Remo unblocked his wrists and captured the steel fist in his own fingers. He exerted pressure. The fingers, tiny servo motors whirring in complaint, tried to reopen. And failed.
Remo looked up at the screen and the eager face of the real Uncle Sam Beasley.
Uncle Sam was snapping an unseen switch over and over again angrily.
"Watch this," Remo said.
And he crushed the metal hand into a ball of steel wool.
The head of the animatronic Beasley snapped around and, teeth champing, tried to take a chunk out of Remo's wrists. As the porcelain teeth disturbed the tiny guard hairs on Remo's wrist, he brought his hand down hard. Uncle Sam's jaw fell off, trailing sparks and wires.
Up on the screen, the real Beasley's jaw dropped open. He shut it and demanded, "What the hell are you made out of?"
"Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails," Remo said, casually batting the head off its spinal stalk. It flew at the screen. The real Beasley, caught off guard, recoiled. The head burrowed into the shattered screen, and both began emitting acrid electrical smoke after the screen went dead.
Remo turned his attention back to Captain Maus.
"Where is he?"
"I will die before I betray Uncle Sam."
"Let's test that theory," said Remo, taking Maus's right hand by the wrist.
"This little piggy went to market," Remo said, dislocating Maus's right index finger simply by yanking it straight. The joint gave a tiny pop. "This little piggy started home," said Remo, doing the same to the ply.
Maus's eyes widened as he watched his fingers wilt like fleshy flowers under the casual violence of the thick-wristed man.
"The Sorcerer's Castle!" he bleated.
From a hidden speaker, Uncle Sam Beasley snarled, "Maus, you are a traitor."
"But-but," Maus protested, his face twisting like heated wax. "I've been a fan of yours since I was a little boy!"
"Consider yourself defrocked of your mouse ears."
Captain Maus hung his head and blubbered like a child.
"Grow up," said Remo. "What's the best way to get to the castle from here?"
Maus kept blubbering, so Remo took his temples between his forefinger and thumb and exerted pressure. The fused skull plates at the top of Maus's skull actually bulged upward under his thin hair, and he let out an inarticulate scream that would have meant nothing to anyone except Remo, who over years of practice had learned to understand people when he squeezed the truth out of their skulls.
"Hatchinthecenterofthefloorwillgetyouthere," Maus had said at ultrahigh speed.
"Much obliged," said Remo. "Stay here till I get back."
But as Remo popped the hatch in the center of the floor, he heard a faint gritty crunch as Maus broke something between his teeth. Maus slumped in his console chair, and Remo shrugged. One less loose end to worry about.
An aluminum ladder led down to a square brick tunnel. There was a golf cart in the tunnel, and Remo climbed aboard. That made it easier. He sent it humming along the tunnel, which went in only one direction.
When he reached the end, Remo jumped from the moving vehicle to an identical aluminum ladder hanging from an identical well and was halfway up when the unattended golf cart crashed into a bulkhead.
By the time Remo reached the top-the well was barely three stories high-the whine of a helicopter was audible.
Remo stepped out into a stone corridor through a stone niche that had a knight in medieval armor bolted to it.
The helicopter whine was growing louder. It was coming from above-far above-so Remo ignored the graceful stone staircase that swept upward and slipped out a narrow window. The castle walls were made of big stone blocks with plenty of handholds between them. Remo climbed a turret as if it were made for that purpose.
The helicopter was a fat green lime with Christmassy red trim and snowy white rotors. It had already lifted off a concealed helipad when Remo came over the battlements and floated toward it on gliding feet.
Remo snared one snowy skid just as it was lifting out of reach. His fist closed, and his feet left the ground.
The helicopter tilted and angled out toward the west.
Below, orange groves and kudzu patches rolled by as Sam Beasley World was left behind.
Remo waited until the helicopter pilot had settled onto his course before boarding.
Using both hands, he pulled himself up until his heels hooked onto the skid. He executed this maneuver with such smooth grace that there was no sudden shifting of weight to unbalance the colorful craft.
Once wrapped around the skid, it was an easy enough matter to reach up and find the side-door handle. Remo yanked it open and slipped in with an uncoiling motion that landed him in the rear seat while pulling the door shut after him.
"Going my way?" he said airily. The pilot looked over his shoulder, white as a ghost.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he sputtered.
Remo started to smile. The smile evaporated when he realized only he and the pilot were on board.
"Where's Uncle Sam?" Remo asked.
"Twenty-five years in his grave," the pilot blurted.
"A popular rumor, if untrue," the filtered voice of Uncle Sam Beasley said from a speaker inside the bubble.
There came a pop, a puff of evil black smoke arose from the rotating rotor shaft above Remo's head, and the turbine cut out.
"Oh, Jesus. We've lost power," the pilot snapped, throwing switches.
Remo kicked open the door.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" the pilot shouted in the sudden silence.
"Bailing out," said Remo.
"It's sure death."
"So is falling straight down in this oversize Christmas ornament."