Warren Murphy - The Color of Fear

There was no mistaking DGSE HQ. A hodgepodge compound of stone-and-brick buildings, it was isolated by a brown stone wall. A weathered sign prohibiting filming or the taking of photographs was the only outward indication of its sensitive nature. Its roofmounted surveillance cameras followed every passing car, jogger and pigeon that chanced by its tracking lenses.

"That it?" asked the American of his Oriental companion.

"Yes."

And a thumb slipping up to squeeze one jaw muscle somehow caused Pierre's foot to depress the brake with the correct pressure to bring the cab to a smooth stop.

"The fare is-" he started to say.

"What fare? I did all the driving."

And before Pierre could protest, the American squeezed all awareness from his brain.

THE ROOF CAMERAS tracked them as they approached the DGSE HQ.

"Looks easy enough to crack," said Remo. "What say to climbing to the roof and dropping through the ceiling?"

Chiun regarded the ten-foot-high wall whose top was toothy with embedded bayonets to foil vaulters, and said, "Too obvious."

"I don't see a better way," said Remo.

"We will enter by the front door."

"Why is that not obvious?"

"Because they do not expect us."

Remo followed the Master of Sinanju up to a metallic beige door set in the wall. There was no knob, only an electric button.

Chiun pressed this, the door started to open and the Master of Sinanju bustled through and into the teeth of a DGSE security team.

One said, "Arretez!"

Remo asked, "Parlez-vous franglais?"

This was not well received, and when the Master of Sinanju showed every sign of breezing through the guards with a blithe disregard for decorum, one guard yanked up his MAT submachine gun and said, "Allen y! Dites-le!"

Remo didn't need to draw upon his three years of French I to know the guard had just ordered his comrades to open fire.

He picked his target and started in, confident that the Master of Sinanju had already chosen his.

Chiun had. He pivoted in place and lifted one sandaled foot to the height of his own head.

It seemed only to brush two sets of jaws, but the jaws came off their hinges with a matched pair of cracks, hanging askew. The guards lost their weapons and went down trying to clutch their chins, which were no longer quite where they were accustomed to being.

Remo decided to offer up his own brand of professional courtesy and not kill anyone who was only defending his place of work.

Moving low, he let a stuttering Mat burst burn past one shoulder close enough that he felt the hot bullets pass. Then he popped up not an inch before the guard's comically astonished face.

Remo poked him in the eyes with two forked fingers, and the man recoiled, howling and clawing at his tearing eyes.

A second guard swung his stubby-snouted weapon on line with Remo but held his fire. Remo had grabbed the first guard by the back of his coat and held him between himself and the place where the bullets would come out.

The guard tried to angle his way around, the better to shoot Remo without harming his compatriot.

The blinded guard continued howling and dancing-not entirely of his own volition-while it soon became apparent that there was no shooting the intruder without also shooting his fellow DGSE agent.

Remo saw the subdued resignation creep over the guard's face and propelled the blind guard in his direction. They collided, knocking heads, and both collapsed, weaponless, to the floor.

Remo joined the Master of Sinanju as he swept into the main DGSE building unchallenged.

In the empty foyer Remo asked, "Which way?"

"Follow the sour trail," said Chiun.

And Remo smelled it, too. The faint scent of vomit. The man who had upchucked over the Beasley control console had passed this way, probably prior to being cleaned off.

They found the cell in the basement, and while they were getting ready to rip the blank door off its hinges, Dominique Parillaud stepped off an elevator.

She took one look at them, and her jaw dropped.

Remo was on her before her hands could make up their mind to stab the Door Close button or unship her pistol.

She did neither. When the elevator door closed, she was out of the car, her pistol in Remo's hand.

"How did you? How could you--" she sputtered.

"This place is a candy box," said Remo.

"You will never get what you 'ave come for."

Then the Master of Sinanju approached the door. Its hinges lay on the outside of the cell for obvious reasons, so he simply sheared them off with three quick slashes of one fingernail.

The door came out like a portrait from a frame.

"You will never take him away," Dominique insisted with less conviction than before.

"Wanna bet?" said Remo. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

A blondish head poked out. The face under it was tanned and tentative.

"You Americans?" he asked.

"That's us. You the Beasley guy?"

"That's me."

"You're coming with us," said Remo.

"What about the you-know-what?"

Remo blinked. "We don't know what."

"The cybernetic hypercolor eximer laser eyeball."

Remo blinked. "Say that again in English? My French is real rusty."

"That was English. I'm talking about the eyeball the Beasley boys had me make. It was for some radioanimatronic project."

"It was for Sam Beasley," said Remo.

"Yeah. That's who I work for."

"No, I mean it was for Uncle Sam Beasley himself."

The tanned face looked doubtful. "But he's dead."

"I wish," said Remo as the Master of Sinanju pulled the prisoner from the cell by the front of his peach jumpsuit.

"Your name?" Remo asked.

"Rod Cheatwood."

"Make you a deal-you tell us everything you know, and we'll get you back to the good old U.S.A."

"EUD," hissed Dominique. "You must say EUD while in my country. It is the law."

"Stuff it," Remo told her. To Rod, he said, "How about it?"

"Done deal."

"That was quick. Whatever happened to company loyalty?"

"Are you kidding? You think I'd stack my neck out for those ducking bastards? They mugged me the minute I walked through their front door."

"Okay, let's go," said Remo.

"I wish you would have waited another hour," Rod said as they called for the elevator.

"Why?" asked Chiun.

"They're showing the finale of 'Star Trek: the Next Generation' this afternoon."

"You can catch that anytime," said Remo.

"I keep trying to, but it never happens."

"It would only be in French," said Remo. "Only Jerry Lewis movies work in French."

"Jairy est Dieu, " sighed Dominique before being yanked bodily into the elevator.

Chapter 28

Commander Luc Crocq of the French Foreign Ugion forces surrounding Euro Beasley was confident in his men and materiel. They had encircled the park with a ring of steel. The tanks and APCs sat snout to rump and rump to snout all around the place of defilement. Commander Crocq considered it a defilement because although he had nothing against American culture in particular, he was a lifelong fan of Coulommiers cheese, which was made in this very area. That many of the farms that produced this cheese among cheeses were razed to prepare the land for the Euro Beasley park was in Commander Crocq's eyes the desecration of desecrations.

Secretly he hoped for word to roll in and raze Euro Beasley from the face of France.

But no such order had come. All was quiet since the last attempt to close the ring of steel had been met with a pinkish radiance that took the fighting piss out of his legionnaires.

There had been an altercation in which a French army helicopter had descended into the park, only to lift off again later. Nothing more was known about this operation, but Crocq suspected DGSE involvement.