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"You would be, too, if you worked for these cold corporate ducksuckers."
"Much obliged," said Remo, passing on.
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"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.
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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?"
"Right."
"So I'm surrendering to you. You have to take me alive."
"Who says?"
"It's the way the game is played. Don't kid me."
"Not my game," said Remo.
"What game is that?"
"Counterassassin."
"Counterassassin? What's a goddamn counterassassin doing on my trail?"
"For special cases, we drop the prefix," said Remo.
Uncle Sam switched to a wheedling, ingratiating voice. "You wouldn't kill your
old Uncle Sam? First time we crossed paths, you were going to. But you
couldn't, could you?"
"You should have stayed in that padded cell," Remo said, adjusting to each
shift of his opponent's body so he blocked the door.
"You couldn't do it because you remember those long-ago Sunday nights
squatting before the old TV in your pj's, watching my TV show. Watching me."
"Stuff it. You aren't that Uncle Sam anymore. He died when you should have."
"You're pretty brave behind that mask. There's no hypercolor laser units here.
Let's see if you can look me in the eye before you do it."
"Sorry. No time."
"Coward."
"Don't call me that." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]