The Color of Fear td-99

by Warren Murphy

  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 sh
ow. 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-hi
ghest 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.