The Color of Fear td-99

by Warren Murphy

  "Only if you behave yourselves. No shooting. No taking prisoners. And if your unit commander orders you to pull out, you'll obey orders."

  "Who are you to talk of duty?"

  "I was a Marine. I learned to obey my commander."

  "We had a senatorial candidate in these parts who was a Marine and did not let orders stand in his way."

  "He win or lose?"

  "Lost."

  "That should tell you something," said Remo, walking away.

  The Master of Sinanju followed him, sere of face, his hands tucked into his kimono sleeves. He looked like an angry monk. "Uncle Sam has shown his steely hand at last, Remo."

  "Looks that way to me."

  "We will have to deal with him, for it is Smith's highest instructions to vanquish the fiend once and for all."

  Remo frowned. "It's not going to be easy."

  "It was your task to find him."

  "Look," Remo said angrily, "I ran my tail off. Sam Beasley World. Beasleyland. Euro Beasley. Beasleyland Tokyo." He held two fingers so they nearly touched. "I was this close to nailing him in Florida, but he flew the coop in a helicopter."

  Chiun's frown deepened, making his wrinkles gullies. "It was a helicopter that dropped that bomb," he said, stroking his wispy beard thoughtfully.

  "That helicopter was black. The one I chased down in Florida was red and green."

  "Are you still on strike?"

  "Not where Beasley is concerned. He got us embroiled in a war that first time when he invaded Cuba and tried to turn it into a theme park."

  "That was when you should have dispatched him."

  "Not me. I grew up watching his cartoons. The best place for him was in a Folcroft rubber room."

  "Until he escaped."

  "Not our fault," said Remo.

  They reached the entrance to the park. The road was filled with white news trucks sporting microwave dishes. The trucks were being held at bay by newly arrived Confederate troops with muskets leveled. The Zouaves were nowhere to be seen.

  "Let's take the low road," suggested Remo.

  Moving low to the ground, they slipped around the Confederate lines and across the highway, which they crossed unseen, finally coming to an outlying news van that was parked a discreet distance from the rest. Like the others, it was white. The blue letters on the side said Europe 1. The o in Europe was either a plum or a blue apple.

  "Behold, Remo-proof of French intrigue."

  The Master of Sinanju was pointing to a blond woman in a fashionable blue slip dress who wore a black beret.

  "She's wearing a beret. Big deal. Anybody can wear a beret. That doesn't make her French."

  "She smells French."

  "How do French women smell?" said Remo.

  "Like cheese."

  Remo sniffed the air. "I smell wine."

  "Some French women smell like cheese and wine," Chiun admitted.

  "Nice try, but this is a Sam Beasley operation all the way. The French have nothing to do with it."

  "Let us prove it to your satisfaction by asking the sinister Frenchwoman for the use of her telephone."

  "Fair enough," said Remo, changing direction.

  The woman in the beret failed to notice Remo's approach, but so would a tiger, a hawk or any other wild creature possessing preternatural senses.

  Remo moved with an easy harmony of bones and muscles and tendons that left no spoor for a predator to follow. His natural scent clung to his lean form like an aura instead of trailing betraying odor molecules after him. His feet made no impression in the dirt, and when he passed over grass, the blades sprang back like springs instead of lying crushed and exuding telltale juice.

  So when Remo drew up behind the woman in the beret, he had scoped her out completely before she first became aware of his nearness.

  She was blond with short-cut hair, limber limbs and a modest chest. Not Remo's type at all. He willed his sex-attractant pheromones to stop producing and let his body slouch slightly. With luck she wouldn't be attracted to him. It was a continual problem. Masters of Sinanju were trained to be masters of their bodies, and the result was not exactly lost on the opposite sex.

  "Can I borrow your phone?" he asked quietly.

  The woman whirled, green eyes sparking with anger and surprise.

  "Who are you to sneak upon me, you--you American clod?" She pronounced "American," "Americain."

  Remo frowned. "Take it easy. My car broke down a ways back. I need to call AAA."

  "I do not know zis AAA.."

  "Doesn't matter. I'm a motorist in distress."

  "And I am a journalist on a story. Ze line must be kept clear to my producer."

  "French?"

  "What is it to you?"

  "Unusual to see a French reporter on a story like this."

  "Zis is a major international story. If you rootless fools are going to tear your nation asunder, it is of concern to ze people of France. After all, you are an ally. Of sorts."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence. Next time Paris falls, remind me to quote you to my congressman."

  "If you expect gratitude for somezing zat 'appen' an impossibly long time in the past, you are very much mistaken. Now, if you will excuse me, I 'ave a story to cover."

  "You're welcome," said Remo, returning to Chiun.

  "You were right," he said. "She's French. Typical winning personality, too."

  "They were no more pleasant when the Romans first discovered them living in hovels along the Seine and named them Gauls."

  "That one sure had a lot of gall," Remo grumbled.

  "I am surprised you did not employ your masculine charms to convince her of the errors of her ways."

  "Not my type."

  "My," Chiun clucked, "how you have grown. There was a time when all white cows were your type."

  "Knock it off. We gotta call this in to Smith."

  "Agreed," said Chiun.

  A man whom Remo recognized as a national correspondent for a major network was pacing before a microwave van, a cellular phone jammed against one ear, saying, "What's going on? Where are our helicopters? What's going on at the battlefield?"

  "It's over," Remo told him.

  The man stopped pacing and said, "What?"

  "It's over."

  "It's over?"

  Remo nodded. "Over."

  "Who won?"

  "America."

  "That's not a victory."

  "If you're American, it is."

  "I'm from Washington."

  "Maybe you'll be allowed to join the rest of us if you behave. In the meantime I need to borrow that phone."

  "I'm talking to Washington."

  "You should be talking to America," Remo told him, and removed the cellular handset from his hand before his fingers could tighten defensively.

  "Only be a minute," said Remo, walking off. An excited voice was chattering in his ear when he brought the handset to his head.

  "What's going on? The helicopter feed is down."

  "The South surrendered," Remo told the voice from Washington.

  "Already? This story's only six hours old. Damn. We just preempted 'As the Planet Revolves.' We can't interrupt a bulletin and say it was all a misunderstanding."

  "That's the biz, sweetheart," said Remo, hitting the switch hook. When he got a dial tone, he thumbed the 1 button and held it down. A continuous 1 tone was the foolproof telephone code that would connect him with Dr. Harold W. Smith at Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. Folcroft was the cover for CURE.

  Smith picked up the phone before the first ring sounded on Remo's end.

  "Guess you've been standing by the phone, huh, Smitty?"

  "Remo. How bad is it in Petersburg?"

  "Not bad at all," Remo said amiably. "We have clear skies, a nice breeze and, except for the network news vans, not a cloud in sight. How about you?"

  "The Rhode Island National Guard has been stopped at the Virginia border. It's a standoff. The Ninety-ninth Vermont Holiday Sh
arpshooters is mustering its entire force. The Stonewall Thespian Brigade is being reformed and is moving on Petersburg."

  Smith paused. "Strange. Stonewall was a Southern unit. These men are out of New York City." Smith went on. "On a layover in Austin, a commercial flight carrying the Texas Juneteenth Rifles has been detained on the ground by armed and unreconstructed Texas Rangers."

  "Texas-what Rifles?"

  "Juneteenth. They are an all-black regiment who take their name from the date when the Negro slaves were freed. I believe the actual date was June 19."

  "They stopped being called Negroes a long time ago, Smitty."

  "They were called that when they were freed."

  "Point taken."

  Smith's voice became more urgent. "Remo, we are witnessing the dawn of a second Civil War. It must be stopped. The President went for a jog two hours ago wearing a Smith College T-shirt. When reporters asked him to comment on the situation in Virginia, he said he hoped to find a cure for this new kind of divisiveness."

  "Oops."

  "I sent him an E-mail message assuring him we were on the matter, and warning never to use the word cure in public again. Now we must have results. It is unbelievable how quickly the situation is escalating. One moment."

  The line hummed. Remo listened for the familiar plasticky clicking of a computer key and, when he didn't hear anything, suddenly remembered that Smith had upgraded to a noiseless keyboard.

  "Remo, my computers have just picked up a story moving on the wire. Old Ironsides has sailed out of Charleston naval yard. An air unit of the Georgia National Guard have deserted in their helicopters and are moving north to the area. A group calling itself the Thirteenth Illinois Improvisational Engineers has hijacked a Chicago-to-Dayton flight and is demanding to be flown to Richmond. What in God's name has gotten into people?"

  "Get a grip, Smitty. We have the situation in hand."

  "Say again?"

  "We liberated the First Massachusetts, and the Sixth Virginia Foot have laid down their arms."

  "Then it's over?"

  "Unless all those other idiots get here and stir the hornet's nest back up."

  "I will see that they are intercepted if they have to be destroyed."

  "Let's try and remember we're all one nation under God."

  Smith's lemony voice became flinty. "If a second Civil War comes to pass, Remo, we will all have to choose up sides. This nation is already divided enough as it is. Imagine a Civil War today. Instead of North versus South, it might be east against west. Midwest versus Northwest. Any combination is possible. And that is without foreign nations taking sides."

  "Well, the French are already here," Remo said.

  Chiun spoke up. "It is true, Emperor. The untrustworthy French have already arrived."

  "He means a French news team," explained Remo. "Apple 1 or something."

  "Odd."

  "I thought so."

  "This story is only a few hours old. How could a French news agency have people in place already?"

  "Maybe they were in the country doing a story on Memorial Day. They owe us big for Normandy."

  "I have not noticed a great deal of gratitude of late," Smith said in a chilly voice. He had served in the OSS during World War II, in his pre-CIA days.

  "I hear that," said Remo, looking in the direction of the French newswoman, who was now atop her van scanning the battlefield with a pair of binoculars.

  "Listen, Smitty. We have good news and bad."

  "I would prefer to hear the bad news first."

  "I knew you would. Here goes, according to the Confederate side, they had called down two Northern regiments to help them. But they were bushwhacked by a unit from the North firing real ammo. That's why they attacked the units from Rhode Island and Massachusetts."

  "Who were these bushwhackers?"

  "They thought it was one of the two New England units."

  "How can that be if they intercepted them traveling south as reports have it? It is not logical."

  "Logic doesn't fly very high down in these parts, Smitty. When I asked around, these clowns admitted that it was an infantry unit that attacked them. But the New England units were artillery and cavalry."

  "Some hitherto unknown reenactment unit goaded them into a fight," Smith said slowly.

  "But here's the important part. This whole thing started because reenactors from both sides decided to take a stand here against a common enemy."

  "Who?"

  "The Sam Beasley Company."

  There was silence on the line. And then a groan-long, low and heartfelt.

  "Tell me this is not another Sam Beasley scheme."

  "They want to build a Civil War theme park around here," said Remo.

  "This was triggered by a theme park?"

  "Hey, the Trojan War was over a girl who snored."

  Smith's voice darkened. "Remo, I want Uncle Sam Beasley found, captured and terminated."

  "Wait, Smitty. Think about this a minute. This is Uncle Sam Beasley. We can't just kill him."

  "Kill him," Smith said in a brittle voice. "He dragged us into an incipient war with Cuba just to expand his global entertainment empire. Now this. I thought confining him to Folcroft until the end of his days would solve the problem, but I was wrong. Beasley is a menace to the American way."

  "Some people think he is the American way."

  "Find him and destroy him."

  "I'm on strike."

  "He is not!" Chiun cried out. "He told me so himself."

  "If you cannot execute this mission, Remo, have Chiun do it," said Smith.

  "I would no more kill the beloved Uncle Sam than I would harm a kitten," Chiun said loudly.

  "Then bring him here alive, and I will put a bullet through his brain myself," Harold Smith said tightly. "Do you understand, Remo?"

  "Got it. There's a press conference scheduled for noon. We'll let it play itself out, grab a Beasley vice president or something and work our way back to the big cheese."

  "Report as necessary," said Harold Smith, who then hung up.

  Remo snapped the antenna shut and told the Master of Sinanju, "We have our marching orders."

  "I will harm no hair on his venerable head."

  "We'll see if it comes to that."

  They tossed the cellular back at the network correspondent and started back to the battlefield.

  "You did not tell Smith about the bomb that brought terror," Chiun said pointedly.

  "He hung up before I got to that part."

  As they approached the park entrance, a line of cars roared up the road. They were all a flat primer gray, their chrome trim painted canary yellow.

  "What are those?" asked Chiun.

  "From the color of the piping, Confederate cavalry," said Remo.

  The cars turned up Crater Road. They were waved in by cheering Confederate sentries, who threw their slouch hats and forage caps into the air with raucous whoops of joy.

  "We'd better shake a leg. Looks like reinforcements. If they stir up Southern passions, we'll have to put down the rebellion all over again."

  Chapter 8

  Mickey Weisinger was the second-highest-paid CEO in human history. He had a stock-option plan that enabled him-virtually on whim-to buy company stock at five dollars a share and resell it at market value. Typically he doubled his thirty-minute investment.

  But he was not happy. He was never happy. He would never be happy.

  Not until he was the highest-paid CEO in human history.

  For the man who ran the company that made all of America and most of the industrialized world smile, Mickey Weisinger lived as if existence was a constant struggle against the piercing paper cuts of life.

  Nothing was ever enough. No success could fulfill him.

  Yet the successes kept coming and coming. All through the eighties and nineties, under President Mickey Weisinger the Sam Beasley Corporation could do no wrong. Under Mickey Weisinger the Beasley culture expanded, was packaged and expo
rted to other countries.

  It began with Beasley Tokyo. Everyone knew the Japanese loved all things American-and what was more American than Mongo Mouse, Mucky Moose and Silly Goose? The Japanese lapped it up, but when the quarterly financial reports came in, Mickey Weisinger saw only failure.

  "We thought too small," Mickey lamented.

  "The park is raking it in."

  "We gave them too damn many concessions. We licensed the damn thing. We should have built it ourselves. We should own Beasley Tokyo lock, stock and castle moat."

  "But if it had flopped," he was reminded, "it would have dragged Beasley stock right into the tank."

  "Beasley never fails," Mickey Weisinger railed, pointing to the portrait of founder Uncle Sam Beasley, at that time dead for two decades despite persistent rumors he was being kept in cryogenic suspended animation until medical science could discover a cure for his damaged heart, and shouted, "Beasley is America. We are America and next time we're going to own it all."

  And they did. They geared up their licensing operation, computerized their animation department, tripled theatrical releases and flooded the planet with Beasely products until they had a gross national product equal to the smaller European countries.

  But it still wasn't enough for Mickey Weisinger.

  "I want more!" he raged. "More! Find me revenue. Create more toy lines. I want a product stream equal to US. military production in World War II. If anyone puts out a coloring book, cartoon or film that even smacks of Beasley, I want the ears sued off the bastards. It's not enough to bury the enemy in product, we gotta crush him before he can get his own product line established. From now on we're like sharks. If you don't keep swimming forward, cruising for fresh red meat, you're on the bottom spilling blood for our enemies to sniff out and devour."

  So the word went out, and Beasley exported itself, expanding and conquering. With the untimely death of Beasley CEO Eider Drake, Mickey Weisinger was promoted to chief executive officer.

  When it was time to establish a beachhead in Europe, Mickey Weisinger personally oversaw negotiations. He handpicked a site outside Paris in rural Averoigne and, when negotiations were in the final stages, he turned around and made the same offer to the government of Spain.

  Pitting the two nations against one another, Mickey succeeded in extracting concessions from the French until they were literally salivating to break ground at Euro Beasley.