The tape ended.
"Not much of a confession," Remo remarked.
Wordlessly, Harold Smith placed the dictaphone in a receptacle in his briefcase that also contained a portable terminal and cellular phone hookup.
"I have spoken with the President," he said, closing the case.
"Yeah?"
"He is incredulous, of course. But we have agreed that for the good of the country and to preserve the good name of Samuel Beasley, this . . . um . . . undertaking should never become public knowledge."
"Smitty, Sam Beasley World is now a sinkhole bigger than Rhode Island. How are you going to cover that up?"
"You have just explained it perfectly. It's a sinkhole. A natural phenomenon."
"Yeah? You heard the tape all the way through. It was disgusting. They were going to relocate Beasley World to Cuba, for crying out loud."
Smith rubbed his jaw. "Cuba was quite a resort island in its heyday. It is not so farfetched. Assuming they could seize control by force."
"Smitty, everyone who died, died for a theme park! Castro is trying to nuke us with one of our own power plants, because some suit didn't want to pay taxes!"
Smith frowned. "We will have to deal with the Beasley angle later. The crisis has not passed. A third MIG has been shot down. It's unlikely the Cuban Air Force will penetrate our coastal-defense net, but these continued provocations cannot go unanswered forever."
"This is crazy," Remo muttered, looking out the window.
"You seem troubled."
"I am. I grew up watching Sam Beasley on TV. A lot of kids were betrayed when Drake perverted the company. All I can think of is 'What would Uncle Sam say if he were alive to see this'?"
"Not important," Smith said flatly.
Remo turned, his eyes angry, "So that's it? You take the tape and tie it into a pretty ribbon?"
"Not quite," said Smith. "We must go through Utiliduck and destroy all evidence of the criminal conspiracy."
"Utiliduck?"
"That is the official designation of the underground command, control, and utility complex underlying Beasley World."
"Where'd you learn that? No, wait. Let me guess. Beasley's computers told yours."
"No. The complex is no secret, although off-limits to the general public. It is from there the attractions are controlled, largely by computer."
At that point the Master of Sinanju entered the suite, his hands concealed in his voluminous sleeves.
"Hail, Emperor Smith," he announced loudly, not stopping.
Smith nodded. "Master Chiun."
"Bestower of crumbling castles." And with that, Chiun swept into the other room. The door slammed.
Remo looked at Smith ironically. "Guess you're back in the doghouse."
"It will pass."
"Did you really intend to hand over Beasley World to him?"
"No," Smith admitted. "But I had to placate him. The situation was desperate, and Chiun can be exceedingly stubborn at times."
Remo raised an inquiring eyebrow. "At times? Next time you notice him not being stubborn, blow a whistle, will you? I'd like to take a photograph for posterity. But what are you going to do now? You're out from under the promise, but you know Chiun. He's going to want the moon if he's ever to work for you again."
Before Smith could answer, a mangled quack came from the other room.
"What was that?" Smith asked.
"Sounded like a duck," Remo said casually. Then it hit him. "A duck!"
Remo shot into the next room.
He discovered the Master of Sinanju in the act of squeezing the life out of a gasping, kicking mallard.
"Give me that!" Remo demanded.
Chiun clutched the wriggling duck's neck more tightly. "It is mine! It is dinner!"
"Did you steal that duck from the lobby pond?"
"What duck?"
"That duck."
Chiun looked injured. "It is a mallard. And it offered itself to me."
"It did not!"
"In return for a kernel of corn," Chiun admitted. The mallard was kicking its webbed feet violently now. Its eyes bulged.
"You lured that innocent duck up here? Children play with those ducks."
"I only took one," Chiun said in an injured tone. "There are many others for the children to play with. They will not miss this scrawny specimen, barely fit for eating."
Remo put out his hand. "The duck, Chiun. Now."
Grudgingly, the Master of Sinanju surrendered the now limp mallard. It began coughing quackily as soon as its slim neck had been freed.
Chiun turned his bleak hazel eyes in the direction of Harold Smith.
"This is what the head of the mightiest house of assassins in history has been reduced to," he said bitterly. "A vagabond existence, scrounging in low places for his next meal."
Smith adjusted the knot of his tie. "I am sure we can come to some accommodation, Master Chiun."
"I will not negotiate on an empty stomach. A caliph once locked himself into a stone chamber with Master Boo and won many concessions, because Boo could not stand the sound of his own growling stomach."
"I meant nothing of the kind," Smith said quickly.
"Did you bring my tape of the beauteous Cheeta?"
"Er, I forgot. Sorry."
"Another insult!"
"It was not meant that way," Smith protested.
"I could overlook it," Chiun said guardedly. "Perhaps."
"I would appreciate that, Master Chiun."
"In return for Beasleyland."
"Absolutely not!"
"Then a castle to be named later," Chiun said quickly.
Smith hesitated. Adjusting his glasses, his face grew reflective.
"Possibly," he said.
Before Remo could open his mouth to object, Harold Smith said, "Beasley World is thick with search teams and rescue trucks. We must move quickly, if we are to seize all evidence in this matter."
As they approached it, Sam Beasley World seemed more and more to resemble some fanciful lunar crater. Black smoke toiled upward, throwing the crumbled and drunken ramparts of Sorcerer's Castle into intermittent shadow.
The park was too big to rope off, but state police cars blocked the main entrance road.
Harold Smith offered a genuine-looking photo ID that said FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY in intimidatingly large letters.
"How bad?" he asked.
"A lot of bodies down there, sir," a trooper said respectfully. "No survivors so far."
"Good," said Chiun.
"Hush," said Remo.
"We're going to look around," said Smith.
"The area isn't safe, sir."
"We'll chance it," Smith said.
They were waved through.
"My poor kingdom," Chiun said forlornly, his button nose pressed to the car window. "It is unsalvageable."
"Too bad," Remo said dryly. "The world really needed an Assassin's World. Right, Smitty?"
Smith said nothing. His pinched face was grim. The carnival desolation was appalling. The summit of Star Mountain had fallen in and was smoking like a volcano.
Remo fell silent.
They found a flat place in the outermost parking lot and picked their way over the jagged crevices and upflung shelves of asphalt. All around them lay ruins. The ground had settled alarmingly. Phantom Lagoon had been drained of water, like a bizarre swimming pool. Monkey Domain was emitting a confusion of monkey chatterings and yeeps, evidently coming from tape machines all playing at different speeds-some too fast, some too slow.
Over by Horrible House-now a collapsed house of cards-rescue teams were extracting floppy bodies from a crack in the ground. None was human. A team of paramedics was trying to shock a seven-foot-tall rabbit back to life by applying electric paddles to his furry chest. They gave up when his long pink ears caught fire..
"Anybody trapped below when the ground fell in didn't have a prayer," Remo said quietly.