The Color of Fear td-99 Read online

  Remo drove past, saying, "What was that all about?"

  In the rearview mirror the pursuing cars also turned up that road. It was marked A4.

  "Where does that road go?" Remo asked.

  "It goes," Dominique said thinly, "to ze eastern suburbs."

  "Euro Beasley lies that way, doesn't it?"

  "It does," said Dominique.

  "It was pretty quiet when we left it," Remo said.

  A line of military helicopters skimming the low skyline also broke eastward.

  "Something's up out there. Something big."

  Remo turned on the dash radio.

  He immediately got an excited crackle of French that didn't sound like a disk jockey speaking.

  "What's he saying?" said Remo.

  Dominique listened intently. Her face began to come apart like a house of cards.

  From the rear Chiun spoke up. "He is saying that reactionaries have attacked Euro Beasley."

  "Whose reactionaries?"

  "The American reactionaries who fomented civil war."

  "Reactionaries! You don't mean reenactors, do you?"

  "It is possible I meant that."

  "What the hell are Civil War reenactors doing attacking Euro Beasley?" shouted Remo.

  When no one offered a ready answer, he pulled over to a pay phone and called America.

  "Smitty, Remo. We got the Beasley guy, but something's up."

  "I am receiving sketchy reports of soldiers dressed in the uniforms of the old French Second Empire Army breaching the quarantine line surrounding Euro Beasley. What can you add?"

  "Try Civil War reenactors."

  "What!"

  "That's what the French radio is reporting."

  "It all fits," Smith said in a dull, barely comprehending voice.

  "Not to me," said Remo.

  "No, I mean the Beasley employees-transportation charges. They entered France via the Chunnel."

  "So what's their game? There's already a Beasley park over here."

  "Remo, my reports are the French forces were routed by very strong colored lights."

  "We wrecked those controls before we left."

  "I wrecked them," Chiun called from the car.

  "The reenactors were obviously carrying their own devices," Smith said briskly. "Remo, this has gone too far. The Beasley Corporation is controlling those Civil War units. I have no doubt of that. And what they have done is nothing less than an act of war."

  "Okay, but that's between Beasley and France, right?"

  "I do not think that distinction can be made here. In the eyes of much of the world, the Beasley Corporation is America."

  "Every time that idiot Beasley launches a plan, he ends up dragging us to a hot war somewhere," Remo said bitterly.

  "Remo, if you have to kill every Civil War reenactor at Euro Beasley, you will do this. Do you understand?"

  Remo hesitated.

  "Remo," Smith said, his voice like flint. "We cannot have a war with France over an entertainment company's mindless plans for global expansion. I want you to break their backs to the last man."

  "All right."

  "And if Uncle Sam Beasley is anywhere in that place, you will render him completely and totally immobile. Do you understand?"

  "You want me to kill him."

  "I want him destroyed to the last atom."

  "Got it," said Remo, hanging up. He walked back to the car with his eyes strange, and when he got behind the wheel, his voice was thick.

  "We've got our marching orders," he said, pulling away.

  "Yes?" said Chiun.

  "Waste the reenactors."

  "Then we will waste the reenactors. "

  "And kill Uncle Sam Beasley forever," Remo added.

  "That will be your task."

  "Why me?"

  "Because you are afraid to do this, and you can only conquer that fear by doing the very thing that you dread."

  And as they drove toward Euro Beasley, Remo knew that was exactly what be was going to have to do.

  He just wondered if he could do it. Years ago he had been one of Uncle Sam's biggest fans.

  TASK FORCE GROUP LEER Marc Moise moved among his Zouaves.

  It was the beginning of the second hour of the retaking of Euro Beasley, and now that the French soldiers and the crowd had been scattered, they seized the ring of tanks and APCs that surrounded the park. In effect, they were expanding their sphere of control.

  The tank-mounted howitzer and machine-gun barrels that had been pointing inward were rotated outward, covering all roads with overlapping fields of fire.

  No one could approach without coming under annihilating fire. And if by chance a few did, his Zouaves would meet them with an irresistible rainbow of steel.

  There was just one problem with all this. It was expressed to him in the form of a question as he moved among his charges.

  "Do we wear our lead masks up on our foreheads or in front of our eyes?"

  "Up on your foreheads, of course."

  "And if we are attacked and must resort to showing our true colors?"

  "Down before your eyes, of course."

  The word was passed up and down the line. If attacked, the eye shields were to be worn on the forehead while defending with howitzer and machine gun. And if forced to pull back, the masks belonged in front of the eyes.

  Marc Moise checked with every third man to be certain they understood their instructions. But in his heart he wondered about their willingness to kill. They were, after all, only Creole reenactors who had sided with the California Summer Vacation Musketeers back in Virginia because they had been offered reenactment jobs at Beasley U.S.A. Having closed ranks with the Corporation against the protesters, they had been hired on the spot.

  And as they hung off the French military equipment-the first line of defense against attack-their fezzes askew, their manner excited, they looked for all the world like cannon fodder.

  When the attack came, it arrived in a solitary diamond blue Citroen that coasted to a stop well short of the tank that squatted before the colorful entrance to Euro Beasley.

  The doors popped open and four people got out.

  They started toward the tank. They walked calmly and without fear. Except maybe for a blond guy who took up the rear. His knees were definitely knocking.

  "GOD, IF THEY HUE us I hope they don't use Supergreen," said Rod Cheatwood in a nervous voice.

  "Me, too," said Remo.

  "Yellow, I think I could stand."

  "Perhaps they will use pink," said the Master of Sinanju.

  "I'd enjoy that," said Remo.

  "Me, too," said Rod.

  "You are all insane." Dominique Parillaud spit. "Zey 'ave machine guns and howitzers. Zey will annihilate us."

  "I'd rather be annihilated than greened," said Remo.

  "Or yellowed," said Chiun.

  Dominique rolled her eyes. "I am not afraid of their gauche color. Only of French bullets."

  "Bullets, we have covered," said Remo in a casually fearless tone.

  They continued walking. Machine-gun barrels lined up on them, and excited words were shouted down.

  "What're they saying?" asked Remo.

  "I 'ave no idea," Dominique admitted. "It sounds like French, but no French zat I have ever heard before." She gasped. "Mon Dieu! I think zey speak franglais!"

  No one fired, so they kept walking.

  "No use to close our eyes," said Remo.

  "How will closing your eyes protect you from bullets?" asked Dominique.

  "I don't mean bullets. I mean the color stuff."

  "Hypercolor," said Rod. "Too bad we don't have any lead masks," he added worriedly.

  "Why do you say that?" asked Chiun.

  "Lead is the only thing saturated color can't penetrate. It's too dense. When I used to work on the first hypercolor lasers, I'd wear a lead mask without any eyeholes to keep from getting hued."

  " 'Hued'?"

  "That's the technical term fo
r it. Invented it myself."

  "Little Father, do you see what I see up ahead?"

  "I see clown soldiers wearing lead masks under their red fezzes."

  "If we can get one or two of them, we're all set."

  "If you wear masks without eyes, how can you fight?" demanded Dominique.

  "We don't need eyes to fight with," said Remo.

  "Yes," added Chiun. "We fight with our hands and our feet, not our eyes."

  "You can be our eyes," said Rod.

  "I will be no one's eyes," Dominique swore.

  And suddenly, several 35- and 50-caliber machine guns pivoted in their direction, tipped downward, lining them up for slaughter.

  Dominique Parillaud stopped dead in her tracks. Rod bumped into her and bounced back. Before the fear could overtake her, the two American agents surged forward.

  They started walking calmly forward. Suddenly they shot ahead, leaping onto the main tank and breaking the machine guns with short, hard chops that looked ineffectual but caused steel gun barrels to snap and roll clanking off the armored side of the tank.

  The Zouaves, seeing this, began recoiling in surprise and dug into their colorful sashes for black objects that looked to Dominique's eyes like TV remote-control clickers.

  Before their weapons cleared, hands reached out to relieve them of their masks, which they were trying to simultaneously pull down over their eyes.

  MARL MOISE WAS STANDING not six yards away when the strange pair appeared atop the main blocking tank. The way they broke the machine guns was awful to behold.

  But the way they avoided being hued was incredible.

  His Zouaves followed orders exactly. At the first sign of trouble, they simultaneously reached up for their lead masks and into their sashes for their clippedon hypercolor lasers.

  They got the weapons out in time to fire short bursts of pacifying pink.

  The trouble was the Zouaves were quicker on the trigger than they were on the masks. Or perhaps it wasn't their fault, after all.

  Zouave hands that reached up to their foreheads encountered only warm flesh, not cold lead shields.

  When their first pink bursts came, the lead masks were firmly in place-over the eyes of the attackers.

  The Zouaves reacted to the pink flashes in an entirely unexpected manner, although Marc understood it after the third burst.

  Smiling, they brought their lasers up to their expectant faces, pinking themselves happily.

  " Let de good times roll!" they murmured in Creole.

  The pink reached Marc's brain through his open eyes-he had been so stunned by what he had witnessed that he had forgotten to yank down his own lead mask-relaxing him instantly.

  Marc unclipped his laser, dialed up pink and hued himself in quarter-second bursts.

  When the strange pair ran past him, he didn't care anymore. And why should he? He had been offered up as cannon fodder, and Sam Beasley didn't pay dick.

  Chapter 30

  "We have a penetration, Director."

  Uncle Sam Beasley turned to face the man who had spoken. Bob Beasley sat at the grid of video screens that monitored Euro Beasley.

  "Are those damn Cajuns pinking themselves?" Uncle Sam barked.

  "It seems so, Director."

  "Damn. They're supposed to be our trip wire. They're no good to us now. Get the Florida regiment out there."

  "Yes, Director."

  Uncle Sam Beasley turned his attention back to the damaged control board where a Beasley technician was laboring.

  "Aren't we back on-line yet?" he asked gruffly.

  "The Hotpink button is enabled."

  "I need offensive colors, damn it. What if the fucking Foreign Legion come parachuting back in?"

  "Hotpink had the least damage."

  "When I want excuses, I'll ask a vice president. Now, get to work."

  "Yes, Director."

  Bob Beasley spoke up. "Director, we have intruders on Main Street, U S.A."

  Uncle Sam Beasley moved to the screen in question. He saw two men walking calmly down the cobbled street, one white, the other Asian. Both wore lead masks over their eyes that didn't seem to slow them down.

  "Those are the ones!" he howled.

  "The ones who interfered at Third Crater?"

  "Third Crater, my pink ass. They interfered at Second Bay of Pigs! Must work for the government. Order them empurpled."

  "Uncle Sam-"

  "Call me Director when we're on an operation."

  "Director, you know how risky empurpling a subject can be. Purple combines the effects of red and blue. Anything could happen, especially with opponents as dangerous as them."

  "Empurple their asses!"

  "At once, Director." And snapping a switch, Bob Beasley leaned into a console mike and said, "Two intruders in Zone 12. Empurple them. Repeat, empurple them. And don't forget to mask first."

  REMO WILLIAMS RAN THROUGH a world of darkness. Although his sight was blocked by a lead shield, he was not by any means blind.

  His nose detected scent molecules too faint for the ordinary human nose, his hearing picked up the steady pounding of the Master of Sinanju's heartbeat and pumping lungs beside him and his bare skin received a multiplicity of sensations-nearby body heat, draft eddies and the negative pressure of large, stationary buildings.

  All of which combined to make Remo a running radar dish.

  A wall of heartbeats converged on the unseen road ahead of him.

  "Masks down, men!" a voice shouted.

  "Here we go, Little Father."

  And as they raced forward, their sensitive ears detected the tiny closing clicks of relays signifying hypercolor lasers were being brought to bear upon them.

  Fixing the position of the forest of heartbeats, Remo calculated angles of attack. He went for the rotator cuffs, jamming them with stiffened fingers, puncturing flesh and muscle.

  Men howled and gave way. The plastic clatter of hypercolor laser units dropping to the cobbles came distinctly. Remo and Chiun crushed them underfoot wherever they could.

  The first wave of attackers fell back.

  "THE FLORIDA SUNSHINE Guerrillas have been thrown back, Director," Bob Beasley shouted.

  "Those pansies!" Uncle Sam Beasley scowled. "What's wrong with them?"

  "Well, they are blind."

  "So are those two pains-in-the-rear!"

  "Being blind doesn't seem to bother them."

  "Look at them turn tail like scared little mice. I expect more from my employees."

  "They were complaining about the pay a while back."

  "Don't they know they work for Sam Beasley, the greatest private company ever to export good old American fun?"

  "We pound it into them at the monthly pep drills, but I don't think it motivates them as much as better wages would."

  "Greedy bastards. Okay, turn out my elite musketeers."

  "Director, as long as those two have their eyes shielded, we can't stop them with extraordinary means."

  "Then shoot them!"

  "We didn't bring any guns. Couldn't risk them not getting through French customs."

  Uncle Sam Beasley stared up at the screen and saw the two people he most hated in the world approach the Sorcerer's Chateau, blind yet unchallenged and seemingly unstoppable. His exposed eye scrunched up like an agate in a fist.

  "There's gotta be some way to kill 'em," he snarled.

  "We could lead them into a trap."

  "What traps do we have here?"

  "Not much. All Beasley offensive capability is topside. We never planned for a Utilicanard penetration."

  "Don't call it that. God, I hate these sissy French words. Where did they dredge them up?"

  "Same place we did. From the Latin."

  "I want solutions, you sycophant. Not language lessons."

  "There is the LOX chamber."

  "We have a deli down here?"

  "Not that kind of LOX. Liquid Oxygen. We use it to create faux steam clouds for the Mesozoic Par
k volcanoes. It's nasty, subfreezing stuff. A cloud of it will cause your skin to crack off in sheets."

  "Hey, I like that."

  "We'll have to decoy them in."

  Uncle Sam Beasley turned to address a trio of his loyal musketeers, who had entered the control room in Union blue, their mouse-eared forage caps carried respectfully in their hands.

  "I need a volunteer. Hazardous duty. Who will stand up for his Uncle Sam?"

  The California Summer Vacation Musketeers looked down at their boots and up at the ceiling--anywhere to avoid the cold gray stare of Uncle Sam's single exposed eye.

  "I'll double the pay of the man who undertakes this mission."

  No one responded.

  "What's the matter, isn't double enough? Don't I pay you competitively?"

  When no one answered, Uncle Sam Beasley snarled, "Draw straws if you're going to be that way. But I want a man ready for action before those two bust in."

  Uncle Sam returned to the video grid. "What are those two doing to my best guerrillas?"

  "Looks like the white one is just poking them in the shoulder area."

  "Then why are they dropping like DDT'd flies?"

  "Maybe there's a sensitive nerve center there," Bob Beasley said, stabbing buttons.

  "What's the old gook doing?"

  Bob Beasley craned up in his chair to see the screen in question.

  "I think he's eviscerating them, Director."

  "With what?"

  "His fingernails, I suppose," Bob Beasley said in a thick voice.

  "They're going to be in the chateau any second."

  Bob Beasley reached for an insulated lever. "I'll raise the drawbridge."

  "Don't bother. I want 'em where I can LOX 'em."

  REMO KICKED a kneecap to pieces and stepped over the dropping foe. He paused, turning in place, to orient himself.

  The wind was out of the northeast. There was a blockage of dead air in that direction, and only the Sorcerer's Castle was big enough to create it, Remo decided.

  He turned, not seeing but sensing the Master of Sinanju.

  "Chiun! Shake a leg. The castle is this way."

  "I will be along," said Chiun, and the ugly crunch of human bone and brittle plastic came unmistakably. "These evil tools must be destroyed."

  "You just don't want to have to deal with Beasley."

  "Do not fall into the moat."

  "Fat chance," said Remo, running toward the blockage. He smelled the water in the moat, and the scent of the wooden drawbridge, still damp from a recent rain, guided him over the moat and into the castle's cool, gaping maw.