And his orders were to hold Euro Beasley at all costs until the cavalry came.
REMO DETECTED NO SOUNDS or scent of living things behind the bamboo wall so he entered Parc Mesozoique with confidence, stepping into an impenetrable rain forest.
There were birds squatting on the trees, but they weren't real. They simply perched on branches and looked glassyeyed. Animatronic. No doubt about it.
"Coast looks clear, Little Father," Remo called over his shoulder.
But Chiun had already entered. "This place is not real," he said, looking around with stern eyes.
"The trees are plastic," Remo explained.
"I do not like this place, where even the trees are not real."
"Hey, it's Beasleyland. Everything is plastic here. Come on, maybe we can find our way downstairs from here."
They melted into the plastic trees under the blind, watchful eyes of the jungle birds.
At the first earthshaking thud, Remo said, "What's that?"
"Something is coming this way."
The thud was followed by another. Foliage shook, and shook again. The thudding picked up.
"Something alive," Chiun added.
"If something living is coming this way, why don't I hear its heartbeat or lungs?" asked Remo.
"Perhaps it does not have any."
"Can't be animatronic. It's too big, whatever it is."
The trees continued to shake with each lumbering footfall, and branches snapped with a sound that was not right because the branches were not made of natural wood, but man-made polymers. They squealed and groaned instead of snapping and splintering as they should.
Remo hesitated.
"This is really starting to remind me of King Kong. "
Then the trees parted, and a leathery chocolate snout lined with countless ivory needle teeth dropped toward them.
"T-rex!" Remo shouted, breaking left. The Master of Sinanju stood his ground, staring up at the great behemoth, whose head waved back and forth like a serpent trying to fix its prey with its side-mounted lizard eyes.
Remo stopped, turned. "Chiun!"
"It is not living."
"It weighs as much as a truck and it has teeth. Move it."
The chocolate snout dropped lower. The mouth opened, and a mechanical roar issued from the sharklike mouth.
The Master of Sinanju cocked his head like a spaniel. "It is looking at me."
"It can't. It's a machine."
"Then someone is-looking at me through it," said Chiun stubbornly.
"Now that's possible," said Remo, slipping up behind the full-size Tyrannosaurus rex.
DOWN IN UTILICANARD, Rod Cheatwood couldn't believe his eyes. Or the eyes of the T-rex, rather. The little old guy wasn't scared in the slightest. He looked back at the animatronic T-rex with a serene indifference that made the short hairs on Rod's bare forearms lift like spiders walking.
"The little guy sure has balls." And he pushed the traction lever that set the T-rex lumbering toward the old man.
The view through the T-rex's eyes jumped, then retreated. Something was wrong. It wasn't advancing. It was impossible. He had green lights all over the board.
Then one light turned red. It was a square panel and it was blinking so the red and black letters showed on and off. They read, "Overload."
Yanking the traction lever back, Rod rammed it forward again. Hard.
The T-rex lunged-and bounced back like a rubber band.
"What is wrong, dragon-beast?" the little Asian asked in a squeaky voice that reminded Rod of Dingbat Duck's cartoon voice. "Are you afraid to approach the Master of Sinanju? You, the master of a long-ago time?"
Rod didn't know what the Master of Sinanju was, but he hauled back on the traction control and, grabbing the head joystick, began twisting.
The T-rex head swung left, saw only jungle, then swung right. More jungle. Rod pushed it all the way, and the T-rex craned to see over its shoulder.
Directly behind, the white guy in the T-shirt and chinos was standing with his arms casually folded, one foot pressing down hard on the thick tail.
"How can this fucking be?" Rod gulped.
Then the white guy called out, "Show us the way down, or the lizard buys it."
Rod stabbed the Roar button. The T-rex roared its rage.
But the man with the foot of lead stayed put.
"Okay, if that's the way you want to play it," Rod said, deactivating the T-rex. "It's time to bring on the allosaur pack."
Chapter 21
Dominique Parillaud might have had difficulty getting through U .S. customs at Richmond's Byrd International Airport except that US. customs was only too happy to eject any French nationals eager to return home before the conflict became hot.
"Au revoir," she told the customs man.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," the man snarled.
When she came to the magnometer, it naturally beeped as she stepped through the sensitive metal frame.