"Uncle Sam-"
"Call me Director when we're on an operation."
"Director, you know how risky empurpling a subject can be. Purple combines the effects of red and blue. Anything could happen, especially with opponents as dangerous as them."
"Empurple their asses!"
"At once, Director." And snapping a switch, Bob Beasley leaned into a console mike and said, "Two intruders in Zone 12. Empurple them. Repeat, empurple them. And don't forget to mask first."
REMO WILLIAMS RAN THROUGH a world of darkness. Although his sight was blocked by a lead shield, he was not by any means blind.
His nose detected scent molecules too faint for the ordinary human nose, his hearing picked up the steady pounding of the Master of Sinanju's heartbeat and pumping lungs beside him and his bare skin received a multiplicity of sensations-nearby body heat, draft eddies and the negative pressure of large, stationary buildings.
All of which combined to make Remo a running radar dish.
A wall of heartbeats converged on the unseen road ahead of him.
"Masks down, men!" a voice shouted.
"Here we go, Little Father."
And as they raced forward, their sensitive ears detected the tiny closing clicks of relays signifying hypercolor lasers were being brought to bear upon them.
Fixing the position of the forest of heartbeats, Remo calculated angles of attack. He went for the rotator cuffs, jamming them with stiffened fingers, puncturing flesh and muscle.
Men howled and gave way. The plastic clatter of hypercolor laser units dropping to the cobbles came distinctly. Remo and Chiun crushed them underfoot wherever they could.
The first wave of attackers fell back.
"THE FLORIDA SUNSHINE Guerrillas have been thrown back, Director," Bob Beasley shouted.
"Those pansies!" Uncle Sam Beasley scowled. "What's wrong with them?"
"Well, they are blind."
"So are those two pains-in-the-rear!"
"Being blind doesn't seem to bother them."
"Look at them turn tail like scared little mice. I expect more from my employees."
"They were complaining about the pay a while back."
"Don't they know they work for Sam Beasley, the greatest private company ever to export good old American fun?"
"We pound it into them at the monthly pep drills, but I don't think it motivates them as much as better wages would."
"Greedy bastards. Okay, turn out my elite musketeers."
"Director, as long as those two have their eyes shielded, we can't stop them with extraordinary means."
"Then shoot them!"
"We didn't bring any guns. Couldn't risk them not getting through French customs."
Uncle Sam Beasley stared up at the screen and saw the two people he most hated in the world approach the Sorcerer's Chateau, blind yet unchallenged and seemingly unstoppable. His exposed eye scrunched up like an agate in a fist.
"There's gotta be some way to kill 'em," he snarled.
"We could lead them into a trap."
"What traps do we have here?"
"Not much. All Beasley offensive capability is topside. We never planned for a Utilicanard penetration."
"Don't call it that. God, I hate these sissy French words. Where did they dredge them up?"
"Same place we did. From the Latin."
"I want solutions, you sycophant. Not language lessons."
"There is the LOX chamber."
"We have a deli down here?"
"Not that kind of LOX. Liquid Oxygen. We use it to create faux steam clouds for the Mesozoic Park volcanoes. It's nasty, subfreezing stuff. A cloud of it will cause your skin to crack off in sheets."
"Hey, I like that."
"We'll have to decoy them in."
Uncle Sam Beasley turned to address a trio of his loyal musketeers, who had entered the control room in Union blue, their mouse-eared forage caps carried respectfully in their hands.
"I need a volunteer. Hazardous duty. Who will stand up for his Uncle Sam?"
The California Summer Vacation Musketeers looked down at their boots and up at the ceiling--anywhere to avoid the cold gray stare of Uncle Sam's single exposed eye.
"I'll double the pay of the man who undertakes this mission."
No one responded.
"What's the matter, isn't double enough? Don't I pay you competitively?"
When no one answered, Uncle Sam Beasley snarled, "Draw straws if you're going to be that way. But I want a man ready for action before those two bust in."
Uncle Sam returned to the video grid. "What are those two doing to my best guerrillas?"
"Looks like the white one is just poking them in the shoulder area."
"Then why are they dropping like DDT'd flies?"
"Maybe there's a sensitive nerve center there," Bob Beasley said, stabbing buttons.
"What's the old gook doing?"
Bob Beasley craned up in his chair to see the screen in question.
"I think he's eviscerating them, Director."
"With what?"
"His fingernails, I suppose," Bob Beasley said in a thick voice.
"They're going to be in the chateau any second."
Bob Beasley reached for an insulated lever. "I'll raise the drawbridge."
"Don't bother. I want 'em where I can LOX 'em."
REMO KICKED a kneecap to pieces and stepped over the dropping foe. He paused, turning in place, to orient himself.
The wind was out of the northeast. There was a blockage of dead air in that direction, and only the Sorcerer's Castle was big enough to create it, Remo decided.
He turned, not seeing but sensing the Master of Sinanju.
"Chiun! Shake a leg. The castle is this way."
"I will be along," said Chiun, and the ugly crunch of human bone and brittle plastic came unmistakably. "These evil tools must be destroyed."
"You just don't want to have to deal with Beasley."
"Do not fall into the moat."
"Fat chance," said Remo, running toward the blockage. He smelled the water in the moat, and the scent of the wooden drawbridge, still damp from a recent rain, guided him over the moat and into the castle's cool, gaping maw.
There were no guards. No obstacles. Remo ran with all senses alert for any click, thud or electrical whirring of booby traps or snares.
Surprisingly there were none.
From the last time he had penetrated this place, Remo knew there was a spiral aluminum stairwell going down. From memory, he arrowed toward it. There was an updraft, cool and dank. That helped.
Pausing at the top step, Remo listened a moment. No traps. No human ones anyway.
Remo started down. His skin temperature began to cool in anticipation of what he had to do ....
"DIRECTOR, hostile subject entering Utiliduck."
Uncle Sam Beasley turned to his waiting musketeers. "It's the moment of truth. Who's my brave volunteer?"
Feet shuffled and gazes were averted guiltily.
"Damn you slackers! You work for me!"
"Yeah," a musketeer returned, "but we aren't going up against that guy. Look what he did to the Florida Sunshine Guerrillas."
Uncle Sam made a fist of stainless steel and flexed it several times. It whirred like metallic butterfly wings. "It's not as bad as what I'll do to you bunch if I don't get my volunteers."
"How about we all volunteer?" one asked suddenly.
Uncle Sam blinked. "All?"
"Yeah. That way we'll have a better chance."
"All except the technician," Bob Beasley called over his shoulder. "We need him."
"Good luck, men," said Uncle Sam as the musketeers filed glumly from the room. When the door hissed shut, he turned to his nephew. "Punch up the corridor screens. I want to see this."
On the screen appeared the image of the skinny white guy with the thick wrists and high cheekbones walking down the white approach corridor, his arms swinging with deceptively casual ease.
"Doesn't look like much," muttered Bob Beasley.
"I don't know who he is, but his ass is mine."