"If we can get one or two of them, we're all set."
"If you wear masks without eyes, how can you fight?" demanded Dominique.
"We don't need eyes to fight with," said Remo.
"Yes," added Chiun. "We fight with our hands and our feet, not our eyes."
"You can be our eyes," said Rod.
"I will be no one's eyes," Dominique swore.
And suddenly, several 35- and 50-caliber machine guns pivoted in their direction, tipped downward, lining them up for slaughter.
Dominique Parillaud stopped dead in her tracks. Rod bumped into her and bounced back. Before the fear could overtake her, the two American agents surged forward.
They started walking calmly forward. Suddenly they shot ahead, leaping onto the main tank and breaking the machine guns with short, hard chops that looked ineffectual but caused steel gun barrels to snap and roll clanking off the armored side of the tank.
The Zouaves, seeing this, began recoiling in surprise and dug into their colorful sashes for black objects that looked to Dominique's eyes like TV remote-control clickers.
Before their weapons cleared, hands reached out to relieve them of their masks, which they were trying to simultaneously pull down over their eyes.
MARL MOISE WAS STANDING not six yards away when the strange pair appeared atop the main blocking tank. The way they broke the machine guns was awful to behold.
But the way they avoided being hued was incredible.
His Zouaves followed orders exactly. At the first sign of trouble, they simultaneously reached up for their lead masks and into their sashes for their clippedon hypercolor lasers.
They got the weapons out in time to fire short bursts of pacifying pink.
The trouble was the Zouaves were quicker on the trigger than they were on the masks. Or perhaps it wasn't their fault, after all.
Zouave hands that reached up to their foreheads encountered only warm flesh, not cold lead shields.
When their first pink bursts came, the lead masks were firmly in place-over the eyes of the attackers.
The Zouaves reacted to the pink flashes in an entirely unexpected manner, although Marc understood it after the third burst.
Smiling, they brought their lasers up to their expectant faces, pinking themselves happily.
" Let de good times roll!" they murmured in Creole.
The pink reached Marc's brain through his open eyes-he had been so stunned by what he had witnessed that he had forgotten to yank down his own lead mask-relaxing him instantly.
Marc unclipped his laser, dialed up pink and hued himself in quarter-second bursts.
When the strange pair ran past him, he didn't care anymore. And why should he? He had been offered up as cannon fodder, and Sam Beasley didn't pay dick.
Chapter 30
"We have a penetration, Director."
Uncle Sam Beasley turned to face the man who had spoken. Bob Beasley sat at the grid of video screens that monitored Euro Beasley.
"Are those damn Cajuns pinking themselves?" Uncle Sam barked.
"It seems so, Director."
"Damn. They're supposed to be our trip wire. They're no good to us now. Get the Florida regiment out there."
"Yes, Director."
Uncle Sam Beasley turned his attention back to the damaged control board where a Beasley technician was laboring.
"Aren't we back on-line yet?" he asked gruffly.
"The Hotpink button is enabled."
"I need offensive colors, damn it. What if the fucking Foreign Legion come parachuting back in?"
"Hotpink had the least damage."
"When I want excuses, I'll ask a vice president. Now, get to work."
"Yes, Director."
Bob Beasley spoke up. "Director, we have intruders on Main Street, U S.A."
Uncle Sam Beasley moved to the screen in question. He saw two men walking calmly down the cobbled street, one white, the other Asian. Both wore lead masks over their eyes that didn't seem to slow them down.
"Those are the ones!" he howled.
"The ones who interfered at Third Crater?"
"Third Crater, my pink ass. They interfered at Second Bay of Pigs! Must work for the government. Order them empurpled."
"Uncle Sam-"
"Call me Director when we're on an operation."
"Director, you know how risky empurpling a subject can be. Purple combines the effects of red and blue. Anything could happen, especially with opponents as dangerous as them."
"Empurple their asses!"
"At once, Director." And snapping a switch, Bob Beasley leaned into a console mike and said, "Two intruders in Zone 12. Empurple them. Repeat, empurple them. And don't forget to mask first."
REMO WILLIAMS RAN THROUGH a world of darkness. Although his sight was blocked by a lead shield, he was not by any means blind.