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."