Smith asked, "Can you find the section where you emerged from underground?"
Remo led them to the disposal building that masqueraded as a fun house. It was in a quadrant of the park that was not as deeply sunken. They stepped in cautiously.
"We came up this tube," Remo said, indicating the pneumatic mechanism.
Smith peered down unhappily. "I am not sure I can negotiate this."
"No sweat. We'll give you a hand." And Remo cheerfully tucked a protesting Harold Smith under one arm. Paling, Smith closed his eyes.
Smith experienced a brief sensation of descent as Remo climbed downward. Then he found himself being set on his feet, as the Master of Sinanju stepped off the broken handholds in the side of the pipe.
Remo grinned. "How was that?" he asked, leading the way.
Smith straightened his coat and followed stiffly. He almost stepped on the body of Leopoldo Zorilla, but the Master of Sinanju assisted him around the tangled form.
At the broken end of the pipe, Smith endured the ignominy of being lowered by both hands to the polished white-tile floor, now shrouded in darkness.
He still clutched his briefcase, and from it he extracted a penlight. It whisked light about the long tunnel curiously.
"Remarkable," he said.
Remo and Chiun dropped lightly to his side. Remo said, "Follow me."
They walked.
Remo looked around. "Funny, this part isn't crushed flat like the rest."
"These walls are heavily reinforced," Smith said carefully. "It is my guess that this is not Utiliduck, but a secret wing."
"This is perfectly sensible," Chiun murmured.
"It is?" said Remo.
"All ducks have wings. Heh heh heh."
Remo rolled his eyes in silence.
They came to a sealed door. It resembled the guillotinelike entrance portal-a slab of steel plate, set in the grooves of a massive stainless-steel frame.
Smith's tiny ray found a magnetic keycard slot.
"Without a passcard, we cannot enter," he said.
"Wanna bet?" said Remo.
He placed his hands against the door, balanced himself on his feet, and pressed inward.
Nothing happened for some moments. Then Remo moved his flattened palms upward.
Smith clapped his hands over his ears to protect them from the interminable scream of tortured metal. The portal lifted, seemingly impelled by nothing more than the surface tension of Remo's flat palms.
When he had the door halfway up, Remo turned and said, "Slide under. I can't hold this thing forever."
Smith ducked under and in. The Master of Sinanju swept after him.
Remo gave the door a final lurch upward and rolled under the descending portal, which came roaring down behind him with a harsh, ringing clang.
The room was a nest of electronic equipment. Video monitors were lined up on overhead racks. Most were dead or filled with static. Tape spools gleamed. The console chairs were empty. There were no bodies to be seen, either.
Idly, Remo stabbed a button labeled TOM THUMB PAVILION.
To his surprise, a red light winked on and a set of reels began to turn.
Over the loudspeaker, a song warbled.
"It's a short, short life, don't you know?"
"It's a short, short life, don't you know?"
"That is not right," Smith murmured.
Remo snapped the tape off, growling, "Tell me about it. Just when I got that thing out of my mind."
"What?"
"Never mind. It's been a long day."
Smith found another door. It was marked ANIMATION.
"Odd," he said. "I did not know the cartoonists worked underground."
They entered the door. It opened easily.
The room looked more like the War Room of a military base than an artist's studio.
In the center of a long table lay a topographically exact scale model of the island of Cuba.
"Here's your proof, Smitty," Remo said, indicating the walls with a wave of his hand.
Smith used his penlight. His brow furrowed at what he saw. Almost every square foot of wall space was covered with sheets of paper. Each sheet contained a drawing of some sort. They formed long rows of continuously depicted action.
"Odd," Smith said. "These appear to be storyboards."
"What?"
"Storyboards. Before they animate a cartoon, professional cartoonists work out the action in separate drawings, much like a comic strip," Smith explained.
"I say it's a War Room," Remo said firmly.
Chiun was examining the drawings critically.
"I do not understand this story," he said.
"That is because it is not a story," Smith said firmly. "These are the invasion plans for Cuba. Very clever. Instead of committing them to paper in text form, they worked them out as step-by-step cartoon illustrations."
"That is the goofiest thing I ever heard of," Remo said.
"It is not so farfetched," Smith suggested. "During World War Two, Sam Beasley loaned the government many of his artists for the war effort. They designed topographical models of Japanese-held Pacific Islands which were used in planning sessions, as well as socalled 'nose art' for bomber planes and camouflage details. He was quite a patriot."
Smith moved along one wall, following a line of drawings. They seemed to show a coastal area under invasion by waves of ocean-going military barges, while being defended by a large armed force.
"This calls for an amphibious landing at . . ." He went from the end of a row back to the beginning of the wall, to read the next tier of drawings.
Smith gasped. ". . . Zapata Swamp! At the Bay of Pigs!"
"Explains why Ultima Hora was training in a swamp," Remo said. "But why are these guys dressed like pirates?"
Smith came to Remo's side. His penlight followed the drawing sequence. In this sequence, the invading forces were standing up in their landing craft and returning fire. They wore costumes Remo had seen in the Buccaneers of the Bahamas attraction.
"This appears to be a secondary force," Smith ventured. "It is too small to be the spearhead for a fullscale invasion. But where is the main thrust?"
Chiun's voice piped up.
"Remo, if an animator is one who draws cartoons, what is a reanimator?"
"Huh?"
"What is a reanimator?" repeated Chiun, indicating the sign on another door. It read: REANIMATION.
Remo and Smith joined him at the door. It looked like a submarine bulkhead door. It was locked, accessible only by passcard. Or as it turned out, by a fist that packed the power of a sledge-hammer. Remo casually punched the door off its hinges. It rang for a good half minute, even after they had stepped over it into the room beyond.
The Reanimation Room was lit up like a hospital. In fact, it looked a lot like an operating room. There was an operating table, an autoclave for sterilizing instruments, a defibrillator for restarting a stopped heart, and other medical paraphernalia.
"Must have an emergency generator," Smith mused, thumbing off his penlight. His face in the harsh white light appeared puzzled and sharp.
"Maybe it's an emergency hospital," Remo suggested. "Like a MASH unit."
"It does not appear to be portable," Smith said. He followed his inquisitive nose to a long stainless-steel capsule that sat in a corner. It might have been an old-fashioned iron lung, except that it was completely enclosed and stood upright. There was a face-sized porthole on one side near the top.
"Bomb?" Remo wondered.
Smith checked the support equipment. Tubes and coils ran from the long chamber to a framework of gleaming, cylinders like oxygen tanks. They were labeled. One said OXYGEN. The others were labeled LIQUID NITROGEN. Various old-fashioned gauges were calibrated for pressure and temperature. The needles were dead.
Harold Smith stared at these a long time without speaking a word.
"You okay, Smitty?" Remo asked, noticing Smith's uncharacteristic stillness.