Nancy struggled to her knees and crawled to the thicket, parting branches so she could see.
There were two of them out there. The other one was shorter, frail, and very, very old. His face in the half-light was Asian. He wore a skirted black garment that resembled a Japanese kimono, but cut somewhat looser.
For all his advanced age, the old Oriental moved like a butterfly. They both did. They fluttered from man to man, seeming only to touch their bonds, and they fell loose. Nancy squinted and saw the older one did not untie the wire-but sliced it with long, curved fingernails that should have broken under contact with the bonds.
Skip King noticed the pair suddenly. "Hey!" he yelled. "Who are you two!"
"That idiot!" Nancy muttered. "That colossal fool."
From the campfire, the action unit of the Congress for a Green Africa leapt to their feet and stared through the sparks and fragrant monkey smoke with incredulous faces.
"What is this!" Malu demanded.
"This," cried the old Oriental in a high, squeaky voice, "is the House of Sinanju come to scatter you to the winds."
"I don't know what he's talking about," King wailed. "Don't shoot us!"
The blacks scrambled for their weapons. They brought them up, and unleashed an incredible amount of noise, fire, smoke, and fury toward the crouching prisoners.
Horrified, Nancy was forced to look away. The Skorpions chattered percussively. She heard screams, and visions of a blood massacre transpired before her mind's eye.
Then came a scream so loud and anguished she was forced to look.
It was Skip King. He was trying to get to his feet but his legs were asleep. He was hitting his knees with both fists as if to wake them up.
King was looking toward the campfire.
Commander Malu and his adherents were walking backward as they fired. Incredibly, their weapons were having no effect.
The pair-the thick-wristed Caucasian and the flitting Asian-had separated and were running at right angles to one another, trying to draw the fire.
Behind them, Old Jack slumbered like a great slowbeating orange heart. Nancy's eyes fixed on his mottled hide, fearing to see eruptions. Again, it was a miracle. There were none. Yet.
Then the tiny Oriental disappeared. The terrorists turned their fire on the thick-wristed man. He bobbed, seemingly in two directions at once, and was suddenly gone.
There was a short interval of silence. Then a high scream. It sounded like a lion or a monkey.
Sailing down from the high branches of a tree like black bats pouncing on prey, they came. The white man who reminded Nancy of a black moth and the delicate butterflylike Asian.
They landed in the middle of the paralyzed Congress for a Green Africa.
Stiff fingers lashed out. The crack of breaking vertebrae was distinct and unmistakable in the night.
Two green-bereted men fell like dominos, and the rest ran, spraying their backtrail with automatic weapons fire.
"Don't chase them!" Nancy screamed. "Let them go! They could hurt the dinosaur."
The thick-wristed man froze, as if hesitating. The expression on his high-cheekboned face said that he wanted to chase the others down more than anything else in the world.
The butterfly of an Asian spoke up then.
"Remo, she speaks wisdom," he said, his voice a grim squeak. "Let those worthless ones flee like the dogs that they are."
"If you say so," the other said in a reluctant tone.
And as they turned back, Skip King pounced on a dropped machine pistol and pointed it in the direction of the fleeing hijackers.
Before anyone could stop him, he emptied the clip, saying, "And don't come back, you disenfranchised rabble!"
Everyone looked toward the departing Congress for a Green Africa, expecting to see some fall wounded. They ran until the bush swallowed them.
"You," the man named Remo told King, "have got to be the world's worst shot."
"What do you want? It's dark out."
"You're welcome," Remo said.
Nancy stumbled out of the thorn brush and said,
"You'll have to excuse him. He watched too many Tarzan pictures as a boy."
"Big talk from someone who hid in the bushes while the men were doing all the fighting," King sneered, plucking out a clip and trying to jam in a second.
"I put her there," Remo said. "I should have stashed you and kept her."
King struggled with the stubborn clip. Not realizing he had been attempting to insert it backward, he threw it into the dirt. "Who asked you to butt in, anyway?" he snapped.
"Uncle Sam."
"The United States?"
"You're American citizens, aren't you? Who did you expect? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police?"
"Actually, I was hoping the Burger Berets would have shown up by now," said King, looking up into the fabulous starfield of the Gondwanaland night sky.
"The who?"
The sound of helicopters in the distance was like the rubbing together of horny wings, busy and insectlike. It grew to a clatter then swelled to a louder, fuller locust sound.
And suddenly the night sky above them was full of helicopters which sent down roving beams of lights.
In the moving patterns of light, snaky lines were dropped and men in midnight blue uniforms began rappeling down.
"Everyone stand clear!" an authoritative voice bellowed. "We're the Burger Berets!"
The man named Remo undertoned to Nancy, "The what Berets?"
"Burger."
"As in hamburger?"
Nancy sighed. "I'm afraid so."
She watched as men in midnight blue nylon jumpsuits hit the ground on ivory white boots. Disengaging themselves from the lines, they brought up AR-15 assault rifles.
King was storming about. "What took you so long!"
A man in a purple beret with a gold crown stitched in the front stepped up and executed a crisp salute. He was a colonel. The gold eagles that constituted his uniform insignia told that-although eagles didn't normally clutch a cheeseburger and a bag of french fries in each talon, Nancy realized.
The man in the purple beret executed a brisk salute. "Mr. King, sir. Colonel Mustard reporting."
"Mustard?" Remo said blankly.
"Code name. We're operating on foreign soil, as you know."
"That's no excuse for blowing the mission," King said bitterly.
The colonel looked at a wrist chronometer whose hands resembled french fries. "It's exactly 0400 hours. According to the timetable, we're mission positive."
"Well, you're too late anyway. They got away."
"Is the animal safe?"
"Yeah. No thanks to you." King looked up. The helicopters held their overhead positions. "Are they filming this?"
"Of course, sir."
"Tell them to stop. It's a debacle. The bastards got away. We were rescued by damn civilians."
"The Gondwanaland president gave us personal assurances that he'd keep his people on stand down, Mr. King," Colonel Mustard said stiffly.
Skip King stabbed an accusatory finger at Remo and Chiun. "Look, tell that to them. I'm just an exhostage." He took hold of his black hair as if to tear it out in chunks, but it was too short and greasy. It slipped through his fingers. "This is a mess. A total mess."
"What's he complaining about?" Remo wondered. "He's free, isn't he?"
"A major PR extravaganza went south when you two showed up," Nancy explained.
Remo shrugged. "That's the biz."
"Believe me, I couldn't be happier. If those corporate clowns had gotten here first, none of us would have survived." Nancy noticed the old Oriental. He was examining the Apatosaur, his head going from side to side like a curious cat's.
King also noticed. He stopped trying to uproot his scalp, and screamed, "Hey! You get away from there. That dinosaur is corporate property!"
The old Oriental ignored King's heated words.
"Didn't you hear me?" King howled.
"I see trouble coming," Nancy warned. "You better tell your friend to step away from old Old Jack."