"I haven't had time to make my remote finder."
"When you do, that will be your raise."
"Mousefuckers," Rod grumbled.
And so Rod lived for the day his work at Euro Beasley was done.
Unfortunately that day never came. Instead, the French Foreign Legion came rappeling out of hovering helicopters and advanced on one of the many entrances to Utilicanard.
When they were all on the ground, Rod knew what to do. He clapped a pair of solid lead goggles onto his eyes and, with his pounding heart high in his throat, he depressed a console button marked Supergreen.
Even though he was spared the awful green light hitting his retina, he threw up anyway.
Chapter 16
The unmarked van was parked on US. 460, south of Petersburg National Battlefield Park. It was the direction the balloons had come from, so it was reasonable to conceive of a link between the two.
Certainly if it was a TV truck, it would have identifying call letters or a network logo painted on the sides.
That was how Dominique Parillaud perceived it as she drove past the van in her Europe 1 satellite truck before parking it well down the highway and out of sight. After exiting the vehicle, she moved low toward the waiting van. There was no sign of life or activity around the van. No one behind the wheel.
But the nest of electronic array atop the van was very suggestive.
Crouching behind a thicket, Dominique unshipped her 9 mm MAS automatic and started out of the hedges. If the van contained the secret of the bright colored lights that had her countrymen literally agog, and she could acquire it, the Legion of Honor medal-not to mention the adulation of all Frenchmen-would be all but hers.
More importantly she could leave this hellish nation of imbeciles and cretins.
She started forward.
And her beret swallowed her head like a Venus's-flytrap made of cloth.
"Merde!"
Some force took her by the shoulders and spun her around inexorably, but still she retained the presence of mind to jut her MAS snout forward. When she felt it come into contact with her assailant's chest, she pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was not loud. A mere snap of sound. The automatic convulsed once.
"Hah!" she said triumphantly, yanking the beret off her face.
Dominique blinked as the familiar features of the American named Remo stared back at her with a slight smile touching his cruel face.
"But-I could not miss."
"Sure you did."
"Never! I am an expert markswoman."
"Was," said Remo, relieving her of her weapon with a casual twist. He tossed it away.
"You're French, right?"
"Belgian."
"You sound French."
"We Belgians speak French. It is our native tongue."
Remo looked to the tiny Asian gray-beard who stood beside him, hands tucked in his kimono sleeves. "This is true, but this woman speaks the dialect of Paris, not Brussels."
"Caught you. You're French."
"French women do not wear berets," Dominique pointed out.
"Sure they do," said Remo.
"It is an impossibility. How can you be so stupid?"
"Practice," said Remo, handing her back her beret.
"The beret is gauche. Do you know nothing of French customs?"
"As little as possible," Remo admitted.
"I categorically deny French citizenship."
The tiny Asian turned his head, "Behold. Is that not the illustrious Jerry Lewis approaching?"
Dominique whirled.
"Jairy? Jairy is here. Where? I idolize him!"
But there was no one there and when she looked back, the tiny Asian was beaming triumphantly. The man named Remo was saying "tsk- tsk" while making some arcane gesture at her that involved rubbing his forefingers in her direction.
"Caught you again," he said.
"I am a tourist."
"You're a French agent. You have French agent written all over you."
"In French," said the Asian gray-beard.
"I deny everything."
"What's the French interest in this?" asked Remo.
"I refuse to say any more."
"We have ways of making you confess," warned the tiny Asian.
"I am notoriously fearless."
Abruptly the tiny Asian stiffened and said, "Hark!"
Remo stopped.
Dominique listened. "I hear nothing."
"Do you hear it, Remo? The pumping sound."
Dominique frowned. "I hear no pumping."
"Yeah," said Remo. "It's coming from that van."
"Two heartbeats. One human. One not."
"Yeah, and the human one sounds pretty scared."
"Let us investigate."
"Heartbeats. I hear no heartbeats."
"Remo, detain that woman while I investigate."
"Little Father, don't you think we should both-"
"No!"
Remo subsided, Dominique was surprised to see. Was he afraid of the old one? It seemed doubtful.
They watched the old one slip toward the back of the van, Remo holding her in place with steely fingers clamped about her elbow. They felt like blunt knives and, when she reached up to loosen them, they refused to budge.
While his attention was on her fingers, she tried a judo throw that never failed.
It involved the feet. A quick step back, crunch down on the handiest instep and flip the opponent with his own reverse impetus. Dominique had once thrown a two-hundred-kilogram Sumo wrestler in this fashion.
"Watch the shoes," said Remo when she brought her stiletto heel onto his instep. "They're new. "
She tried to flip him anyway.
Remo refused to flip. It was as if his feet were set in concrete. He had no discernible center of gravity. None that she could find. Refusing to give up, she twisted and tried to insert her fingers into his nostrils and give them a fierce twist absolutely guaranteed to cause the most stern grip to relinquish.
"Easy. I'm ticklish," said Remo, his nostrils easily evading her darting fingers.
"You are unlike any man I have ever encountered," said Dominique, switching to flattery.
"I hear that a lot."
"I am sure."
"Too much, in fact. I like to be treated like an ordinary guy."
"I would treat you that way if you would allow me."
"You're not my type. Sorry."
"I French-kiss like a sailor," Dominique said, using a line that had been used on her.
"I'm not into sailors. Now stop struggling. I wanna see what Chiun does."
Dominique's head turned toward the van, having no other option once Remo had laid his heavy hand on her head and turned it like a faucet fixture.
Her eye fell upon the old Asian named Chiun as he slipped up to the door and laid a tiny ear to it.
"What is he doing?" Dominique hissed.
"Making sure it's not a trap."
"He can tell by listening?"
"He can tell what time it is by closing his eyes and finding the sun with his face."
"What if it is night?"
"Search me. I never saw him do it in the nighttime."
Dominique glanced at Remo's hard, obdurate fingers. "How can one be so slim and so strong at the same time?"
"Same way Popeye did it."
"How so?"
"Spinach."
"You are making fun of me."
"Tell it to Jairy."
"You insult a great clown."
"Shh."
As they watched, Chiun reached up for the door handle and seemed to freeze.
"What is wrong?" Dominique asked.
Remo squeezed her arm to get silence.
As she watched, Dominique realized very slowly that the old Asian was not frozen, as he appeared to be. He was turning the door handle, but doing it so slowly and methodically that he appeared immobile to the casual eye.
"Ah, he is very clever."
Abruptly the door opened and shut almost as quickly. It happened so suddenly it literally took Dominique's breath away. It was as if the door had been the mouth of a mechanical monster that had snatched the old one from sight to gobble him alive.