"I think this is the way," Remo remarked dryly.
Remo recognized the exit off Route A301 that led to Euro Beasley because the sign, which was shaped like Mongo Mouse's head, was completely blacked out with paint.
He slid off the road, and the blue-and-cream Norman battlements of the Enchanted Village came into view.
Sleek helicopters buzzed its ramparts. A ring of desert camouflage AMX 30bis main battle tanks and APCs ringed the theme park.
"These guys look serious," said Remo.
They came upon a roadblock. Remo eased the car to a slow stop and stuck his head out the place where the window would have been had he not kicked the door off.
"Hey! Mind rolling aside for a couple of tourists?"
Green-bereted heads swiveled, and Gallic eyes widened in horror.
"Americain?"
"You bet," said Remo.
"Americain!"
The hated word ran up and down the ranks of the French army unit laying siege to the greatest theme park on the European continent.
A tank turret began rotating with a low, steady whine.
When the muzzle of the 105 mm howitzer was lined up with the taxi windshield, Remo said to Chiun, "I think we've hit a definite anti-American bloc."
They were out of the taxi before the shell coughed from the black muzzle and were accelerating to sixty miles per hour on foot when it struck.
The French taxicab took a direct hit and became the focal point for screaming shrapnel to ricochet in all directions.
When it settled back to the ground on puddling tires, it was a black frame of twisted steel in which flames crackled and danced.
While French army troops huddled behind their steel charges, waiting for the last bits of shrapnel to stop bouncing off, Remo and Chiun rendezvoused behind their siege line.
"That was easy," Remo said as they entered the park.
"These Gauls are very excitable, and therefore easily defeated by superior wits"
"I'll try and remember that," said Remo.
"I was thinking of my superior Korean wits, not your inferior white ones."
They walked down Main Street, U.S.A., unchallenged. Remo, who had been through Euro Beasley before, trying to locate Sam Beasley, was surprised how empty it was. Without the crowds who normally thronged the pavilions and attractions, there seemed to be no magic to the place.
Part of that may have had to do with the fact that most of the attractions had French-language names. Remo recognized the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse despite the sign saying, La Cabane Des Robinson, but what La Taniere du Dragon was, he had no idea.
"Last time I was here," Remo told the Master of Sinanju, "there was a way into Utiliduck-or whatever they call it here-through the castle."
"Therefore, we will not enter through the castle."
"I don't know any other entrance."
"Which only means that they will be expecting you to enter through the castle and will not be expecting us if we enter another way."
Turning a corner, they came upon red-bereted bodies around a grassy mound in the town square where Mongo's grinning face was reproduced in a varicolored flower pattern.
Everybody breathed, everyone's heart pumped, yet everyone lay facedown in a dried puddle of vomit, dead to the world.
"Looks like they got greened, too," Remo remarked.
Holding his nose, Chiun hurried on.
They passed an area called Parc Mesozoique, and Remo said, "I don't remember that from last time. What's it mean?"
"Mesozoique Park."
"That helps a lot," said Remo. "I thought you understood French."
"I understand the good tongue of the Franks, not this tongue-twisted patois."
The section of the park was walled off by a high bamboo fence, three times as tall as a man, lashed together with fibrous, ropelike vines. Remo tried to see through the chinks, but the spaces were caulked tight.
"Seems to me," Remo said, "something fenced off this tight might be important."
"I agree," said the Master of Sinanju, examining the fence carefully.
"Looks like something out of King Kong. "
"We never worked for him," Chiun said vaguely, attacking the vines with his long, knifelike fingernails. They began parting with dry snaps, and a section of bamboo began to sag outward.
"Your turn," Chiun invited.
Remo made a spear with his right hand and began chopping. Bamboo splintered and crackled in surrender. When he got an opening, Remo stepped in.
CHIEF CONCEPTEER Rod Cheatwood watched the two strange intruders amble around the park curiously. They weren't French. Certainly the Asian wasn't. The white guy was dressed for shooting pool, so he couldn't be French, either. He looked as American as Bruce Springsteen. But he wasn't a tourist.
Rod stabbed console mike buttons trying to pick up shreds of their conversation, but they seemed to somehow sense the electrical fields surrounding the concealed mikes. They lowered their voices every time they came within audio range.
And when he moved the concealed security cameras, trying to track them, they seemed to sense those, too, always turning so their backs faced the lenses, as if to foil lip-readers. Not that Rod had that talent.
When they came to Parc Mesozoique, Rod smiled slightly.
And when they began chopping away at the imported bamboo fence, he swallowed his smile and stabbed at console buttons.
It would be messy, but it was the best way. Since the French government had cut off all power to Euro Beasley, he didn't dare use the hypercolor eximer lasers unless he absolutely had to.