Warren Murphy: The Color of Fear

The Master of Sinanju lay facedown. So did Dominique and the hypercolor technician. They had emptied their stomachs on the stainless-steel floor.

Uncle Sam Beasley sat slumped forward, his neck in his lap. The stump was red and raw and showed a cross section of sheared vertebrae and biological plumbing.

There was no sign of his head. But the hypercolor technician was dead. Lying facedown, he had choked on his own vomit.

Remo went to the Master of Sinanju and shook him gently awake. "Get up, Little Father. We were scammed."

Chiun blinked awake. He snapped to his feet like a tornado rearing up. "The fiend tricked us," Chiun said. "There was a false eye behind the patch."

"Yeah. We never suspected a spare."

"But he was too slow. I removed his head before the terrible color could whelm me."

"Well, he's dead for sure this time. And we have less than an hour to get the hell out of here before the bomb falls."

Chiun looked around worriedly.

"Where is the head?"

"Head?"

"Yes. I removed the fiend's head. Now it is nowhere to be seen."

"Forget the head," said Remo, lifting Dominique across his shoulders. "Let's save our behinds."

"The body is here, so the head must also be here."

"Look, you see the body. It's dead. So the head is dead. Now, let's shake a leg."

Reluctantly the Master of Sinanju followed his pupil from the control room.

"If we can get to the car, we might be able to outrun the blast," Remo said.

"The French would not destroy such a place as this."

"Don't count on it," said Remo.

They ran through the attractions, their legs carrying them in floating fashion that ate up the yards.

The drone of a bomber came distinctly. It grew. Its roar bounced off Big Rock Candy Mountain, the second-highest point on Euro Beasley, filling the park with thundering sound vibration.

"That's it," said Remo, not looking up because there was no time to waste. "We either make it or we don't."

"Run now, worry later," Chiun puffed.

They accelerated, becoming to the eye like a slowmotion film of two men running at high speed. It was as if the air offered no resistance to them, inertia ceased to exist and gravity was repealed.

They tore up Main Street, U.S.A., leaving their shoes and sandals behind because in the fractions of seconds they had, even those were an encumbrance.

The entrance gate with its iron scrollwork replica of the Beasley signature came into view. They ripped through that and into the parking area where French tanks and APCs stood sentinel.

Atop a tank was Rod Cheatwood, a hypercolor eximer laser in each hand. He pointed them up into the sky, shouting "Bastards! Bastards!" over and over again.

"Forget it! It's too high. You can't hit that bomber from this range. Run!"

"Bomber? I'm talking about the company. They stole my idea!"

On his way past, Remo reached out and snatched Rod Cheatwood up, tacking him under an arm.

"See this?" Rod complained. "I invented this. It's a remote-control finder. The ducking bastards ripped me off again!"

Out on the highway Remo bore down. The thunder of the bomber was bouncing all over the place. By his internal clock it was 118 minutes since the leaflets had been dropped.

"We're not going to make it, Little Father."

"Never give up!" Chiun growled tightly.

They heard the whistling, even though it was very high in the sky.

"Goodbye, Little Father," Remo whispered.

They were less than a mile from the Euro Beasley gate when the bomb struck Big Rock Candy Mountain, collapsing it.

The sound wasn't great. More on the order of a dull thud. There was no blast, no roar, and certainly no angry fist of atomic fire lifting up to spread horror and deadly radiation.

The shock wave was nonexistent.

"Do we stop?" Remo asked Chiun.

"It may yet go off."

"It takes an explosion to detonate a nuclear device. I think the explosive charges failed."

"We take no chances," Chiun snapped.

Five miles down the road, they finally stopped. Remo set Rod Cheatwood onto the side of the road and rolled Dominique off his shoulders.

He looked at Chiun, looked toward the Norman ramparts of Euro Beasley and back at Chiun again. "Guess it was a dud, huh?" said Remo.

Before Chiun could answer, the entire park suddenly erupted in a dozen synchronized balls of consuming flame. They dropped to the ground because there was nothing else they could do, and waited for the end.

A rolling wave of heat mixed with cinders and a napalmlike smell came up the road, and except for the sudden lack of oxygen, it was tolerable.

"Wonder what happened?" Remo said, getting to his feet.

"THE FRENCH never armed the bomb," said Harold Smith when Remo called him from a roadside telephone.

"It was a bluff?" asked Remo.

"We may never know. Whatever their intentions, the decision not to arm the device came very late in the event."

"Nonevent, you mean."

"We may have Jerry Lewis to thank for averting disaster."

"Jerry Lewis?"

"When the French minister of culture announced the deadline to surrender the park, Lewis issued a statement vowing never again to set foot in France should the French ultimatum be carried out."

"They backed down because a freaking comedian threatened to boycott them?" Remo exploded.

"Mr. Lewis is revered over there. Also, it appears that the president of France interceded."

"With whom?"

"With the minister of defense. Apparently there are elements there more loyal to the culture minister than the government itself. Those elements are being purged even as we speak."

"The culture minister ordered a nuking?"

" 'Inspired it,' might be the more precise term. He has been arrested."

"I would hope so. The guy tried to nuke his own country."

"Actually the charge was violating La Loi Tourette."

"Huh?"

"Er, it appears he personally wrote the ultimatum leaflet and used an outlawed word that had a French equivalent."

"What word is that?"

"Nuke."

"Let me get this straight. The French minister of culture was arrested for using the word nuke, not for trying to use a nuke?"

"It would appear so."

Remo squeezed the roadside telephone receiver for a long, strange moment.

"Ze French, zay are a fonny race," he muttered. "So what blew up Euro Beasley, if not the French?"

"You say you smelled napalm?"

"Yeah. I know that smell from Nam"

"Someone inside the park activated a self-destruct program. It is the only possible explanation."

"But who?"

"Remo, are you certain Sam Beasley is dead?"

"Decapitated. It's better than dead."

"Because a helicopter lifted off from Euro Beasley over an hour ago. French police helicopters gave chase but lost it."

"Could have been anyone."

"Spotters say a man resembling Uncle Sam was seen in the cockpit."

"Probably that nephew of his. What's his name? Roy?"

"Robert. I have no computer audit trail showing he has left the country, Remo."

"Uncle Sam is lying back there in the castle in two unequal parts. Trust me. Right, Little Father?"

"Except that we could not find the head."

"What was that?" asked Smith.

"Nothing."

"Was something said about Uncle Sam's head?"

"Chiun said he couldn't find Uncle Sam's head. We had him cornered and he greened us, but Chiun got him before we blacked out. When we woke up, he was sitting on the floor without his head."

"Did you look for it?"

"Who had time? We were about to be nuked."

"Remo, I want you to go back and be certain Uncle Sam Beasley is dead."

"Too late. The castle is ashes by now."

Smith sighed. "At least the technology was destroyed with it."

"What about this guy Cheatwood?"

"Who?"