The Color of Fear td-99

by Warren Murphy

  When they had flanked Remo's taxi, one gendarme called out, "Rendez-vous!"

  "Did he say rendezvous?" asked Remo.

  "He is asking you to surrender."

  "Ou est Euro Beasley?" Remo asked.

  The gendarme flinched as if Remo had spit in his face.

  "What'd I do wrong?" Remo said to Chiun.

  "You told him 'He hears Euro Beasley.'"

  "Oops. Maybe you should try."

  But it was too late. Pistols came up out of police holsters, and Remo knew he had to act fast before their tires were shot out from under them. He accelerated, flung open his door and hit the brakes hard.

  "Chiun!"

  The Master of Sinanju copied his pupil's action.

  The pursuing gendarmes were caught off guard. They hit their brakes too late and took off both taxi doors with a ripping of steel and the crash-bang of the doors smashing into their windshields.

  When the third car caught up with them, Remo reached out and wrenched the passenger door off the pacing vehicle. Then he asked, "Ou est Euro Beasley?"

  The driver pointed ahead. "Follow ze signs to A301. "

  "Did he say follow the signs?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "Oui."

  "Don't start speaking French to me. How do you say thank you?"

  "Merci."

  "Oh, right. Merci, " Remo called, kicking out through the driver's side and catching the right front tire with the hard toe of his foot.

  The spinning tire blew, sank and the police car went falumphing into a ditch. The driver got out and called "Bonne chance!" after them.

  "He has wished us good fortune," Chiun translated.

  Remo grinned. "Looks like clear sailing ahead."

  Chapter 19

  Behind a basement door whose brass plate said White House Situation Room, the President of the United States conferred with his military advisers.

  "Options, I want to hear options," he said.

  "Do we have a policy?" asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  The President looked to his national-security adviser, who glanced guiltily at the secretary of defense, who in turn threw the hairy eyeball back to the Chief Executive.

  "Not yet," the President admitted. "I was kinda hoping you'd help us out with that."

  "We have to retaliate, Mr. President," said the Joint Chiefs chairman in his musical East European accent.

  "We do have to?" the President said unhappily.

  "You did say you wanted to hear options," his national-security adviser said.

  "Good options. Positive ones."

  "I thought you meant military ones," the JCS chair said.

  "Every time I send troops somewhere, my polls drop."

  "We have to retaliate in kind," the secretary of defense said firmly. "American prestige is at stake."

  "Damn."

  "Look, the French have bombed Euro Beasley. Now they have it surrounded. We have one of two responses in kind available to us."

  "I'm listening."

  "One, we liberate Euro Beasley by inserting the Eighty-second Airborne. They'll hold it against further French incursions, wire it up good, slip out under cover of darkness and blow it to smithereens."

  "Blow up Euro Beasley?"

  "Mr. President, we can't let the French just march up and grab a symbol of American culture and prestige. And we can't exactly dismantle it and ship it back to the good ole U S.A. in crates."

  "What's option two?" the President asked.

  "Option two is to retaliate in kind. They hit an American theme park. We hit a French theme park." The chair-laid a map of greater Paris on the long conference table. "Here we have Paris. And this red spot thirty-two kilometers east is Euro Beasley."

  "Right...."

  "This is Parc Asterix. It's twenty-five kilometers north of Paris and both logistically and symbolically, it's a natural."

  "How so?"

  "It's based on some sissy French comic-strip character, so it has parity with Euro Beasley as a military target. You know, they hit Mongo, we clobber Asterix."

  "What is the other red spot?"

  "France Miniature. It's a theme park where the entire country is laid out in miniature. You can ride through it in a matter of an hour. Sort of a Lilliput kind of deal, I guess."

  "Wouldn't that be a more logical target? It's more French."

  "True. But it's an awfully small target. Hard to hit. The goddamn city of Paris they got there is no bigger than this room. Our satellites had a heck of a time getting a fix on the tiny Eiffel Tower, which we'd naturally designate ground zero."

  The President rubbed his bulbous nose in indecision. "I don't like the idea of hitting a comic-strip-character park. It seems antibusiness and might turn the next generation of French children against us."

  "It's tit for tat, sir."

  "If it's tit for tat, shouldn't we strike a French theme park on American soil?"

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff sat stunned for several ticks of the clock. They exchanged uncertain glances.

  "Er, Mr. President," the defense secretary said, "the Pentagon has no intelligence on any French theme parks on US. soil."

  "I don't think there are any," added the nationalsecurity adviser, reaching for his briefcase. Everyone reached for their briefcases and began digging through briefing papers and intelligence abstracts.

  The President turned to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who had thus far sat through the meeting with his mouth shut and his hands folded.

  "What do our ground assets in Paris tell us?" he asked.

  "Nothing," the CIA director said morosely. "I regret to inform the President that they were rounded up the first day by the DGSE."

  "Their covers were blown the first day of the crisis!"

  "We have reason to believe their covers were blown the day they hit Paris."

  The President looked his disbelief.

  "I know how this looks, sir," the CIA director said helplessly. "But you have to understand, it's an exceedingly difficult language to learn. We drill and drill our people, but when they get into the field, they stumble over the words something fierce. Even the simple words. Like yes. It's pronounced 'we,' but there's no w. It's all goddamn vowels, not one of them an e. "

  The President said bitterly, "Obviously we've got another no-win Somalia-style situation on our hands."

  "The Somalis speak French, too," the CIA, director volunteered hopefully.

  "Do you have any helpful suggestions?" asked the President.

  "I have a scenario for introducing Valium into the French drinking-water supply."

  "What good will that do?"

  "Our people think if we can get the French calmed down, they might get off their high horses-or at least enunciate more slowly, thus putting our agents on a level playing field with their agents, linguistically speaking-"

  Everyone stared at the CIA director until the defense secretary said, "Got any Valium on you?"

  "In my briefcase."

  "Now would be an opportune time to indulge yourself."

  While the CIA chief began rooting around, all eyes fell upon the President of the United Stated expectantly.

  "I have the Vice President trying to reach the Beasley people on the net. Maybe they can shed some light on this."

  "Shouldn't we explore all options?" the JCS chair pleaded.

  "We are exploring all options. I have to be able to justify any military action I take to both the American people and the citizens of France. I can't justify tit for tat."

  "Did I hear the word 'tit'?" a stern female voice called from the open door.

  "Oh, hi dear," said the President sheepishly.

  "Mrs. President," said the JCS chair.

  "Don't call her that," the President whispered urgently.

  "What have I told you uniforms about using sexist language in my house?" the First Lady snapped.

  "Sorry, ma'am," mumbled the defense secretary.

  "It was just an expressio
n," added the national security adviser.

  "Yes, tit for tat."

  The First Lady gave them all the benefit of her laser blue eyes. "How would you like it if the expression was 'dick for dock'?"

  The JCS chairman looked away and played with his fingers. The President turned red. The CIA director popped his Valium.

  "From now on, say 'an eye for an eye' or 'a tooth for a tooth.' Is that clear?"

  "Yes, ma'am," the Joint Chiefs chairman and the President of the United States said in little-boy voices.

  "At ease, boys," said the First Lady, coming over to her husband's end of the conference table and laying before him a single sheet of fanfold computer paper.

  "This just came off the net," she whispered, glaring at the director of the CIA, who was trying to sneak a peak at the paper.

  TAKE NO ACTION ON BEASLEY MATTER. AGENT'S EN ROUTE. WILL REPORT AS DEVELOPMENTS WARRANT.

  smith@cure.com

  "We're adjourned," said the President of the United States, crumpling up the paper.

  "What about our retaliatory response?" asked the secretary of defense.

  "Our retaliatory response," said the President, "is about to hit the French the way that comet struck Jupiter."

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff looked at one another with blank, vaguely fearful expression.

  "But, Mr. President, we are your retaliatory response."

  "Not for real situations," said the President, exiting the Situation Room with his wife.

  Before the door slammed, the First Lady turned and showed the Joint Chiefs of Staff how pink her tongue was.

  Chapter 20

  The first Euro Beasley sign they came to had a black X spray-painted over it. The second was desecrated by the slash-in-a-circle international symbol for no. The third had a non! scrawled over it.

  "I think this is the way," Remo remarked dryly.

  Remo recognized the exit off Route A301 that led to Euro Beasley because the sign, which was shaped like Mongo Mouse's head, was completely blacked out with paint.

  He slid off the road, and the blue-and-cream Norman battlements of the Enchanted Village came into view.

  Sleek helicopters buzzed its ramparts. A ring of desert camouflage AMX 30bis main battle tanks and APCs ringed the theme park.

  "These guys look serious," said Remo.

  They came upon a roadblock. Remo eased the car to a slow stop and stuck his head out the place where the window would have been had he not kicked the door off.

  "Hey! Mind rolling aside for a couple of tourists?"

  Green-bereted heads swiveled, and Gallic eyes widened in horror.

  "Americain?"

  "You bet," said Remo.

  "Americain!"

  The hated word ran up and down the ranks of the French army unit laying siege to the greatest theme park on the European continent.

  A tank turret began rotating with a low, steady whine.

  When the muzzle of the 105 mm howitzer was lined up with the taxi windshield, Remo said to Chiun, "I think we've hit a definite anti-American bloc."

  They were out of the taxi before the shell coughed from the black muzzle and were accelerating to sixty miles per hour on foot when it struck.

  The French taxicab took a direct hit and became the focal point for screaming shrapnel to ricochet in all directions.

  When it settled back to the ground on puddling tires, it was a black frame of twisted steel in which flames crackled and danced.

  While French army troops huddled behind their steel charges, waiting for the last bits of shrapnel to stop bouncing off, Remo and Chiun rendezvoused behind their siege line.

  "That was easy," Remo said as they entered the park.

  "These Gauls are very excitable, and therefore easily defeated by superior wits"

  "I'll try and remember that," said Remo.

  "I was thinking of my superior Korean wits, not your inferior white ones."

  They walked down Main Street, U.S.A., unchallenged. Remo, who had been through Euro Beasley before, trying to locate Sam Beasley, was surprised how empty it was. Without the crowds who normally thronged the pavilions and attractions, there seemed to be no magic to the place.

  Part of that may have had to do with the fact that most of the attractions had French-language names. Remo recognized the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse despite the sign saying, La Cabane Des Robinson, but what La Taniere du Dragon was, he had no idea.

  "Last time I was here," Remo told the Master of Sinanju, "there was a way into Utiliduck-or whatever they call it here-through the castle."

  "Therefore, we will not enter through the castle."

  "I don't know any other entrance."

  "Which only means that they will be expecting you to enter through the castle and will not be expecting us if we enter another way."

  Turning a corner, they came upon red-bereted bodies around a grassy mound in the town square where Mongo's grinning face was reproduced in a varicolored flower pattern.

  Everybody breathed, everyone's heart pumped, yet everyone lay facedown in a dried puddle of vomit, dead to the world.

  "Looks like they got greened, too," Remo remarked.

  Holding his nose, Chiun hurried on.

  They passed an area called Parc Mesozoique, and Remo said, "I don't remember that from last time. What's it mean?"

  "Mesozoique Park."

  "That helps a lot," said Remo. "I thought you understood French."

  "I understand the good tongue of the Franks, not this tongue-twisted patois."

  The section of the park was walled off by a high bamboo fence, three times as tall as a man, lashed together with fibrous, ropelike vines. Remo tried to see through the chinks, but the spaces were caulked tight.

  "Seems to me," Remo said, "something fenced off this tight might be important."

  "I agree," said the Master of Sinanju, examining the fence carefully.

  "Looks like something out of King Kong. "

  "We never worked for him," Chiun said vaguely, attacking the vines with his long, knifelike fingernails. They began parting with dry snaps, and a section of bamboo began to sag outward.

  "Your turn," Chiun invited.

  Remo made a spear with his right hand and began chopping. Bamboo splintered and crackled in surrender. When he got an opening, Remo stepped in.

  CHIEF CONCEPTEER Rod Cheatwood watched the two strange intruders amble around the park curiously. They weren't French. Certainly the Asian wasn't. The white guy was dressed for shooting pool, so he couldn't be French, either. He looked as American as Bruce Springsteen. But he wasn't a tourist.

  Rod stabbed console mike buttons trying to pick up shreds of their conversation, but they seemed to somehow sense the electrical fields surrounding the concealed mikes. They lowered their voices every time they came within audio range.

  And when he moved the concealed security cameras, trying to track them, they seemed to sense those, too, always turning so their backs faced the lenses, as if to foil lip-readers. Not that Rod had that talent.

  When they came to Parc Mesozoique, Rod smiled slightly.

  And when they began chopping away at the imported bamboo fence, he swallowed his smile and stabbed at console buttons.

  It would be messy, but it was the best way. Since the French government had cut off all power to Euro Beasley, he didn't dare use the hypercolor eximer lasers unless he absolutely had to.

  The things drank electricity the way a whale ingested water, and the Euro Beasley backup generators hadn't yet recharged from that French Foreign Legion incursion.

  And his orders were to hold Euro Beasley at all costs until the cavalry came.

  REMO DETECTED NO SOUNDS or scent of living things behind the bamboo wall so he entered Parc Mesozoique with confidence, stepping into an impenetrable rain forest.

  There were birds squatting on the trees, but they weren't real. They simply perched on branches and looked glassyeyed. Animatronic. No doubt about it.

  "Coast look
s clear, Little Father," Remo called over his shoulder.

  But Chiun had already entered. "This place is not real," he said, looking around with stern eyes.

  "The trees are plastic," Remo explained.

  "I do not like this place, where even the trees are not real."

  "Hey, it's Beasleyland. Everything is plastic here. Come on, maybe we can find our way downstairs from here."

  They melted into the plastic trees under the blind, watchful eyes of the jungle birds.

  At the first earthshaking thud, Remo said, "What's that?"

  "Something is coming this way."

  The thud was followed by another. Foliage shook, and shook again. The thudding picked up.

  "Something alive," Chiun added.

  "If something living is coming this way, why don't I hear its heartbeat or lungs?" asked Remo.

  "Perhaps it does not have any."

  "Can't be animatronic. It's too big, whatever it is."

  The trees continued to shake with each lumbering footfall, and branches snapped with a sound that was not right because the branches were not made of natural wood, but man-made polymers. They squealed and groaned instead of snapping and splintering as they should.

  Remo hesitated.

  "This is really starting to remind me of King Kong. "

  Then the trees parted, and a leathery chocolate snout lined with countless ivory needle teeth dropped toward them.

  "T-rex!" Remo shouted, breaking left. The Master of Sinanju stood his ground, staring up at the great behemoth, whose head waved back and forth like a serpent trying to fix its prey with its side-mounted lizard eyes.

  Remo stopped, turned. "Chiun!"

  "It is not living."

  "It weighs as much as a truck and it has teeth. Move it."

  The chocolate snout dropped lower. The mouth opened, and a mechanical roar issued from the sharklike mouth.

  The Master of Sinanju cocked his head like a spaniel. "It is looking at me."

  "It can't. It's a machine."

  "Then someone is-looking at me through it," said Chiun stubbornly.

  "Now that's possible," said Remo, slipping up behind the full-size Tyrannosaurus rex.

  DOWN IN UTILICANARD, Rod Cheatwood couldn't believe his eyes. Or the eyes of the T-rex, rather. The little old guy wasn't scared in the slightest. He looked back at the animatronic T-rex with a serene indifference that made the short hairs on Rod's bare forearms lift like spiders walking.