The Color of Fear td-99 Read online

  "I broke it," he sobbed as Remo tapped him on his blue silk shoulder.

  "You won't be needing it."

  "But it cost me a month's pay."

  "That's the biz," said Remo, extracting the musket from the man's unresisting hand and plunging the barrel into the ground until he hit hard stone. Remo pulled the trigger, and the musket barrel split from sight to stock. Then he threw the foully smoking pieces away.

  The man screamed in horror.

  "It's only a rifle," Remo pointed out.

  "It's my hobby."

  "Let me get this straight," said Remo. "You came all the way from Louisiana to fight the Yankees because it's your freaking hobby?"

  "That ain't it at all," he said. "I ain't come to fight Yanks."

  "Then who?"

  "I come to battle the First Virginia Recreational Foot."

  "Aren't they from the South, too?"

  "They are," the Zouave soldier admitted.

  "Then they're on your side, aren't they?"

  "Not in this sacred conflict!"

  "You're siding with the North?"

  "Never! My heart belongs to Dixie."

  "And your brain belongs in the Smithsonian," snapped Remo. "If you're not with the North, who are you with?"

  The soldier drew himself up proudly. He had to catch his tilting fez with both hands. "I came here to take a stand for palpable history."

  "I don't follow."

  "That is because you are trying to communicate with an idiot," said the Master of Sinanju, drifting up. "You! Cretin. What have the French to do with this outrage?"

  "Nothin'. Except our uniforms are copied from a French-Algerian drill team that passed through the nation in the early 1860s. "

  "Huh?" said Remo.

  "It's true," the Zouave said. "At the beginning of the Civil War both sides took their uniform design from the French. Heck, it wasn't until the second year of the war that they got the uniforms standardized. Me and my troupe prefer the Zouave outfit. It kinda sets us apart from the common herd."

  "Do tell," said Remo, eyeing the man's outlandish costume with a skeptical eye.

  "And do tell us what lies behind this madness," said Chiun.

  The Zouave soldier opened his mouth to speak. Musket fire crackled well back in the open area that was Petersburg National Battlefield.

  Remo and Chiun looked west. Puffs of smoke were visible some distance away. They rose and mingled as volley after volley followed.

  "What are they shooting at?" asked Remo.

  "They are shooting up," Chiun decided.

  Remo shaded his eyes with both hands. "Nothing's up there but news and Army helicopters."

  "They are firing at the Federals perhaps," the Zouave soldier suggested.

  "Could be they're firing at the press," Remo speculated.

  It was impossible to tell. The choppers scattered like so many clattering, frightened birds. And the volleys kept coming.

  "Maybe someone's trying to rescue those captured Union guys," said Remo. "Let's move in and see what we can see."

  "What about these clowns?" said Chiun, indicating the cowed Zouave troupe.

  "You wreck their muskets?"

  "Better. I broke their ramrods, without which they cannot fire their foul-smelling blunderbusses."

  "Fair enough. They're out of the fight for now."

  "You bunch better stay out of trouble until we get back," Remo warned the others who stood about looking dejected.

  The Zouaves said nothing.

  Remo and Chiun entered the park.

  "Wait till the press conference," the Zouave soldier shouted after them. "That's where the real battle will begin."

  "Did he say press conference?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "He is an idiot and speaks idiocy," scoffed the Master of Sinanju.

  There were pickets set up at various points, watching the main approach, Crater Road. All wore Confederate gray with the squashed-down forage caps that Remo knew were also favored by the Union, except they wore blue versions.

  The sentries were easily avoided, never suspecting that two of the most dangerous human beings on the face of the earth were slipping through their lines like drifting mist.

  Remo and Chiun soon came to an open area where they saw the Crater itself.

  It lay in open field, backed by a high hill. The hill was covered with grass, and the Crater, in the century or more since it had been blown in the earth, had healed over in a depressed scar of grass. It looked to be about one hundred fifty feet long, fifty feet wide and perhaps fifteen feet deep. Remo had expected something round like an impact crater from a meteor, but this was more along the lines of a gash. It was ringed by Confederate sentries, who guarded it while their comrades-in-arms methodically reloaded their muskets and pistols and poured enfilade fire into the sky.

  After the helicopters had withdrawn to a respectful distance, the firing abated.

  "That sure scared 'em off," a soldier chortled.

  "You sure it was them?"

  "I tell you, I saw the rodent's ears. Painted on the side of that contraption as big as all outdoors."

  "I didn't see no rodent ears," another man grumbled.

  "Maybe so, but they was there."

  "They wouldn't have sent him in by helicopter. They wouldn't dare."

  "Well, they don't dare send him in now. Them TV helicopters captured all the fuss on film."

  "What are they talking about?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "I do not know, but I aim to find out."

  And tucking hands into the sleeves of his redtrimmed black kimono, the Master of Sinanju advanced upon the Confederate lines.

  THE FIRST TO spy the tiny little man in black was Captain Royal Wooten Page of the Stonewall Detachment of the Virginia National Guard.

  He looked harmless. He looked very harmless. Captain Page knew his Civil War history, as should a true native of Virginia, which meant he knew it very well indeed. Virginia had been the heart of the antebellum South. Richmond was the proud capital of the Confederate States of America. The Virginia theater had been the largest and most important theater in the arduous and bloody conflict. Page knew that in the early months of the war, before both sides had mustered true armies, the matter of uniform was left largely to each man. The blue and the gray of the later war years had not been established. Men went into battle wearing any old thing, uniform or not. Some wore turbans and fezzes. A few even marched off in their kilts.

  Captain Page, who had appropriated a Confederate slouch hat to replace his National Guard helmet, did not quite recognize the uniform of the approaching man. It was not exactly in the Zouave style, which both sides had affected for a time. Nor was it a Garibaldi Guard uniform. But there was one thing Page did recognize. The red piping.

  When the little man drew near, Page asked, "Artillery, sub?"

  "I spit upon artillery."

  Page flinched as if stung. "That is no way for a son of the South to talk."

  "I am from the North."

  For the first time Captain Page saw the little old man's almond eyes clearly.

  "Well, Ah declare. You look more Eastern to me, at that."

  "You command this legion?"

  "It has fallen upon mah care-worn shoulders. Ah am Captain Page, at your service, suh. "

  "And I am Chiun, Reigning Master."

  "Ah do not know that rank, suh."

  "I am at the service of the emperor of this land, who has sent me to this province to discuss terms."

  Page blinked. "Terms of surrender?"

  "Yes."

  "Isn't it a mite early in the day to surrender? The true battle for these blood-blessed grounds has not yet been waged. "

  A voice off to Captain Page's right. said, "The battle's over, pal. You just haven't got the word yet."

  Captain Page started. Just behind him stood a Yankee completely out of uniform. Unless a T-shirt and pants could constitute a uniform, but to Captain Page they did not.

  "And whom do A
h have the pleasure of addressing?"

  "Remo."

  "First name or last?"

  "Isn't that a National Guard uniform?" Remo asked.

  "It is"

  "What kind of hat is that?"

  "Mah ancestors called it a chapeau."

  "That is French for hat, " whispered Chiun.

  "Hold the phone," Remo shot back. "What are you doing with these weekend warriors?" he asked Captain Page.

  "Commanding them, suh. By what right do you challenge mah authority?"

  "Washington wants to know what the heck's going on down here."

  "Why, the South is rising again. Ain't you got eyes?"

  "I have a brain, too, and as near as I can tell, this whole thing started over a scuffle between Civil War reenactors. "

  "In that, you are sorely mistaken. This is a fight for the honor of Virginia in which traitorous reenactors have elected to take the wrong side. The enemy is due at high noon, and we will not surrender this hallowed ground which our ancestors defended so mightily."

  "What enemy?"

  "Ah will not profane this discussion by mentioning his cursed name."

  "Better rethink that attitude," warned Remo. "Uncle Sam doesn't take no for an answer."

  "Ya'll are with Uncle Sam?"

  "Didn't I say Washington sent me?"

  "It is hardly the same thing, suh. "

  Remo frowned. "Since when?"

  "Since Uncle Sam has vowed to pillage this fine state, just as he looted the treasury of Old Dominion."

  "I told you treasure was involved," said Chiun.

  Remo lifted his hands. "Hold the phone. Something's not right here. Who looted the state treasury?"

  "The godless forces of Uncle Sam."

  "The your-country-needs-you Uncle Sam?"

  "Hardly."

  Remo and Chiun exchanged glances.

  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "You never think," spat Chiun.

  Remo turned to Captain Page and asked a seemingly unrelated question. "You got a phone around here I can borrow?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  Before Remo could answer the question with a hard, angry squeeze of the captain's neck, a black helicopter rattled overhead.

  All eyes naturally went to it. It circled once and slowed, hovering over the Crater itself.

  Something large and spherical and the color of stainless steel swung from the undercarriage, between the skids.

  "What in tarnation is that?" Captain Page asked.

  "It looks like a bomb," said Chiun thinly.

  "I never saw a bomb like that," said Remo. "It's got lenses all over it."

  It was true. The object resembled an old-fashioned steel bathysphere, except instead of portholes, it was pocked with great round lenses, every one a dull, glassy yellow.

  "Looks to me kinda like a traffic light," muttered Captain Page.

  "Traffic lights are red, green and yellow. That thing has only yellow lights."

  Just then, the lights flared into life, warming to a mellow yellow.

  "Yellow naturally indicates caution, does it not?" asked Captain Page.

  "On a traffic light, yeah," said Remo. "But that isn't a traffic light, so I don't know what it means."

  "It is a bomb," repeated Chiun, stroking his wispy beard uneasily.

  "Bombs don't light up," Remo said. "They detonate."

  The yellow-lit sphere continued to hang off the hovering helicopter, swinging less and less as the seconds ticked by.

  "Do they not also fall?" wondered Chiun.

  "Sure. Old-fashioned aerial bombs. But that's not a bomb. Looks more like an Easter egg, or maybe a Christmas-tree ornament."

  Then, with the sharp snap of a parting cable, the stainless-steel object dropped free.

  Captain Page shouted, "Take cover, men! We are under attack! Take cover!" And he threw himself flat.

  Remo grabbed him up and tucked him under one arm, then followed the Master of Sinanju as he ran with ungainly speed as far away from ground zero as possible in the few seconds left before impact.

  Behind them everything turned as yellow as an exploding sun.

  Chapter 6

  There was no explosion. That is, no sound accompanied the powerful detonation. The sky turned sunflower yellow as far as the eye could see. The green grass turned momentarily blue. Trees changed color, too. But not a leaf shook. There was no shock wave, no screaming chunks of superheated shrapnel, no shrieks of wounded or dying men.

  Except for the overwhelming sunburst of yellow, nothing much happened.

  Until men began pouring out of the Crater.

  They were running for their lives, faces twisted and full of horror. Unarmed, they wore the Union blue of the captive First Massachusetts Interpretive Cavalry. Clearly the object that had fallen in the grassy pit among them had spooked them so much they all but trampled their erstwhile captors in their mad rush to escape.

  It didn't exactly hurt their chances that the Confederate troops were flat on their stomachs, heads cradled in their hands, awaiting an explosion that had already taken place. They had no reaction time. Their prisoners were well on their way to freedom by the time the Rebels lifted their faces with expressions that could only be interpreted as asking, "When's the explosion coming?"

  Remo paused to drop Captain Page to the greensward and called ahead to Chiun, "Looks like a dud, Little Father."

  "We do not know this," Chiun shot back. "Do not stop!"

  A ragged line of bluecoats surged in Remo's direction, eyes wide as saucers, faces ghost white.

  Remo stepped in their path. "What's the rush? It didn't go off."

  Like frightened Boy Scouts, the men in blue charged past. They wore the expressions of men chased by angry wasps.

  Casually Remo reached out and snared one by the arm. He lifted him over so quickly the man ran on air until his feet scuffed grass again.

  "Talk to me," said Remo.

  "I-I'm scared."

  "Take it easy. It's over. They can't hurt you. They're still crouched down."

  "It's not the Johnnys I fear," the man said in a feardistorted voice. "It's that damn thing that fell into the pit."

  "What about it?"

  "It turned yellow."

  "Yeah?"

  "It was the most yellow thing I ever saw in my life. It scared the living bejesus out of me."

  "Anyone in the pit hurt?" asked Remo.

  "No. I-I think we all got out."

  "So what's the problem?"

  "I tell you, it was yellow. It was the most hideous yellow I ever saw. It was an unearthly yellow. Nothing should be that yellow. Nothing sane."

  "I take it yellow isn't exactly your favorite color."

  The bluecoat wiped his sweaty brow. "I always liked yellow. Until today. I don't ever wanna see anything so yellow for the rest of my life." The soldier cast fearful eyes back toward the Crater and started struggling.

  "I think you've been sitting in the sun too long," said Remo, not relinquishing his grip.

  "Don't mention the sun to me. It's yellow, too."

  The soldier continued struggling to break Remo's grip. He might as well have been trying to break the clutch of a steam shovel, but seeing the abject fear in his face, Remo decided to let him go. The Union reenactor ran off like a scared rabbit.

  Another bluecoat came close enough for Remo to snare him without too much trouble, so he did.

  "Calm down," Remo told him. "It's all over. You've been liberated."

  "It was yellow," the man quavered.

  "So I hear."

  "It was an awful yellow. An evil, twisted yellow. It was so yellow I don't think it was really yellow."

  "Yellow's a nice color," Remo suggested. "Buttercups are yellow. And daisies."

  "So's fire. This was a fiery, burning, horrible yellow." He tried to look up at his own forehead. "Is my brain on fire?"

  "Does it feel like it's on fire?" Remo asked.

  The
man clutched his head as if afflicted with a migraine. "I can't get the yellow out of my brain. My brain feels yellow."

  Captain Page was on his feet, examining his ripped chapeau forlornly. "Ah never thought Ah'd see a Yank with such a yella streak in him," he said in a disgusted voice. He addressed the Union man. "Suh, Ah would advise you to get a grip on yourself. You are babbling something fierce."

  The Union soldier's nervous eyes moved wildly in their orbits. "The yellow got into my brain through my eyes. Are they okay?"

  "They look scared," Remo told him.

  "They are scared. I'm scared. My-my eyes aren't yellow, are they?"

  "No. Why?"

  "If they turned yellow, I think I'd have to gouge them out. Otherwise, I couldn't stand to look into a mirror ever again."

  "Aren't you taking this antiyellow thing a little too far?" said Remo.

  "Can I go now? I have a long walk back to Massachusetts."

  "Why not fly home?"

  "I would, but I'd have to ride to the airport in a taxi. It might be yellow."

  "Have a nice stroll," said Remo, turning his attention elsewhere as the bluecoat ran off.

  The puzzled Confederate soldiers were up on their feet now. Some had crawled gingerly to the edge of the Crater and were looking down into it.

  The Master of Sinanju approached Remo cautiously. "You are unhurt?" he asked.

  "I'm fine."

  "You are very active for one who is on strike," Chiun said thinly.

  "I got interested in things," Remo said distractedly. "So sue me."

  "What was wrong with those men?" Chiun asked.

  "They were yella," said Captain Page, spitting out his disgust.

  "Get off it," said Remo. "They were just scared by the thing that landed in the Crater."

  "It was a bomb," said Chiun. "As I warned you, Remo."

  "A dud."

  "A dud bomb."

  "A miss is as good as a mile," said Remo carelessly. "Let's check the thing out." Remo motioned for Captain Page to accompany them and, when the good captain balked, Remo swept a hand out and took hold of him by the back of the neck and started off.

  Captain Page told his brain to make his body resist. He knew his brain got the message because his mental thoughts were perfectly clear and understandable. Unfortunately, somewhere in the neural net of his brain a dendrite must have been down or something because his legs obligingly carried him along at the same pace as the civilian named Remo.