Joyeux Noel
Sheng Dan Kaui Le
God Jul
Kellemes Kardcsonyi Unnepeket
Merry Xmas
A reporter flung out the first question: "Mr. President-if you are indeed the President and not an impostor as rumored-was this idea yours or the First Lady's?"
The President hesitated. He looked to his wife. She stared daggers at him. He flushed as red as the poinsettia flower itself.
Before the President could insert his foot in his mouth, Santa Claus arrived at the East Gate, exactly fifteen minutes late, but as far as the Chief Executive was concerned, in the exact nick of time.
KIRBY AYERS of the uniformed Secret Service had been told to expect Santa Claus at eight sharp. He knew the timetable for the President's travel plans, and when Santa didn't arrive, he became nervous. That Santa was expected was one thing. He would still have to present his temporary White House pass, verifiable personal ID, submit to a patdown and be walked through the other security procedures.
By 8:10 Ayers knew that the damn Santa was close to throwing the Presidential itinerary into a stocking cap. By 8:12 he understood Santa had screwed up royally. At 8:14 he figured whether Santa showed up or not, he was going to be joining the ranks of the jobless by New Year's.
So when 8:15 came and Santa Claus came across Pennsylvania Avenue at a shuffling dead run, head held low between hunched shoulders, Kirby Ayers got ready to give him a piece of his mind.
"Where the hell-" he started to shout.
The lumbering Santa Claus lowered his head and made the most god-awful sound Kirby Ayers had ever heard issue from a human mouth. It was a bellow, low to start but achieving a blood-freezing higher register as the Santa hit the sidewalk before the East Gate.
Kirby Ayers saw the tiny red-rimmed eyes, saw the big ears wriggling in seeming anger and the way the long, goatlike white beard swung madly beneath the angry red features, giving him a momentary flash of confused recognition.
I've seen this particular Santa somewhere before, he thought. And for some reason his mind harkened back to the Washington Zoo.
That thought was uppermost in his mind when Santa Claus dropped his head and butted Kirby in the exact center of his chest.
Kirby Ayers was thrown off his feet and flung backward. The air whoofed from his stunned lungs. He saw stars. His brain disconnected for several all-important seconds.
He got his senses back just in time to fully appreciate the rib-splintering, lung-flattening, eyeball-bugging experience of being tramped to death by the stomping size-18 double-E black boots of the heaviest Santa Claus that probably ever walked the face of the earth.
This guy weighs as much as a damn elephant, Ayers thought wildly in the moment before his heart was pulped by his own compressing rib cage.
FROM HIS POST guarding the President of the United States, Remo Williams spotted the commotion at the East Gate. He was the only one to see it clearly. The lights of the press were blinding everyone else.
Remo saw a Secret Service guard on his back and a three-hundred-pound Santa come charging up the circular path toward the tree-lighting ceremony.
There was something not right about the Santa. He carried his head too low, and his eyes were too slitted. And he came in a crazy gallop with his head seemingly fixed in place, the long white beard and tail of his red Santa cap whipping and jingling madly with every pounding step.
The way Santa moved didn't compute. It wasn't the body language of a man, but something else. Something Remo instinctively understood to be dangerous.
Remo lifted his Secret Service wrist mike and said, "Trouble coming up the East Gate. I gotta check it out."
In his earphone the lemony voice of Harold Smith said, "I have just called for Marine One."
Remo ducked out, circled the crowd and moved on an intercept line with the charging Santa Claus.
The guy was stomping to beat the band. The ground actually quivered under each step. Small wonder, Remo thought. He weighed three hundred pounds if he weighed a gram.
He was charging toward an outlying clot of reporters when he paused and did a strange thing. Throwing back his head, one foot lifted, he made a sound from deep inside himself that could only be described as a trumpeting.
When he settled back down, he continued his charge. On all fours.
Remo veered toward him and got in his path.
"Hold it, Santa. Where's your pass?"
The Santa dropped his head and stuck out his ears. Remo almost laughed. He stood his ground until the last possible minute, then stepped aside like a matador evading a lunging bull.
The charging Santa blew past him. Remo reached out to snap a fistful of the back of the scarlet coat. He dug in his heels, his brain calculating the opposite pull needed to arrest three hundred pounds of charging fury.
He snatched the fabric. It was solid stuff. It would hold. Remo felt the first pulling-away tension and was ready. Or so he thought.
Remo was yanked off his feet as if he'd taken hold of a Mack truck. Surprise washed over his face. Before his brain got organized, his reflexes took over.
Digging in his heels, he found his balance again. The fabric in his hand ripped away.
Recovering, Remo swept around and got in front of the Santa. Santa reared up, and Remo launched a low kick at the man's red right kneecap.
The kick connected. Remo heard the bone crack with the disabling impact. Santa charged on, unfazed.
Remo got out of the way just ahead of the earthshaking boots.
Then the Master of Sinanju appeared as if from nowhere.
"What is wrong with you?" Chiun hissed at Remo.
"He's stronger than he looks."
"He is only a fat white in a pagan costume."
"Then you take a crack at him."
The Master of Sinanju slipped up behind the broad red back and inserted a single fingernail into the spine. He withdrew the nail, stepped back and waited.
The Santa lumbered on.
Remo caught up with Chiun, whose mouth lay open in shock.
"See?" he said.
Chiun made a mean mouth. "I severed his spinal cord."