The Color of Fear td-99 Read online

"Your name?" Remo asked.

  "Rod Cheatwood."

  "Make you a deal-you tell us everything you know, and we'll get you back to the good old U.S.A."

  "EUD," hissed Dominique. "You must say EUD while in my country. It is the law."

  "Stuff it," Remo told her. To Rod, he said, "How about it?"

  "Done deal."

  "That was quick. Whatever happened to company loyalty?"

  "Are you kidding? You think I'd stack my neck out for those ducking bastards? They mugged me the minute I walked through their front door."

  "Okay, let's go," said Remo.

  "I wish you would have waited another hour," Rod said as they called for the elevator.

  "Why?" asked Chiun.

  "They're showing the finale of 'Star Trek: the Next Generation' this afternoon."

  "You can catch that anytime," said Remo.

  "I keep trying to, but it never happens."

  "It would only be in French," said Remo. "Only Jerry Lewis movies work in French."

  "Jairy est Dieu, " sighed Dominique before being yanked bodily into the elevator.

  Chapter 28

  Commander Luc Crocq of the French Foreign Ugion forces surrounding Euro Beasley was confident in his men and materiel. They had encircled the park with a ring of steel. The tanks and APCs sat snout to rump and rump to snout all around the place of defilement. Commander Crocq considered it a defilement because although he had nothing against American culture in particular, he was a lifelong fan of Coulommiers cheese, which was made in this very area. That many of the farms that produced this cheese among cheeses were razed to prepare the land for the Euro Beasley park was in Commander Crocq's eyes the desecration of desecrations.

  Secretly he hoped for word to roll in and raze Euro Beasley from the face of France.

  But no such order had come. All was quiet since the last attempt to close the ring of steel had been met with a pinkish radiance that took the fighting piss out of his legionnaires.

  There had been an altercation in which a French army helicopter had descended into the park, only to lift off again later. Nothing more was known about this operation, but Crocq suspected DGSE involvement.

  All the commander understood was that he was to hold his ring of steel in place, tightly and without faltering, so that none could exit the hellish enclave of American junk culture.

  He did not expect a wave of forces sneaking up from his rear to wash over his ring of steel and retake the park. The objective was not to defend Euro Beasley, Commander Crocq later pointed out to the military board of review. If they had wanted him to defend the park from external threats, as well, should that not have been included in his orders?

  So pleaded Commander Crocq in vain before they court-martialed him.

  There were many other reasons Commander Crocq was not responsible for what later transpired.

  First there were crowds. They came by auto, by truck-even by metro line. The terminus of the A RER train line was called Parc Euro Beasley. Daytrippers who came to sample the place of cultural perfidy employed it. Although the park was under cultural quarantine, still they came to look, to gawk, perhaps to catch a glimpse of Mongo or Dingbat or one of the others who dwelled here no more.

  It was a festive time, so when men dressed as soldiers of Napoleon III began to appear among the growing crowd, it was not a cause for concern, never mind interest. And since all attention was focused inward, not outward, just as his orders dictated, Commander Crocq was completely oblivious to the increasing preponderance of soldiers dressed in the fashion of a bygone century.

  That is, until they attacked.

  THEY CAME SCREAMING unintelligible sounds. Not curses, not imprecations, not defiance. Just sheer bloodcurdling noise.

  This arrested the attention of all in the awkward moment when they came pouring over ring of steel in waves of blue and gray.

  They carried no guns, no rifles, no pistols. To that, Commander Crocq swore to his dying day.

  But when they poured under the ring of steel, the ring of steel lay helpless. Multiton tanks and APCs could not move as fast as a man. Not from a cold start. Not when parked snout to rump and vice versa.

  "Defend your positions!" Commander Crocq cried. Too late. Their position had already been overrun. Soldiers of the past, including fez-hatted Zouaves not seen since the 1800s, poured into the gates of Euro Beasley.

  "Fire at will!" Commander Crocq sputtered when he realized his line had been breached before he could respond to the insult.

  That was when the horrible event transpired.

  His men were chambering their weapons. Not a shot had been fired. Not by either side. That was the remarkable thing, the terrible thing.

  The infiltrators turned, dropped into crouches and pulled masks of lead over their eyes. The peculiar quality to these masks was that they bore no eyeholes. The infiltrators were digging into defensive positions utterly blind.

  Then they unleashed the terrible power of what looked from the near distance like universal remote controls.

  There came flashes, pulses, strong lights. All hues and colors imaginable were represented. The lights bombarded Commander Crocq and his unflinching Foreign Legionnares like a light show with the kicking power of a thousand mules.

  Some men ran for their lives, unhurt. Others lost their nerve and their consumed rations before succumbing to vivid green flashes. Still others, subjected to red, became beside themselves with anger, which they took out on their comrades-in-arms.

  It was a horrible, unearthly thing. The ring of steel held strong, but the men manning it collapsed like paper dolls before a firestorm. A firestorm of rainbow colors.

  For his part Commander Crocq, who sat high in the turret hatch of his tank, ducked down and pulled the hatch after him. He would later protest this was not an act of cowardice, but the reasonable response of a commander who needed to preserve his wits in order to marshal his forces.

  For all the good it did him, Commander Crocq might as well have taken his medicine like a soldier of France.

  The awful lights penetrated the tank's thick plate armor, showing the utter futility of France's engines of war before new technologies.

  He received a simultaneous burst of pink and yellow.

  Commander Crocq leaped from his tank and ran off into the scattering crowds of onlookers. He was very, very frightened by the yellow light that seemed to have deep-fried his brain in sizzling butter.

  But under that mindless fear lay a peaceful feeling that all would be right once he got far away enough. It was a very peaceful feeling. And somehow it was pink.

  MARC MOISE SAW the French defenders fall back in confusion and a wide spectrum of emotions. A few, pinked, actually came toward them. They were hued by cavalry who had control of the yellow universal units or by artillery, which had red.

  They fell back, fighting among themselves.

  When the commotion had died down, Marc led his Zouaves into the Sorcerer's Chateau and down into Utilicanard, while the California Summer Vacation Musketeers and the Florida Sunshine Guerrillas stood picketed at all approach roads.

  The smell in Utilicanard was very ripe. Marc had to pink himself just to keep going. The Zouaves took it in stride. They had come for a fight, fresh from their triumph at the Third Battle of the Crater.

  When Marc got to the main control room he found drying vomit and smashed hypercolor controls. Frowning, he got on the satellite phone and reported to the first person who answered.

  "Cheatwood is gone. And someone smashed the controls."

  "Any idea what happened?" a gruff, frosty voice demanded.

  "No. But there's vomit. Could he have greened himself?"

  "Not in his own control room. Check the video logs."

  Marc replayed the tapes until he saw Rod Cheatwood succumb to his own video screen. The flash of green in the tape was enough to make Marc feel a little queasy, but he held down the food he'd last eaten. It wasn't hard. Although train fare, it was French.r />
  "Looks like the French acquired the technology," he reported.

  "Was it a woman?"

  "Yeah, looks like."

  "Damn her eyes. She must have figured out how to make the orb operate. Okay, hold the fort. We're coming in."

  "Sir?" said Marc. But the line was already dead.

  So Marc Moise sat down in the chair before the main viewer, trying to reconcile the crusty voice that had spoken to him with the childhood memory of Uncle Sam Beasley.

  Uncle Sam was coming here. But why? That hadn't been in Marc's premission briefing.

  FRENCH MINISTER of Culture Maurice Tourette was the first to hear of the rout at Euro Beasley.

  "Who?" he sputtered. "Who is responsible for this outrage?"

  "According to reports," the informant told him, "the attackers were dressed after the style of Napoleon III."

  "Napoleon III?" Tourette chewed the leathery inside of his cheek as he processed that bit of intelligence. This was absurd; therefore it could not be. But it was. Therefore, it was an American absurdity. And checking the latest Le Monde, he saw the photographs of what the French press were calling l'affaire Crater.

  The soldiers had come from America, he concluded. They had come to further insult the French Republic. And for that they would pay.

  Picking up the telephone, he put in a call to the general of the air army.

  "Mon General, I have distressing news. But if you act in a timely manner, all might be saved. The cultural Chernobyl has been retaken. Perhaps this matter can be settled once and for all by turning it into a true Chernobyl. Do you, by chance, have any nuclear weapons at your disposal? Ah, you do. Very good. Now listen..."

  THE HELICOPTER was jet black and skimmed low over the outlying farms and hills of Averoigne before settling into Euro Beasley.

  Marc Moise watched it by manipulating the surveillance cameras. When the craft had settled, he was not surprisedbut still it was a shock-to see Bob Beasley step out of the helicopter, look around and help Uncle Sam Beasley from his conveyance.

  Uncle Sam Beasley wore a white uniform with gold trim and shaking gold-braid epaulets that made Marc Moise think of an Italian admiral of the fleet. Clumping along on his silver peg leg, he returned every salute thrown at him by the other regiments whose forage caps were decorated by black felt mouse ears.

  It was a ridiculous sight, but it filled Marc Moise with foreboding.

  At least, he saw, Uncle Sam wore a white eye-patch over the place where his left eye should be. Marc didn't think he could stare into that strobing steel organ ever again ....

  WHEN DGSE DIRECTOR Remy Renard heard the door to the security room open even though he had buzzed no one in, he whirled around anxiously.

  The door came bouncing in, its plate-glass window fracturing merrily.

  Dominique Parillaud was thrust in along with the captive Beasley operative, Cheatwood.

  After them came two of the strangest individuals ever to intrude upon DGSE preserves. One, American and therefore a bit of an oaf, and the other very old and very Oriental.

  "He has come for the satellite," Dominique cried.

  "Yeah, I've come for the satellite," said the white oaf. "Where is it?"

  "You will never wrest it from us," Remy Renard said, placing his body between the interloper and the great vault door.

  The white American approached the door, after first picking Remy up by squeezing his elbows to his- hips and setting him off to one side like a coatrack.

  Remy swallowed hard to keep down the ugly feeling in his stomach. He had never felt more helpless than at that moment. It was as if he were nothing to this man.

  "That vault is eight inches thick," he sputtered. "The combination is known to but two men in this building and it requires two to open it. I am the only one with the combination here."

  "It is thick," admitted the oafish American, scrutinizing the door with a perplexed expression.

  "Then you realize the futility of even attempting to breach the vault door?"

  "Yeah, it's too much for me," he agreed. "Wait here, Little Father." And he exited the room.

  Remy Renard strove to relax. If he could just get through the coming moments, all would be well. Reinforcements would soon arrive. And there was no way these men could leave the building. Not unarmed as they so obviously were.

  From down the hall came an awful cacophony of sounds. A punch press might have started the racket, but then a jackhammer sound blenders in. Plaster groaned and lath screamed protestations. A metallic lamentation followed-awful, tortured, indescribable.

  Then came a rattling series of sounds that, if Remy Renard had not known better, he would have vowed could only have been coming from inside the impregnable vault. But the vault was soundproofed to noise, and the great door, the only way in, was firmly sealed.

  When it all ended, the white American appeared in the door, spanking plaster dust off his lean, bare forearms.

  When he was done, he opened his right palm for all to see, and the supreme idiot said, "I couldn't find any satellite, but I did find this."

  And Remy Renard could not contain his gasp of astonishment.

  The American was holding the orb of many potent colors.

  "C'est impossible!" Remy gasped.

  "C'est la biz, cheri, " the idiot said, grinning.

  "We are going now," the ancient Asian told him coldly. "But I leave you with your life and this warning, which may be more valuable than your life."

  "What could be more valuable that my life?" Remy blurted.

  "The knowledge that the Master of Sinanju works for the Eagle Throne of America and will treat any further aggravation harshly."

  Remy Renard was strong of heart and spine. But he felt the blood drain from his sturdy legs and he realized the truth of the old Korean's warning.

  For although Remy Renard was prepared to lose his life for France, he wasn't prepared to lose France herself.

  And that was the gist of the Master of Sinanju's warning, which hung in the dusty air of the vault room long after the Master of Sinanju and his train had departed.

  When he heard no sounds of shooting or commotion, Remy Renard knew it was safe to step out of the stagnant puddle of his own urine.

  He immediately got on the telephone to the president of France. This was a far graver matter than defending French culture. National survival was at stake. The minister of culture could be of no value in such a war.

  Chapter 29

  Outside DGSE HQ, Dominique Parillaud said, "You will never escape France."

  "Don't say that," Remo said fervently. "I have to find a father I don't even know."

  "I am serious. You will be shot."

  "Beats being stuck here," said Remo, looking around for the cab. It was no longer in sight. He turned to Dominique. "Parked around here?"

  "I will nevair reveal where."

  "Never?"

  "Nevair!"

  Then a hand Dominique never saw drifted up to tweak one earlobe.

  Dominique screamed. She thought she screamed so loudly that half of Paris must have heard her. But when she paused for breath, she realized she was emitting no noise, only pain. And when she realized that, she began nodding frantically, hoping that the unseen power that had inflicted such exquisite agony would release her.

  "I think she's changed her mind, Little Father," said Remo to the unseen force.

  Then the pain withdrew.

  Clapping a hand over her throbbing earlobe, Dominique whirled to confront the force.

  She caught a glimpse of the Master of Sinanju's long fingernails as his hands sought the black velvet tunnels of his closing kimono sleeves and understood.

  "Now you know how it feels," Rod Cheatwood told her tauntingly.

  "I am parked in ze garage," she admitted.

  They walked down the street where she was pointing and came to the main garage door. It was closed, but there was a foot-wide space beside the door, completely unguarded and large enough to adm
it a thin person.

  "Wait here," said Remo to Chiun, and guided Dominique into the garage.

  Not a minute later the door rolled aside, and they came out in a diamond blue Citroen, stopped, and the car doors opened for the Master of Sinanju and Rod Cheatwood.

  "Dominique agreed to drive us to the airport," said Remo.

  "I 'ave no choice," Dominique said in a pouting voice.

  "We take our agreements any way we can."

  "I am confident we will nevair get to ze airport," Dominique said, slipping into traffic. She took her foot off the gas momentarily and touched a floor button that cut in the hidden microphones that would broadcast their conversation back to DGSE HQ. "We will be intercepted."

  "We don't intercept easily," Remo said airily.

  "I am certain ze airport will be surrounded by tanks and other vehicles. And soldiers."

  "Won't be the first time," said Remo, noticing through the window that they were taking down a street sign that said Rue Edgar Allan Poe and replacing it with one which that said, Rue Auseuil.

  The wail of French police sirens came all at once. It seemed to be all around them.

  "Voila!" Dominique cried triumphantly. "Just as I 'ave told you. It is time you ended zis charade."

  Remo took a sudden left up a street that was posted with a short white bar in a red circle.

  "You idiot! That sign meant no entry."

  "Sue me. I can't read French."

  "That was not French. It was a sign. It is iconography."

  "Can't read that, either," said Remo, leaning on the rude horn so the oncoming cars knew enough to get out of the way.

  They emerged on a busy street and practically into a converging swarm of red-striped white police Renaults whose blue bubble-top lights flashed angrily.

  "We're screwed!" Rod Cheatwood moaned.

  Remo tapped the brake, sent the wheel turning right, then left, then right again. The car, responding, performed a seemingly impossible maneuver that caused it to spin in place.

  Suddenly it was facing the other way and rocketing forward.

  A long line of police cars was coming the other way. Remo warned, "Hang on," and prepared to hang a U-turn designed to bring the two converging groups of vehicles at one another.

  But the approaching police cars suddenly turned off the boulevard and disappeared from sight.