"I knew I should have let Schwarzenegger have this one," Bronzini said with ill-disguised distaste.
"I wonder . . ." Nishitsu said, his eyes twinkling. "Please to honor an old man with your autograph?"
"Blow it out your bazooka, sushi breath."
Bronzini suddenly felt a sharp pain. He looked and saw his elbow pinched between tiny fingernails.
"It will go easier on you if you abide by this man's wishes," Chiun said pointedly.
"Who's it for?" Bronzini grudgingly asked.
Nishitsu gave him a cellophane-dry smile and said, "For me."
"That figures. Sure. Why not?"
Bronzini accepted a pen and paper, and using the palm of one hand for a hard surface, dashed off an autograph. He handed it to Nemuro Nishitsu.
"Do not forget to congratulate this brilliant military leader on his great accomplishment," Chiun prodded.
"What's that? Oh, yeah." Bronzini put out a big hand. "Brilliant casting."
Jiro Isuzu suddenly rushed forward. Chiun tripped him with a sandaled toe.
"He will not harm him. I give you both my word," Chiun said.
"I would be honored to shake Bronzini san's hand," Nishitsu said after the surprise left his face. He offered a quivering hand. Both men shook hands warily.
"You were a perfect Trojan horse," Nemuro Nishitsu said smilingly.
"That explains the nagging hollow feeling," Bronzini grunted. "Now what?" he laughed self-consciously. "The last time I was a prisoner of war, I got star billing, six million dollars up front, and points against the gross." Nemuro Nishitsu's face flickered doubtfully.
"They're not laughing," Bronzini told Chiun out of the side of his mouth.
"That is because you are not funny. And this is not a movie. Try to hold that thought in your infantile mind."
"You will be taken to a safe place," Nishitsu said. He pounded the floor twice with his cane. Two soldiers came and took Bronzini by the arms.
"Forrow," Jiro Isuzu barked.
"Whatever happened to 'prease to,' Jiro baby?" Bronzini asked as he was escorted away.
"What will you do with that one?" Chiun asked when he was alone with Nemuro Nishitsu.
"This is my concern. I will have the children released into your custody."
"I will need a vehicle," Chiun said. "One large enough to bring them to the Indian reservation."
"As you wish. Now, leave me, I have much to do."
"I am again prepared to hear your terms," Chiun offered.
"I have no terms at this time. Now, please be gone." Chiun looked at the fragile old Japanese as he limped back to his desk. His mouth thinned. Without another word, he was gone in a swirl of kimono skirts.
They threw Bartholomew Bronzini into the back of an armored personnel carrier and clanged the door shut. He sat in darkness, and felt a cold dread that had nothing to do with personal peril.
The ride was long. Bartholomew Bronzini wondered if they had left the city behind.
Finally the APC stopped. The door opened. The light hurt his eyes. When he emerged too slowly for the guards' liking, Bronzini was pulled from the machine.
Bronzini blinked until his eyes adjusted to the light. The sun was going down, casting lavender shadows. "Come," a guard barked.
Bronzini allowed himself to be led toward a group of buildings. A sign over one of the them said "Yuma Territorial Prison Museum." It was a gift shop. Bronzini looked around. The other buildings were rude stone prisons with Spanish-style wrought-iron doors. Prison cells.
A sign said "Tickets $1.40 per person. Under seventeen admitted free."
"What am I, a trophy?" he grunted. "I'll bet people would pay a whole five bucks to see the sucker of the century."
Bronzini was shoved through a gate and down a narrow stone corridor past empty cell doors in silence. He smiled bravely. "Just my luck. My first time playing to a live audience and they're all stiffs."
As he was marched to the end, the smile vanished from his Sicilian face. A number of Japanese were erecting a structure of rude wood beside an old guard tower. The structure wasn't completed, but even in its unfinished state, Bronzini recognized it as a gallows.
The cold dread settled into the pit of his stomach. They flung Bartholomew Bronzini into one of the cells and padlocked the door after him. He went to the criss-cross bars, and found he had a perfect view of the scaffolding. They were raising the L-shaped crosspiece that would support the noose.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Bartholomew Bronzini said in a sick voice. "I think this was in the fucking script."
As Christmas Eve approached, opening presents was forgotten. Carols went unsung. Church services were canceled for lack of attendance.
The nation was glued to their TV sets. Regular programming had been suspended. For the first time in memory, It's a Wonderful Life wasn't playing somewhere. Instead, network anchors reported the latest in the "Yuma Emergency."
The news consisted of videotape of the early hours of the takeover. Although they had been played and replayed a hundred times over, these scenes were the only news the networks had. The White House had announced and postponed a presidential address to the nation several times. Official Washington, for once, was not leaking. The situation was too grave.
Then, in the middle of a live transmission showing carolers singing "White Christmas" as they were executed by automatic-weapons fire, the face of Nemuro Nishitsu, the self-proclaimed Regent of Yuma, reappeared.
"My greetings to the American people and their leadership," he said. "In times of conflict it is sometimes necessary to resort to regrettable action in order to accomplish ends. So it is on this, the day before one of your most precious holidays. Tomorrow will be the beginning of the third day of the occupation of Yuma. Your leadership has made no move to unseat my forces. In truth, they cannot. But they dare not admit this. I will force them to admit this. If the American leadership is not impotent, I challenge them to prove it. Tomorrow morning, as a demonstration of my contempt for them, I will hang your greatest hero, Bartholomew Bronzini, by the neck until he is dead. The time of his execution has been set for seven o'clock. This necessary action will be televised on this station. Until then, I remain the unchallenged Regent of Yuma."
Nemuro Nishitsu signaled the cameraman that he was done. The red light under the lens went out.
Jiro Isuzu waited until the cameraman was out of earshot before he approached the desk.
"I do not understand," he said anxiously. "You have as much as dared them to take action against us."
"No, I have goaded them into taking action. If they fail to do so, they will lose face before the world."
"I do not think they will fail to act."
"I agree, Jiro kun. For the insult is calculated to incite the American people into demanding action."