Nothing happened for a moment.
Then the edges of the door pulsed with the most vivid gray light Dominique had ever seen. And the door flew open like a frightened ghost.
And the awful light poured out.
REMO SAW THE VAN DOOR outlined in green. It was like a kick in the stomach, that green. Remo had never seen such a green. It was hideous, a violent lizard green. Some Sinanju instinct caused him to begin to turn away, when the door flew open and the Master of Sinanju came fluttering out.
Remo naturally looked back to see what Chiun was doing. What he saw shocked him. Chiun's face was twisted with some terrible strain. His arms and legs pumped as if to outrun the green glow.
The green light stabbed out all around him, and in his last moment of consciousness Remo felt his stomach contract involuntarily and the contents of his stomach erupt from his throat.
His last thought was how much he suddenly hated the color green.
DOMINIQUE PARILLAUD felt Remo's grip suddenly relax, and her professional instincts took over. Just in time, too.
She stepped away and by the narrowest margin avoided being splashed by a jet of hot vomit that seemed composed mostly of rice and small chunks of what seemed to be fish.
A horrible expression on his face, Remo fell faces first into his own vomit.
Dominique spun around and saw the old Korean also pitched forward in midstep, a cloud of milky vomit cascading ahead of him.
When he skidded into the grass, Chiun lay still.
Dominique crouched down, her color-blind eyes on the vivid gray light as she searched the grass for her fallen MAS.
The thing came clumping out of the van while she was preoccupied with her weapon.
Dominique experienced a strange stab of recognition mixed with horror. The horror, she thought at first, was a consequence of watching two formidable American agents-she had no doubt that was what they were-succumb to some force she could not comprehend.
But the horror soon resolved itself when the stab of recognition became awful, unbelievable certainty.
"You are Oncle Sam," she blurted as the figure strode toward her.
"Why aren't you lying facedown in your vomit?" the man demanded in a frosty voice.
And as he came on, his left eye began flashing. The livid light. It was coming from his eye somehow. He had an artificial eye. It was like a small strobe light, pulsing and flashing, and he was coming closer and closer. He was aiming it at her as if it were a deadly laser.
And Dominique realized it must be. A laser that did not burn but made strong men give up the contents of their stomachs and pitch unconscious into it.
The realization hit her just as her questing fingers found the cold, reassuring steel of her MAS.
She snapped it up, aimed and pulled the trigger once.
A hand that she saw was fashioned of steel segments clamped over the weapon, pinching her thumb and fingers. Still, she squeezed the trigger.
The weapon refused to discharge, its slide held in place by the hand that then began to whir as hydraulic fingers compressed and compressed with irresistible, inexorable power.
Dominique pulled her fingers free just before the fine-machined steel became a grinding, spitting tangible shriek of steel.
"Mon Dieu!"
"French, eh?"
"Oui. "
"I hate the fucking French."
"You are not Oncle Sam Beasley, who loves all mankind."
"I love only money," said the familiar voice as the steel hand swept up and grabbed her by the hair.
"What do you want of me?" Dominique said, squirming.
"There's just one thing I want from you."
"What is that?"
"Give it to me straight. What does that clown Lewis have that my Mongo doesn't?"
Chapter 17
The first battle-damage-assessment reports from the Blot were most disturbing.
They came in the form of aerial photographs taken by a low-flying Gazelle equipped with a gun-sight camera.
The photographs were laid on the desk of the president of France. "Are these men dead?" he asked.
"We do not know, Monsieur President."
"Is that not blood spilling out from under their still bodies?"
"It is not red."
"Then what can it be?"
"Either piss or vomit. The analysts have yet to determine."
The president of France turned the picture in his hand this way and that. "It is vomit, I think."
"We should leave this to experts, non?"
"Piss is more transparent. This is thick."
"Not all. Some appears soupy."
The president shrugged. "Some could have eaten soup and then thrown it up."
"We have experts who understand these matters," the aide said dismissively. "What do we do?"
"We cannot leave them lying about like so many fallen toy soldiers. These are Frenchmen. Oh, to see them with their proud red berets in the dirt."
"It is asphalt."
"Dirt. Asphalt. The outrage knows no name."
"We must act quickly to contain this matter, before the Americans learn of it and lodge a protest."
"Has there been no word from Washington?"
"Not yet. But soon. That is why you must act instantly."
"I should never have listened to that bouffon," moaned the president of France.
"What clown?"
"The minister of culture."
"He is not such a clown. He has spearheaded the drive against the detestable Franglais, he has banished-"
"Enough. Enough. Order our Foreign Legionnaires to storm the Bastille."
"You mean the Blot."
"I mean to see this matter ended before that bouffon calls to complain," the French president said testily.
"The culture minister?"
"No. The President of the United States."
COLONEL JEAN-GUY BAVARD of the French Foreign Legion had a stock answer for what had brought him to enlist in the toughest, hardest-fighting and most disreputable outfit in all Europe.
"It is a long story."
It wasn't. But that gruff comment was enough to turn away all questions. That it was a long story was the timehonored evasion men of the French Foreign Legion used against prying reporters or too-curious temporary girlfriends.
Thus, no one ever learned that Colonel Bavard had joined the French Foreign Legion because of a gastrointestinal irregularity.
Cheese gave him gas. Not any common gas, but the most malodorous, ferocious gas imaginable. He had only to nibble a corner of Chevrotin, sometimes only inhale the pungency of Brie, when his bowels would churn and boil and begin venting.
It was acutely embarrassing. It drove off lonely women, lost children and hungry dogs. Even flies avoided Colonel Bavard when he was enveloped in a noxious cloud of his own making.
There were only two humane solutions. Give up cheese or join the French Foreign Legion, which would take anyone, no matter his sins or quirks. Colonel Bavard naturally chose the latter course of action.
After all, what self-respecting Frenchman could survive without cheeses? To dwell Brieless was unthinkable. And to be deprived of Rambol and Camembert? Not to mention the sublime La Vache qui Rit?
Colonel Bavard had served with distinction in Kuwait and Rwanda, and elsewhere in the Frenchspeaking world. He had won countless medals for accepting surrenders. That some of those surrendering to Colonel Bavard were his own men was beside the point. Enemy surrenders far, far outnumbered comrades-in-arms who threw themselves gasping on the tender mercies of Colonel Jean-Guy Bavard.
So it was only natural that in their darkest hour, his fellow countrymen would turn to him.
"We have chosen you for this mission for a reason," the commander of the French Foreign Legion told him in his headquarters office.
Colonel Bavard saluted snappily. "I am prepared to die for my nation."
"We need an officer who can lead his men into the darkest quarter of hell."