The Color of Fear td-99 Read online

  Secondly American citizens were being pointedly kept out of France as "undesirable aliens."

  In fact, as Smith worked his keyboard, a bulletin told of the American ambassador to France being declared persona non grata and sent home for "conduct incompatible with his station."

  This was diplomatic jargon used to describe illegal espionage activity. It was absurd. The US. ambassador had nothing to do with this matter-whatever it was.

  Smith returned to his task.

  Beasley employees were evacuating to France with the speed and single-minded fervor of lemmings seeking the water. Why?

  "They can't be going to London," he murmured. "That would make no sense."

  Then the truth struck Smith with the force of a blow.

  Americans were persona non grata in France. But British citizens were still welcome-or as welcome as the French made any non-French-speaking people feel welcome.

  Smith brought up a detailed map of the British Isles. He shrank it so the English Channel came into view, along with the northern coast of France.

  Gatwick to de Gaulle or Orly was a matter of an hour's flying time. But any American attempting to land at either airport would certainly be intercepted by French customs. Even in overwhelming numbers, they could not get very far.

  Smith considered the channel. Taking a ferry or landing craft was a possibility. But a sea invasion, even a small one, had a limited operational viability.

  Frowning, he tapped a key that converted all English words and place-names to French in the wink of an eye.

  The channel became La Manche, which was French for "the sleeve," and was the name the French had given what the rest of the world called the English Channel. There was nothing else provocative or helpful.

  Smith was about to log off when his gaze alighted on an unfamiliar landmark that lay across the channel.

  It was a red line.

  And it had a label: Le Transmanche.

  His weary gray eyes froze. Was there something he had missed before? Smith tapped the key that restored the English tags.

  And on the map where Le Transmanche had been, appeared a new word. A word Smith instantly recognized. A word that made the skin prickle and crawl along the bumps of his spine.

  The word was Chunnel.

  BECAUSE THEY worm no uniforms, they were not considered an army. An army comes wearing uniforms, bearing arms and marching to the threatening roll of drums.

  The combined California Summer Vacation Musketeers, Florida Sunshine Guerrillas and Louisiana Costume Zouaves arrived in London, England, carrying American passports, their uniforms discreetly tucked away in their luggage.

  And so they were considered tourists not soldiers.

  When they showed up, in groups of two and three at London's Waterloo International railway station, they were carrying forged Canadian passports. They boarded the high-speed Eurostar trains as FrenchCanadian tourists and kept to themselves as the train rattled over the old track to Folkestone at a decorous eighty miles per hour because the brand of Louisiana Creole they spoke wouldn't exactly cut it in Paris.

  Upon entering the special rapid track of the English Channel Tunnel they sped up to 186 miles per hour.

  The combined forces kept their tongues still, although their hearts lifted with each mile that raced by.

  French customs could be forgiven for not sounding the alarm. Who would expect an invasion force arriving by Le Transmanche, as the French called the Chunnel? It was the British who for centuries had resisted the link to Europe. It was they who feared invasion from the Continent, not the other way around.

  Their passports were in order, their uniforms were neatly folded, blue and gray cottons nestled deep under their very British tweeds and linens.

  And by the time they left Coquelles Terminal in Calais, bound for Paris, there was no stopping them.

  For they bore no weapons recognizable as such.

  And while it was unusual to bring personal universal TV remote-control units into a foreign country, it was not illegal.

  AT FIRST Marc Moise welcomed the promotion to task force group leader.

  "You will lead the Louisiana Costume Zouaves," he was told by no less than Bob Beasley himself. They were in a conference room in Sam Beasley World's underground Utiliduck, in Florida.

  "Lead them where?"

  And when Bob Beasley told him that the objective was to retake Euro Beasley to keep special technology out of French hands, Marc Moise swallowed very, very hard and said, "That sounds dangerous."

  "It's for the good of the company."

  "I understand that," said Marc hesitantly. "But-"

  Then Bob Beasley fixed him with his crinkled father-figure eyes and whispered, "Uncle Sam asked for you by name. He said, 'I want Moose to spearhead this operation.'"

  Chapter 27

  Dominique Parillaud felt proud. Remy Renard, director of the DGSE, had convened a high-level meeting of the directorate's Planning, Forecasting and Evaluation Group and had invited her.

  "We would appreciate your input," he had said, then catching himself, corrected, "Your thoughts, Agent Arlequin."

  "But of course."

  Now in the somber room whose high windows were heavily curtained to keep out the incessant clangor of Parisian traffic and to foil observers, they sat about the long oak table on which the detached eye of Uncle Sam Beasley lay. It was still attached to the penlike activator DGSE technicians had hastily devised to enable it into a weapon.

  "The heart of the device is a prism," a DGSE technician was saying. "As you know, white light passing through a prism has the property of scattering into rainbow hues. This orb emits light according to cybernetique command impulses, delivering the desired supercolor."

  "Excellent summary," said the DGSE chief. "Now, of what use can this tool be to French national security."

  "Our agents, equipped with such devices, would be impossible to foil in the field," said Lamont Mont grande, head of the political police known as the Renseignements Generaux, who had been invited as a courtesy.

  "Good, good, but there is the risk of losing the technology to an adversary nation."

  "If this is American technology, as we suspect, it is as good as lost," said Fabian Rocard, the chief of Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. "Our industrial-espionage bureau has been highly successful in acquiring American technologies, often, as you know, by procedures as simple as rooting in the unsecured garbage of aerospace companies."

  "Still, if lost to others, it will be turned against our advantage," Renard said. "More thoughts, please."

  There were several moments of quiet rumination as a scrumptious pork wine, cheese and crackers made the rounds of the long table.

  At length the minister of the interior and nominal overseer of the French Intelligence community spoke up. "Imagine this orb magnified greatly."

  The table of Intelligence chiefs focused on the orb. In their minds it grew to great size. It was not difficult to envision. They understood that this object loomed very large in their nation's future.

  "Now, further imagine this orb in orbit."

  "In orbit?"

  "Oui. In orbit circling the globe, the eye of France."

  "A spy satellite?"

  "No, the fearsome protective eye of France. Imagine the Germans nibbling away at our borders again."

  This was not very hard to imagine, either.

  "Then imagine as they marshal their foes to storm or invade, an irresistible pink radiance spilling down from the heavens to bathe them in its quelling radiations."

  This vision was much more difficult to envision, but they put their concentration into it. Scowls came, as did facial contortions.

  Eventually they saw the beauty of it.

  "Or should the British become even more of a nuisance than they are already, bathe them in the awful green that causes the stomach to rebel."

  "Their stomachs should already be in rebellion, with the unpalatable foods that they devour."
/>   A combined roar of laughter floated toward the high ceiling.

  It was the lowly Dominique Parillaud who had the best idea of all, however.

  "Imagine," she said in a soft, conspiratorial voice, "bathing the US. with the yellow radiation that brings fear and consternation. They will never vex us again."

  "We could keep them in thrall indefinitely," Remy crowed.

  "Unless, of course, we require liberating again," said the minister of the interior. "Then we would naturally release them. Briefly. Until they have succored us once again with their industrial might and brave but foolhardy soldiers."

  "Provisions, of course, will have to be made to scrupulously avoid infecting the habitation of Jairy, of course."

  "Of course. This goes without saying."

  "When is the next Ariane launch?" asked Remy Renard.

  "Next week. A communications satellite, I believe it is."

  "It is possible to substitute this?"

  "Non. A larger package must be created using this technology."

  "If we have the technology, how long can it take to recreate this larger package?"

  No one knew, but everyone promised to get to work on the problem. For all understood they held a power, a force greater than the atomic bomb itself. One could not nuke another nation without incurring certain lamentable unpleasantries in return. Criticisms. Condemnations. Even unsympathetic retaliations.

  But if the afflicted nation had no inkling that their distress was caused by colors emanating from outer space, who could criticize France?

  As the meeting broke up, Dominique Parillaud decided to look in on the Beasley spy whom she had interrogated not an hour before.

  The man had been asking for a television, which had been provided to him. Dominique was curious. What would a man in the difficult position of captured industrial spy want with a television set? Was there something he expected to see on it?

  THE TAXI DRIVER a mile outside the Euro Beasley RER train stop didn't hear the rear doors open as he waited, drinking coffee, for a fare.

  He barely heard them close. He should have felt the shifting of his rear springs because when he glanced up into his rear mirror, two men were sitting in back.

  "Mon Dieu!"

  "Take us to Paris," said the taller of the two, an obvious and unspeakable Anglo-American type. If not because of his gauche dress, certainly because of his painful pronunciation of the elegant name of Paris.

  Pierre Perruche had been hauling unspeakable Americans and their unspeakable accents around Paris all his life. Many times he yearned to throw them bodily from his car when they announced their destinations with impossible words, but there were considerations other than his deep-seated desires. Namely income and the risk to tourism, which also impacted upon his income.

  But with all American tourists ejected from France and their hideous accents also outlawed, Pierre Perruche saw no need to hold back any longer.

  "Out!" he shouted.

  "Look, we don't have time to argue. Just take us to Paris."

  "It is pronounced 'Par-ee!' Out, impossible ones!"

  Then the other man, the old Asian, spoke up. In perfect French that broke the heart and made Pierre Perruche, a lifelong Parisian, realize that his own speech was shamefully deficient, the Asian instructed him to go climb a tree.

  "Va te faire pendre ailleurs!" he said haughtily.

  And such was his pronunciation that Pierre relented. "You may stay," he said, tears starting. "The other, he must go. Now!"

  What happened next was not entirely clear to Pierre Perruche, although he lived through the entire ordeal.

  A steely hand took him by the back of his neck and impelled him to drive to Paris.

  Pierre Perruche had no volition other than that which he received from the hateful American. He drove. When his head was turned like a horse, like a horse he drove obediently in that direction. He felt very much like a dumb beast.

  From the back the old Asian spoke commands. Not to Pierre, but to the other. The other then compelled Pierre to drive that way or this way.

  It was not the most efficient system but it worked quite smoothly, especially after they pulled onto the Ring Road and into Parisian traffic at its most frightful.

  Pierre Perruche was astonished to find himself driving more skillfully than ever before in his life.

  It was a strange feeling made ever stranger when he was forced to drive past DGSE headquarters on Boulevard Mortier.

  There was no mistaking DGSE HQ. A hodgepodge compound of stone-and-brick buildings, it was isolated by a brown stone wall. A weathered sign prohibiting filming or the taking of photographs was the only outward indication of its sensitive nature. Its roofmounted surveillance cameras followed every passing car, jogger and pigeon that chanced by its tracking lenses.

  "That it?" asked the American of his Oriental companion.

  "Yes."

  And a thumb slipping up to squeeze one jaw muscle somehow caused Pierre's foot to depress the brake with the correct pressure to bring the cab to a smooth stop.

  "The fare is-" he started to say.

  "What fare? I did all the driving."

  And before Pierre could protest, the American squeezed all awareness from his brain.

  THE ROOF CAMERAS tracked them as they approached the DGSE HQ.

  "Looks easy enough to crack," said Remo. "What say to climbing to the roof and dropping through the ceiling?"

  Chiun regarded the ten-foot-high wall whose top was toothy with embedded bayonets to foil vaulters, and said, "Too obvious."

  "I don't see a better way," said Remo.

  "We will enter by the front door."

  "Why is that not obvious?"

  "Because they do not expect us."

  Remo followed the Master of Sinanju up to a metallic beige door set in the wall. There was no knob, only an electric button.

  Chiun pressed this, the door started to open and the Master of Sinanju bustled through and into the teeth of a DGSE security team.

  One said, "Arretez!"

  Remo asked, "Parlez-vous franglais?"

  This was not well received, and when the Master of Sinanju showed every sign of breezing through the guards with a blithe disregard for decorum, one guard yanked up his MAT submachine gun and said, "Allen y! Dites-le!"

  Remo didn't need to draw upon his three years of French I to know the guard had just ordered his comrades to open fire.

  He picked his target and started in, confident that the Master of Sinanju had already chosen his.

  Chiun had. He pivoted in place and lifted one sandaled foot to the height of his own head.

  It seemed only to brush two sets of jaws, but the jaws came off their hinges with a matched pair of cracks, hanging askew. The guards lost their weapons and went down trying to clutch their chins, which were no longer quite where they were accustomed to being.

  Remo decided to offer up his own brand of professional courtesy and not kill anyone who was only defending his place of work.

  Moving low, he let a stuttering Mat burst burn past one shoulder close enough that he felt the hot bullets pass. Then he popped up not an inch before the guard's comically astonished face.

  Remo poked him in the eyes with two forked fingers, and the man recoiled, howling and clawing at his tearing eyes.

  A second guard swung his stubby-snouted weapon on line with Remo but held his fire. Remo had grabbed the first guard by the back of his coat and held him between himself and the place where the bullets would come out.

  The guard tried to angle his way around, the better to shoot Remo without harming his compatriot.

  The blinded guard continued howling and dancing-not entirely of his own volition-while it soon became apparent that there was no shooting the intruder without also shooting his fellow DGSE agent.

  Remo saw the subdued resignation creep over the guard's face and propelled the blind guard in his direction. They collided, knocking heads, and both collapsed, weaponless, to the flo
or.

  Remo joined the Master of Sinanju as he swept into the main DGSE building unchallenged.

  In the empty foyer Remo asked, "Which way?"

  "Follow the sour trail," said Chiun.

  And Remo smelled it, too. The faint scent of vomit. The man who had upchucked over the Beasley control console had passed this way, probably prior to being cleaned off.

  They found the cell in the basement, and while they were getting ready to rip the blank door off its hinges, Dominique Parillaud stepped off an elevator.

  She took one look at them, and her jaw dropped.

  Remo was on her before her hands could make up their mind to stab the Door Close button or unship her pistol.

  She did neither. When the elevator door closed, she was out of the car, her pistol in Remo's hand.

  "How did you? How could you--" she sputtered.

  "This place is a candy box," said Remo.

  "You will never get what you 'ave come for."

  Then the Master of Sinanju approached the door. Its hinges lay on the outside of the cell for obvious reasons, so he simply sheared them off with three quick slashes of one fingernail.

  The door came out like a portrait from a frame.

  "You will never take him away," Dominique insisted with less conviction than before.

  "Wanna bet?" said Remo. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

  A blondish head poked out. The face under it was tanned and tentative.

  "You Americans?" he asked.

  "That's us. You the Beasley guy?"

  "That's me."

  "You're coming with us," said Remo.

  "What about the you-know-what?"

  Remo blinked. "We don't know what."

  "The cybernetic hypercolor eximer laser eyeball."

  Remo blinked. "Say that again in English? My French is real rusty."

  "That was English. I'm talking about the eyeball the Beasley boys had me make. It was for some radioanimatronic project."

  "It was for Sam Beasley," said Remo.

  "Yeah. That's who I work for."

  "No, I mean it was for Uncle Sam Beasley himself."

  The tanned face looked doubtful. "But he's dead."

  "I wish," said Remo as the Master of Sinanju pulled the prisoner from the cell by the front of his peach jumpsuit.