Cold Warrior td-91

by Warren Murphy

  "I think I got him," Remo said.

  "That was not Uncle Sam," Chiun muttered.

  "That's what I've been telling you," Remo said.

  "Uncle Sam would never try to kill us."

  "Have it your way," Remo said, looking around.

  Sound from above them caused Remo to look up.

  They were under the galleon's stern. Leaning over the rail of the poop deck was a menagerie of popeyed trademarks.

  "The natives are about to revolt again," Remo said in a low warning voice.

  Chiun looked up. His tiny mouth dropped open. He lifted a raging fist.

  "Begone, vermin! Begone from my sight, or I will have all your heads on posts!".

  A Terrapin brought a shotgun to his green shoulder, and aimed it downward. His movements were fluid, not jerky. A man in a suit.

  The Master of Sinanju vanished beneath the waves.

  The Terrapin redirected his weapon toward Remo's head.

  "He wasn't kidding," Remo warned, as the creature adjusted his aim.

  Before he could fire, the Terrapin tumbled over the rail, shell-over-flippers, into Remo's grasp. He pushed the bright green head down and kept it there, simultaneously bringing a knee upward.

  The Terrapin mask cracked and leaked a cloud of blood. Remo released the floating flotsam.

  Others began to fall. They were coming off the rail simply because the galleon itself was capsizing. They landed all around Remo.

  Remo went to work, breaking necks and shattering spines. In a moment, the Master of Sinanju joined him. His technique was simpler. Remaining underwater, he began pulling the creatures down into the water, to hold them there like bunched grapes.

  One by one they floated back to the surface, muzzles and snouts downward.

  "I think that's all of them," Remo said when Chiun had resurfaced.

  "I do not see the head buckaroo," Chiun complained.

  "He wasn't real."

  "Neither are these," said the Master of Sinanju coldly, indicating the dead. "Yet they bleed like persons."

  "Point taken," said Remo. "What say we hit the castle?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "We will enter my castle as the conquerors we are."

  Chapter 19

  The angry voice crackled over the loudspeaker.

  "Damage report, damn it!"

  "The galleon has been scuttled, Director."

  "I know, you ninny! I was on it. I barely made it into the escape hatch in time."

  "Three major attractions down, and they're headed for the Sorcerer's Castle. We have no greeters standing."

  There was a pregnant pause over the connection.

  "Order evacuation," said the Director, hoarsely.

  "We're not opening, sir?"

  "We're not staying! The lid is about to come off this entire base. We have to regroup. I'm moving B-Day up a day."

  "I understand, sir. I'll blow retreat. What about Drake?"

  "Tell him to play the goat."

  "At once, Director."

  Captain Maus punched the pound button on a telephone handset.

  "Drake here. What the hell's going on?"

  "No swearing in the ranks. You know the Director's feelings."

  "Sorry."

  "You've been watching?"

  "With my Gumpy binoculars. This is a catastrophe. Half the attractions are in ruins."

  "The Director has sounded retreat."

  "Then it's over?"

  "No. The operation continues. But we need time."

  "What can I do?"

  "Shield the Mouse."

  "You can't be serious!"

  "Shield the Mouse. Those are the Director's express wishes."

  "He . . . he can't ask that of me! I've served him loyally!"

  "Sorry. The Director's orders stand."

  "But . . . but," sobbed Drake. "I . . . I was his biggest fan."

  "And now he's asking you to make the ultimate sacrifice. You should be very proud."

  "I . . . I am . . . !"

  A sob broke over the loudspeaker before it cut out, leaving only silence.

  Chapter 20

  Every avenue in Sam Beasley World led to the Sorcerer's Castle. It was like the fantastic hub of a great architectural wheel.

  An iron portcullis barred the entrance. The drawbridge was in the half-raised position.

  The moat held real alligators. They splashed their tails in sluggish warning.

  Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju and said, "I think we can jump it."

  "I will not be seen jumping into my own castle!" Chiun said stubbornly.

  "We can't stay here."

  "We will not. You will leap, and lower the drawbridge so that I may enter in a manner befitting my suzerainty."

  "Oh, come on!"

  "No. You go on."

  Shrugging his shoulders, Remo stepped back and took a running jump. At the edge of the moat, he gave what looked like a weak double kick. But he seemed to take wing.

  Remo landed on his feet on the precarious edge of the drawbridge. Without pausing, he snapped out with the edge of his right hand. It shattered one restraining chain. The drawbridge quivered, but held. Remo went to the other chain and took hold of a fistful of links. He gave it a hard twist and the drawbridge slammed down, throwing up dust.

  Remo was left hanging onto the broken chain. He released it and landed lightly on the still reverberating planks.

  "How's that?" he asked, bowing and waving Chiun to enter.

  Chiun frowned. "Was it necessary to break my chains?"

  "You're welcome," Remo said sourly.

  As they entered a stone-walled antechamber, they saw only suits of armor set in wall niches.

  "I do not trust these guardians, Remo," Chiun said thinly. "Test their loyalty."

  Remo went about, lifting visors. The suits proved to be empty.

  "Satisfied?" he asked.

  "No," said the Master of Sinanju.

  "No?"

  "They are ugly and will have to be replaced." He swept to the winding staircase and mounted it on sure, silent feet.

  Frowning, Remo followed.

  There was a honeycomb of chambers clustered at the highest point in the castle. One door lay open. Remo approached it cautiously. Cautiously, because he smelled the fresh, sour scent of human excrement.

  A body slumped over a long conference table proved to be the source of the unpleasant odor.

  Remo went to it, pulled it up in its chair.

  "That's the guy!" he said.

  "What guy?" Chiun asked, examining the dead face.

  "The CEO of Beasley Corp. Whatever his name is."

  The man's mouth hung slack. Stuck to his back teeth was a bright pink wad.

  There was an open pack of Mongo Mouse chewing gum on the desk, next to a pocket dictaphone.

  "Huh?" Remo said. "Smell."

  Chiun sniffed the dead man's mouth delicately. "Almonds," he said.

  "Cyanide. That's probably what killed Zorilla, too," said Remo, picking up the dictaphone. He fiddled with the rewind button until the device began to whir. When it had clicked to an automatic stop, Remo thumbed on the play-back.

  The familiar but trembling voice of the Chairman of the Beasley Corporation began to vibrate from the tiny built-in speaker.

  "This is the full confession of Eider Drake, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Sam Beasley Corporation. It all began with our third quarter of fiscal 1991 . . . ."

  "A confession," Remo said, clicking the device off. "I'd better call Smith."

  Harold W. Smith was changing in the Spartan privacy of his Folcroft office. He had not gone home. He had not slept, except in catnaps in his well-worn executive's chair.

  Dawn was breaking over Long Island Sound as Smith replaced his gray trousers with an identical pair. His wrinkled white shirt came off his back and he struggled into a crisp white one. A fresh tie replaced the old. He examined his gray vest critically. It was still serviceable
so he drew it on, patting the watch pocket to make certain his suicide pill was still there. It was.

  Finally, he drew on his gray suit coat and returned to his still warm seat.

  America slept. On the TV screen a test pattern sizzled. It was, unfortunately, a Spanish-language test pattern: the red-white-and-blue flag of Cuba and the words TELEREBELDE.

  Havana had not yet relinquished its grip on South Florida airwaves, and the networks were perversely repeating the transmission in a desperate attempt to grab ratings.

  Smith knew, because the President had informed him, that a surgical strike on a Cuban broadcast station was under active consideration in the War Room of the Pentagon. It would be justified not only in the name of the sanctity of U.S. airwaves, but as a tit for tat over the failed Turkey Point attacks.

  At the moment there was a lull. But by afternoon-evening at the very latest-the next escalation was certain to take place. It was only a question of who would strike first.

  And from Remo and Chiun, Smith had heard nothing.

  A knock at the door and Eileen Mikulka, Smith's personal secretary, poked her head in. She saw an oblivious Harold Smith, looking as if he had just arrived refreshed by a full evening's sleep. Knowing how her boss detested any intrusion when he was concentrating, she quietly closed the door.

  She saw he was working at his terminal again. It had always puzzled her. Sometimes it was there. Sometimes it wasn't.

  She wondered if her starchy employer liked to play video games. Not a sheet of computer printout had ever crossed her desk. What could he be doing?

  The blue contact phone rang and Harold Smith took it up.

  "Remo. Report."

  "Ultima Hora is history," Remo said.

  "Good."

  "Zorilla's dead-"

  "Yes?"

  "So is Eider Drake."

  "Who is Eider Drake?" Smith asked.

  "Try punching him up on your computer," Remo suggested.

  Smith obliged.

  "Remo, the only Eider Drake I have is CEO of the Sam Beasley Corporation." And as it sunk in, Harold Smith's bleary eyes went wide.

  "Remo! I promised Beasley World to Master Chiun!"

  "No sweat, Smitty," Remo said cheerfully. "We've taken possession."

  Smith's lemony mouth compressed into a bloodless pucker. His gray eyes took on an aghast look.

  "Remo," he said tightly. "What about the mission?"

  "Hey," Remo said. "After all the work we've done, don't we deserve a trip to Beasley World?"

  "That is not funny!" Smith flared.

  "Neither is what I'm about to tell you. Hold on to your truss, Smitty. It's been a long night."

  "Proceed," Smith said, thin-upped.

  "We didn't kill Ultima Hora. Zorilla did. He musta got the word from his superior."

  "Understood."

  "We followed him. He led us to an underground military-style complex that seems to be headquarters of the whole operation."

  Smith let out a pent-up breath. "Good," he said.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. The underground complex is directly under Beasley World."

  "Impossible."

  "We fought our way out and ended on Pleasant Street, U.S.A. Then the mice and ducks tried to waste us."

  "Come again?"

  "The place was booby-trapped. Every freaking ride. And every swinging tail had a gun. And you have a lot of explaining to do to Chiun."

  "Never mind that," Smith snapped testily. "What about Zorilla?"

  "We found him dead. Might be suicide. Might not. But Drake definitely took his own life. He left a taped confession, and a new reason why Mongo Mouse chewing gum is bad for you."

  "Remo, you are talking nonsense."

  "Both Zorilla and Drake ate a stick and it killed them," Remo explained.

  Harold Smith paused to digest the storm of information swirling through his confused brain.

  "Remo, are you certain of your facts?" Smith asked, more calmly than he felt. "Certain that the Beasley people are behind this?"

  "Remember the one thread that ran through this? Uncle Sam?"

  "Yes?"

  "Think about it." And Remo began humming the annoying tune still in his brain.

  "Uncle Sam Beasley!" Smith exploded. "My God!"

  "Drake left a taped confession. I'll Fedex it. But we still have the problem of the military complex under the park. Someone has to fumigate it. Chiun says he wants the vermin out by sundown. And he's not happy about the state of the park. A lot of it got trashed in the fighting."

  Smith's voice became urgent. "Remo, hold the tape up to the phone and play it back, please."

  "Okay. Here it comes."

  Harold Smith pressed the receiver tight to his ear. He listened. And as he listened, his eyes grew wide enough that they threatened to drop out of their sockets.

  The sound stopped abruptly. Remo's voice came back on the line.

  "Crazy, huh?"

  "That was Drake's voice," Smith said, tight-voiced. "It's incredible. But I have to accept it." Smith cleared his voice. "Remo, do not lose that tape. It's the proof we've needed to take before the U.N. Security Council."

  A dull boom came across the miles of wire. Smith heard a faint jangle of glass.

  "What was that?" he demanded.

  "Dunno. Let me check."

  Remo's voice came back on a moment later. "Hey! Future Realm just blew up! It's on fire!"

  "My park!" Smith could hear Chiun wail in the background.

  "Relax. You were going to tear it down anyway, right?" Remo reminded.

  "But it is burning!" Chiun cried.

  Remo's voice came back on. "Smitty, I think someone's hit the destruct button. What do we do?"

  Another boom came. This time louder. The crash of glass was a short symphony, ending in a tinkling timpany.

  "Remo! Take the tape and get out of there as fast as you can! Report from a secure location."

  "Gotcha," said Remo. "We'll-"

  The line went dead, and Harold W. Smith went white as a sheet.

  He composed himself and reached for the red phone. The President of the United States should have risen by now. This was going to be impossible to explain ....

  Remo dropped the dead phone and turned to the Master of Sinanju.

  "Smith says we're outta here. Now!"

  "But my beautiful kingdom! It is under attack!"

  "No help for it. Maybe Smith'll give you Beasleyland as a consolation prize."

  "It is inferior," Chiun said distastefully.

  "Tough," said Remo, snatching up the dictaphone. "Let's go!"

  "Look! Remo, the villains are escaping!"

  Remo returned to the window, now a jagged frame of glass.

  At the back end of the park, trucks and cars were rumbling away. They were, he knew, escaping by means of the secret entrance through which they had penetrated the underground complex.

  "We can't stop them by complaining about it," Remo said quickly. "Come on."

  As they floated down the winding steps, the ground shook. A stone fell out of the wall, and mortar cracked everywhere. On the lower floors, the suits of armor were tumbling into inert piles of helmets and leggings and gauntlets.

  They flashed across the drawbridge, above the panicky splashing of the gators. The ground under their feet felt strange.

  Chiun looked around, his face dark with horror. "What is happening?" he squeaked.

  "Feels like an earthquake," Remo said.

  Then, in the exact center of the park, the ground cracked and began to settle.

  "My park!" Chiun moaned. "The earth is swallowing my park!"

  "It's a sinkhole! Let's get out of here!"

  They ran for the entrance gate, as pavilions burst into flame or simply erupted skyward all about them. They dodged flying glass, uprooted trees, and once a sleek monorail car that rolled off its track and burst open like a loaf of bread.

  As they ran, the spreading sinkhole edge followed them hungrily.


  The entrance gates were already collapsing by the time they reached them, and they were forced to work around those.

  The parking lots-there were acres of them-contained a few cars. Remo picked one whose color he liked and popped the ignition in jig time.

  They roared out of the lot as the asphalt began to separate and sink, the victim of what the next day's Furioso Guardian would call "the largest sinkhole in Florida history."

  "Anybody left in that underground complex is pressed ham by now," Remo said in a small voice.

  Chapter 21

  By the time they'd gotten clear of the spreading sinkhole, it was too late to do anything about the escaping convoy of trucks.

  "But they are responsible for this travesty!" Chiun raged, shaking a tiny fist in the air.

  "Can't be helped. Smith says he needs this tape."

  "And my magnificent kingdom is burning even as we speak!"

  "It's insured," Remo said. "Count on it."

  "So?"

  "For millions of dollars," Remo added.

  They were driving toward the outskirts of Furioso. The roar of sirens filled the air. Fire trucks and ambulances roared past them, filling the air with an ungodly cacophony. There were even some crash vehicles from nearby Furioso Airport racing back toward the park. Beasley World was the heart of Furioso's economy.

  The stricken look faded from the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled countenance. "It is better to build these things from scratch," he sniffed, seemingly mollified.

  "We gotta find a hotel to park for a while," Remo said. "That is a good one," Chiun said, pointing east.

  Remo looked east. He saw a tall white hotel. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

  "It has a duck on its side. It is a good augury."

  "Haven't we had enough of those? Ducks, I mean."

  "One can never have enough duck. And I am in the mood for well-prepared duckling."

  "Suit yourself," said Remo, taking the next exit.

  The Podbury Hotel not only had a duck on its tower but a lobby filled with mallards, waddling about in an artificial pool. They shook water droplets off their down in the direction of a curious Master of Sinanju as Remo checked them in.

  "Do not splash me," Chiun warned, stepping away from a spattering of water. "For I am in a foul mood. And hungry."

  The mallards again shook their down in response, showering the Master of Sinanju's kimono.

  Chiun quacked back at them, to no avail. He sounded like Dingbat Duck on an off day.