"Much obliged," said Remo, passing on.
"TRAITORS!" Sam Beasley screamed, stamping the floor with his stainless-steel peg leg. "What's wrong with them? I'm Uncle Sam. I practically raised those ungrateful brats!"
"They've been pretty unhappy since you froze cost-of-living raises companywide," Bob Beasley noted.
"Then why did they come all the way over here if they weren't behind this damn operation?"
"You promised not to fire anyone who signed on."
Uncle Sam Beasley rolled his eye down to the back of the head of his nephew. Stainless-steel fingers whirring, he snared a fistful of hair and yanked the head back sharply so he could glare down into Bob Beasley's upside-down face.
"Whose side are you on?"
"Yours, Uncle. You know that."
"Prove it."
"How?"
"You look a lot like me, you lucky stiff. You decoy him into the LOX room."
"But-but-"
Uncle Sam released the hair. "Do it!"
Shivering, Bob Beasley climbed out of his chair and backed out of the control room. "I won't fail you, Uncle."
"Not if you don't want those bratty kids of yours served up as cold cuts at the next company picnic."
The door opened and closed with a hiss, and Uncle Sam climbed into the seat his nephew had vacated.
"How's that control panel coming?" he snapped over his shoulder.
The hypercolor technician said, "I've raised orange."
"When you've got Supergreen, let me know. The French should be regrouping soon. I can't beat them back with pastels, you know."
"Yes, Director."
THE MASTER of SINANJU stepped up to a pounding heartbeat that blocked his path and aimed at the point where he knew the man's belly would be. The nail of his smallest finger went in like a needle into butter, and a disembodied voice said, "Urrk. "
The Master of Sinanju described the sign of Sinanju-a trapezoid bisected by a slash-in his abdominal wall and left the unseen foe lying in a heap of his own smoking bowels.
He moved on. The way to the castle was clear. He did not need anything other than the personal scent of his pupil to guide him.
But as he approached, a drone came from the north.
A nearby voice cried, "It is a bomber."
Chiun paused. "How do you know?"
"I know a French bomber when I see one," said Dominique Parillaud.
"What is it doing?"
"It can have only one purpose."
"Yes?"
"To bomb."
Then Dominique said, "Ze bomb bay doors are open. Somezing is coming down."
And the Master of Sinanju snared the wrist of the French woman agent and pulled her along.
"Hurry!"
"Are you mad? Zere is no escape."
And from above came a mushy poom of a sound that brought a squeal of fear from Dominique Parillaud's throat.
It was followed by a great fluttering as if a thousand origami wings had taken flight.
Chapter 31
Remo moved down the corridor blind, but every other sense operating at peak efficiency.
A figure popped out of the third door on the right, paused and ran deeper into Utilicanard. The door hissed shut.
A muffled voce said, "You'll never catch me." It sounded like Uncle Sam's voice.
Remo Williams heard the beating heart and laboring lungs and started after it.
But when Remo got to the door, he suddenly swerved and, holding the flat of his palm before him like a ram, broke it down.
The door screeched coming out of its grooves, and Remo was in.
There were two heartbeats, one fast and normal, the other unhurried, metronomic-the animatronic heart of Uncle Sam Beasley.
"Nice try," said Remo, facing the unnatural sound. "But no sale."
"I'm unarmed. I surrender peacefully," said Uncle Sam.
"It's not going to be that way."
"You're an American agent, right?"