It consisted of a white circle encompassing three black disks. A large bottom circle topped by side-by-side smaller duplicates. All three disks overlapped.
"Looks familiar," Remo muttered. "But I can't place it."
"I, too, have seen this arcane symbol."
"Where?"
The Master of Sinanju stroked his smoky tendril of a beard. His eyes narrowed. "I do not know. Perhaps it is the symbol of some cabalistic secret society."
"Could be," said Remo, looking around. He tested the back of one of the vans. It came open.
"Hey, Chiun! Check this out!"
The Master of Sinanju came around to the back.
The entire van was stacked with cloth-covered poles, like cordwood. Remo pulled one from the top of the stack.
A corner of a red cloth unraveled. Remo gave the pole a crack and unfurled a red flag, on which the three-black-circles-in-a-white-circle symbol swam.
"It's some kind of national flag," Remo said.
Chiun made a face. "I know of no such nation."
"Maybe it's supposed to be the flag of the new Cuba," Remo mused. "The three circles must stand for something. Either that, or the Neo-Nazis are into circles these days."
"Hark," Chiun said suddenly.
"Hark?"
"I hear something."
"Oh." Remo tossed the flag away and went to one of the rubber-tired open carts, saying, "Come on."
Remo found a key in the ignition. The head was shaped in the three-circle style. He turned it and an electric motor caught.
Remo sent the car around in a circle as the Master of Sinanju leapt aboard.
"Why walk when we can ride?" Remo said.
"Hear hear," said Chiun.
There was only one exit from the tunnel, so Remo sent the cart humming into that.
They passed into a long service corridor filled with the monotonous thrum of air conditioning and other mechanical sounds.
"Big place," Remo said.
"Remo. What is an animator?"
"A guy who draws cartoons," Remo said, noticing a closed door with a sign that said: ANIMATORS' MESS.
"We know that can't be right," he grunted. "Must be a goofy code name. Military types love to play word games."
Just then a lavender cart scooted out of a side passage and turned in their direction. It was driven by a soldier in a white jumpsuit and helmet. Another soldier sat blank-faced behind him. They looked like identical twins going to some sort of military First Communion.
Remo steered over to the left and said, "Signal a right, will you, Little Father?"
"Gladly," said Chiun, as Remo pressed the accelerator to the rubber floorboards.
The two carts barreled toward one another in a quiet game of chicken.
The other car swerved first. It went right, because there was no way to go left without slamming into the wall.
As they passed, the Master of Sinanju jutted out a bony arm and decapitated the soldier next to the driver.
The driver lost control when the person seated beside him became an organic red fountain that gushed hot liquid into his face.
The cart went nose-first into a wall and turned over, pinning the driver.
Remo took the left-hand tunnel, saying, "Nice job."
"Director, we have a problem," said Captain Maus.
"Solve it," said the Director, making the face on the computer screen revolve on an imaginary axis. His signature revolved with it, became alternately readable, a thin stitching of electronics and reversed. He frowned.
"How do you get this thing to freeze the signature?"
"Director, the unknowns have just decapitated a soldier."
The Director turned and looked up. The screen showed the overturned utility vehicle and the quivering mess that had been the guard.
The Director sniffed, "I've seen worse," and returned to his play. If this operation was to succeed, these snot-noses would have to learn to solve the little problems for themselves.
As the tunnel walls whipped by, Remo Williams was saying, "I figure this for a military installation, probably funded by ultra-right-wing Cubans out to topple Fidel. There's probably an orange grove or something over our heads. It's the perfect cover."
"I do not understand this 'wing' thing," Chiun complained.
"Our ultra left wing is the same as Cuba's ultra right wing."
"Thank you for enlightening me. Not."
Remo shrugged.
"All we need is to find the big cheese, wring some truth out of him, and contact Smith," he said. "Smith will tell us if we take down this place or leave it to the Marines."
They passed side tunnels every few yards. Brief glimpses showed white-uniformed soldiers pushing white-handled push brooms.