"The Senate is debating a resolution outlawing the teaching of French in our major universities."
"That has my vote."
"The Modern Language Association has issued a strong statement condemning the French ministry of culture."
"You want my opinion, the only culture the French have belongs in a petri dish."
"They are calling for the expunging of all borrowed French words from American dictionaries. And the Academie Frangais has retaliated by demanding their French words back. They are also renaming Parisian streets named after Americans."
"How many of those can there be?"
"There are the Avenue du General Eisenhower, Avenue du Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Rue Lincoln, to name just three. Or were," Smith added.
"This is ridiculous," said Remo.
"This is a cultural war. But it threatens to escalate into the real thing. Remo, find that Beasley employee and get him out of French hands at all costs. No doubt he knows the secret behind this colored-light technology. I have a problem to solve."
"What problem?"
"Why the Beasley Corporation is sending scores of its employees to London."
"Good luck," said Remo, hanging up.
He turned just in time to see the Master of Sinanju bring a tiny ivory fist into contact with one of the control panels.
It shattered. Buttons flew upward to ricochet off the ceiling, and the smell of burning insulation curled up in smoky tentacles.
"What now?" asked Remo.
And when Chiun pointed to a now-broken bank of shielded buttons marked with names like Supergreen and Hotpink, Remo said, "Good job."
Chapter 25
When he woke up, Rod Cheatwood knew he was in deep trouble.
The last thing he remembered was the green light coming back at his console video screen. It was Supergreen. No one had ever tried to project hypercolor by video. Technically it should not have worked. But it did. Rod had upchucked and blacked out. Splat.
When he woke up, he was on a hard bunk in a windowless concrete cell. The walls were nice, though. Teal. Very chic. Worrisomely chic, inasmuch as Rod had no idea where he was or who had him. But he did have his suspicions.
Rod glanced around the cell. There was a stainless-steel toilet, washbowl and a third plumbing fixture he realized with a sickening sensation was a bidet.
"I am definitely in deep," he muttered.
When they came for him, they wore black balaclavas pulled over their heads with only their eyes and mouths showing. They conducted him to a featureless room and sat him down on a hard wooden stool.
Something that looked like a dessert cart was wheeled up, but when he looked into the tray, Rod saw implements that made his empty stomach quail.
"You don't have to torture me," he said weakly.
"Parlez-vous francais?"
Rod had picked up a little French during his stay, but only enough to get by. This was no time to stumble over shades of meaning. "No, I speak only English."
The eyes behind the balaclavas winced. They began whispering among themselves. Rod caught the gist of it. They were asking how they could be expected to interrogate an American who did not speak French if they faced a six-month jail sentence for speaking American. No one wanted to go to jail for six months. Not even in the service of his beloved country.
After conferring by telephone, the interrogators obtained some kind of a special dispensation from the ministry of culture and they brought out the crude electronic device resembling a toy railroad transformer with two wires and steely alligator clips at each end.
Rod instantly crossed his legs, thinking, They're out to fry my balls.
"I'll tell you anything you want!" he bleated.
"Tell us who is behind this outrage against our country."
"Sam Beasley."
"He is dead."
"I mean the Sam Beasley Corporation."
"Why did you not commit suicide like the others? Why are you so important?"
"I'm not important. Not that important."
"But you must be. You did not consume your suicide candy."
"What are you, nuts? I'm not dying for the fucking Sam Beasley Corporation. You have any idea how they treat their employees?"
"So many others did ...."
"Well, I don't think they got screwed quite the way I did."
"How did you get screwed?" one interrogator asked, wincing at the ugliness of the junk word.
"I don't think I can tell you that," Rod said, thinking if he spilled the beans on the TV-remote finder, the French would leap to patent it. Never mind standing him in front of a firing squad for coming up with the hypercolor laser in the first place.
"Trade secret," he said.
That was when one of them approached with the alligator clips extended in each hand, looking like he intended to jump-start a Tonka truck.
"No, not my balls. Anything but my balls."
When he felt the clips dig into his earlobes with their serrated steel teeth, Rod Cheatwood almost laughed with relief.
A voice said, "Last chance to talk freely."
And then someone spun a crank.