.
"Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam! Don't leave us! Not again! We need you, Uncle Sam!"
The Master of Sinanju swept into the middle of the creatures, scattering them and crying, "Begone, vermin!"
He looked down upon the face of Uncle Sam Beasley and, with an extended fingernail, imploded the electronic laser eye.
Uncle Sam paid the maiming no heed. He continued to writhe in his slow death-throes. His peg leg pounded the floor like a slow drumstick. His voice was a croak. "Maus . . . Maus . . . shield . . . mouse."
"What's he saying?" Remo asked.
"He is calling for someone," Chiun said slowly.
Remo listened. "Sounds like 'mouse.' Must mean Mongo. Where is he, anyway?"
The Master of Sinanju raked the demoralized jury with cold eyes. He pointed an accusing finger at Mongo Mouse.
"You! Remain where you are, if you value your scalp. I know how treacherous is your kind."
Mongo Mouse proffered open hands, in a clear gesture of compliance.
The President of Cuba cautiously approached. He pointed to the box. "That is what is keeping him alive. We must destroy it." And he lifted a combat boot.
The Master of Sinanju swept a hand out and found the sensitive back of the Cuban leader's knee. He used his fingernails to inflict maximum pain on the Maximum Leader.
And the Maximum Leader of Cuba hopped away, holding his leg and howling Spanish invective through his beard.
Remo looked down. "We can't let him die, can we?"
"No," said Chiun.
Remo knelt and examined the box. The digital readout was counting only up to 7 before resetting itself. Remo touched the dial he had hit before. He turned it one way. The number reset to 0, and Sam Be
asley began to quiver and gasp for air.
"Oops!" Remo turned it the other way. The man began to breathe, jerkily but more regularly. The number cycle climbed to 15.
Remo experimented with the heart cycle until he had found a setting-19-that kept Beasley on his back and breathing, but still helpless.
He stood up. "I think that does it."
The President of Cuba limped up. His face was pale and incredulous.
"Jou have saved my Revolution," he whispered hoarsely. "This lunatic was going to try me for imaginary crimes."
Chiun eyed him coldly. "Speak to me not of your crimes, preempter of beauty."
"Que?"
"He means," Remo said dryly, "you knocked his favorite TV show off the air."
The Maximum Leader of Cuba blinked. "Are jou all mad? First this one complains that I am stealing his cartoons. Now jou are angry because I have interrupted a mere television program."
"Wrong thing to say, bushy," Remo warned.
The Master of Sinanju drew himself up haughtily. "Cheeta Ching is no mere television personality. She is all that is good and beautiful and pure in the universe."
"You are loco. I responded to aggression. No more."
The Master of Sinanju puffed out his cheeks.
"You admit your guilt, then!"
"I am proud of it." The President of Cuba lifted an authoritarian finger. "I will rub the Yanquis' noses in their folly at every opportunity."
"Then you must die a thousand deaths!" proclaimed Chiun, starting after the man.
"Hold it, Chiun." Remo warned. "You know what Smith said."
Chiun stopped. His eyes narrowed. "Since I am forbidden to send you to the fate you so richly deserve," he fumed, "I must visit a less suitable punishment than I would like."
And with grim purpose the Master of Sinanju backed the fear-struck President of Cuba up against a wall.
Remo Williams, clutching his wounded hand, was powerless to prevent what happened next.
The screams of the Maximum Leader came in bursts, like those of a misfiring machine gun.
It was such a horrific sight, Remo was forced to turn away.
Off in one corner Dingbat Duck, Gumpy Dog, and the others covered their faces and cowered in fear.
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