"I say it's a War Room," Remo said firmly.
Chiun was examining the drawings critically.
"I do not understand this story," he said.
"That is because it is not a story," Smith said firmly. "These are the invasion plans for Cuba. Very clever. Instead of committing them to paper in text form, they worked them out as step-by-step cartoon illustrations."
"That is the goofiest thing I ever heard of," Remo said.
"It is not so farfetched," Smith suggested. "During World War Two, Sam Beasley loaned the government many of his artists for the war effort. They designed topographical models of Japanese-held Pacific Islands which were used in planning sessions, as well as socalled 'nose art' for bomber planes and camouflage details. He was quite a patriot."
Smith moved along one wall, following a line of drawings. They seemed to show a coastal area under invasion by waves of ocean-going military barges, while being defended by a large armed force.
"This calls for an amphibious landing at . . ." He went from the end of a row back to the beginning of the wall, to read the next tier of drawings.
Smith gasped. ". . . Zapata Swamp! At the Bay of Pigs!"
"Explains why Ultima Hora was training in a swamp," Remo said. "But why are these guys dressed like pirates?"
Smith came to Remo's side. His penlight followed the drawing sequence. In this sequence, the invading forces were standing up in their landing craft and returning fire. They wore costumes Remo had seen in the Buccaneers of the Bahamas attraction.
"This appears to be a secondary force," Smith ventured. "It is too small to be the spearhead for a fullscale invasion. But where is the main thrust?"
Chiun's voice piped up.
"Remo, if an animator is one who draws cartoons, what is a reanimator?"
"Huh?"
"What is a reanimator?" repeated Chiun, indicating the sign on another door. It read: REANIMATION.
Remo and Smith joined him at the door. It looked like a submarine bulkhead door. It was locked, accessible only by passcard. Or as it turned out, by a fist that packed the power of a sledge-hammer. Remo casually punched the door off its hinges. It rang for a good half minute, even after they had stepped over it into the room beyond.
The Reanimation Room was lit up like a hospital. In fact, it looked a lot like an operating room. There was an operating table, an autoclave for sterilizing instruments, a defibrillator for restarting a stopped heart, and other medical paraphernalia.
"Must have an emergency generator," Smith mused, thumbing off his penlight. His face in the harsh white light appeared puzzled and sharp.
"Maybe it's an emergency hospital," Remo suggested. "Like a MASH unit."
"It does not appear to be portable," Smith said. He followed his inquisitive nose to a long stainless-steel capsule that sat in a corner. It might have been an old-fashioned iron lung, except that it was completely enclosed and stood upright. There was a face-sized porthole on one side near the top.
"Bomb?" Remo wondered.
Smith checked the support equipment. Tubes and coils ran from the long chamber to a framework of gleaming, cylinders like oxygen tanks. They were labeled. One said OXYGEN. The others were labeled LIQUID NITROGEN. Various old-fashioned gauges were calibrated for pressure and temperature. The needles were dead.
Harold Smith stared at these a long time without speaking a word.
"You okay, Smitty?" Remo asked, noticing Smith's uncharacteristic stillness.
When Harold Smith turned around, his light-washed face was ghastly, his eyes sunken. "Remo," he croaked. "At any time during this operation, did you happen to encounter an individual who in any way resembled Sam Beasley?"
"Sure," Remo said brightly. "But I wouldn't call him an 'individual.' He was a marionette."
Smith asked in a dead voice, "A what?"
"A robot. You know, one of those animatronic things."
Smith let out a leaky sigh of relief, closing his eyes as if he had narrowly avoided walking off a cliff.
"It was no machine," Chiun inserted testily. "It was Uncle Sam himself."
At that, Harold W. Smith fainted dead away.
Chapter 22
Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta was nervous. He did not understand what was happening. All he knew was that he was being whisked into the pages of history. To his destiny.
It had begun with a phone call. From the man known as "Maus," to whom he had reported his strange encounter with the thick-wristed Anglo and the elderly North Korean less than a day before.
"Be ready to move," Maus had said.
"Move?"
"Today is Beasley Day."
"I do not understand. What is this 'Beasley Day'?"
"You have loaned us your Ultima Hora."
"I loaned my soldados to Zorilla, the patriot."
"Zorilla is dead."
"It is sad. He was muy Cubismo, much Cuban."
"But you are more Cuban," the flattering voice had said. "You are Cubissimo, the most Cuban."
At that, Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta knew he was speaking to a comrade-in-arms.
The car whisked him to a pier, where a great cruise ship waited. The name on the stern was a well-known one. It read: BEASLEY ADVENTURE.
They took him up the gangplank, and two men in uniform escorted him to a stateroom. Their uniforms were white. Not army. Not navy. They bore simple insignia: three black circles in a white badge.
Somehow the men looked familiar.
"Do I not know jou?" he asked them.