"Hatchinthecenterofthefloorwillgetyouthere," Maus had said at ultrahigh speed.
"Much obliged," said Remo. "Stay here till I get back."
But as Remo popped the hatch in the center of the floor, he heard a faint gritty crunch as Maus broke something between his teeth. Maus slumped in his console chair, and Remo shrugged. One less loose end to worry about.
An aluminum ladder led down to a square brick tunnel. There was a golf cart in the tunnel, and Remo climbed aboard. That made it easier. He sent it humming along the tunnel, which went in only one direction.
When he reached the end, Remo jumped from the moving vehicle to an identical aluminum ladder hanging from an identical well and was halfway up when the unattended golf cart crashed into a bulkhead.
By the time Remo reached the top-the well was barely three stories high-the whine of a helicopter was audible.
Remo stepped out into a stone corridor through a stone niche that had a knight in medieval armor bolted to it.
The helicopter whine was growing louder. It was coming from above-far above-so Remo ignored the graceful stone staircase that swept upward and slipped out a narrow window. The castle walls were made of big stone blocks with plenty of handholds between them. Remo climbed a turret as if it were made for that purpose.
The helicopter was a fat green lime with Christmassy red trim and snowy white rotors. It had already lifted off a concealed helipad when Remo came over the battlements and floated toward it on gliding feet.
Remo snared one snowy skid just as it was lifting out of reach. His fist closed, and his feet left the ground.
The helicopter tilted and angled out toward the west.
Below, orange groves and kudzu patches rolled by as Sam Beasley World was left behind.
Remo waited until the helicopter pilot had settled onto his course before boarding.
Using both hands, he pulled himself up until his heels hooked onto the skid. He executed this maneuver with such smooth grace that there was no sudden shifting of weight to unbalance the colorful craft.
Once wrapped around the skid, it was an easy enough matter to reach up and find the side-door handle. Remo yanked it open and slipped in with an uncoiling motion that landed him in the rear seat while pulling the door shut after him.
"Going my way?" he said airily. The pilot looked over his shoulder, white as a ghost.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he sputtered.
Remo started to smile. The smile evaporated when he realized only he and the pilot were on board.
"Where's Uncle Sam?" Remo asked.
"Twenty-five years in his grave," the pilot blurted.
"A popular rumor, if untrue," the filtered voice of Uncle Sam Beasley said from a speaker inside the bubble.
There came a pop, a puff of evil black smoke arose from the rotating rotor shaft above Remo's head, and the turbine cut out.
"Oh, Jesus. We've lost power," the pilot snapped, throwing switches.
Remo kicked open the door.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" the pilot shouted in the sudden silence.
"Bailing out," said Remo.
"It's sure death."
"So is falling straight down in this oversize Christmas ornament."
"We'll be fine," the pilot said. "The main rotor is still turning. It'll act like a parachute. It's called autorotation."
Remo stayed half-in and half-out of the bubble just in case.
The helicopter floated straight down, sustained by the steady braking action of its main rotor.
It settled in a field of kudzu maybe ten miles west of Sam Beasley World.
As Remo got out, he saw another Christmas-colored chopper lift off from the fairyland skyline of the theme park and realized he'd been played for a sucker. It angled away and out of sight.
"Who was that voice that came over the speaker?" the pilot asked.
"Sound familiar?" said Remo.
"Yeah, it did," the pilot admitted.
"That was Popeye the Sailor Man," said Remo.
The pilot just stared at him.
He was still staring when Remo started walking through the endless kudzu toward the nearest highway. The nearest highway wasn't very near, so it was a good twenty minutes before Remo reached it and another ten before he found a gas station with a pay phone.
He called Dr. Harold W. Smith, waiting impatiently as the connection was rerouted twice before ringing a blue contact phone on Smith's glassy desk.
Smith's voice sounded hoarse but lemony. "Remo, is that you?"
"Yeah. What's wrong?"
"The President of the United States has been shot."
"Damn. How bad?"
Smith's voice sank to a hush. "They're reporting his death, Remo."
Remo said nothing. He was no particular fan of the current President, but in the long moment that the news sank in, he thought about where he had been thirty years ago when he had heard those identical words.
He had been in class. Saint Theresa's Orphanage. A nun whose name Remo had long ago forgotten was teaching English. There had come a knock at the class door, and Sister Mary Margaret, whose name and face Remo would remember to his dying day, entered, more pale of face than usual. She had conferred in a low voice with the other nun, whose face lost all color, too.
Then Sister Mary Margaret had addressed the class in a low, hoarse voice. "Children, our beloved President has been shot. We must all pray for him now."
And Sister Mary Margaret had led the class in prayer.
Remo could still remember the cold feeling in that classroom that day. He was old enough to understand a terrible thing had happened, yet still young enough to be dazed by the news.
When the word came that the young President had died, every class had been cancelled and the entire population of Saint Theresa's Orphanage was led in procession to the chapel. A Mass was sung. Those were still the days of Latin Masses.
It was the first time Remo Williams had ever seen the priests and the nuns-the only authority figures he had known up to that point in his life-weep. It had made him tremble in fear back then, and a little of that sick, hollow emptiness rose up to haunt him three decades later.
"Who did it?" Remo asked after his thoughts came back to the present.
"I have no information at present," Smith said, dull voiced.
"But I do. I found Uncle Sam. He was at Sam Beasley World."
"Was?"
"He got away. And I'm stuck in some highway in the middle of Kudzu, Florida."
"Go to Washington, D.C., Remo."
"Gladly. What's there?"
"The Vice President. He may need protecting."
"We blew a big one, didn't we?"
"Someone did," said Smith, terminating the connection with abrupt finality.
Chapter 7
Secret Service Special Agent Win Workman hated guarding the President of the United States.
He hated it every time the President with his two giant 747s blew into town loaded down with communications gear, armored limousines and an endless list of demands on the Boston Office.
Win Workman worked out of the Boston district office of the Secret Service. He liked working out of Boston, where his routine duties included catching counterfeiters, busting credit-card thieves and solving computer crimes. This last category was one of the fastest-growing missions of the service, whose job wasn't just limited to protecting Presidents, whether sitting, retired or aspiring.
Win Workman had gone to the Service by way of BATF. The pay was higher, the duties more interesting. Just as long as he didn't have to guard any Presidents.
There was little danger of that, he had discovered. Win was too "street" for the White House detail. The Boston office preferred him to work on undercover assignments.