That was how Dominique Parillaud perceived it as she drove past the van in her Europe 1 satellite truck before parking it well down the highway and out of sight. After exiting the vehicle, she moved low toward the waiting van. There was no sign of life or activity around the van. No one behind the wheel.
But the nest of electronic array atop the van was very suggestive.
Crouching behind a thicket, Dominique unshipped her 9 mm MAS automatic and started out of the hedges. If the van contained the secret of the bright colored lights that had her countrymen literally agog, and she could acquire it, the Legion of Honor medal-not to mention the adulation of all Frenchmen-would be all but hers.
More importantly she could leave this hellish nation of imbeciles and cretins.
She started forward.
And her beret swallowed her head like a Venus's-flytrap made of cloth.
"Merde!"
Some force took her by the shoulders and spun her around inexorably, but still she retained the presence of mind to jut her MAS snout forward. When she felt it come into contact with her assailant's chest, she pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was not loud. A mere snap of sound. The automatic convulsed once.
"Hah!" she said triumphantly, yanking the beret off her face.
Dominique blinked as the familiar features of the American named Remo stared back at her with a slight smile touching his cruel face.
"But-I could not miss."
"Sure you did."
"Never! I am an expert markswoman."
"Was," said Remo, relieving her of her weapon with a casual twist. He tossed it away.
"You're French, right?"
"Belgian."
"You sound French."
"We Belgians speak French. It is our native tongue."
Remo looked to the tiny Asian gray-beard who stood beside him, hands tucked in his kimono sleeves. "This is true, but this woman speaks the dialect of Paris, not Brussels."
"Caught you. You're French."
"French women do not wear berets," Dominique pointed out.
"Sure they do," said Remo.
"It is an impossibility. How can you be so stupid?"
"Practice," said Remo, handing her back her beret.
"The beret is gauche. Do you know nothing of French customs?"
"As little as possible," Remo admitted.
"I categorically deny French citizenship."
The tiny Asian turned his head, "Behold. Is that not the illustrious Jerry Lewis approaching?"
Dominique whirled.
"Jairy? Jairy is here. Where? I idolize him!"
But there was no one there and when she looked back, the tiny Asian was beaming triumphantly. The man named Remo was saying "tsk- tsk" while making some arcane gesture at her that involved rubbing his forefingers in her direction.
"Caught you again," he said.
"I am a tourist."
"You're a French agent. You have French agent written all over you."
"In French," said the Asian gray-beard.
"I deny everything."
"What's the French interest in this?" asked Remo.
"I refuse to say any more."
"We have ways of making you confess," warned the tiny Asian.
"I am notoriously fearless."
Abruptly the tiny Asian stiffened and said, "Hark!"
Remo stopped.
Dominique listened. "I hear nothing."
"Do you hear it, Remo? The pumping sound."
Dominique frowned. "I hear no pumping."
"Yeah," said Remo. "It's coming from that van."
"Two heartbeats. One human. One not."
"Yeah, and the human one sounds pretty scared."
"Let us investigate."
"Heartbeats. I hear no heartbeats."
"Remo, detain that woman while I investigate."
"Little Father, don't you think we should both-"
"No!"
Remo subsided, Dominique was surprised to see. Was he afraid of the old one? It seemed doubtful.
They watched the old one slip toward the back of the van, Remo holding her in place with steely fingers clamped about her elbow. They felt like blunt knives and, when she reached up to loosen them, they refused to budge.
While his attention was on her fingers, she tried a judo throw that never failed.
It involved the feet. A quick step back, crunch down on the handiest instep and flip the opponent with his own reverse impetus. Dominique had once thrown a two-hundred-kilogram Sumo wrestler in this fashion.
"Watch the shoes," said Remo when she brought her stiletto heel onto his instep. "They're new. "
She tried to flip him anyway.
Remo refused to flip. It was as if his feet were set in concrete. He had no discernible center of gravity. None that she could find. Refusing to give up, she twisted and tried to insert her fingers into his nostrils and give them a fierce twist absolutely guaranteed to cause the most stern grip to relinquish.
"Easy. I'm ticklish," said Remo, his nostrils easily evading her darting fingers.
"You are unlike any man I have ever encountered," said Dominique, switching to flattery.
"I hear that a lot."
"I am sure."
"Too much, in fact. I like to be treated like an ordinary guy."
"I would treat you that way if you would allow me."
"You're not my type. Sorry."
"I French-kiss like a sailor," Dominique said, using a line that had been used on her.
"I'm not into sailors. Now stop struggling. I wanna see what Chiun does."
Dominique's head turned toward the van, having no other option once Remo had laid his heavy hand on her head and turned it like a faucet fixture.
Her eye fell upon the old Asian named Chiun as he slipped up to the door and laid a tiny ear to it.
"What is he doing?" Dominique hissed.
"Making sure it's not a trap."
"He can tell by listening?"
"He can tell what time it is by closing his eyes and finding the sun with his face."
"What if it is night?"
"Search me. I never saw him do it in the nighttime."
Dominique glanced at Remo's hard, obdurate fingers. "How can one be so slim and so strong at the same time?"
"Same way Popeye did it."
"How so?"
"Spinach."
"You are making fun of me."
"Tell it to Jairy."
"You insult a great clown."
"Shh."
As they watched, Chiun reached up for the door handle and seemed to freeze.
"What is wrong?" Dominique asked.
Remo squeezed her arm to get silence.
As she watched, Dominique realized very slowly that the old Asian was not frozen, as he appeared to be. He was turning the door handle, but doing it so slowly and methodically that he appeared immobile to the casual eye.
"Ah, he is very clever."
Abruptly the door opened and shut almost as quickly. It happened so suddenly it literally took Dominique's breath away. It was as if the door had been the mouth of a mechanical monster that had snatched the old one from sight to gobble him alive.
Nothing happened for a moment.
Then the edges of the door pulsed with the most vivid gray light Dominique had ever seen. And the door flew open like a frightened ghost.
And the awful light poured out.
REMO SAW THE VAN DOOR outlined in green. It was like a kick in the stomach, that green. Remo had never seen such a green. It was hideous, a violent lizard green. Some Sinanju instinct caused him to begin to turn away, when the door flew open and the Master of Sinanju came fluttering out.
Remo naturally looked back to see what Chiun was doing. What he saw shocked him. Chiun's face was twisted with some terrible strain. His arms and legs pumped as if to outrun the green glow.
The green light stabbed out all around him, and in his last moment of consciousness Remo felt his stomach contrac
t involuntarily and the contents of his stomach erupt from his throat.
His last thought was how much he suddenly hated the color green.
DOMINIQUE PARILLAUD felt Remo's grip suddenly relax, and her professional instincts took over. Just in time, too.
She stepped away and by the narrowest margin avoided being splashed by a jet of hot vomit that seemed composed mostly of rice and small chunks of what seemed to be fish.
A horrible expression on his face, Remo fell faces first into his own vomit.
Dominique spun around and saw the old Korean also pitched forward in midstep, a cloud of milky vomit cascading ahead of him.
When he skidded into the grass, Chiun lay still.
Dominique crouched down, her color-blind eyes on the vivid gray light as she searched the grass for her fallen MAS.
The thing came clumping out of the van while she was preoccupied with her weapon.
Dominique experienced a strange stab of recognition mixed with horror. The horror, she thought at first, was a consequence of watching two formidable American agents-she had no doubt that was what they were-succumb to some force she could not comprehend.
But the horror soon resolved itself when the stab of recognition became awful, unbelievable certainty.
"You are Oncle Sam," she blurted as the figure strode toward her.
"Why aren't you lying facedown in your vomit?" the man demanded in a frosty voice.
And as he came on, his left eye began flashing. The livid light. It was coming from his eye somehow. He had an artificial eye. It was like a small strobe light, pulsing and flashing, and he was coming closer and closer. He was aiming it at her as if it were a deadly laser.
And Dominique realized it must be. A laser that did not burn but made strong men give up the contents of their stomachs and pitch unconscious into it.
The realization hit her just as her questing fingers found the cold, reassuring steel of her MAS.
She snapped it up, aimed and pulled the trigger once.
A hand that she saw was fashioned of steel segments clamped over the weapon, pinching her thumb and fingers. Still, she squeezed the trigger.
The weapon refused to discharge, its slide held in place by the hand that then began to whir as hydraulic fingers compressed and compressed with irresistible, inexorable power.
Dominique pulled her fingers free just before the fine-machined steel became a grinding, spitting tangible shriek of steel.
"Mon Dieu!"
"French, eh?"
"Oui. "
"I hate the fucking French."
"You are not Oncle Sam Beasley, who loves all mankind."
"I love only money," said the familiar voice as the steel hand swept up and grabbed her by the hair.
"What do you want of me?" Dominique said, squirming.
"There's just one thing I want from you."
"What is that?"
"Give it to me straight. What does that clown Lewis have that my Mongo doesn't?"
Chapter 17
The first battle-damage-assessment reports from the Blot were most disturbing.
They came in the form of aerial photographs taken by a low-flying Gazelle equipped with a gun-sight camera.
The photographs were laid on the desk of the president of France. "Are these men dead?" he asked.
"We do not know, Monsieur President."
"Is that not blood spilling out from under their still bodies?"
"It is not red."
"Then what can it be?"
"Either piss or vomit. The analysts have yet to determine."
The president of France turned the picture in his hand this way and that. "It is vomit, I think."
"We should leave this to experts, non?"
"Piss is more transparent. This is thick."
"Not all. Some appears soupy."
The president shrugged. "Some could have eaten soup and then thrown it up."
"We have experts who understand these matters," the aide said dismissively. "What do we do?"
"We cannot leave them lying about like so many fallen toy soldiers. These are Frenchmen. Oh, to see them with their proud red berets in the dirt."
"It is asphalt."
"Dirt. Asphalt. The outrage knows no name."
"We must act quickly to contain this matter, before the Americans learn of it and lodge a protest."
"Has there been no word from Washington?"
"Not yet. But soon. That is why you must act instantly."
"I should never have listened to that bouffon," moaned the president of France.
"What clown?"
"The minister of culture."
"He is not such a clown. He has spearheaded the drive against the detestable Franglais, he has banished-"
"Enough. Enough. Order our Foreign Legionnaires to storm the Bastille."
"You mean the Blot."
"I mean to see this matter ended before that bouffon calls to complain," the French president said testily.
"The culture minister?"
"No. The President of the United States."
COLONEL JEAN-GUY BAVARD of the French Foreign Legion had a stock answer for what had brought him to enlist in the toughest, hardest-fighting and most disreputable outfit in all Europe.
"It is a long story."
It wasn't. But that gruff comment was enough to turn away all questions. That it was a long story was the timehonored evasion men of the French Foreign Legion used against prying reporters or too-curious temporary girlfriends.
Thus, no one ever learned that Colonel Bavard had joined the French Foreign Legion because of a gastrointestinal irregularity.
Cheese gave him gas. Not any common gas, but the most malodorous, ferocious gas imaginable. He had only to nibble a corner of Chevrotin, sometimes only inhale the pungency of Brie, when his bowels would churn and boil and begin venting.
It was acutely embarrassing. It drove off lonely women, lost children and hungry dogs. Even flies avoided Colonel Bavard when he was enveloped in a noxious cloud of his own making.
There were only two humane solutions. Give up cheese or join the French Foreign Legion, which would take anyone, no matter his sins or quirks. Colonel Bavard naturally chose the latter course of action.
After all, what self-respecting Frenchman could survive without cheeses? To dwell Brieless was unthinkable. And to be deprived of Rambol and Camembert? Not to mention the sublime La Vache qui Rit?
Colonel Bavard had served with distinction in Kuwait and Rwanda, and elsewhere in the Frenchspeaking world. He had won countless medals for accepting surrenders. That some of those surrendering to Colonel Bavard were his own men was beside the point. Enemy surrenders far, far outnumbered comrades-in-arms who threw themselves gasping on the tender mercies of Colonel Jean-Guy Bavard.
So it was only natural that in their darkest hour, his fellow countrymen would turn to him.
"We have chosen you for this mission for a reason," the commander of the French Foreign Legion told him in his headquarters office.
Colonel Bavard saluted snappily. "I am prepared to die for my nation."
"We need an officer who can lead his men into the darkest quarter of hell."
"I have no fear."
"Your objective is the Blot."
"It is France's."
"It is already France's. Technically we own fiftytwo percent. Or our unfortunate banks do."
"Then I will destroy it."
"We can accomplish that with an atomic bomb, and may we do so at a later point as a lesson to others who would inflict their inferior culture upon us."
Then they handed him a pair of goggles with the lenses crisscrossed by impenetrable black electrical tape.
"What is this for?"
"To protect your eyes."
"From what?"
"The terror of the Blot," they told him solemnly, and Colonel Bavard felt a slow chill creep up his stiff Gallic spine.
"But how will I lead if I am blind?"
"We w
ill guide you by radio from a hovering command helicopter."
"What about my men?"
"They, too, will be similarly goggled."
"That is fine, but how will they follow me?"
His commander allowed himself a slow smile. "You have hit upon the very reason why you have been chosen for this mission, mon Colonel."
And his commander handed Colonel Bavard a blue wedge of malodorous Roquefort.
"Excuse me," Colonel Bavard said, squeezing his cheeks together. Too late. The room was perfumed with the toil of his sensitive intestines.
"Bon appetit!" said his commander, clapping a respirator over his lower face.
WHEN HE EXPLAINED the mission to his men, Colonel Bavard told them it had an extremely low pucker factor.
In military parlance the world over, this meant that the mission was a low-danger one. The pucker factor being the degree to which the anal sphincter contracted with fear under combat conditions.
Normally low-pucker-factor missions were the most welcome.
Not in Colonel Bavard's unit of the French Foreign Legion. The higher the pucker factor, the easier the breathing.
"How low?" asked a lowly private during the premission briefing.
"The lowest possible."
The men looked stricken. Some, in anticipation of their immediate fate, stopped inhaling. Their red berets seemed almost to deflate in resignation.
"We expect to encounter poison gases?" a sergeant asked, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.
"No poison gases are expected."
"Should we not take our gas masks along just in case?" a private suggested eagerly.
"Gas masks are forbidden," Colonel Bavard said sternly. Some of his men, normally brave to a fault, actually quailed.
"You will don these." And he began handing out the taped goggles that sealed the eyes from bright lights.
The men examined the goggles doubtfully.
"If we are blind, how can we follow you into battle, mon Colonel?"
And to their utter horror, their colonel undid the flap of his blouse pocket and flung away the all-important roll of gas-absorbing charcoal tablets that Colonel Jean-Guy Bavard was never without.
"By your proud French noses," he told them.
WHEN THEY LEARNED that they were to assault Euro Beasley in an armored personnel carrier, the men under the command of Colonel Bavard almost deserted.
"Are you mice or are you Frenchmen?" Colonel Bavard demanded, chewing great gulps of cheese as the rear APT door gaped open. It was an AMX/10P APC, its fourteen tons looking like five due to the light desert camouflage streaking, and capable of conveying eleven men into battle.
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