Near the top, Chiun's voice came, high and squeaky.
"Remo! Remo!"
"Yeah?"
"I know where we are!" "Where?" "Home! We are home!" "Huh?"
Chapter 15
"Director, I have bad news."
"What is it now?" demanded the petulant, chilly voice.
"The two unfriendlies are topside."
The Director looked at his famous smiling watch. "We're two hours from opening. That should be enough time to erase them from the drawing board."
"Instructions?"
"Send the Wolf Pack after them."
"At once, Director."
"And have a mop-up team on standby to take care of the damned blood. I want topside to sparkle. And turn up the heat. I'm freezing in here."
"Yes, Director."
"Wolf Pack, you are go for the hunt."
Chapter 16
Warily, Remo emerged from the disposal pipe, not knowing what to expect.
A section of the pipe, an elbow, had been knocked aside by the Master of Sinanju. Remo found himself staring into another horizontal stretch.
He walked around it and saw that he was in a semidark concrete bunker, and that the final length of pipe was jutting from a giant piece of machinery studded with air-compressors.
"I was right." he said. "This is a giant pneumatic tube. That means it's like a vacuum in reverse."
Then he noticed the Master of Sinanju standing at a window, staring out with a pleased expression on his face. Chiun was standing at his full height now, his chin uptilted slightly, like an emperor surveying his domain.
"This doesn't look like any home I've ever seen," Remo said, approaching the window.
The Master of Sinanju stepped aside. "Open your benighted eyes to their fullest then," he said proudly.
Remo peered out the window. The expression on his face was an odd mixture of curiosity and bafflement.
He saw in the near distance the tessellated ramparts and spindly towers of a castle.
The curiosity drained from his face as the bafflement took over. His mouth dropped open. His deep-set eyes seemed to crawl out of their enshadowed orbits. He blinked. And blinked again.
No matter what he did, the castle was still there.
"What the hell?"
"Is it not magnificent?" Chiun asked, beaming.
"Huh?" Remo gulped.
"That is where we will live," added Chiun. He clapped happy hands together. "It is what I have always wanted."
"No doubt there," Remo growled, "but what is it?"
Chiun's tiny mouth went round. "You do not recognize this place?" he squeaked. "You, a child of this generous nation?"
"It looks familiar, sure," Remo admitted. "But I can't place it. I was expecting an orange grove."
"Come. Perhaps this wondrous place which Harold the Munificent has granted to the House of Sinanju contains such things."
The Master of Sinanju floated to a closed door.
Remo followed. "Smith gave you this?" he asked, small-voiced.
"It was my final demand, and he agreed to meet it."
Remo Williams was so befuddled by the disorienting experience of escaping an underground military installation, only to find above it a place Chiun called home, that he couldn't think of any comeback. He let his brain shift into neutral and went with the flow.
Chiun opened the door, and the building flooded with too-bright sunlight. They passed through and out into an immaculately landscaped fairyland that Remo instantly recognized.
"Oh my God!" he said.
Chiun drew in a long breath. "Smell, Remo. Orange blossoms." He beamed. "Here, all wishes come true."
"This is Beasley World!" Remo said, aghast.
"Yes," said Chiun happily.
"Beasley World. The Beasley World."
"Yes!"
"Somebody built a secret military installation under Beasley World!" Remo said, his voice incredulous.
"A minor annoyance which we will soon remedy," Chiun said.
Remo looked around.