All of which combined to make Remo a running radar dish.
A wall of heartbeats converged on the unseen road ahead of him.
"Masks down, men!" a voice shouted.
"Here we go, Little Father."
And as they raced forward, their sensitive ears detected the tiny closing clicks of relays signifying hypercolor lasers were being brought to bear upon them.
Fixing the position of the forest of heartbeats, Remo calculated angles of attack. He went for the rotator cuffs, jamming them with stiffened fingers, puncturing flesh and muscle.
Men howled and gave way. The plastic clatter of hypercolor laser units dropping to the cobbles came distinctly. Remo and Chiun crushed them underfoot wherever they could.
The first wave of attackers fell back.
"THE FLORIDA SUNSHINE Guerrillas have been thrown back, Director," Bob Beasley shouted.
"Those pansies!" Uncle Sam Beasley scowled. "What's wrong with them?"
"Well, they are blind."
"So are those two pains-in-the-rear!"
"Being blind doesn't seem to bother them."
"Look at them turn tail like scared little mice. I expect more from my employees."
"They were complaining about the pay a while back."
"Don't they know they work for Sam Beasley, the greatest private company ever to export good old American fun?"
"We pound it into them at the monthly pep drills, but I don't think it motivates them as much as better wages would."
"Greedy bastards. Okay, turn out my elite musketeers."
"Director, as long as those two have their eyes shielded, we can't stop them with extraordinary means."
"Then shoot them!"
"We didn't bring any guns. Couldn't risk them not getting through French customs."
Uncle Sam Beasley stared up at the screen and saw the two people he most hated in the world approach the Sorcerer's Chateau, blind yet unchallenged and seemingly unstoppable. His exposed eye scrunched up like an agate in a fist.
"There's gotta be some way to kill 'em," he snarled.
"We could lead them into a trap."
"What traps do we have here?"
"Not much. All Beasley offensive capability is topside. We never planned for a Utilicanard penetration."
"Don't call it that. God, I hate these sissy French words. Where did they dredge them up?"
"Same place we did. From the Latin."
"I want solutions, you sycophant. Not language lessons."
"There is the LOX chamber."
"We have a deli down here?"
"Not that kind of LOX. Liquid Oxygen. We use it to create faux steam clouds for the Mesozoic Park volcanoes. It's nasty, subfreezing stuff. A cloud of it will cause your skin to crack off in sheets."
"Hey, I like that."
"We'll have to decoy them in."
Uncle Sam Beasley turned to address a trio of his loyal musketeers, who had entered the control room in Union blue, their mouse-eared forage caps carried respectfully in their hands.
"I need a volunteer. Hazardous duty. Who will stand up for his Uncle Sam?"
The California Summer Vacation Musketeers looked down at their boots and up at the ceiling--anywhere to avoid the cold gray stare of Uncle Sam's single exposed eye.
"I'll double the pay of the man who undertakes this mission."
No one responded.
"What's the matter, isn't double enough? Don't I pay you competitively?"
When no one answered, Uncle Sam Beasley snarled, "Draw straws if you're going to be that way. But I want a man ready for action before those two bust in."
Uncle Sam returned to the video grid. "What are those two doing to my best guerrillas?"
"Looks like the white one is just poking them in the shoulder area."
"Then why are they dropping like DDT'd flies?"
"Maybe there's a sensitive nerve center there," Bob Beasley said, stabbing buttons.
"What's the old gook doing?"
Bob Beasley craned up in his chair to see the screen in question.
"I think he's eviscerating them, Director."
"With what?"