"In other words, it self-destructed?"
"Now that you put it that way, yeah. Sure."
Chiun's thin voice added, "You forgot about the man in the pit, Remo. Tell Emperor Smith about him."
"Oh, right," said Remo. "Before the bomb melted. We found a Union guy in the pit. He wasn't like the others, who were scared. He was kinda down."
"Down? Do you mean depressed?"
"Yeah, and he claimed after the yellow light exploded in his face, everything turned blue. That part doesn't make much sense, I know."
"Actually it does," said Smith.
"It does?"
"Yes, it was a phenomenon of color where if one stares at a certain color for a long time, then looks away, he will see the complementary color as an afterimage in his retina."
"Blue complements yellow?"
"I believe it does," said Smith, saving his US. map file and bringing up another file.
"Then I guess red insults green, huh?" Remo chuckled.
"Describe this yellow light," Smith said without humor.
"It was very very bright. But we didn't look directly into it."
"But you say it frightened those who did?"
"Scared the living beans out of them," said Remo.
"Now, this pink light. Describe it."
"Pink. Nice. Pleasant."
"Bright pink?"
"Happy pink," said Remo.
"Very happy pink," said Chiun.
"The happiest," added Remo in a happy voice.
"But it was intense?" Smith prompted.
"I wouldn't call it hot pink, although it sure wasn't cool."
"Where did the pink light come from?"
"The mouse's ears. Didn't I mention that?"
"What mouse's ears?"
"You know how a hot-air balloon supports a wicker basket?"
"Yes."
"The cars were fixed to the baskets. Fours sides, four ears. When the balloons showed up, they started to glow."
"The basket or the ears?" asked Smith.
"The ears. Then everything turned pink."
"And nice," added Chiun.
"I see," said Smith. After a pause he asked, "Was there anything else unusual?"
"Except for the mini-Civil War?"
"Yes, except for that."
"I don't think so."
"Tell Smith about the French woman," prompted Chiun.
"Oh, yeah. There was the French woman."
"Yes, you mentioned her before."
"After the press trucks charged in, she showed up again, trying to figure out what was going on."
"Did she?"
"She was talking into a cellular phone or something. What was it she told the party on the other end, Little Father?"
" 'La charade se perpetre-' "
"No, I mean in English."
" 'This charade is perpetrated by bright colored lights. Bright colored lights are the key.'"
"You hear that, Smith? She said bright colored lights are the key."
"Did you detain or question her?"
"No. Why?"
"Because she obviously knew something about the phenomenon at work on the battlefield!" Smith said testily.
There was a pause on the line.
"Smitty," Remo said in an abashed voice. "No need to shout, you know."
"Sorry," said Smith, making a fist of frustration with his free hand. "Go on."
"That was it. She took off."
"And Mickey Weisinger?"
"Carried off on the shoulders of a unified and grateful nation," Remo said happily. "Don't you love a happy ending?"
"This has just begun," Smith said bitterly.
"What do you mean?"
"Whatever phenomenon affected those men on the battlefield obviously also affected Chiun and yourself."
"Nothing affected us," Remo retorted. "In fact, we feel great."
"You were supposed to stop the fighting."
"Someone beat us to it."
"And seize a Beasley executive and interrogate him about the whereabouts of Uncle Sam Beasley."
The distant sound of snapping fingers came over the wire. "Oh, right," said Remo. "Damn. We forgot."
"We will not forget again, Emperor," Chiun called out.
"Scout's honor," said Remo, a trace of worry in his voice.
"Can you find that woman again?" Smith asked.
"Maybe."
"Learn what she knows. Clearly she is not a newswoman."
"What makes you say that?"
"A hunch."
"You don't have hunches. They require imagination."
"I do this time," Harold Smith said grimly. "Report when you have something."
Harold Smith hung up and turned his attention to his desk terminal. His fingers floated across the keyless keyboard, the letters flashing silently with each stroke of his age-gnarled fingers.
The first reports of cessation of hostilities at Petersburg National Battlefield were coming across the wire. Smith tapped out the command that converted his terminal to color-TV reception.
A network news anchor was looking abashed.
"We still have no confirmation of what has taken place this Memorial Day in Petersburg, Virginia," he said as a graphic titled Civil War II? floated beside his head. He tapped his earphone. "What's that? We have national correspondent David O'Dull on the line. Go ahead, Dave."
"Peter," a chirpy voice said, "we are having just a swell time here in historic Virginia on this glorious holiday afternoon."
"That's wonderful, but tell us about these reports of a major battle."
"All done," Dave chirp.
"What exactly do you mean by 'all done'?"
"It's a wrap. The Beasley people dropped by, made nice and everything's hunky-dory again."
"Dave, you'll excuse me, but we're not getting many facts from you. Are you all right?"
"Wait a sec. They're breaking out the camp coffee and flap-doodle, and newspeople are invited. Hey, call you back. Ciao. "
"Dave? Dave!"
Watching the network anchor grind his teeth in frustration before millions of Americans, Harold W. Smith muttered to himself, "The force has affected the electronic press, as well. But what is it?"
Harold Smith had not long to puzzle over the matter because a red light flashed in one corner of his screen, indicating that the Folcroft basement mainframes, which continually trolled the net in search of mission-related data or news events, had captured something of importance.
Smith tapped a hot-key. And on-screen appeared a capsulized digest of a story just moving on the wire.
BULLETIN REUTERS PARIS, FRANCE. FRENCH AIR ARMY WARPLANES OPERATING OUT OF TAVERNY AIR BASE FLEW SORTIES AGAINST EURO BEASLEY THEME PARK. PARK SUSTAINED SEVERE DAMAGE. ALL PLANES AND PIL0TS RETURNED SAFELY TO BASE.
"Oh, my God," croaked Harold W Smith from his Spartan office overlooking Long Island Sound. "What does it all mean?" It meant that the Second American Civil War was over, and the Franco-American Conflict of 1995 had just begun.
Chapter 13
History duly recorded the Second American Civil War and the Franco-American Conflict of 1995 as two entirely separate and unrelated conflicts.
History was wrong. The Second American Civil War ended at exactly 12:22 Eastern Daylight Time, while the opening engagement of the FrancoAmerican Conflict was logged at precisely 5:47 Greenwich Mean Time, less than thirty minutes later.
Because they were to be forever believed separate and unrelated conflicts, historians never suspected that a satellite phone call placed from Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia triggered the bombing of Euro Beasley.
The call was placed by a secret agent code-named Arlequin to her case officer at the Paris HQ of the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure, on Boulevard Mortier.
The station chief brought the cryptic report to the head of the DGSE, France's primary espionage service.
" 'Bright colored lights are the key,'" repeated Remy Renard, director of the DGSE.
"That is what the agent said."
"You have no other report?"