Blue Smoke and Mirrors

Destroyer 078 - Blue Smoke and Mirrors

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When a Titan 34-D missile exploded shortly after launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, it was dismissed as an accident.

When another Titan veered off course and had to be destroyed by the range safety officer only seconds after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, taking with it a multimillion-dollar Delta weather satellite, officials dismissed it as "a short run of bad luck."

And when an Atlas-Centaur rocket went out of control during a thunderstorm, lightning was blamed, prompting a Cape Canaveral spokesman to remark that these unfortunate incidents always seemed to come in threes and no one expected any more missile accidents.

He was correct. The trouble shifted to the new B-1B Bomber program. Three B-lB's crashed during routine training missions. Everything from geese in the intakes to pilot error was cited.

The Air Force dismissed this as "expected test-performance attrition." Privately, the generals were marking time until the first B-2 Stealth Bombers rolled out of the hangars.

And when three F-117A Stealth Fighters crashed even before the first one was unveiled to the media, this was blamed on ice forming on the wings. The Pentagon sheepishly explained that the sixty-million-dollar craft were not equipped with wing de-icers- equipment common on all commercial aircraft-because they were thought unneccesary.

The Air Force generals shrugged. The next generation of Stealth fighters would have wing de-icers, they promised.

No one suspected that every one of these accidents had a common cause. No one dreamed that a single agency, unknown and unstoppable, was systematically at work. An agency that could not be touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. And one that no one had seen.

Until the day someone stole Airman First Class Emil Risko's Calvin Kleins from LCF-Fox.

They were ordinary jeans. Risko had bought them from a K-Mart in Grand Forks, paying $38.49, marked down from $49.99 "This Week Only." He brought them with him to Launch Control Facility Fox, intending to change in them after his seventy-two-hour shift. He had promised his wife that he would take her dancing at the Hillbilly Lounge. Risko folded the jeans neatly, still with their tags on, and placed them at the foot of his bunk so he wouldn't forget them.

That night, after a routine patrol of the ten Minute-man III launch facilities attached to LCF-Fox, he returned to his room and found them missing.

At first, Airman Risko thought he had placed them in a drawer. He opened every drawer. He checked under his pillow. He dug out the K-Mart bag from the wastebasket, thinking that somehow he had thrown out the jeans by accident. The bag was empty. Risko looked under the bed. He found a dustball.

After he had repeated these checks five times each, going so far as to take the grille off the window air conditioner, in the hope that someone playing a practical joke had hidden them inside, he sat down on the edge of his neatly made bunk and smoked two Newports in a row while the sweat crawled down his face.

Biue Smoke and Mirrors 9

Finally, reluctantly, Airman Emil Risko went to the facility manager's desk.

"Sarge, I have a problem."

The facility manager looked at the constipated expression on Risko's face and dryly remarked, "Ex-Lax works for me."

"This is serious, Sarge."

The FM shrugged. "Shoot."

"I bought a pair of blue jeans on the way in this morning. I know I put them on the bunk. At least I remember doing that. I locked the door after me. When I got back"-Risko took a breath and whispered- "they were gone."

"Gone?"

"That's right. They must have been stolen."

Staff Sergeant Shuster took a long slow puff on his cigar. He blinked several times dully. Wheels were turning in his mind, but he was slow to say anything. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy in Air Force blues.

"Do you now what this means?" Risko hissed impatiently.

"Do you know what it means?" Staff Sergeant Shuster shot back.

"Of course! It means there's a thief on the facility."

"Maybe yes. Maybe no," the sergeant said, peeling several bills off his bankroll. "How much?"

"It's not the money. They were stolen. On the facility."

"Look, they're only a pair of jeans. Do us both a favor. Take the money. Buy another pair. Forget it."

"Sarge, regulations expressly say that this has to be reported under the program."

"If you want to report this to the flight-security controller, I can't stop you. But think ahead two steps. You report this thing, and OSI becomes involved. Then everyone from the cook to the status officers in every underground LF gets hauled in for questioning.

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Including yours truly. If no one owns up to it, we're all on the hook. The Air Force can't afford to have a thief on a nuclear facility. We'll all be transferred. Me, I like it out here. It's flat and out of the way, but they leave me alone."

"But, Sarge-"

Staff Sergeant Shuster stuffed a pair of twenties into Airman Risko's blouse pocket. He buttoned the pocket.

"Do it my way," he said soothingly. "We'll all have less grief, huh? You're not exactly the most popular guy on the LCF. Catch my drift?"

Airman Risko expelled a disappointed breath. He dug out the twenties and slapped them on the desk.

"Thanks, but no thanks," he said, stalking off.

"Don't do anything we'll all regret, kid," the facility manager called after him.

His face anguished, Airman Risko walked through Launch Control Facility Fox's homey recreation-room area, where other airmen were playing Missile Command, reading books, or watching television. Two airmen playing chess looked up when he entered. One cleared his throat audibly. The buzz of conversation abruptly died and Risko hurried down the corridor to his room.

The FM had a point. If he reported the theft, that meant a breakdown in the Personnel Reliability Program. It had been the first thing drummed into Risko's head when he was assigned to security detail on the missile grid. Because of the potential risks of an accidental missile launch caused by an unstable person, everyone watched everyone else for any sign of attitude or emotional changes. The officers watched the enlisted men, and each other. The enlisted men were allowed to report personality changes in any officer, regardless of rank.

Risko's bunkmate had been relieved of duty only last summer when he expressed suicidal thoughts. Risko had reported him. The man was interrogated and it

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came out that he had been having trouble with his wife. He suspected her of cheating on him during the long three-day shifts everyone in the grid put in. He was summarily transferred to Montana's inhospitable Malstrom Air Force Base.

Every one of the officers assured Risko that he had done the correct thing. But many of the enlisted men began avoiding him. He heard the word "fink" whispered a time or two behind his back.

Now he faced a similar situation, and although his duty was clear, Risko hesitated.

As he turned the corner to his room, his eyes cast downward, Risko bumped into someone.

"Whoa there, airman!"

"Oh, sorry," Risko mumbled, looking up. It was the new cook, Sergeant Green. She was the only woman on the LCF. That alone would have made her stick out. She was a pert little redhead with laserlike blue eyes. She wore a white cook's uniform with silver-and-blue chevrons on her collar. But Risko wasn't looking at her chevrons. He was looking at her chest. Half the LCF had bet the other half that Sergeant Robin Green had a bigger chest than Dolly Parton. No one had yet figured out a way to prove this belief to the satisfaction of the lieutenant who held the betting money in trust.

Sergeant Green looked at him sharply.

"Is there something wrong?" she demanded.

"What? No," he said quickly. "Excuse me." Risko brushed past her hurriedly. He shut the door after him, thankful for once that he had no roommate. He sat down to think.

The knock at the door came before he had a chance to light up.

"It's Green," the voice called through the door.

Airman Risko muttered something under his breath and let her in.

"OSI," Green said sharply, flashing a security ID. It

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featured her photograph and the words "Office of Special Investigations," but as was customary, no indication of rank.

"You?" he said stupidly, stepping back to let her in.

"I've been assigned to look into some problems on the facility," Green said briskly. "And you look like you have one of your own."

Risko shut the door woodenly.

"I don't know what to do, Sarge-I mean sir. Do I call you sir, sir?"

"You know OSI ranks are classified. Call me ma'am."

"Yes, ma'am. You see, the regs are clear on this," Risko said, spreading his hands helplessly. "But it's going to cause hell."

"Spit it out, airman."

"Yes, ma'am. It's simple. I bought a pair of blue jeans. I put them right here. At the foot of my bunk. Then I went on duty. When I got back, they were gone."

"I see. There's no chance you misplaced them?"

"I turned this room upside down a dozen times."

"Who's your roommate?"

"I don't have one," Risko said miserably. "He got transferred. It was my fault. That's why I don't know what to do."

"Damn," Robin Green said, pacing the floor. Risko noticed that her white uniform seemed two sizes too small. Especially above the waist. Her buttons looked ready to pop. A brief interest flickered in his eyes, but the sick fear in the pit of his stomach seemed to creep up to his eyes, dulling them.

"Airman, you strike me as a solid kind of guy. I'm going to level with you."

"Ma'am?"

"LCF-Fox is troubled. Deeply troubled. Critical missile parts are missing from the stores. Guidance-system components and computer parts. Technical stuff I don't even understand. We've run countless checks, quietly

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put a few people through lie-detector tests. But no leads. No confessions. Nothing. All we know is that the trouble is localized. No other LCF or LF in the grid has had problems. Only Fox."

"You think this is related to my problem?"

"My superiors are on my cute little ass-if you'll pardon the expression-to uncover a bad apple in this barrel. But I don't think we have a bad apple."

"Then how ....?"

"It's not a breakdown in the Personnel Reliability Program. It can't be."

"But it has to be. Nobody just walks on a launch-control facility unless he has clearance."

"I can't explain it, but I feel it in my North Carolina bones. OSI wants to pull me off this assignment, but I can bag this guy. I know it. But I need your help."

"Name it."

"I'm gonna wrangle you a pass. You go buy another pair of jeans. Let's see if he snaps at the same bait twice."

"I don't see how he'd be crazy enough to come back after getting away with it once."

"He's come back seven times to pilfer missile parts. He's a creature of habit. This is the fourth time he's gone after noncritical stock."

"Fourth time?"

"I work in the kitchen. We've been losing steaks. Sometimes two or three a night."

"Steaks?"

"From a locked walk-in freezer, airman. Twice on nights when I sat outside that locker, all night, pistol in hand. I never slept. Hell, I never even blinked. But in the morning there were two steaks missing. Porterhouse."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know if it is. But it happened. I haven't reported it. Without bagging the guy, you know what would happen to me."

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"Section Eight, for sure."

"Okay, you get those jeans. Bring them back here. When you go on duty, I'm going to be under your bed waiting for this guy."

OSI Special Agent Robin Green waited five hours for the doorknob to turn. It was cramped under the bed. There was not enough room for her to lie on her side. Lying on her back was comfortable except that every time she exhaled, her blouse kept hanging up on the bedsprings. A couple of times she had to pinch her nose shut to keep from sneezing. Dust.

She never heard the doorknob turn. She had one eye on the slit of light that marked the bottom of the door. It never widened, never moved, never changed, except when someone walked out in the corridor and interrupted the light.

The hours dragged past. Robin Green grew bored; her nerves, keyed up for hours, started to wind down. She was yawning when she glanced at her watch and saw that it was 0200 hours. She shifted under the bed and happened to turn her head.

She saw the boots. They were white, with some kind of jigsaw golden tracery all over them. They were just there. For a moment they looked faint and fuzzy; then they came into focus. Robin Green thought it was her eyes coming into focus.

The hair on Robin's arms lifted. She could feel the gooseflesh crawl. She could never recall being so afraid. No one had opened the door. She was certain about that. And there was only one door into the room.

Then a voice spoke in an eerie, contented tone.

"Krahseevah!" it said. "Calvin Klein." The voice seemed particularly pleased.

She pulled her sidearm, tried to cock it, but her elbow cracked on the bedsprings.

"Damn!" she cried, struggling to squirm out from under the bed. A blouse button hung up on the springs.

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She tore it free. But another one caught. She cursed her mother, who had bequeathed Robin her D-cup genes.

When Robin Green finally tore free, she rolled into a marksman's crouch. She swept the room with her automatic. Nothing. No one. Then she blinked. Something was on the wall. Then it was gone.

Robin ran to the wall and ran her fingers over the wallpaper. The wall was cool to the touch. There was nothing there. The paper was unbroken, the wall whole. She banged on it. Solid. It was not hollow. There was no secret door.

Yet a moment before, she had seen a car battery disappear into the wall. At least, it looked like a car battery. It was moving so fast, it was blurry and indistinct.

Robin Green felt the gooseflesh on her arms loosen. Then she snapped out of it. She plunged through the door and called security on a wall phone. A Klaxon began howling.

White-helmeted security police came running. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Robin Green, automatic in hand, her cleavage spilling out of her torn blouse.

"Intruder on the facility," she called. "Search every room!"

"One minute, Sergeant."

"OSI special agent," Robin Green corrected, flashing her ID card. "Now, get moving!"

"No, you hold on," one of the SP's said firmly. "Let's hear your story first before we turn the LCF upside down. How did you rip your blouse?"

"I was hiding under the bed, waiting for him."

"Who?"

"The thief."

"Thief? Who is he?"

"I don't know. I only saw his feet. He wore white boots."

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"This isn't your room." The SP tapped the half-open door with his truncheon.

"It's Risko's. He let me use it."

"You and this Risko-how long have you known him? You just friends?"

"Damn this chickenshit Personnel Reliability Program! There's a thief on this LCF and he's getting away. Get Risko. He'll corroborate my story."

They brought Risko, who nervously told his story.

The entire facility was put on maximum Threatcon. Security-alert teams were deployed and every room was searched. The elevator leading to the underground missile-capsule crew was sealed off.

By sundown the entire perimeter had been thoroughly searched. No one was found who wore white boots. Nor were Airman Risko's missing jeans found. But an inventory of the locked freezer indicated that two more steaks were missing. Porterhouse.

OSI Agent Robin Green sat in the flight security controller's office, her arms folded over her torn blouse. No one would let her change, even though as far as anyone knew, she outranked most of the officers. She shivered. In the next chair, Airman Risko cast quick, hunted glances in her direction.

"We're in pretty deep, aren't we?" he muttered.

"Worse than you think. I haven't told them about the car battery yet."

2

His name was Remo, and all he wanted was to enjoy a Saturday-afternoon ballgame.

Remo sat on a tatami mat in the middle of the bare living-room floor in the first house he had ever truly owned. The big projection TV was on. Remo enjoyed the projection TV because his eyes were so acute that he had to concentrate hard not to see the scanning lines change thirty times each second. This was a new high-definition TV. Its scanning lines changed sixty times a second.

It was a legacy of years of training in the art of Sinanju, the sun source of the martial arts. One of the many downsides he had come to tolerate.

Remo thought it was ironic that the more attuned his mind and body became to the physical universe, the more trouble he had with manmade technology. He first recognized that this could be a problem when, in the early years of his training, he did a harmless thing. He happened to eat a fast-food hamburger.

Remo nearly died of monosodium-glutamate poisoning.

After that, he found it hard to watch movies. He had never thought much about how film worked before- how the illusion of action was created by light shining through the rapidly moving picture frames. Movies, of course, did not actually move. They just seemed to,

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much the way old flip-action book drawings appeared to move when the pages were fanned. The human eye read the changing images as action.

Remo's more-than-human eyes read them as a series of stills. Only the sound was uninterrupted. Over the years, Remo had learned to adjust his vision so that movies still moved for him, but the concentration required sometimes gave him eyestrain.

Television was the same. The pixels-the tiny phosphorescent dots of light which changed every one-thirtieth of a second-created the illusion of moving images. In fact, it was a lot like movies, which changed at a mere twenty-four frames a second, and Remo had to learn to adjust to that phenomenon too. Sometimes he could see the pixels change, line by line, on old TV's. It was distracting.

He didn't have quite as hard a time with high-definition TV's.

And so he sat down with a bowl of cold unseasoned rice and a glass of mineral water, to enjoy the national pastime. He looked like any American on this Saturday afternoon. He was a lean young man of indeterminate age, with chiseled but not too handsome features set off by high cheekbones. His brown eyes were hard as brick chips. His chinos were gray and his T-shirt was white.

Millions of other Americans had their eyes glued to millions of TV sets across America on this ordinary day. Remo liked to think he was one of them. He was not. Officially, he no longer existed. Unofficially, he was the sole enforcement arm for CURE, the superse-cret government agency created to fight crime and injustice outside of constitutional restrictions. Professionally, he was an assassin.

It was a peaceful day in early autumn. The leaves had only started to turn brown and gold outside the windows of his suburban Rye, New York, neighborhood. The air was crisp, and Remo had left the win-

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dows open so he could hear the last birds of summer twitter and cheep.

A pleasant afternoon.

He knew it was not going to last when the familiar padding of sandals came from one of the bedrooms.

"What is it you are watching, Remo?" a squeaking voice asked. There was a querulous undertone to the question. Remo wondered if he had disturbed the Master of Sinanju's meditation. No, he recalled, Chiun usually meditated in the morning. Chiun had trained him in Sinanju, making him, first, more than human, and ultimately the sole heir to a five-thousand-year-old house of assassins, the first white man ever to be so honored.

"Baseball," Remo said, not looking up. No way was Chiun going to ruin this day. No way. "It's Boston versus New York."

"I knew it would come to this," Chiun said sagely. "Though you often spoke with pride of America's two-hundred-year history, I knew it could not last. It is a sad thing when an empire turns on itself. I will pack for us both. Perhaps the Russians will have use for our mighty talents."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Remo asked.

"This. Intercity warfare. A terrible thing in any age. Who is winning?"

"New York. And it's not warfare, Little Father. It's a game."

"A game? Why would you watch such a thing?" asked Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju. He was an elderly Korean with the bright hazel eyes of a child.

"Because I'm a masochist," Remo said, knowing the humor would be lost on the man who had trained him to such a state of human perfection that he was reduced to subsisting on rice and focusing all his attention in order not to see the pixels change.

"Is this the game all Americans watch?" demanded Chiun, whose parchment features were hairless but for

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thin wisps of hair clinging to his chin. Two cottonlike puffs adorned his tiny ears.

"Yep," Remo replied. "The national pastime."

"I think I will watch it with you," said the Master of Sinanju. He settled at Remo's elbow like a falling leaf. Except that a leaf would make a sound hitting the floor. Ghiun did not.

Remo noticed that Chiun wore his chrysanthemum-pink kimono. He tried to remember why that was significant.

"You were so quiet in there I thought you were busy," Remo remarked.

"I was writing a poem. Ung, of course."

"Uh-huh," Remo said. And he understood. Chiun was writing poetry and Remo had interrupted with his baseball. Well, Remo had as much right to watch baseball as Chiun had to write poetry. If Chiun expected total silence, then he could go outside and do it under the trees. Remo was watching this game.

"I have just completed the 5,631st stanza," Chiun said casually as his face screwed up. He, too, had to focus so as not to see the pixels change.

Remo took a sip of water. "Almost done, huh?"

"I may be almost done when I come to the 9,018th stanza. For this is a complicated Ung poem. It describes the melting of the snowcap on Mount Paektusan."

"Korean mountains aren't easy to describe, I'm sure," Remo said politely. No way, he vowed silently. He was watching this game.

"You are very astute. Tell me, I am curious about this ritual which fascinates whites so. Explain it to me, my son."

"Couldn't we wait until it's over? I'd like to enjoy it."

"I would like to enjoy my declining years," Chiun said sharply. "But I was forced to come to this strange land and train a white man in the art Of Sinanju. 1 could have declined. I could have said, no, I will not.

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And had I been so selfish, you, Remo Williams, would not be what you are now. Sinanju."

The memories came flooding back. Fragments of Remo's past life danced in his head. His youth as an orphan. Vietnam. Pounding a beat in Newark. Then, the arrest, trial, and his execution in an electric chair for a murder that was not his doing. It was all part of a frame engineered by Dr. Harold W. Smith, the head of CURE. It provided CURE with the perfect raw material, a man who didn't exist. Chiun's training had provided the rest. He shut out the memories. It had been long ago. These were happier days.

Remo sighed.

"Okay," he said, putting down his rice. "See the guys in the red socks? Those are the Red Sox. That's their name on the screen."

" 'Socks' is not spelled with an X," Chiun pointed out.

"It's just their name. They spell it that way because ..."

Chiun's eyes were bright with anticipation. "Yes?"

"Because," Remo said at last. "That's all. Just because. The other guys are the Yankees."

"Should they not be called the Black Sox? With an X."

"The Black Sox is a whole different story," Remo said dryly, "and if we get into that, we'll be here until the year 2000. But in your own way I think you're catching on."

Chiun smiled. "The Yankees are the ones who are hurling balls at their opponents?"

"Absolutely correct. But only one of them is pitching right now. They take turns."

"And what is the purpose of this pitching?"

"They're trying to strike out the player who's up at bat."

"He is the one with the club?"

"They call it a bat."

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"Why? It does not have wings."

Remo sighed again. "Look, just give me the benefit of the doubt on terminology. Otherwise we will be here until the year 2000."

"We will save the elaborate details until I have mastered the fundamentals," Chiun said firmly.

"Good. Now the pitcher tries to strike out the batter."

Chiun watched as the pitcher threw a fastball. The batter cracked it out to left field. Infielders scrambled for it. The batter ran to first.

"I think I understand," Chiun said levelly. "The pitcher is attempting to brain the batter. But the stalwart batter uses his club to fend off the villain's cowardly attacks. Because he was successful, he is allowed to escape with his life."

"No, he's not trying to hit the batter. He just wants to get the ball past him. If he does it three times, it's called an out and they retire the batter."

Chiun's facial hair trembled. "So young?"

"Not permanently. They just switch batters."

"Most peculiar. Why is this new person taking up a club?"

"The first batter has earned the right to go to first base. That's the white pad he's standing on there. Now the second batter is going to do the same thing. If he hits the ball correctly, he gets to go to first and the second guy will go to second base, or maybe third if the first one hits the ball far enough."

The batter swung and missed. Then he popped a r ball into center field. Two Yankees collided in an attempt to catch it. The ball slipped between their meshed gloves.

"See!" Remo shouted excitedly. "He's going for second. He's at third! Now he's going home!"

The first batter slid to home base in an eruption of dust. The second was tagged running for third base.

The Master of Sinanju absorbed all this in passive

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silence. Then he nodded. "He is going home now," he said, "his work done."

"No. He's gone to the dugout. He's already been home."

"He has not!" Chiun flared. "I was watching him every minute. He ran from third base to fourth base, and now he is walking away, dirty but unbowed."

"That's not fourth base. That's home."

"He lives there? The poor wretch."

"No," Remo said patiently. "Home plate is the object of this game. You hit the ball so you can run the bases and reach home."

"But that man started off on the home plate. Why did he not remain there, if he coveted it so?"

"Because you don't win unless you run the bases first," Remo said in an exasperated voice.

"I see. And what does he win?"

"He doesn't win. The entire team wins. They win points, which are known as runs."

"Ah, diamonds. I have heard of the famous baseball diamond. It must be exceedingly precious."

"Not diamond points. Points. You know, numbers."

"Money?"

"No," Remo said patiently. "Numbers. See the score at the bottom of the screen? The Red Sox just went from four to five. The score is now twenty to five."

"Numbers? Not gold? Not jewels? Not riches?"

"Actually, these guys make a fair piece of change. I think that batter pulls down almost two million a year."

"Points?"

"No, dollars."

"American dollars!" Chiun cried, leaping to his feet. "They pay him millions of American dollars to run around in circles like that!"

"It's not the circles, it's the points. It's the achievement."

"What do these men make, what do they build,

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what do they create that they are worth such money?" Chiun screeched.

"Baseball is a skill," Remo insisted.

"Running in circles is not a skill. Beheaded roosters do it even after they are dead."

"Will you please calm down? Wait until I finish explaining the game before you get upset."

Chiun settled back onto the floor.

"Very well," he fumed. "I am very interested in learning more about these inscrutable white customs of yours."

"Now, see this batter? While you were jumping up and down he swung twice and missed. Each miss is called a strike."

"I see. If he fails to defend his home from the aggressor, his fellow warriors punish him with their clubs."

"No, a strike means a ... There! See? He just struck out."

"And look!" Chiun proclaimed. "The opposing forces are rushing to attack him. I see now. They are going to pummel him into submission, thereby conquering his territory."

"No, that's not it. Will you let me tell it, please? They're changing sides. Now it's the Red Sox's turn to pitch and the Yankees' at bat."

Chiun's parchment face wrinkled up. "They are surrendering their opportunity to make points?"

"Yep."

Chiun clenched his bony fists. "Unbelievable! They have all the clubs and yet they let their mortal enemy take over. Why do they not beat them back? Why do they not simply crush their skulls and run around in circles as much as they wish? Thus, they could achieve thousands of useless points after they have eliminated the other team."

"They can't. It's against the rules."

"They have rules?" Chiun's voice was aghast.

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"Yes, they have rules. It's a game."

"All games are a form of warfare. Chess is one example. And Go another. And intelligent men know that in war there are no rules. With such wealth at stake, they should be defending their position to the death."

"Now, how can they have a contest if they don't let the opposing team have their turn at bat?"

"Did the Greeks allow the Persians to take over their cities?" Chiun countered. "Did Rome cease laying waste to Gaul, and then stand idle while the enemy besieged their own cities so the ultimate victory would not be excessively decisive?"

"It's a freaking game, Chiun."

"It is base. Now I know why they call it baseball. It is a pastime for idiots. They run around in circles for no purpose and are paid richer than royalty. More than an assassin. Why am I not paid this richly? Do I not perform a more important service in this land of cretins? Without me, your American civilization would crumble. Without me, your feeble Constitution would be only a scrap of yellowing paper."

"Louder," Remo muttered. "The neighbors might not hear you clearly."

"I am going to speak to Emperor Smith about this at our next contract negotiation. I demand parity with these base baseball cretins."

"You may not have long to wait. I think I hear knocking at the back door."

"Some journeyman, no doubt," Chiun sniffed.

"No," Remo said suddenly, getting up. "I think it's Smith."

"Nonsense. Emperors always employ the front entrance."

"When Smith accepts that he's an emperor, and not the head of the organization we work for, I'll believe you," Remo said, angrily shutting off the TV on his way to the kitchen.

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Remo opened the back door on a lemon-faced man in a gray three-piece suit and striped Dartmouth tie. His rimless glasses rode his patrician face like transparent shields.

"Hi, Smitty," Remo said brightly. "Here to complain about the noise?"

"Quick, Remo," Dr. Harold W. Smith, the director of CURE, said. "I mustn't be seen by the neighbors."

Remo shut the door behind Smith.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Smitty. We're next-door neighbors now. You can afford to be seen paying a social call."

The Master of Sinanju entered the kitchen and bowed once, formally. His expressionless face was a mask.

"Hail, Smith, Emperor of America, where hurlers of balls are paid more richly than anyone. Including those closest to the throne."

Smith looked at Remo. "What is he-?"

"I've been explaining baseball to him. He was fascinated by the players' salaries."

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Smith asked in a raspy voice.

Remo nodded grimly.

Smith turned to Chiun anxiously.

"Master of Sinanju, I realize it may seem out of line that baseball players are paid what they are, but you have to understand the circumstances. They are paid out of commercial revenues."

"Then we will do the same," Chiun shot back triumphantly. He raised a finger from which grew a long sharp nail. "I can see it now. We will fly to the ends of this disintegrating empire and after dispatching the enemies of America, Remo will shout for all to hear that this assassination was brought to you by Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, breakfast of assassins,"

"Oh, my God," Dr. Harold W. Smith said hoarsely.

"I'll talk him out of it," Remo whispered. "Relax, Smith. What's that in your hand?"

Biue Smoke and Mirrors 27

Smith looked down at the measuring cup clutched in his hands as if seeing it for the first time. His knuckles were white. He relaxed. His pinched sixtyish features registered doubt.

"Er, oh, this. I told my wife I was going to borrow a cup of sugar."

"Smitty, you know we don't use sugar."

"It slipped my mind. Well, that isn't the real reason I've come. We have a situation on our hands. A very bizarre one."

"Pull up a chair, Smitty. You look pale. Paler than usual, I mean."

"Thank you," said Smith, taking a seat at the kitchen table. Remo and Chiun joined him. Chiun folded his hands on the table. His expression was impassive.

"I don't know how to tell you this," Smith began. "I don't believe it myself, but the President specifically requested that I bring you into this."

"He is very wise," Chiun said blandly. "And healthy, one trusts?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Chiun caught the Vice-President on TV," Remo remarked dryly.

"Youth is overvalued in this country," Chiun said. "It is another of its deficiencies."

"That is not our department," Smith said quickly. He stared into the glass measuring cup as if peering into his own grave. "We have a low-level crisis at a launch-control facility attached to the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. They have been plagued by a rash of unexplained thefts."

"Don't tell me someone lifted a warhead?" Remo said.

"No. But critical missile parts are missing. As are certain other . . . things."

"Which things, Emperor?" Chiun asked interestedly.

"Steaks. Blue jeans. Nonmilitary items such as those. The jeans disappeared from a secure building. The

28

steaks from a locked and watched freezer in that same building. It is impossible."

"We did not do it," Chiun said quickly.

"Master of Sinanju?" Smith said.

"When people whisper of the impossible, the name Sinanju always comes to mind first."

"I think I detect a commercial coming on," Remo groaned.

"Hush," Chiun admonished. He addressed Smith in deferential tones. "What you describe is not impossible. I could accomplish such things. Remo, too, on one of his more alert days."

"Thanks a lot," Remo said, folding his bare arms.

"But we did not. I assure you."

Smith nodded. "There's more. We have a witness to one of the thefts. An Air Force OSI agent named Robin Green. She saw the thief's feet-or what we presume are his boots. He wore what she describes as shining white boots."

"What else?"

"I am afraid that's all we have."

"Not very observant, is she?" Remo remarked.

"She was hiding under a bed at the time. When she got out, there was no one there. But in her official report she insists that she saw something disappear through a solid wall."

Remo's bored expression grew interested. "Is that so?"

"She . . . um . . . insisted it was a car battery."

"Stuff disappearing from locked rooms. Things flying through walls. It doesn't sound logical," Remo said.

"Yet these thefts have continued with impunity," Smith went on. "It's as if the thief has no fear of capture. He's never been clearly observed. He might as well be a ghost."

Remo grinned. "Well, we know that's out. We don't believe in ghosts, do we, Little Father?"

29

When the Master of Sinanju didn't reply, Remo turned and saw Chiun's grave face.

"Do we?" Remo repeated.

"We do," Chiun said flatly. His face was tight.

"Well, I don't," Remo snapped. "There are no such things as ghosts."

"How can you say that?" Chiun asked tartly. "You who have beheld the Great Wang with your own eyes."

"Great Wang?" Smith said blankly.

"It's not like it sounds," Remo said quickly. "Wang was the greatest Master in Sinanju history. He died a long time ago. But I met him once."

"Yes," Chiun said imperiously. "All Masters since Wang are not considered to have achieved full Master-hood until the spirit of Wang appears before them."

"Really, Remo?" Smith said, his voice level with interest. "You saw a ghost?"

"I never thought of him as a ghost," Remo replied uneasily. "It happened back during that business with the Russian superhypnotist, Rabinowitz. Remember? He had you going too."

Smith swallowed. "Yes," he said, wincing. The Russian could make himself appear to be a trusted person. To Smith, he had appeared in the form of his first-grade teacher, and Smith had accepted this even though Miss Ashford had been dead for years. It had been very embarassing.

"Wang appeared before me," Remo was saying. "I talked to him. We had a conversation. But he wasn't a ghost. He wasn't white, didn't wear a sheet or rattle chains. He was just a fat little guy with a happy face. It was kinda like having my long-lost Korean uncle drop by for a visit. He had a great sense of humor, as I recall."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," Remo barked. "Don't look at me like that, Smitty. I can't explain it, but it happened."

"I can," Chiun said sternly. "The spirits of past

30

Masters of Sinanju live on after their bodies. Sometimes they return to earth to communicate. Wang has been very conscientious about that. I saw him when I reached my peak. Remo has seen him. And Remo's pupil, if he ever fulfills his duty and sires a proper son, will see Wang. It is the way of Sinanju."

Smith blinked owlishly behind his rimless eyeglasses.

"I don't know what to say," he said at last. "I do not credit the existence of ghosts. Yet these incidents at Grand Forks defy explanation. Why would a ghost haunt a nuclear-missile grid? Why would he steal such a bizarre assortment of items?"

"Maybe it's a poltergeist," Remo said with a chuckle. "Do we believe in those, Little Father?"

"Possibly," Chiun said vaguely. "I am only acquainted with the habits of Korean spirits."

Smith cleared his throat. "The President wants you both to go to North Dakota immediately. Whether a human agency is at work or not, we feel only your abilities can solve this problem." Smith extracted a sheaf of thin papers from his gray coat and placed them on the table. "This is a copy of the official OSI report on the incidents, as well as precise instructions for entering the facility. Please commit them to memory and eat them."

Remo and Chiun looked up from the paper with blank expressions. Remo fingered the thin top sheet.

"Rice paper," Smith explained. "The ink is vegetable-based."

"No chance," Remo said.

"I will see that Remo chews them thoroughly before swallowing," the Master of Sinanju assured Harold Smith as he got up to leave.

"No freaking chance," Remo repeated.

On his way out the door, Smith remembered something.

"Oh, the sugar. I would have a hard time explaining this visit to my wife if I returned empty-handed."

31

"We don't have any sugar, remember?" Remo growled.

"How about some rice?" Chiun suggested hopefully. "Perhaps she will not notice the difference."

"Yes, yes. That will do."

"Excellent," Chiun said, hurrying to a wall cabinet, where he went through several tins. He selected one and brought it back. He poured out a cupful of long-grain white.

"Thank you, Master of Sinanju," Smith said when Chiun stopped pouring.

"That will be seventy-five cents," Chiun said, holding out his hand. "No checks."

"Oh, for crying out loud! Let him have the rice," Remo snapped.

"I would," Chiun said sadly, "but alas, I am only a poor assassin. I am not even as well paid as a base player of balls."

"Baseball player. Get it right."

"I am sure that Emperor Smith, for all his wisdom and wealth, will not take advantage of a poor old assassin who subsists on rice and rice alone," Chiun added.

"Oh, very well," Smith said huffily, digging out a red plastic change container. He angrily counted out seventy-five cents in coins. The expression on his face was that of a man donating his critical organs.

"One last thing," Smith said on his way out. "Robin Green will be your contact. You will have her full cooperation."

"Maybe she likes rice paper with vegetable-ink dressing," Remo said with a smug grin.

Smith's face sagged. "You wouldn't."

"It's her report," Remo pointed out.

Smith left without another word.

"Can you believe that guy?" Remo said after Smith had gone. "Thinking that we'd eat his silly reports."

When the Master of Sinanju didn't answer, Remo

32

turned. Chiun was silently chewing, his face interested. Remo noticed that a corner of the report in Chiun's hand was missing.

"Tasty?" Remo demanded, folding his arms.

Chiun ceased chewing. His Adam's apple bobbed once. An expression of dissatisfaction settled over his wrinkled features.

"It needs more ink," Chiun said, handing the report to Remo as he floated from the room.

3

Remo and Chiun drove to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, where they hitched a ride on a C-5B Galaxy cargo plane using a laminated photo ID card that identified Remo as Remo Leake, a retired Air Force captain. At North Dakota's Grand Forks Air Force Base, he produced another card that said he was Remo Overn, with the OSI. This enabled Remo to commandeer a jeep. As the Master of Sinanju watched with stiff mien and hands tucked into the linked sleeves of his blue-and-white ceremonial kimono, Remo transferred to the jeep the green-and-gold lacquered trunk that Chiun had insisted upon bringing along.

As they drove through flat North Dakota farmland, Remo broke the silence with a question:

"Is that a ceremonial robe?"

"Yes," Chiun replied tightly. His hazel eyes were agate hard. He wore a white stovepipe hat on his bald head.

"And that's not one of your usual wardrobe trunks, is it?"

"It is very special, for it contains equipment necessary for the task we face."

Remo almost braked the jeep. He swerved and kept on going.

"Hold the phone! Did you say 'equipment'? As in technology?"

33

34

"I did say 'equipment' because that is the closest English equivalent. I did not mean 'technology.' That was your word."

"If you're contemplating dismantling the U.S. nuclear deterrent while you're visiting," Remo warned, "I want you to know up front that Smith definitely would not appreciate it."

"I contemplate nothing of the kind," Chiun snapped. "And please concentrate on your driving. I wish to arrive intact."

Remo settled down to watching the road. They passed countless corn and barley fields, any of which, Remo knew, could conceal an underground launch facility and missile silo.

The access road was marked by a small sign. Remo drove the quarter-mile to the perimeter fence of Launch Control Facility Fox.

A sign on the fence proclaiming "PEACE is OUR PROFESSION" caused Chiun to snort derisively.

The guard in the box hit a buzzer to make the barbed-wire-topped fence roll open. Remo drove in, and presented the sergeant on duty with a card that identified him as Remo Verral, special investigator for the General Accounting Office.

"Trip number 334," Remo said, repeating the information Smith had given him. "Remo Verral and Mr. Chiun."

The sergeant checked his blotter and compared Remo's ID photo against his face twice. He nodded. Then he noticed Chiun's peacocklike kimono and the lacquered trunk.

"What's in the box?" he asked.

"None of your business," Chiun said haughtily.

"That's classified," Remo said in the same breath.

The sergeant looked at them stonily from under his white helmet, then glanced at the trunk again,

"I'll have to inspect it," he said.

"Do you value your hands?" Chiun warned, with-

35

drawing his long fingernails from his sleeves. They gleamed in the hard late-afternoon light.

"Look, pal," Remo said casually, "don't make a scene. We have clearance. You can run a metal detector along the box and trot out any sniffer dogs you have. But if he says you don't touch the box, you don't touch the box."

"I'll have to check this with my superiors."

"You do that. And while you're at it, send word to OSI Robin Green that we've arrived."

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant. He saluted just to be sure. He wasn't sure how much pull a GAO investigator had, but there was no sense taking any chances.

He came back from using the guard-box phone a moment later.

"You're free to pass, sir. Have a good day, sir."

The launch-control facility was a long concrete building. Aside from a smaller maintenance building in one corner, it was the only visible indication of a vast ICBM field that sprawled out to the borders of Canada and Minnesota.

"Before we go in," Remo told Chiun as he pulled up to the main building, "I gotta warn you. They're very touchy in installations like this. Don't antagonize them. Please. And above all, do not touch any buttons or levers or anything. You could single-handedly trigger World War III."

"Do not tell me about nuke-nuke madness," Chiun snapped as he stepped from the jeep. "I have been in these places before."

"That's right, you have, haven't you? Should I bring the trunk?"

"Later. We must examine the zones of disturbance first."

"Zones of-?"

Chiun raised an imperious hand. "Hold your questions. I will teach you the basics as we go along."

"You're the Master," Remo said.

36

They were met at the flight-security controller's officer by a bantamweight redhead with snapping blue eyes. Her eyes snapped even more when they alighted on Remo's T-shirted torso.

"You're Remo Verral?" she asked incredulously. She wore a regulation blue Air Force skirt uniform.

Remo pulled an ID card from his wallet, caught himself before handing over a laminated card identifying himself as Remo Hoppe, an FBI special agent, and gave her the GAO ID.

While Robin Green looked it over, Remo looked her over. He decided he liked what he saw.

Robin Green did not.

"I'm still waiting," she said hotly, "for someone to explain to me what the investigating arm of Congress is doing in the middle of an internal Air Force investigation."

Remo started to say, "Your guess is as good as mine," but decided he wanted to make a good impression. Instead he said, "This is a very, very serious matter." He hoped Robin Green wouldn't press the point. Remo didn't know squat about half the ID cards he carried. If Smith said to use one, he used it.

Robin's voice tightened. "The Department of Defense, I could understand. Or DARPA. Even CIA. But GAO?"

Remo thought fast.

"The material stolen was paid for by the taxpayers, right?"

"Well, yes," Robin Green said slowly. "So?"

"So Congress wants to know what happened."

"There's no rank on this card. You're civilian."

"Both of us," Remo said, tossing the ball into another court.

Robin Green turned to Chiun. The Master of Sinanju was looking her up and down critically. He walked behind her, as if examining her for flaws. He made a

37

complete circle of her, saying nothing, but frowning furiously.

"Oh, this is Chiun," Remo said. "He's with Korean Intelligence."

"Korean Intelligence!"

"It's too complicated to explain," Remo said, taking back the card. "He's a specialist on loan to us. Just take my word for it."

Robin considered. "I'm a dead duck if I don't produce results pronto. It took me three days just to convince them I wasn't on drugs. So I guess I should be grateful for whatever help I can get. How do you do?" she said, shaking Remo's hand. Remo held it a few seconds longer than necessary and Robin Green's tight expression softened. Remo smiled. She returned the smile uncertainly. Worry lines still haunted her eyes.

But when she went to reach for Chiun's hand, the Master of Sinanju presented her with his austere back. He pointedly examined a plaque on the wall.

"What's his problem?" Robin asked in an injured voice.

"Technical specialists are like that," Remo said. "Preoccupied."

Chiun turned suddenly. "I would like to see the zones of disturbance," he said in a formal voice.

"He means the theft areas," Remo said in response to Robin's baffled expression.

"All right. Follow me."

As Robin escorted them down a long corridor, Remo dropped back to have a word with Chiun. It gave him a chance to check out Robin Green's walk. It was a nice walk, considering that she was in uniform. There was the suggestion of a wiggle. Not many women wiggled when they walked, he thought approvingly.

"Why did you stiff her like that, Little Father?" Remo wanted to know.

38

"Do not trust her, Remo," Chiun hissed back. "She is an impostor."

"Her? She's Air Force Intelligence. Smith said so."

"An impostor," Chiun repeated firmly.

"If she's a fake," Remo said, watching her hips in motion, "then I'd be interested in meeting the real thing."

"She said her name is Robin," Chiun said coldly.

"Yeah. So?"

"Robins are red."

"Yeah."

"And her other name is Green."

"Yeah?"

"Robin Green. Obviously a fictitious name. It should be Robin Red."

"Or maybe Red Robin," Remo suggested lightly.

"I saw a Robin on television once," Chiun ruminated, stroking his beard. "He was a boy. He wore very nice clothes but also a mask. He followed a fat older man, whom I suspect of leading him into evil habits. He called himself a batman, but he did not carry one of your baseball bats. He dressed like the flying bat. Obviously delusional. Like this woman."

"Uh, I'm losing the chain of this logic. Besides, this Robin's a redheaad, in case you didn't notice."

Chiun dismissed Remo's comment with a wave. "A typical white misconception, like calling brown people black. Are you all color-blind? Her hair is orange, not red."

Remo threw up his hands. "I give up."

"Mark my words, Remo. She is a fake. Do not trust her."

"I'll keep it in mind," Remo said as Robin Green came to a halt before a padlocked door. She opened it with a passkey.

"This is the room," she told them, holding the door open for them to enter. Remo noticed that her hand,

39

resting on the knob, shook. She was still rattled by her experience.

Remo started to enter, but Chiun brushed past him.

"Polite, isn't he?" Robin remarked, arching an eyebrow.

"Don't let him fool you. He knows what he's doing. Maybe not what he's talking about all the time, but in his field, he's an expert. The expert."

As they watched, the Master of Sinanju padded back and forth. Remo noticed that the room was pleasant, more like a hotel room than military living quarters. There was even an air conditioner. It hadn't been like this in the Marines, Remo recalled ruefully.

"You! Female," Chiun said, suddenly turning on Robin Green.

Robin blinked. "Female?"

"Humor him," Remo whispered. "His wife was a real battleax."

"This was the room where you saw the feet of the apparition?" Chiun demanded.

"Yes. I was concealed under the bed. His feet were suddenly just . . . there. There was no sound. By the time I crawled out, he was gone."

Chiun knelt down to peer under the bed. He straightened up and examined Robin Green critically.

"I feel like a piece of meat," she whispered to Remo.

"Don't sweat it. He's a vegetarian."

"With those cowlike things," Chiun said, pointing with his long fingernails, "how did you fit?"

"What cowlike . . . ? Oh! Now, that's an impertinent question."

"I am conducting a serious investigation. Answer me."

"All right. Fine. I held my breath. Okay?"

Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed. "And the alleged car battery, where did you see it?"

"There. See the wall above the dresser? It went

40

through there. One minute it was plain as day, the next it was like a soap bubble. Just pop! And gone."

Chiun pushed the dresser set aside. It was solid maple and Robin Green was surprised at the frail Oriental's strength.

"He must eat a lot of spinach," she said wryly.

Chiun stoked the wall area with the palm of his hand.

"Here?" he demanded, turning his head.

"No, a little higher," Robin told him.

"Here?"

"I think so," Robin said slowly. Then, firmly: "Yes, there."

Chiun placed the flat of his hand to the wall. He closed his eyes and there was a long silence in the room.

"It is cool to the touch," he said, opening his eyes. "Cool, but not cold."

"I don't understand," Robin said.

"There is often a cold spot in hauntings such as this."

"Hauntings!" Robin exploded. "Wait a minute. I didn't say anything about ghosts." She turned on Remo, her eyes striking sparks. "I thought you said he was a technical consultant. What's this chickenshit about a haunting?"

"Process of elimination," Remo said quickly. "He's just eliminating a few of the less likely possibilities. He's very thorough. Honest."

"I don't believe in ghosts," Robin Green said firmly. "I never reported a ghost. I reported what I saw, nothing more, nothing less. I have a career with the Air Force, buster, and I'm not going to have my hard-earned clearances jerked because of some pint-sized Charlie Chan in a silk housedress."

"You are very excited for someone with nothing to hide," Chiun said levelly.

41

Robin Green turned to find that the tiny Korean was suddenly behind her.

"Look," she told him. "It took me three solid days of convincing before they let me continue this investigation. I had to pull strings like crazy, and I would never have agreed to outside help, but it was either compromise or die. I like the Air Force. I want to stay in it. I don't want to end up in a rubber room because my superiors think I've been seeing spooks."

"Remo, please tell this woman to lower her voice," Chiun said imperiously. "She is disturbing the delicate vibrations of this room." He turned on his heel.

The Master of Sinanju made a circuit of the room, sniffing the air delicately.

"This is scientific?" Robin Green asked Remo.

"He has the nose of a bloodhound," Remo answered. "What do you smell, Little Father?"

Chiun's button nose wrinkled up. "Tobacco smoke. It is ruining everything."

"This was Risko's room," Robin explained. "He was a smoker. Poor guy."

"Did he die?" Remo asked.

"Worse. They put him in charge of special projects and transferred him to Loring Air Force Base."

"That doesn't sound so terrible."

"Special-projects duty is reserved for launch-control officers weirded-out from being down in the hole too long and other emotional basket cases the Air Force is afraid to turn loose on the civilian population."

"Oh," Remo said, understanding.

"Pah!" Chiun said in disgust, joining them in the corridor. "Take me to the other places."

At the walk-in freezer, Robin Green calmly explained how, on four successive nights, she had sat in front of the big stainless-steel door waiting for the thief. "No one ever came near the place," she said. "That door was never opened, not even to inspect it during my watch. Yet steaks were missing each time."

42

Remo pulled on the freezer-door handle and looked in. The interior was like a refrigerator, except that a person could walk into it.

Robin Green took them to the rear, where the meats were racked. There were several thick steaks on a shelf.

"See?" she said, condensation coming from her mouth. "There's only one door. Only one way in or out. Yet somehow he-it . . . whoever-got in. And out again. It's purely impossible! How'd he pull it off, with blue smoke and mirrors?"

"Spirits do not smoke," Chiun muttered audibly as he stalked around the freezer, sniffing.

"Smell anything, Little Father?"

"No, it smells of dead animals. There is no live scent here."

"Never mind the scent," Robin Green spat. "What about getting in and out again? If there was ever a locked-room mystery in real life, this is it."

"This would pose no problem for a spirit," Chiun announced. "They are allowed to come and go as they desire. It is part of being a ghost."

"There he goes again," Robin said. She turned to Remo. "Look, you, tell me that this isn't going to turn into some kind of circus."

"Hey, don't talk to me, talk to him," Remo protested. "This is his show. I'm just an understudy."

"All right, you," Robin said, turning to Chiun. "Let's get this ghost thing out of the way right now. One: there is no such animal. No ghosts, no phantoms, no spooks, no specters or apparitions. Two: ghosts-even if they did exist-aren't substantial. They might be able to walk through a wall, but they sure can't lift a steak, any more than I could kiss a bear. And three: even if we allow for one and two, what would a ghost want with several porterhouse steaks, two pairs of size-thirty-two Calvin Klein stone-washed jeans, and an assortment of Minuteman missile parts ranging from

43

a complete guidance package to an arming and fusing system?"

Chiun paused, his mouth half-open. He shut it. He frowned.

"She's got you there, Chiun."

Chiun lifted his troubled features.

"Show me the place from which these parts disappeared."

"Come on," Robin Green said, stomping off. Remo followed at a decorous distance.

"She is very excitable," Chiun remarked.

"You're one to talk. And what do you think of what she said? A ghost wouldn't have any use for all that stuff."

"Korean ghosts, no. American ghosts, about which I am less conversant, may be a different matter. When my investigation is completed, I may be able to offer a correct and reasonable explanation for why an American ghost would have a need for such things."

"That alone might be worth the trip," Remo said with a chuckle.

But his chuckle died as they followed Robin Green down the corridor. A Klaxon suddenly broke into song. And suddenly the halls were filled with running uniforms and worried faces.

Robin broke into a run. She flung herself into the FSC's office.

"What is it? What's happening?" she demanded.

"Trouble at Fox-4. We got a cooking bird!"

"Oh, my God!"

She pushed past Remo and Chiun as if they weren't there.

"Come on, Chiun," Remo called. They followed her out of the building. She jumped behind the wheel of Remo's jeep and got the starter working.

Remo jumped into the passenger seat, and as the jeep screeched around, heading for the gate, Remo shot a look back and saw that Chiun was running after

44

them. He hopped aboard, and perched on top of his trunk. He clutched his stovepipe hat to keep it from blowing off.

"I suppose it's too much to hope you're not this excited because someone left a Thanksgiving turkey in the microwave too long?" Remo shouted.

Robin Green sent the jeep tearing through the gate. It rolled back just in time.

"A 'cooking bird' means that we've got a missile about to launch itself," she bit out.

"That's what I was afraid of," Remo said as rows of corn flashed past like fleeing multitudes.

4

The Minuteman III missile in the underground silo designated Fox-4 had been ANORS for two days.

Captain Caspar Auton couldn't have been happier. ANORS meant Assumed Non-operational. A computer in the underground launch facility indicated that the bird had developed a glitch. No one knew what the glitch was, but no one was worried. At any given time, five percent of American nuclear missiles were on either NORS or ANORS status-they were down or assumed to be nonoperational. It happened with a certain regularity because these devices were so complicated.

Captain Caspar Auton was launch-control officer for Fox-4. He wore the gold launch key around his neck. So did his status officer, Captain Estelle McCrone. She sat at a launch-status console identical to Auton's. It was only twelve feet away in the narrow equipment-packed room. They were paired together as part of the Air Force's new female integration program, in which women officers were paired with men wherever possible. Despite spending eight hours a day, three days a week with Captain McCrone, Auton barely knew her. Which was fine with him. She had a hatchet face and a body like a Bangladesh train wreck.

It wasn't that Auton had anything against ugly captains. It was just that he had no desire to spend his last minutes on earth in the company of one.

45

46

When the female integration program was first announced, the other male launch officers joked that when the time came, they would do their duty, then get down on the floor with their female officers and indulge in a quickie before being incinerated in their underground launch-control room.

In time of war, or when the balloon went up, as it was euphemistically known, it would be Captains Auton and McCrone's duty to remove their keys from around their necks, insert them into the paired consoles, and, after inputting the proper presidential launch codes, simultaneously turn the keys. This action would launch the Minuteman III in the nearby silo.

Today, receiving presidential authorization was far from Captain Auton's mind. He sat at his console doing crossword puzzles. He was on duty because even though the bird was ANORS, there was no way to confirm this until a technician looked it over. If a launch was called for, it was reasoned that there was no harm in attempting to launch the defective birds too. Nobody was going to be alive fifteen minutes after a first strike was called anyway. So what difference did it make?

But Captain Auton was nevertheless in a relaxed mood. He was trying to figure out a six-letter synonym for "frigid." With a mischievous smile, he penciled in the name "Estelle." The final E didn't fit, so he erased it and tried again.

He glanced over at Captain McCrone to see if she noticed his smile, when he saw her start suddenly. Her pinched face went white. Dead white. The blood seemed to go right out of it. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

Then Auton noticed that his status board had lit up.

"L-1-launch sequence initiated!" McCrone sputtered.

"Stay calm," Auton called over. "Remember your training. We get these from time to time. We'll go through standard launch-inhibit tasks."

47

Frantically Auton activated a timer. According to the loose-leaf operating manual that always lay open before him, when the timer completed its short cycle, the launch sequence would be overriden.

But when the rimer stopped, there was no change. The digital launch countdown was still going.

"Mine didn't take," Auton called hoarsely.

"Nothing's happening on my board either," McCrone said shrilly.

"Digiswitches! Let's go."

Flipping through his manual, Auton found the lockout codes, and with both hands reset ten small black thumb-wheel digiswitch knobs to the designated number sequences.

Nothing.

"I hope to hell you have some good news for me, McCrone," Auton said. "Because I got none for you."

"No," McCrone choked out. "What do we do?"

"Keep trying!" But Auton knew it was of no use. His board wasn't responding. The computer commands were just not taking. Somehow. Despite every fail-safe and backup. He picked up a phone handset and called the LCF.

"Situation, sir. We have a launch enable going here. We can't override."

"Keep trying," he was told. "We'll do what we can from here."

"He says keep trying," Captain Auton shouted, as he worked frantically. He couldn't understand it. His key was still around his neck. No codes had been entered. Yet the big bird was about to fly. A panel light lit up, indicating the silo roof was blowing back. She was going to fly for sure. And the last thing on Captain Auton's mind was rolling around on the floor with his status officer.

He was in a white staring panic.

The silo roof was a two-hundred-ton concrete form

48

set on dual steel tracks. Dynamite charges exploded, sending it shooting along those tracks as the jeep carrying Remo, Chiun, and OSI Special Agent Robin Green cleared the protective fence and bore down on the now-exposed silo in a swirling tunnel of dirt.

"The roof's blowing back!" Robin cried. She pressed down on the accelerator. The silo hatch slammed into the sandbag bulwark at the end of its short track, stopping cold.

"Shouldn't we be driving in the opposite direction?" Remo wondered aloud.

"Get ready to jump."

"What?"

"Jump! Now!" Robin cried.

"What are you going to do?"

"Just jump," Robin repeated. "Both of you!"

Remo started to turn around. "What do you think, Chiun?"

But Chiun wasn't there. Remo saw him alight in a puff of road dust. His lacquered trunk was floating down beside him. With quick movements Chiun grabbed it by one brass handle and spun like a top, redirecting its fall. It landed intact when Chiun eased it out of its orbit.

"Are you going to jump too?" Remo asked Robin.

"If I can. Now, go!"

"Suit yourself," Remo said, pushing himself out of his seat. He hung momentarily to the jeep body like a paratrooper about to hurl himself into space. In an instant, Remo's eyes read the speed of the ground moving under him, calculated the velocity with a formula that had nothing to do with mathematics, and flung himself into a ball. He spun in the air, and when he threw out his limbs, his left foot touched the ground, dug in, and Remo went cartwheeling like an acrobat. When his centrifugal force dissipated, Remo found himself standing on solid ground. He watched Robin Green send the jeep barreling toward the open silo.

49

Remo knew the missile lay just below the ground level, even if he couldn't see it.

The jeep raced for the silo rim. When it was on the verge of going in, and only then, Robin Green jumped.

The driverless jeep vaulted the rim, seemed to hang in the air, wheels spinning over the big circular maw, and flew like a brick. Straight down.

Remo flattened out and covered his head. He waited.

There was no explosion. The sound was more like a car crash. Then there was silence, except for the jeep's motor, which continued racing.

Remo looked back and saw that Chiun was anxiously examining his trunk. Robin Green had rolled into the shelter of an angled flame-deflector vent, and lay there with her arms clamped over her bright red hair. Presently she crawled to the silo and peered down.

"It's okay!" she called back to him.

She was on her feet and dusting off her blue uniform when Remo sauntered up to her.

He looked down into the silo. The jeep had struck the missle's white reentry vehicle and pushed it in like a punched nose. It was now wedged between the missile and the yellow silo walls, hung up on a tangle of black imbilical cables, its rear wheels spinning at high speed.

"That was pretty slick," Remo said admiringly as Robin shook dust from her hair.

"We do this all the time," she said distractedly.

"You do?"

"You'd be amazed how often we have near-launches."

"I sure would," Remo said, taking another look at the missile. It was huge. Downturned floodlights illuminated its entire length. "No chance it will launch?"

"They usually don't, but we can't take any chances. Normally we get here in time to drive a jeep or truck onto the roof hatch. The weight is enough to keep the hatch from blowing. The system is programmed not to

50

launch until the hatch clears. But this one went through the sequence pretty damn fast."

"Well, that's that," Remo said casually.

"Not really. We gotta find out what caused this. And we'd better get clear anyway."

"Why?"

"Just come on."

Remo shrugged, and followed her. As they walked away, the silo suddenly erupted.

Remo hit the dirt, taking Robin with him. He looked back and there was a boiling black worm of smoke emerging from the silo. The flash had been momentary.

"What the hell was that?" Remo asked, openmouthed.

"The jeep went up," Robin said laconically.

"As long as it was only the jeep," Remo said as he started to climb to his feet. He offered her his hand.

"And what's the idea of knocking me down like that?" she said, slapping Remo's hand away. She grabbed it after she struck him. "Owwwww! You're harder than you look, for such a skinny guy."

"Special diet," Remo said, grinning.

"Just keep your cotton-picking hands to yourself, okay? I'm a trained professional. I don't like doors being opened for me or any of that chickenshit. I pull my own weight."

"More than your own weight," Remo said sincerely.

"If that's some kind of sexist remark about my bosom, I'll have you know I had heard every breast joke ever created before I was fifteen. Twice."

"Hey." Remo said. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Sure, sure."

"No. Really. Honest."

"Save it for your report to Congress."

They approached the Master of Sinanju in awkward silence.

Chastened, Remo attempted to lighten the mood.

"Did you see what Robin just did, Little Father? She kept the missile from launching. Pretty brave, huh?"

51

"She is an imbecile," Chiun spat. "I nearly lost my trunk. It has been in my family since the days of Yui, my grandfather. Has she no respect for the property of others?"

"What did you want me to do?" Robin hurled back. "It was a nuclear emergency!"

"You might have stopped to let me off."

"There was no time!" Robin sputtered. "If that bird had gone up, the launch plume would have incinerated us all anyway."

"I am not interested in your lame excuses," Chiun retorted. "Remo, you will carry my trunk. Let us see what we can do to prevent further atrocities such as nearly happened here."

Robin Green watched the tiny Oriental walk huffily down the dusty access road, her mouth hanging Open. She shut it and put a question to Remo:

"Did he understand one iota of what almost happened here?"

"Probably. Who knows? One thing I've learned is to avoid arguing with him. I never win. You won't either."

"I'll take that as a challenge," Robin said, starting off after the Master of Sinanju.

"Wonderful," Remo muttered under his breath as he hoisted the big trunk across his thin shoulders. "I think all my troubles just went ballistic."

5

The Fox-4 silo could be reached from a fenced-off access hatch in the middle of an oat field. Robin Green led Remo and Chiun down this and into the underground Field Maintenance building. They had no special clearance to enter the silo itself. So while the necessary red tape was being cut, Robin left Remo and Chiun in the missile-parts storage area.

Chiun walked around the area, sniffing.

"I smell electricity," he said at last. He was puzzled.

"Sure. All this equipment," Remo pointed out.

"It is not clinging to these machine parts," Chiun said. "It hangs in the air. It is not right."

Then Robin returned to escort them to the underground launch facility through a pair of air-lock-like hatches, down a gleaming steel tunnel to the silo itself.

They gathered at the launch platform on which the big engine nozzle sat like a great silent bell. Gray-overalled AFSC maintenance teams swarmed around them. Remo was surprised at all the corrosion and water seepage. A rat scurried behind a cable. Above them, technicians worked on maintenance platforms, opening access panels and yanking umbilical cables. Far above, where daylight filtered down, the scorched jeep was being lifted free by a chain hoist.

A technician up on a high platform pulled his head from an access panel and called down:

52

53

"Everybody can relax. This bird isn't going anywhere. It's been gutted."

"What do you mean, gutted?" Robin Green called up.

"Just what I said. Gutted. Somebody pulled out all the firmware. It's just not here."

"Let me see that," she said, climbing up to the platform.

The technician handed her a flashlight. She shone it in through the hatch. The light picked out a mass of connections and mechanical devices. Tangles of flat connector cable hung slack, like detached hoses. Tooth-like prongs gleamed hungrily.

"See? All the BITE firmware has been yanked," the technician was saying.

"Just what is that? And use small words. I'm no expert."

"BITE stands for built-in test equipment. They're mostly ROM and PROM chips mounted on cards. They perform constant diagnostic tests of the bird's systems. This explains why she's been ANORS. But it doesn't explain how this stuff disappeared from a sealed missile."

"I want a list of every man who worked around this bird since it was loaded," Robin Green said angrily.

"That's four years' worth of duty rosters."

"Then you'd damn well better get started, hadn't you? And I want it by oh-six-hundred hours."

Robin joined Remo and Chiun below.

"You were pretty tough on him," Remo remarked.

"Don't let these hooters fool you," Robin snapped, cocking a thumb at her chest. "I'm all business."

An Air Force security policeman in camouflage fatigues and an olive-drab helmet emblazoned with the Strategic Air Command crest approached.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," he said. "The launch and status officers are being held for you in the LC, as per your request."

54

"Come on, you two."

Remo picked up Chiun's trunk. He tucked it under one arm, although it was obviously very heavy.

"I'm beginning to feel like the fifth wheel on this job," he complained.

"Just do not drop my trunk," Chiun sniffed, hurrying ahead of him.

In the launch-control room the launch officers nervously waited under the steely gaze of another SP in fatigues, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back. A technician was opening up one of the dual boards.

"Look," he said.

While the technician held a light steady, Robin Green examined the console's innards.

"What am I looking for?" she asked.

"The launch-inhibit module."

"Is that the boxy thing?"

"No. The launch-inhibit module is normally connected to the boxy thing. But it's not there."

Robin Green stood up. "Not there? As in missing?"

The technician nodded grimly. "Someone stole it," he said.

"Get me the duty roster of everyone who performed maintenance on this console."

"Not necessary. I was the last one to open her up."

"Do you remember the launch-inhibit module being there?"

"It was there two days ago. And I can guarantee you that no one's opened this console until a few minutes ago."

"How can you be certain?"

"Because it was the act of disconnecting the module that triggered the launch sequence."

"That means-"

"It was lifted in the last hour. Don't ask me how. Gremlins. Martians. Blue smoke and mirrors. Take your pick."

55

Chiun cocked an ear in the man's direction and his face grew more intent. He whispered something to Remo, who in response shook his head and hissed, "Not now."

"Where are the launch officers?" Robin shouted, turning around. "Step forward!"

Captains Auton and McCrone stepped forward sheepishly.

Robin Green shoved her flashlight into their faces. They fliched from its hard glare.

"Don't look away when I'm addressing you. Stand easy. I'm Green. OSI. Let's make this easier all the way around. You were both on duty. You sat twelve feet apart in full view of each other. Neither one of you could have lifted the module without collusion on the part of the other. Therefore, you're both guilty of theft and treason. Who wants to talk first?"

Captain Auton spoke up. "Ma'am, I had nothing to do with this. And I can vouch for Captain McCrone."

Robin frowned. "You!" she barked, switching the beam into Captain McCrone's dark eyes.

"Ma'am, I was sitting at my board, as was Captain Auton. The module may be missing from his console, but I can assure you that Captain Auton was at his post at all times."

"I see," Robin said tightly. "A pair of collaborators."

"Hold," Chiun said. "Allow me to speak with them."

"What good will that do?" Robin demanded hotly.

"I believe they speak the truth. I wish to verify this."

"And how do you propose to accomplish that?" Robin said, eyeing Chiun's scrawny arms as he shook them free of his sleeves.

"A simple interrogation," Chiun said blandly.

"That's up to OSI. This isn't your department." Robin turned to the stony-faced SP. "Guard, these two are not to interfere with my interrogation. Got that?"

56

The SP took a tentative step forward.

Chiun turned to Remo. "Remo."

"Gotcha, Little Father," Remo said, flashing an A-okay sign.

Remo stepped back and took the surprised guard by one wrist. He pivoted in place, sending the man slip-sliding out of the control room. Remo shut the door after him. The guard could be heard beating on the thick metal with his truncheon and blowing his whistle furiously.

"Go ahead, Little Father," Remo said calmly.

The Master of Sinanju stepped up to the trembling officers.

"Do not be afraid," he murmured. "I wish merely to speak with you. Will you answer one, possibly two, simple questions from a harmless old man?"

The pair hesitated, looking to Robin Green.

Robin shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Here," Chiun said, extending clawlike fingers. "Take my infirm old hand, if it will reassure you."

When the pair took Chiun's hand in theirs, they suddenly fell to their knees, faces twisting, their bodies writhing in agony.

"Speak now!" Chiun urged them. "Only the truth will stop the pain."

"I don't know anything! Really!" Auton howled.

McCrone shrilled that she knew nothing either.

Auton pointed out that they were locked in this control room. If either of them had lifted the module, it would still be here.

Chiun released their hands. He faced Robin Green and tucked his hands together solemnly.

"They speak the truth," he announced.

"Nonsense," she retorted.

"Check out their story, then," Remo suggested. "Have the place searched."

"I'll need the guard."

57

Remo released the door and the guard crashed in, his sidearm out and wavering between Remo and Chiun.

"Oh, put that away," Robin said in an annoyed tone.

When the SP hesitated, Remo relieved him of his helmet. He clamped it over the automatic and manipulated the helmet with swift finger strokes. The helmet rapidly compressed into a mashed ball that enveloped the guard's hand and weapon. The SP looked at it stupidly.

"How did you do that?" Robin Green wanted to know.

"Do what?" Remo asked casually.

"Oh, never mind," Robin said exasperatedly. She ordered the SP to go get his hand attended to.

The SP retreated from the room. Other SP's came, summoned by the first one's whistle. Robin ordered them to take apart every square inch of the room until they found the missing module.

After a three-hour search, no module turned up.

"I give up," Robin Green said morosely.

"Good," Chiun said. "Now it is my turn. Remo, the trunk."

"Over there, Little Father."

Chiun bent over his trunk and unlocked it with a brass key. He flung the lid back and came away with his hands full of what seemed to Remo like ceremonial objects.

As they watched in openmouthed amazement, the Master of Sinanju began to set crude candles at every corner of the control room. He lit them. Then he took three jars of colored fluids to the center of the room.

He poured a pinkish fluid in a dish in the middle of the floor and ignited it with one of the candles. Then he poured a blue fluid in a circle around the burning dish.

Robin Green held her nose against the stench that resulted. Remo simply keyed his breathing down so

58

that his nostrils filtered out the most disagreeable aspects of the smell.

"What on earth is he doing?" Robin asked Remo.

"Silence," Chiun commanded.

Then the Masters of Sinanju took up two bamboo sticks that were decorated with varicolored feathers and topped with silver bells. He began to stalk around the burning bowl and his voice rose from its usual squeaky pitch to a quavering howl that reminded Remo of a lovesick alley cat.

It reminded Robin Green of something entirely different.

"What is he doing?" she asked tartly. "A rain dance?"

Remo, who knew Korean, listened for a moment and offered what he called a loose translation.

"It sounds like he's saying something to the effect of 'Begone, spirits of the outer void. Return from whence you came. Leave this ridiculous missile and the unsavory steaks and garments to the living. There is nothing here for you.' Unquote."

"An exorcism!" Robin shrieked. "He's performing an exorcism on a nuclear facility! Oh, I'm not seeing this! I'm not hearing this."

"Hey," Remo said. "I said it was a loose translation. I might have gotten a few of the words wrong."

"Well, I'm putting a stop to this right now."

Robin Green started forward. Remo caught her by the waist.

"Uh-uh," he said. "Seriously."

"Let me go, you big goof. I have authority here."

"You may have authority, but not over him. Look."

The Master of Sinanju was now in a frenzy of motion. He ran from wall to wall, literally bouncing off them. Whenever he bounced, he struck the wall with one of the bamboo rods. He leapt into the air, twirling like a dervish. The silver bells jingled like sleigh bells. Chiun seemed to be using the rods to describe invisible circles in the air.

59

"There was a time when he was addicted to soap operas," Remo explained. "Nobody, but nobody, ever interfered with his daily viewing. A couple of times people did. I always had to dispose of the bodies."

"Bodies! Him?"

"Parts of bodies, actually. They looked like they had walked into a baling machine or something."

"Him?" Robin repeated incredulously.

"Trust me."

"That's ridiculous! He can't weigh more then ninety pounds."

"A black widow spider weighs even less."

"Well, I don't care. This is chickenshit. And it's got to stop."

At the sound of Robin's shouted words, Chiun suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"Thank you for reminding me," he said, going to the trunk. He returned with two jars of a dark ashy substance. He handed one to Robin.

"Since you are obviously familiar with this ritual, you may help," he said. "Dip your finger into the jar and anoint first your forehead, then every thing else in this room that is green. For they like green and use it to empower themselves."

"Green?" Robin croaked.

"Yes. Be certain to do your forehead first. It will protect you. Even if you are not truly green, but only named so."

"What is this" stuff?" Robin asked, bringing a smudge of it to her nostrils.

"It is the chicken stuff of which you spoke, of course," said Chiun, who then marched off and began smearing ash over every green status light and indicator on the twin consoles.

Robin Green's eyes widened in horror. "Chicken . . . ? He can't mean that this . . . This isn't... I mean ..."

"Search me," Remo said. "Guano isn't my area of

60

expertise. But maybe you'd better do as he says. You're starting to look a little green around the gills."

Robin didn't reply. Her expression was dazed.

At length Chiun finished his ministrations to the launch-control room.

"All done, Chiun?"

"No. I must do the missile too. I will do all the missiles so that the wicked ghost causes no accidental launchings."

"There are ten missiles attached to this LCF alone," Robin Green pointed out. "And fifteen LCF's in the grid. That's one hundred and fifty missile silos."

"I will start with this one. If necessary, I will do others."

"Better humor him," Remo said quickly. "The sooner we're done, the sooner we can get on with the real investigation."

"This is madness. But all right. Just let go of me."

"Huh?"

"You've still got your arms wrapped around my waist, buster. Or haven't you noticed?"

"Oh! Sorry," Remo said, his face reddening. "I just didn't want you to get hurt." He released her.

An hour later, the Master of Sinanju stepped back from the silo hatch to Fox-4. He surveyed the hatch from every angle. The entire surface was covered with arcane Korean symbols, daubed on in dried chicken guano. He had placed one of the feathered rods to the north of the silo and the other to the south. They tinkled in the breeze like wind chimes.

"Finally," he intoned, addressing a ring of security police, whom he had set to beating on their helmets because it frightened off certain kinds of spirits, "I declare this absurd contraption proof against spirits, demons, and other inhabitants of the outer void. You may all go about your business normally."

61

"I don't believe this," Robin Green groaned. "I'm going to be drummed out of OSI for this."

"Hey, who you gonna call?" Remo joked. When Robin Green gave him the benefit of the stoniest expression Remo had seen since visiting Mount Rush-more, Remo added, "But seriously, now that Chiun is satisfied, we can really go after this guy."

"How?"

"We know he likes steaks. Let's put a hook in one. Maybe he'll take the bait again."

"I already tried that. You know what happened."

"Did you ever wait for him inside the freezer?"

"No. I didn't dare. No one on the LCF knew I was OSI. If I got locked in, I could have frozen to death before anyone realized I was missing."

"I guarantee that I won't let that happen," Remo said, smiling broadly.

6

OSI Special Agent Robin Green shivered behind a hanging side of beef.

She clutched the white blanket around her more tightly. The blanket was white to help her blend in with the color of the butcher paper in which the assortment of pork chops, ribs, and other meats that occupied the upper shelves at the rear of the freezer were wrapped. She perched on the lowest shelf.

"I swear," she muttered, "after tonight, I'm never going to eat meat again."

"Did you say something?" Remo asked, sticking his head into the freezer. The overhead light came on automatically.

"Shut that door!" she scolded. "I was only talking to myself."

"Oops! Sorry," Remo said, shutting the door. The freezer went dark again.

How the hell did he hear me through that door? Robin thought. I spoke under my breath.

But that wasn't the most amazing thing she had seen Remo, or even Chiun, for that matter, do in the few hours she had known them.

If they were GAO, then Robin Green was PTA. But they had been cleared by the highest authorities. Robin had attempted to backtrack their clearance. The base commander at Grand Forks had informed her that it

62

63

came from the Pentagon. When she attempted to trace the specific office or service branch, she was informed that their clearance didn't originate in the Pentagon. The Pentagon was only a convenient conduit.

The last Robin Green had heard, the Pentagon was not an arm of the General Accounting Office. Hell, they were mortal enemies in the yearly battle of the budgets.

It didn't figure. But there they were, T-shirts, feathered wands, and everything.

As Robin's eyes readjusted to the darkness, she shifted again. Her head struck the shelf directly above, knocking over a rack of ribs. She looked to see if the displaced ribs exposed her to view. They didn't. She pulled the blanket about her more tightly.

When she looked up, the air was filled with a soft white glow, and even under her blanket she felt the hair on her arms rise like a million saluting insect antennae.

It was there. Right in the freezer. It glowed. Its back was to her. From head to toe it was a blurry white, like a fuzzy blanket with a light under it. Except that all over its body, golden veins showed. They swam with light. It was as if this thing had veins on the outside of its skin through which light instead of blood coursed. And on its back was slung a napsacklike thing, also white. It was open at the top, with two cables coming out of it like tentacles. They looped up to connectors in its shoulders.

It was manlike, Robin saw. It had two humanoid legs and two arms-although she couldn't quite see the arms clearly. It was bent over the steak rack. The back of its head was as smooth and white as an egg. Hairless, it lacked those golden veins.

Robin Green knew the white thing had not entered by the freezer door. It could not have gotten past Remo and Chiun. And even if it had, the light would have gone on automatically. And it had not.

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Unless . . . unless he had killed the electricity. No, that wasn't it, she realized. The compressors still hummed. But there was another sound. A crinkling. Rhythmic and brittle. It was like the slow crushing of stiff cellophane. It started suddenly, and Robin noticed that the fuzzy glow had faded. The white thing now resembled some glossy white creature. The golden veins had faded away. No, they were still there. But they were colorless now.

Then the apparition spoke.

Krahseevah!" it breathed.

Robin Green tried to speak. Nothing came out of her chattering mouth except cold condensation. She decided to scream.

But before she could summon up the breath for a really good yell, the apparition turned.

And then Robin Green saw the creature's profile.

It was featureless. It stuck out like a white blister. Her scream died in her throat. As she watched, the blister contracted, and Robin knew that was the source of the crinkling sound. Inhale. Crinkle. Exhale. Blister. Inhale. Crinkle. Exhale. Blister.

Every time it took in air, the blister crinkled inward. Then it ballooned out. It was breathing somehow. It was breathing even though it didn't have a nose or mouth or eyes or anything. Just a smooth featureless blister that expanded and collapsed like some gruesome external lung.

It was too much for Robin Green. She covered her head with the blanket and started screaming.

"He's here! In here! He's here!" Robin shouted.

The light went on. The door opened and Remo and Chiun were suddenly in the freezer. Robin shook the blanket off and jumped from her hiding place.

"Where?" Remo demanded, looking around.

"Right there!"

Robin pointed to the rear of the freezer.

"I don't see anything," Remo said.

65

"Damn! He flew the coop again!"

Chiun approached the wall, tapping it with his long fingernails. "He disappeared through this wall?" he demanded.

"I think so! What took you so damn long?"

"We were here before you finished screaming," Remo insisted.

"I did not scream," Robin said defensively. "I called for help."

"Sounded like a scream to me."

"You are such a chauvinist jerk, you know that?" Robin shouted, clutching herself. She shivered uncontrollably.

"Remo, do you smell it?" Chiun asked suddenly.

Remo sniffed the air.

"Yeah. Electricity. It's very strong."

Robin Green sniffed the air too. It smelled cold to her. Like old ice cubes.

"I don't smell anything," she said.

"There are four steaks missing," Remo said, examining the steak shelf. "The four biggest, thickest, juiciest, most succulent-"

"Remo!" Chiun admonished.

"Sorry," Remo said. "I haven't had a steak in years and years. You miss little things like that."

"Well, don't just stand there," Robin snapped. "He went through that wall. Maybe we can still catch him."

"Yes, for once this loud female is correct, Remo," Chiun said. "We will search."

They searched the entire launch-control facility. The post went to full alert. No trace of a white-skinned manlike creature with external golden veins was found.

"He must have left the facility," Robin suggested at last.

"We can split up," Remo suggested. "There's a lot of ground to cover. But we can make good time if everyone pitches in."

"Not necessary," she barked suddenly. "Come on."

66

Remo followed her out to the LCF perimeter. A green Air Force Bell Ranger helicopter was settling to the ground. A major stepped out, clutching his cap against the prop wash.

Robin ran up to him and said, "Major, I'm commandeering your chopper."

The major began to bluster, but Robin flashed her OSI card and he subsided.

Robin waved Remo and Chiun into the helicopter.

"Step out, airman," Robin told the pilot. "I'm rated for one of these birds."

The pilot hastily got out of the way while Robin seized the controls. She tested the cyclic control and worked the directional-control pedals while Remo and Chiun climbed aboard. The helicopter lifted off like an angry buzz saw.

"You handled that major like you outranked him," Remo said over the turbine noise. "Do you?"

"No," Robin said tartly, "but he doesn't know that."

"Oh, It's getting dark. Think we can find our phantom?"

"He was all white and he glowed. He should be easy to spot," Robin explained over the rotor churn.

"I hate to break this to you," Remo said. "But Chiun and I didn't see or hear a thing."

"He spoke. You didn't hear that?"

Remo frowned. "What did he say?"

"It sounded like 'graseeva' or something."

"I thought that was you," Remo said.

"Me? Why would I say something like that?"

"That's what I wondered. I figured maybe you were muttering under your breath again."

"You know, if you'd acted when you heard that, you'd have been in time to catch him."

"And if it was only you, you'd have bitten my head off."

Robin Green was silent for a long while as she canted the Bell Ranger in spiraling circles.

67

"You're right," she said finally in a quiet voice. "I'm sorry. There was something else. Something I'm almost afraid to mention."

"What's that?"

"Remember the car battery I saw go through the wall the day the jeans were stolen? Well, I just saw it again. It was strapped to the thing's back."

"Really?"

"That's not the strange part. It had a brand name on it. It was a Sears car battery."

Remo looked at Robin Green's tense profile.

"Don't look at me like that," she said tightly.

"I wonder," Chiun mused from the back of the helicopter.

"What's that, Little Father?"

"Why would an American ghost be speaking Russian?"

Remo and Robin exchanged glances.

But before either of them could ask the Master of Sinanju what he meant by that remark, Robin Green's voice lifted.

"There!" she called, pointing down. "There in that field. See? He's running."

A tiny white figure darted between rows of corn. It shone faintly, like a glow-in-the-dark light switch seen from a distance. It made for a solitary tree and popped behind it. It didn't come out again.

"Must be taking a leak," Remo remarked.

"I'm going to set her down," Robin warned them "Get on the horn and call for support."

"Glad to," Remo said, reaching for the radio. "Just tell me how to work this thing."

"Never mind," Robin said dismally as she settled the helicopter down toward the rippling grass.

7

"He's got to be up there," Robin Green said worriedly, shining a flashlight up into the thick tangle of oak branches. She held her automatic in the other hand. It was cocked and aimed upward.

The helicopter sat only a hundred yards away, its rotors whirling quietly. The lazy backwash stirred the leaves and her short red hair.

Remo stared up into the tree. "I don't see anyone," he said. "How about you, Chiun?"

Chiun walked around the thick tree bole, his parchment lips compressed in concentration. "No," he admitted.

"Well, we know he ducked behind this tree," Robin said peevishly. "I saw him. We all saw him."

"Guess so," Remo said vaguely.

"Possibly," Chiun remarked. His hazel eyes were intent on the ground.

"This is the only tree on this field," Robin said. When no one replied, she went on: "Look, let's approach this rationally. We saw him go behind the tree. He's not behind the tree. Okay. But we know he didn't run away from the tree, otherwise we would have spotted him. Ergo, he's up the tree."

"If he were up there, he would glow," Remo pointed out. "We'd see him."

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"One of us should go up there to make sure," Robin suggested.

"Waste of time," Remo said, looking around the field.

"Then I'll go," Robin said, tucking her light into her belt. She uncocked her automatic and bolstered it. Then she shinnied up the thick bole until she got hold of a solid branch, and levered herself into the crotch of a limb. She pulled out her flashlight, shining it this way and that.

"I take back what I said about that one," Chiun told Remo as they watched her throw light around.

"What do you mean?"

"She is correctly named. She refers to everything, whether it is an atomic missile or a helicopter, as a bird. Now she is demonstrating that she is perfectly at home perched on a tree branch. She is indeed a robin, even is she is not truly green."

"I'm sure she'll be thrilled to hear that, Little Father." Remo cupped his hands to his mouth. "See anything?" he called up.

Robin Green peered down through the thickening dusk.

"No," she said wonderingly. "I don't understand this. We all saw him go behind this very tree. But there are no footprints leading away."

"And there are none leading to it," Chiun pointed out. "Except our own."

"What?" Robin Green scrambled down the tree, agile as a monkey.

"Damn these jugs," she said, fixing her blouse. "My buttons came loose while I was up there. You'd think the Air Force would design their uniforms to take the full-figured woman into account." She looked up. "Well, you don't have to stare."

"I was not staring," Chiun said indignantly.

"I meant him," Robin retorted, indicating Remo,

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who then pretended to look away. "I'll never fathom the American male fascination with boobs."

"Like attracting like," Chiun muttered. Remo shot him a withering glance.

"Now, what's this about no footprints?" Robin demanded, once more presentable.

"Behold," Chiun said, pointing to the dusty earth. The tree was surrounded by the patchwork of many feet.

"This is mine," Robin said, kicking at one set of prints."

"And these are mine," Chiun said, pressing his sandal into a delicate footprint. It fitted perfectly. "And these ridiculously large ones are Remo's, of course," Chiun added.

"No, some of them must belong to that thing," Robin countered. "We all saw him come this way. You, Remo, come with me. We'll do a process of elimination."

"Why me, Lord?" Remo asked the heavens. But he allowed Robin to lead him around the tree. Each time he stepped into one of the large footprints, it fitted. And Robin then would erase it with the heel of her boot.

When they were done, all that remained were her footprints and those of the Master of Sinanju. And a string of tracks belonging to all three leading back to the helicopter.

"No strange footprints coming. No footprints going away," Robin moaned. "How am I going to explain this? How the hell am I going to write this up? They already have a psychiatric notation in my files from the other day."

"Look, we're wasting time here," Remo pointed out. "Obviously he got away. Let's get upstairs again. Maybe we can spot him from the air."

"No. No. He came to this tree. He's still here. I don't care if he is a ghost and doesn't leave footprints. This is wide-open space. We would have seen him

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running off. He's somewhere around this damn tree. We just have to figure out where."

"Okay, tell me where to start looking and I will," Remo said.

"I don't know," Robin moaned unhappily.

At that moment a dusty station wagon pulled up. A farmer in overalls cranked down the window and put his seamed face out.

"Something wrong here, folks?" he drawled.

"Do you own this field?" Robin asked him.

"All but what the government took for their dang silo."

"Then I'm sorry. But I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Robin told him. "This is an official Air Force investigation. You'll be notified of the seizure."

"What seizure? What are you seizing?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate this tree in the name of the U.S. Air Force."

"That there tree? What's it done?"

"That's classified. Now, could you please be on your way?"

The farmer stared at them. His eyes went to Robin, then to Remo, and finally to Chiun, who stood magnificent in his blue-and-white silk kimono.

"I'm gonna have to check on this, you know," he said, putting the station wagon into reverse.

After he was gone, Remo had what he thought was a reasonable question.

"How do you confiscate a tree?"

"With chain saw and winches," Robin retorted. "Now, excuse me while I radio for equipment." She started walking back to the helicopter.

The ground shook suddenly. She whirled.

"What the hell?" she blurted, beholding a curious sight. Remo was on one side of the tree, Chiun on the other. Remo kicked at the base of the tree. It shuddered violently. Remo's foot left a distinctly noticeable dent. Then Chiun kicked at the opposite side. He

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kicked a little higher than Remo had. About a foot higher. His delicate sandals left a dent too. Then Remo kicked again.

As Robin Green watched with her mouth going slowly from merely parted to wide open, they switched off until the tree was poised on a thickness no larger than a strong man's thigh.

Remo stepped back and the Master of Sinanju pressed his hand against the tree. It snapped with a thunderous sound.

"Timberrr!" Remo shouted. He was grinning. It was the grin of a happy idiot, Robin thought. The show-off. Then her eyes flicked from Remo's too-wide grin to the space where the tree no longer stood.

Standing there, its feet sunk into the stump like some kind of life-sized Oscar statuette, was the thing.

"There it is!" Robin screeched. "There's the bastard!"

Remo's grin vanished. He turned.

And he saw it too. Tall as a man, a fuzzy glowing white and covered with moving streams of golden light. Its face was a bubble that collapsed and expanded even as they focused on it.

Then, carefully, silently, the thing stepped out from the stump and stalked away.

Chiun reacted first. He leaped for it, one foot extended in an attack thrust.

Remo saw the impossible. His skirts flaring, the Master of Sinanju was descending in a Heron Drop maneuver. He was going to take the thing's head right off. But when his foot seemed about to make contact, the thing continued running, oblivious of Chiun's lightning kick.

Chiun hit the ground in a ball. He snapped to his feet, his cheeks puffed out in fury.

Remo flashed past him. Chiun, racing, caught up with Remo.

"He is mine," Chiun hissed explosively.

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"You missed. How could you miss?" Remo demanded. "You never miss."

"I did not miss. My foot touched him. But there was no substance to receive the biow."

"Yeah? Watch this," Remo said. He pulled out in front of Chiun. He was gaining ground on the thing, who might not leave footprints in loose dirt, but was no sprinter. It clumped along like it had flat feet.

Remo recognized the battery on its back. White cables led from it to the creature's shoulders. As Remo gained ground, the thing turned its head to see its pursuers, and Remo saw again that weird bubble of a face, soundlessly expanding and contracting like a bladder.

The white thing tried to zigzag. But its movements, for all their eerie silence, were awkward.

Remo zipped out in front of him. The creature dodged clumsily. Remo was too quick. He wrapped his arms around its waist.

"Got him!" he shouted.

But Remo's elation was momentary. He realized he hadn't connected, and the force of his leap was carrying him through and beyond the thing. Remo recovered and tried again.

The thing weaved. Remo was quicker. He tried to swat its head. The blow kept on going. Remo felt no contact. No nothing. It was like grabbing at smoke- except smoke could be disturbed or dispelled. The creature simply kept moving.

Then the thing stopped still. It folded its arms. Tucked in the crook of one arm were two steaks wrapped in butcher paper.

Chiun caught up. He took a position on one side of it, Remo on the other.

"Care to try again?" Remo asked.

"Yes. I owe this vile thing retribution for the humiliation of my fall."

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"Good luck. I don't think you're going to accomplish much."

The Master of Sinanju circled the white thing warily, like a hunter before a sleeping beast. He feinted with a hand. The thing's featureless head flinched.

"Hah!" Chiun exulted. "This monstrosity fears harm. It can know pain. And if it knows pain, we need only find its weak points."

But when the Master of Sinanju attempted to knock the thing's feet out from under it, it simple stood there like a pillar of wan light. Chiun kicked again. He kicked a third time. All to no effect.

In frustration, the Master of Sinanju left off his careful circling. He stepped up to the thing and methodically tried to kick it in the shins, alternating left and right shins. He looked like a fussy little hen scratching at gravel.

The creature just stood there in silence, its blister face working noiselessly. Remo timed the contractions. They corresponded to a normal human respiration cycle. A tight smile warped his mouth. It was human enough to breathe, at least.

Remo tried a rear approach. He put his hands into the battery. They disappeared as if into milk. Remo kept his hands in there. He felt no sensations. Neither heat nor cold. There was no sound or discernible vibration. Only steady clods of dirt passing through the creature's form to land on Remo's Italian loafers.

Remo stepped around to the front.

"Might as well give up, Little Father," he told Chiun. "You're not going to make an impression on this guy."

"And what would you have me do?" Chiun said, still kicking up dirt.

"I don't know. But for once, let's try to figure this out calmly."

"I am calm," Chiun insisted as he tried to crush the

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thing's toes with repeated stamping motions. All that he accomplished was to shake the ground.

Remo examined the thing from the front. He saw that its entire body was enveloped in some luminous material. It seemed to shine from within. Remo looked closer. The golden traceries, he saw, were less like a web than veins. They suggested circuitry. Remo saw junctures at several spots. The hands were encased in what Remo saw were white gloves, and the feet in white boots. Remo noticed that the boots had unusually thick soles. The creature appeared to be about five-foot-five-but three inches of that was boot sole.

Then Remo noticed a rheostat on the thing's lower stomach. About where a belt buckle would be. Remo blinked. It was attached to a belt after all. A white one. For some reason, the belt's edges were indistinct, just like the outlines of the creature. It all blended in.

"Chiun, look at him closer. Do you have trouble with your eyes?"

"My eyes are perfect," Chiun snapped. But when he stared at the creature, he had to look away. He batted his hazel eyes and looked again.

"This creature is attempting to trick my eyes," Chiun said, kicking at it again.

"Hmmmm," Remo said. He put his hand over the thing's face. The. head retreated a little, but only a little. Remo passed his hands up and down before the blister, testing it. The blank face moved up and down, following Remo's gestures.

"I think it can see us."

"Of course," Chiun said testily. "It is not blind. How could it know to hide within a tree if it could not see?"

"But it doesn't have any face-that I can see," Remo added. He looked at the head more closely.

"Do not bother me with trivial details," Chiun spat. He puffed out his cheeks and blew gusty breaths at the creature, as if trying to blow out a candle. His mighty

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efforts made his face redden, but otherwise had no effect.

Remo stared. The blister was opaque. He could not see into it. He wondered what the thing thought it was doing by just standing there. Before, it had run. Was it taunting them now? Remo pretended to draw back, but on a hunch, sent his fist crashing for the face.

The creature quailed as if struck a mortal blow. But it shook its head and resumed its defiant stance.

Remo took Chiun aside.

"We can see it. But we can't touch it."

"There is no scent either."

"Look, I know it seems spooky, but I don't think it's a ghost."

"Of course it is not a ghost. Remo, do not be ridiculous. Ghosts do not look like that thing. It is electrical."

"That's my conclusion. So what do we do?"

"Let us attempt to communicate with it," Chiun said, girding his kimono skirts and marching back to the waiting creature.

"Why don't you let me try?" Remo offered. "You're pretty upset, I can tell."

"Can you speak fluent Russian?"

"You know I can't."

"Then this is my task. For I speak excellent Russian, as does this creature."

"How do you know that?"

"The word it spoke on two occasions," Chiun said. "Krahseevah. It is Russian for 'beautiful.' "

"Beautiful? Beautiful what?"

"Simply 'beautiful.' Like a sunset or an Ung poem. It is an exclamation of appreciation."

As they approached the creature, a red light suddenly glowed in the center of its belt rheostat. It lit up like a resentful red eye.

The creature looked down. It started. Abruptly it

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turned and clumped off stiff-leggedly. It waved its arms as if on fire.

"Come on," Remo shouted.

They overhauled the creature easily. They kept pace with it. Every so often, Chiun reached out in a futile attempt to grab it. Remo simply kept pace. The bulbous face continually bent down to the glow from the rheostat buckle.

"I got a hunch about this," Remo called.

The creature dodged toward a stand of trees by the side of a road.

"Damn," Remo said. "Once he's in those trees, he's going to pull one of those vanishing acts of his."

"If you are so concerned about that," Chiun said querulously, "then you attempt to stop him. I am the one doing all the work."

"Where the hell is Robin, I wonder?" Remo asked, looking over his shoulder.

He saw the helicopter almost as soon as he heard the wop-wop-wop of its rotor. It was Robin. She was bearing down on them, the chopper's skids skimming the nap of the ground.

"Don't look now, Chiun, but Robin's got her feathers in an uproar," Remo shouted. "Better duck!"

Remo hit the ground. Chiun danced out of the way as the helicopter, twisting like an angry wasp, swept overhead. It went through the running creature and lifted just clear of the trees.

When it circled back, there was no sign of the creature. There was only the shadow-clotted stand of trees.

The helicopter circled angrily. Then, as if relenting, it settled to the ground.

"It's in that bunch of trees," Remo said, opening the door.

Robin sat staring through the Plexiglas bubble.

"Robin?"

"I went right through him," she choked. "He went through me. I didn't feel anything. He was inside this

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helicopter. Then he was gone. It was like he wasn't real."

"Why don't you just come out?" Rerao said solicitously. "We'll talk about it."

He reached out to take her arm. She wouldn't budge.

"He is a ghost, isn't he? An actual ghost."

"No," Remo said. "He's no ghost. Come on out and I'll try to explain it to you."

"I never used to believe in ghosts," Robin said in a stunned voice. "They didn't fit into my world. They're not in the regs."

8

When Robin Green was collected enough to step from the Bell Ranger helicopter, Remo patiently explained what he and Chiun had witnessed.

"So you see," Remo finished quietly, "he can't be a ghost. Ghosts don't run around with battery packs strapped to their backs."

Robin shuddered visibly. "I went through him," she moaned. "It was as if he was laughing at me. And that unnatural white face!"

"All white faces are unnatural," Chiun said under his breath. He was staring into the silent trees.

"Do you mind?" Remo said. Turning to Robin again, he took her by the shoulders. He looked her square in the eye. "Come on, get a grip on yourself. That was no ghost. Just because we can't explain it doesn't mean we have to be afraid of it."

Robin looked up. Her blue eyes were miserable.

"I don't know how to feel about this anymore," she said, her voice hollow. Her lower lip trembled uncontrollably.

"Join the club. But if we're going to deal with this, we're going to have to do it rationally. Even Chiun doesn't believe it's a ghost anymore. He says it's Russian."

"Russian?" Robin said sharply.

"That word, krahseevah" Remo explained. "It's Russian. It means 'beautiful.' "

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"He said that when he saw the jeans," Robin said slowly. "And the steaks."

"Then he is definitely a Russian," Chiun announced. "Only a Russian would become excited over American blue jeans." He kept his narrow eyes on the trees.

"Hah! There! Did you see?" he demanded, pointing.

Remo's head snapped around. He saw a ghostly white light slip between two trees.

"Okay," Remo said decisively. "He's on the move again. My guess is he'll try to confuse us with the old shell game. Instead of which shell is the pea under, it'll be which tree is the Krahseevah hiding in."

"Krahseevah?" Chiun and Robin said in unison.

"Anybody got a better name for it?" Remo wanted to know.

No one did. Swiftly Remo explained his plan.

"Robin. You get up in the air. I think our Krahseevah is in trouble. Chiun and I will try to flush him out of the trees. See if you can spot him when he tries to leave. When you get a fix, we'll just hop on and follow him."

"What good will that do?" Robin asked doubtfully. "You know we can't touch him. How can we catch him?"

Remo kept an eye on the tree the Krahseevah had entered as he answered. "It's like this," he said. "It knows we can't touch it, yet when we chased it, it stopped dead and let us prove that for ourselves. It could have kept on going. But I think it wanted to discourage us. Maybe it figured if we realized it was beyond our reach, we wouldn't bother to follow it."

"It is protecting something," Chiun said quickly. "A lair, perhaps."

"Exactly," Remo returned. "And if it's trying to get to a special place, maybe we can trap it there. Somehow."

"A sound plan," Chiun said. "Let us execute it."

"Are you with us on this?" Remo asked Robin.

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Robin Green stuck out her chin decisively. "I'm going to clip this bird's wings," she said. "You just watch me."

She ran to the helicopter and sent it into the air. She circled methodically.

Remo turned to Chiun. "Okay, know which tree he went behind?"

"Of course."

"Good. Go for it. I'll circle in from the other side. I have a hunch he won't stay inside very long. Maybe he can't. Let's see what develops."

Remo slipped around the edge of the stand. Then he plunged in. He moved quietly, making less sound than a stalking cat. His deep-set brown eyes adjusted to what was now pitch blackness. He would not need his night vision to spot the glowing Krahseevah, but it helped to avoid ground roots and rocks. The Krahseevah might be as stealthy as Sinanju, but Remo guessed it could hear, even if it didn't have external ears.

He came up on a great box elder. Chiun stood guard over it.

Chiun laid a finger to his lips as a signal for Remo to be silent.

Remo nodded. He pointed to the tree. Chiun nodded firmly.

They waited. After ten minutes, Remo began to have doubts. His idea was to surround the tree so they were ready when the thing made its next move. He looked around. He picked a fortunate time to look around. About thirty yards distant, a faint glow appeared on the trunk of a great elm. It was like a luminous fungus.

"Over there," Remo said, waving Chiun along.

The luminous spot quickly withdrew.

When they got to the tree, they surrounded it.

"What did you see?" Chiun demanded hotly.

"It stuck its face out of the bark," Remo whispered. "Right . . . about . . . here." He tapped the spot.

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Chiun peered intently. "You are certain?"

"One way to find out."

It was a relatively old tree, so Remo simply attacked it with the hard edge of his hand. He hammered away, each blow splitting off chunks of bark and pale wood.

The trunk keeled over with splintering finality. Remo was set to react instantly to what was revealed. To his surprise, there was only emptiness where the elm had stood.

"Damn!" Remo said. "He must have slipped out the back."

Chiun's eyes raked the surroundings. "That one," he announced. He flounced to a nearby oak. He approached it angrily. With a single fingernail he split the trunk down the center. It separated, falling in two equal halves.

But the Krahseevah was not inside that tree either.

"Now what do we do?" Remo asked, looking around at the ranks of trees. "We can't chop them all down."

"Why not?" Chiun demanded, attacking another oak. It fell with a thunderclap of sound.

"Because that farmer we met probably owns this grove. Probably makes his living off them. Farmers have it tough enough these days. Hey! Over there," Remo suddenly spat out.

They saw the Krahseevah slip between two distant trees like a will-o'-the-wisp. It melted into an oak.

They attacked the oak with furious energy. It was dying, the roots and limbs rotten. Their blows shook it, but the wood was soft-so soft that the oak simply shed chips instead of toppling. It took them nearly five minutes of hand-and-foot chipping to reduce the dying tree to a ragged broken stump.

Still no Krahseevah.

"This could go on all night," Remo groaned.

"Better that we split up," Chiun suggested. "We will have a greater chance of finding it."

They went their separate ways. Above their heads,

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Robin's helicopter circled and circled. Then the rotor sound began to miss and sputter.

"Uh-oh," Remo said. He went up an elm and watched as the helicopter settled to earth. Robin flew out of it. She fell to kicking the helicopter's snout in frustration.

"Everyone's in a bad mood tonight," he said, coming down from the branches.

When Robin Green got tired of abusing the helicopter, she approached the trees. Remo glided up behind her.

"Boo!" he said gently.

She turned on him, her face angry. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry. Run out of gas?"

Robin nodded. "I radioed for a jeep. We're not licked yet."

"Let's hope. We spotted it a bunch of times. But it's slippery."

"They're bringing chain saws too."

"Don't you think you're taking this to extremes? Somebody went to a lot of trouble to plant these trees a long time before we were born."

"A tree is just a tree. But national security is forever. Besides, this is just a shelterbelt. It's here to keep snowdrifts off the silo-access roads."

"Just so I'm not the one being sued. Let's go find Chiun."

They found Chiun stalking the shelterbelt like an angry tiger. He was not happy, and looked it.

"I think the Russian is gone," Chiun said sourly.

"What makes you say that, Little Father?" Remo asked.

"I have kept a sharp watch. I have seen no glowing lights. I think he has left this place."

"If he has, then we've really lost him," Robin said morosely.

"Might as well wait for the jeep," Remo ventured. "We're not going anyplace without it."

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When the jeep pulled up, driven by an SP wearing fatigues and a blue beret, Robin Green ran to meet it. She rooted around in the back and then glared in the driver's freckled face.

"What's this?" she shouted, pointing back. "One miserable chain saw?"

"It's all I could find," the SP said. "The Air Force doesn't fight many forests."

"Watch your mouth, airman," Robin snapped, yanking the chain saw up onto her shoulder.

"Go easy on him," Remo said. "He's just trying to help. And what happened to the scared little girl of a few minutes ago?"

"I was not scared," Robin insisted. "I was thrown off my stride."

"Whatever. Look, as I said before, we're not going to get anywhere running in all directions at once and screaming at the top of our lungs. Forget the chain saw. It would take all night to cut every one of these trees down. And I think Chiun is right. It slipped away. Once we lost the helicopter, it must have known it could make a break for it unseen. It did. Let's try to pick up the trail."

"Where, genius? Where do we start?"

"Yes, genius," Chiun inserted. "Where should we start? It is a large state."

Remo turned to the driver. "Buddy, where's the nearest gas station?"

"Civilization or Mogas?"

"What's Mogas?"

"Military gas depot. We got one at Grand Forks."

"He wouldn't go there," Remo mused aloud. "Civilization."

"About five miles north of here."

"Good," Remo said, hopping into the passenger seat. "Take us there."

When Robin and Chiun hesitated, Remo said, "Shake a leg. We haven't got all night."

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They piled in the back. Chiun threw the chain saw over the side, claiming that he needed to make room for himself, but actually he wanted to get rid of the detested smell of oil.

"Why, pray tell, are we going to a gas station?" Robin asked as they flew down the road.

"Yes, Remo. Pray tell, why?" Chiun demanded.

"How did you end up on her side?" Remo asked Chiun. "Never mind. Look, the Krahseevah acted pretty cocky when we first cornered it. Then that red light went on and it took off like it had ants in its pants. I think that light meant that its battery was going. My guess is that it's going to get it recharged."

"Oh, that's absurd," Robin snorted.

"You have a better theory?"

Robin lapsed into sullen silence. The rushing air threw her red hair around as the jeep sped through the empty North Dakota night.

They pulled up at Ed's Filling Station. It was a tarpaper shack with two old-fashioned pumps set in the dirt. One pump was regular, the other gave unleaded, Ed, the proprietor, said.

"But the unleaded one ain't working," he added.

"Never mind the gas," Remo shot back. "See anything of a guy in white coveralls?"

"You mean the Russian?"

"Russian?" Remo, Chiun, and Robin said in the same flat blank voice.

"Yup. Leastways, he sounded Russian to me. I never met a Russian before, but he had the accent. You know, like they do on the TV."

"Let me guess," Remo said. "He bought a battery?"

"Good guess," Ed said. "But no. We don't sell batteries here. Just gas. He said his car broke down a ways back. Battery went dead. Needed a recharge. Smart guy. He had it slung on his back."

"And you gave it to him!" Robin shouted in an accusing voice.

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"What else was I gonna do? Stranded motorist like that. Of course I did. Fixed him up real good."

"You didn't notice that he was dressed rather oddly, did you?" Robin asked, arching an eyebrow.

"You mean the plastic suit? Sure, he looked kinda like an astronaut. He even carried a helmet under his arm. I thought it strange, all right. Why would he carry his helmet all this way? No one's gonna steal it from his car, way out here."

"You saw his face?" Robin asked. "What did he look like?"

Ed considered. "Nothing special about him. Friendly. Kinda on the dark side. Black hair, black eyes. Your basic Russian type, I'd say."

"And you're obviously such an expert." Robin sneered.

"Let's cut to the chase," Remo interrupted. "Which way?"

"Well, he came from that direction," Ed stated, pointing south. "But when he was done, he took off in that direction." Ed pointed north. "After he made the call, that is."

"Call?" Remo asked.

"Yeah, asked to use my pay phone. Said sure. No harm in it that I could see. He called a cab."

"Happen to remember the name of the cab company?" Remo said, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. "It would mean a lot to us."

"Keep your twenty. I don't need it. I'm the only gas station for forty miles hereabouts. I do fine. Why do you think I can afford not to stock batteries?"

"So which one?" Remo asked, pocketing the twenty.

"Ned's Cab. We don't have no real cab companies out here. Ned's the only hired driver you can get."

"Got his number?"

"Business card's taped to the pay phone. See for yourself."

"Great," Remo said, hopping out of the jeep. "Thanks."

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Remo went to the pay phone. He dialed Ned's Cab. Ned himself answered.

"You picked up a Russian at Ed's Filling Station," Remo said. "Do you remember where you took him?"

"He wasn't no Russian," Ned insisted. "Told me he was a Czech."

Remo sighed. "Did he wear a white coverall suit?"

"That's the one."

"Now we're getting someplace. Where'd you take him?"

"I dropped him off at the Holiday Inn on Interstate Twenty-nine."

"Great. Appreciate it."

When Remo rejoined the others, Ed asked, "Ned help you out?"

"He did. Thanks," Remo told him.

"Good. Because if he didn't, I woulda boxed his ears. Ned's my twin brother."

"Thanks," Remo said as he climbed back into the jeep. He nodded to the driver and they drove off, Ed waving an oily rag in farewell.

As they tore along the road, the sun came up, turning the distant sky orange.

"He was dropped off at a Holiday Inn," Remo told the driver. "Know it?"

"Sure. All the .local hookers work out of that one."

"Good. Take us there."

"You don't think you'll actually find him there, do you?" Robin demanded. "Wouldn't he have switched to a car or another cab?"

"One halting step at a time," Remo said.

The desk clerk was extremely helpful. He told them that he would have to speak to the manager before he could answer any questions about the hotel's guests.

Robin Green, putting on a charming if strained smile, leaned over the desk and whispered something low and breathy.

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The clerk leaned forward, his brows growing together as he concentrated. His eyes fell to Robin's ample chest.

"I didn't quite catch that, miss," he began.

Then Robin yanked his face down onto the shiny countertop and stuck a cocked automatic in his left ear.

"I said if you're hard of hearing, I got just the thing to clean the wax out of your ears," she shouted.

The desk clerk looked to Remo with wild, pleading eyes.

"I'd answer her," Remo said seriously. "She's been like that all day." He smiled. The clerk's face sagged like hot taffy

"Foreign accent? White coveralls?" he said quickly. "Room 5-C. Been here two weeks. He's registered as Ivan Grozny."

"Thank you," Robin said politely, releasing the desk clerk."You've been very helpful. Anything else you care to tell us?"

"The elevator's around the corner."

They started for the elevator. Remo paused to have a word with the desk clerk. "If you're thinking of giving the room a buzz to warn anyone, don't. We know where you work."

"My break starts in five minutes."

"Why not get a head start on it?" Remo suggested pleasantly. "You probably don't want to be on duty when the fun starts."

They exited the elevator on the fifth floor. Remo led them to the room marked 5-C. He waved for them to stay back, and slipped under the door peephole. No sense in taking any chances.

Remo put his ear to the door. He heard the unmistakable beeping of a Touch-Tone telephone at work. Good, Remo thought. He's preoccupied. Remo got down on the garish red-and-blue rug and tried to peer under the crack in the door. He was in luck. He saw

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the legs of assorted furniture. And near a circular lampstand stood a pair of white plastic boots. They were sharp and clear this time. Not fuzzy-looking at all. And they didn't glow.

Remo took that as a good sign. He eased himself to his feet and joined the others.

"He's making a call," Remo told them. "This is perfect. Chiun and I will go first. You stay back until we subdue him. If we can."

"Try to stop me!" Robin said, waving her automatic.

Remo calmly relieved Robin of her weapon. He held it up and shoved his index finger down the barrel. The mechanism cracked. The slide fell off.

"I meant it," Remo warned, leaving Robin to stare at her maimed weapon in wonderment.

"Ready, Chiun?" Remo asked. They placed themselves on either side of the door. Chiun nodded silently.

"Okay," Remo said."One ... two ... three!"

Remo cracked the lock with a short-armed blow while Chiun pulverized the hinge-supporting wood with hammerlike blows. The door felt in like a ramp.

They jumped in. And stopped dead in their tracks.

The room was empty. The telephone receiver dropped to the rug with a soft thud.

"Damn!" Remo snapped. "He's made his move. Search everywhere."

Chiun pulled open the bathroom door. It was empty. Remo checked the closet. Also empty. They looked out the window. The parking lot was deserted.

Remo lunged into the corridor. "He slipped through one of the walls," he shouted. "Knock on every door. Someone must have seen him. You, airman. Call the front desk. Keep an open line. I want to know if he tries to escape through the lobby."

Remo knocked on the next room. Getting no answer, he forced it. The room was dark. Deserted. He hurried to the next room. A sleepy man answered.

"See anything of a man in white?" Remo asked

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earnestly. "With no face? We think he might have walked through your walls."

The door slammed in Remo's face and the guest could be heard angrily complaining to the front desk.

Working her way down the corridor, Robin knocked on doors. She was propositioned twice and had to slap one man who refused to take no for an answer.

They rendezvoused near the elevator.

"No sign of him," the SP reported. "Nobody fits the description the gas-station owner gave us. And he wasn't seen in the lobby."

"Then he's gotta be on this floor," Remo offered.

"Maybe he's a master of disguise," Robin suggested.

At the end of a half-hour they had marched every hotel guest out of his or her room.

"Repeat after me," Chiun was telling them. "Krahseevah."

"Krahseevah," they recited. Or those who remained conscious did.

"No, one at a time," Chiun said. "I wish to hear your accents."

One by one, the fifth-floor guests repeated the word krahseevah in accents ranging from a mellow Califor-nian warble to a midwestern twang.

"None of them is Russian," Chiun decided,

"Maybe he's a voice mimic," Remo suggested.

"We're wasting our time," Robin insisted. "He got away. Maybe down the stairs or the elevator."

"No, at least one of us was in the hallway at all times. He couldn't have taken the stairs or the elevator."

"But he's not on this floor. Unless . . . unless he's inside one of the walls."

"Then we will tear down every treasonous wall until we uncover the culprit," Chiun announced, to the horror of everyone, including Remo.

"What do you think?" Remo asked Robin.

"We gotta get this guy. Let's do it!"

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When the lobby switchboard lit up with frightened calls that the fifth floor was being systematically dismantled by maniacs, the police were called. Two patrolmen entered from the elevator with their service revolvers drawn.

Robin met them with a hard face and a resolute tone of voice.

"We have a report of a disturbance on this floor," one of the cops said in a dead monotone.

"Green, OSI," she said, flashing her ID. "We're confiscating this floor in the name of national security."

The cops hesitated. They examined her ID card carefully. Then they eyed her up and down, lingering wistfully on her bustline, which strained at her uniform blouse.

Finally they handed the card back to her. "Sounds like the hotel is being dismantled," one of them said while the other stared up and down the corridor.

"Just the walls on this floor," Robin said crisply. "We're looking for stolen military equipment we believe to be hidden in the walls."

The cops hesitated and went off into a corner to confer.

Finally they said, "We'll have to check with our superiors."

"Have them call Grand Forks AFB. But do it from the lobby. This floor is off-limits to civilians."

The police reluctantly departed. Robin found Remo and explained the situation to him.

Remo was tearing crumbling plaster chunks from the room the Krahseevah had occuped. "Can you really confiscate a hotel?" he asked, his hand crushing plaster like a jackhammer. "A tree I can understand. But an entire hotel?"

"It's just this floor. And between you and me, I have no idea what my jurisdictional limits are in a situation like this. I just want this guy any way I can nail him."

"Well, I have some good news for you," Remo said. "Check out the closet."

Robin looked. On the floor of the closet was a heap covered by a sheet. Under the sheet was an assortment of circuit boards and other mechanical devices, two pairs of Calvin Klein blue jeans, and a Styrofoam cooler crammed with porterhouse steaks.

"Bingo!" Robin Green said. "Now all we need is the thief himself."

But they turned up no trace of the Krahseevah. They finally gave up after reducing the inner walls of the fifth floor to skeletal supports. Chiun suggested that the outer wall be demolished too. But Remo prevailed upon him that those walls were too thin to contain a human being, and besides the hotel might collapse. Chiun reluctantly concurred.

"He's done it again," Robin said as they stood in the room they had chased the Krahseevah to. "Now what?"

Remo happened to notice the telephone receiver. It was lying on the floor where the Krahseevah had dropped it when they surprised him.

"He was making a call," Remo said. "Let's see if he completed it. Might lead us somewhere."

"What if he was just sending out for Chinese?" Robin asked.

"Let's not sink into total despair. We haven't done too badly so far."

Robin Green looked around the fifth floor. It was a shambles in which identical furniture arrangements surrounded them like some Daliesque repeating image.

"I wish to God I knew how I'm going to explain this," she said weakly. "I'll have to write a report as thick as the Yellow Pages."

9

Down in the iobby, Remo asked the switchboard operator if she had any record of an outgoing call from room 5-C.

Even though Remo did his best to be polite, the operator quailed from him as if from a polar bear lumbering into her cubicle. It was the plaster dust on his face and hair that frightened her. She had fielded the frenzy of calls during the early-morning hours when it looked as if the hotel was about to come crashing down.

"One . . . one moment," she said jerkily. She called up a file on her terminal screen.

"One call was made at five-oh-two," she told him. "It lasted less than a minute."

"What's the number?" Remo asked.

"It's this one," she said, placing a trembling pink-painted nail on a line of green glowing digits.

Remo memorized the number.

"Okay. Now get me an outside line."

When the operator handed him her headset, Remo took her by one elbow and eased her out of her chair.

"This is private," he said gently but firmly. "Take a coffee break. I won't be long."

Remo dialed a number. It rang a chiropractor's office in Santa Ana, California, and then was routed through the switchboard of radio station KDAD in

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nearby Riverside, finally ringing a phone on the desk of Dr. Harold W. Smith in Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for CURE.

"Smith? Remo here. We're making progress. I don't have time to explain it all right now, and maybe you wouldn't believe me if I did, but we traced the thief to a Holiday Inn. Recovered some of the stuff he filched. But he slipped away.'"

"Where?" Smith's lemony voice inquired.

"Into the Twilight Zone, for all I know. Look, it's complicated. I'll fill you in later. Just trust me. Here's a phone number. Can you tell me who he was calling? It's our only lead."

"One moment, Remo," Smith said.

At Folcroft, Smith called up the reverse telephone directory data base. It was an electronic version of a telephone-company publication few knew existed. It listed all phone numbers in numerical order by region, cross-referencing each one to the subscriber's name and address.

Smith keyed in the area code-which he recognized as Washington, D.C.-then the exchange, and finally the last four digits.

"Oh, my God," he said hoarsely, staring at the answer.

"Yeah? What've you got?" Remo asked.

"It's the Soviet embassy in Washington."

"Great! It fits, Smitty. The thief spoke Russian."

"He did? Remo, if the Soviets have been systematically looting LCF-Fox, there's no telling how much damage they could do-have already done."

"Maybe it's time Chiun and I paid a courtesy call on the embassy," Remo suggested.

"No. Don't. Things are bad enough. This could escalate into a major diplomatic incident. This requires careful planning. If the trail is cold, you will both return to Folcroft for debriefing at once. I will decide how to proceed once I speak with the President."

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"You're the boss, Smitty. See you soon."

By the time Remo left the switchboard desk, the lobby was filled with local police officers and a contingent of high-ranking Air Force officers and SP's from Grand Forks Air Force Base.

Robin Green was excitedly attempting to explain the ruined state of the fifth floor.

"I'm telling you," she flung at them, "I didn't steal any of that stuff. It was the Russian. And he's probably hiding inside one of these walls laughing at us. But you turkeys are so afraid of lawsuits you won't check it out."

Chiun stood back from the tight knot of uniforms, his face as innocent as a child's.

Remo sidled up to him. "What's going on?"

"They are badgering that poor girl," Chiun told him.

"They're going to want to talk to us next," Remo said. "And Smith is recalling us to Folcroft. Let's slip out the back."

"Oh, they will not bother us. I have already told them I do not even know that poor unfortunate girl whose ravings are plainly the product of a deranged mind."

"You said that?"

"Of course. How could I keep Emperor Smith waiting?"

"But you didn't know that Smith wanted us back until I told you just now."

"Nonsense," Chiun said as they slipped out a fire exit. "I knew you were calling Smith and I knew Smith would call us home. For what else can we do here?"

"I wish there was something we could do to help Robin," Remo said as they got to the waiting jeep.

"I am sure they will find a nice quiet place for her to rest in," Chiun said.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Remo muttered as he

sent the jeep out of the parking area. "Still, that voice does get on the nerves after a while, doesn't it?"

Chiun nodded. He idly picked up a leaf that had blown onto his lap and held it up to the wind. The wind tore it away. "She complains too much," he sniffed.

Remo gave Chiun a sidelong skeptical glance and shook his head slowly.

10

Captain Rair Brashnikov knew he was dead.

All the signs were there. He felt light, disembodied, and he was moving through a dark tunnel at incredible speed. He swished. It was exactly as his grandfather, Illya Nieolaivitch Brashnikov, had once described it to him back in Georgia, USSR, when he was a boy.

Grandfather Brashnikov had been driving his ancient Ford tractor when he suffered a heart attack. He was still sitting in the hard seat, his face slate blue, when the front tire bumped a rock and tipped over. Rair's father was the first on the scene. He had tried reviving his father with artificial respiration, and when that didn't change the blue-turning-gray color of his face, he pounded on his father's chest in frustration.

It was the pounding that did the trick. Grandfather Brashnikov coughed up phlegm and was carried hacking and spitting to the family house, adjacent to the collective potato farm where they all toiled.

That night, over dinner, Grandfather Brashnikov described his experience.

"I was in vast tunnel," he explained, a joyful gleam in his old eyes. "Beyond tunnel were stars, the most scintillating stars ever imagined. I felt myself being hurled through tunnel toward wonderful clean light. That is only word I know to describe this light. It was silvery. Pure.

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"Then," he went on, "I felt myself slow down. Something tugged me back. I did not want to leave light. I was dead. I knew it in my heart. I was dead and yet I did not fear death. I wanted to be with light. I think"-he lowered his voice and fixed Rair with his renewed eyes-"I think this light was God."

"No one believes in God anymore, dedushka," Rair had said. He was fourteen and thought he knew more than his seventy-year-old grandfather.

"Hush, Kroshka," he said, using a nickname- "Crumb"-Grandfather Brashnikov used when he wished to remind Rair that he had once played on his grandfather's knee. "Let me finish my story. I felt myself drawn back. The light faded in the distance. When I opened my eyes once again, your father-my son-was beating on my chest." He laughed ruefully. "My ribs still ache. I am happy to be with family, but I feel sad too. For I ache for that light the way I used to ache for my dead wife, Saint Basil preserve her."

Rair never forgot the story of his grandfather, who lived another ten years but came away from being dead with a lighter step and joy-filled heart. He was a man who had faced death and found it an experience filled with hope, not gloom.

The dark walls of the tunnel flew past Rair. He looked to see his body, but he had none. He was part of the darkness. He looked ahead of him, seeking the pure clean light that had once stirred his grandfather's soul. But he saw nothing like it. Only the snaking, whizzing walls of the tunnel through which he passed, no more substantial than a beam of light himself.

So this was death, Rair thought. It was not so bad. Certainly preferable to facing a KGB firing squad, which had nearly been his fate.

As he raced along, Rair Brashnikov reflected on the events that had brought him to his death.

Had it started when he joined the KGB as a signals intelligence analyst? Or before that, the first time he

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felt that urge which was to dominate his life and nearly end his career at the age of thirty-one? Or had it truly begun the day they came to cell number twenty-six in the basement of Moscow's Lefortovo Prison. His cell.

It was cold in Lefortovo. For a prison that had known many famous occupants, from survivors of the czarist days to framed American journalists, it was unremarkable. A stone cell with a blue steel cot and scratchy camel-hair blankets.

Rair Brashnikov had spent less than two months in that cell, shunned except for the daily portion of runny soup and a mashed-potato-and-fish mixture in a cracked bowl shoved through the feed window of the rust-colored door.

Then one day they came for him.

They were two corporals and the prison's commandant. One of the corporals opened the cell with a grating brass key.

Rair Brashnikov cowered in his bunk. It was too soon. They had come for him too soon.

"Nyet. Not today. I do not want to die today," he whimpered, pulling the coarse blanket over his head.

"Come with us, thief," said the commandant. "Do not be a woman."

He was hauled out of the cell by the corporals, set on his feet, and handed his soft gray slippers. The men towered over Brashnikov, who had barely met the KGB's minimum-height requirement. He had the nimble body of a ballet dancer.

It was the middle of the night, which puzzled Brashnikov. Usually they shot prisoners at dawn. Of course KGB firing squads were normally reserved for captured spies, not cashiered KGB intelligence captains like himself.

Instead, snapping their fingers as a warning to the guards that a prisoner was being transferred, they escorted him to a garage and put him blindfolded into a car. Minutes later he found himself in a heavily

guarded office. It was the office of the general who ran the KGB. Semoyan. He was in KGB headquarters.

"Leave him," General Sernoyan had said. His face was a dour mask. "Sit."

Rair Brashnikov took the hard wooden chair the general indicated with a careless wave.

"You are thief, Rair Brashnikov," General Semoyan said. His voice was matter-of-fact, not accusing.

"Da," Rair had admitted. His eyes leapt to the general's T-shaped desk. There was a gold pen in a holder. Rair wondered if it was solid gold or merely gilt.

"You have been convicted of stealing KGB office supplies and selling them on black market."

"I cannot help myself," Rair blurted out. "I have had this urge since I was boy."

"Do not make excuses, Tovarich Brashnikov. I am told you are very clever thief, if such a thing can be said of a man who steals from his motherland and his comrades in uniform."

"I will never do it again," Rair promised, leaping to his feet. He leaned on the general's desk. His eyes welled up with tears.

"I believe you," said General Semoyan. "Now, sit down. Please."

"Thank you," said Rair Brashnikov, palming the general's pen from its onyx holder. The pen felt heavy. Yes, true gold. Rair slipped the pen up his frayed cotton sleeve.

"We are prepared to reinstate you, comrade," the general continued, "at your former rank of captain, with all back pay and benefits. Your past crimes will be expunged from your record."

"For that I will do anything," Rair promised. He wrung his hands so the pen would not fall out. "Just name the thing."

"You will go to USA."

"America?" Rair Brashnikov's voice had been filled with disbelief. The general misinterpreted this as fright.

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"You will be protected while you are between missions," General Semoyan assured him.

"America," Rair repeated. His mind was racing. The best electronic equipment came from America. The finest blue jeans. The food was incredible in its diversity. Red meat, it was said, was actually red in America. Not gray like Soviet gristle steaks.

The general's voice broke into his reverie. "If you fear it so, we can find another agent."

"Nyet!" said Rair Brashnikov. "I will undertake this mission. Just tell me what to do."

General Semoyan stood up. "Then come with me, Captain Brashnikov."

They escorted him to a room where a uniform with captain's bars was waiting for him. He was allowed to dress once more in civilized clothing with warm leather shoes on his feet, and, his black hair wet with fragrant hair oil, Rair emerged from the dressing room, his black eyes shining like rosary beads. The general's gold pen was tucked into a regulation sock.

Under guard, with General Semoyan in the lead, restored Captain Rair Nicolaivitch Brashnikov was brought deep into the subterranean bowels of KGB headquarters in Dzershinsky Square.

They halted before a thick steel door while security guards manipulated a complicated electronic lock. Above the door, in Cyrillic lettering, was a large sign:

REVERSE ENGINEERING DIRECTORATE

Rair Brashnikov wondered what reverse engineering meant as he was led into an antiseptic white room. Men in white smocks stood like students around a workbench. The air was tinged with ozone.

"Step up to bench, please," General Semoyan said. The others crowded around under the unstable fluorescent lighting.

On the bench were two objects. They appeared to be identical.

"This is component of the rocket motor of our new

shuttle spaceplane," General Semoyan told Brashnikov, tapping one of them.

"It is quite . . . shiny," Rair ventured. In fact it was very shiny. Rair wondered what it might fetch on the black market. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. There were too many witnesses in this room'. He could not palm it in full view of all these men.

The general hefted the other object.

"And this is component from American shuttle," he said. "Do they look similar to you?"

Rair took the second component in his hands and turned it over and over. The old urge tugged at his heart. Reluctantly he replaced it on the bench's grainy surface.

"Yes," he said firmly. "They are identical. A testament to the ability of Soviet technicians to match much-vaunted Americans."

"No," the general said. "A tribute to good fortune and what we call reverse engineering."

"I do not know this term, 'reverse engineering,' " Rair admitted. He wondered what this had to do with America.

"You understand principle of engineering a tool or machine part, nyetl One begins with prototype. From this, blueprint is made. And from blueprint, many copies are built. Here is blueprint of the rocket-motor part. See? It shows in exacting detail how the components are to be manufactured, how to machine fine thicknesses of parts and how to join parts together to result in a working mechanism."

"Da, I understand," said Brashnikov.

"No, you do not. While this Soviet component was built from Soviet blueprint, it is not total story. For these blueprints are not drawn from Soviet prototype. They were created from this American component. One of our agents obtained this from its point of manufacture. We took it apart, calibrated measurements and deduced materials, and developed blue-

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prints. Thus, without incurring cost and time required to develop component that might or might not work properly first time, we have attained ability to mass-produce this part. Thus our shuttle soared as well as its American counterpart."

"Reverse engineering," Rair said blankly.

"Reverse engineering, da. For despite what you may have read in Pravda or Izvestia or whatever it is thieves read, Soviet technology still lags far behind the West. Even now, we have hundreds of agents in U.S. attempting to acquire working parts to everything from microwave ovens to neutron bombs."

"Whatever works," Rair said, inadvertently recoining an American catchphrase. He was trying to be diplomatic.

"But," General Semoyan went on, "even with all of our agents, America is too productive. Too creative. Often by the time a find comes into our hands and can be duplicated, it is already obsolete by Western standards. In short, we cannot steal American technology as fast as Americans can create and improve it."

"This is ironic," Rair said.

"This is tragic," the general countered. "For if this trend continues, we will be left far behind. Even now, almost seventy years after American society was first transformed by mass-produced automobile, Mother Russia still cannot build a decent affordable car."

Rair nodded unthinkingly. He drove a Lada.

General Semoyan laughed grimly. "Instead of making glorious revolution, we should have been making Model T's. And today, American computer technology is so far ahead of us, they will bury us in microchips. Khrushchev is no doubt turning in grave."

"I will be happy to steal as much American technology as you would like," Rair Brashnikov said bravely, "but I fear I am not equal to this mighty task."

"Nyet, you are not. No ordinary man is. But we can make you so. Bring it," the general said to a hovering technician.

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The technician came back with a black box the size of a light traveling suitcase. It had a combination lock and two keyholes. The technician removed a small key from a chain around his throat and undid the locks. Then he worked the combination.

"What that man did, the unlocking, would defeat any thief," General Semoyan said coolly. "Even you, Brashnikov."

"Yes," Brashikov said, but he really meant "no." He was confident he could pick any lock. But he was afraid to seem like too much of a thief. He still couldn't take his eyes off the shiny shuttle components.

But when the technician opened the case and revealed a heap of white plastic, Brashnikov forgot all about the components.

"This," the general said proudly, "will allow you to defeat locks, doors, vaults, walls-even the most impregnable fortified military installations in USA."

The technician lifted the thing out of the case. It hung from his hands like a cosmonaut suit. Gloves and thick-soled boots lay in the case, along with what appeared to be a collapsed helmet. They were slick like plastic, but the skin was networked with pale plastic filaments.

"Please demonstrate our prize for Captain Brashnikov," General Semoyan ordered.

One of the technicans-the shortest of them-struggled into the suit. It took the help of two others to pull the skintight material on. It was like getting into a scuba suit that was a size too small. They sealed it in the back by Velcro flaps. The helmet went on the same way.

Rair noticed with interest that the face shield was not transparent glass or plastic, but a kind of opaque white cellophane. After the helmet was in place, the cellophane expanded. Then it contracted. Its rhythmic expansions were obviously the result of the technician's respiration.

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"The facial membrane is like two-way mirror," General Semoyan explained as he noted Brashnikov's perplexed expression. "He can see out, but no one can see his face. It has added advantage of being permeable to oxygen, but proof against all known forms of chemical agents. However, its prime purpose is that no matter how well we train a man to prepare himself for rigors of wearing device, the human eye is designed to flinch from perceived obstacles, even when brain knows those obstacles cannot possibly harm it."

"I do not understand," Rair said as the technicans turned the man around. They hooked two white cables to ports on the suit's shoulders. The other ends were hooked up to an ordinary car battery. Then they fitted the battery into a webbed sling that attached to the man's back like a rucksack.

The man in the suit turned around and waited, his blank blister of a face crinkling as he breathed.

General Semoyan smiled expansively.

"If you are curious about the material, Captain Brashnikov, go ahead, touch it. Feel it if you wish."

Brashnikov touched the man's chest. It felt slick, like plastic. It was plastic, Rair decided, possibly some kind of rubberized plastic. The sewn-in tubes also felt plasticky. Fiberoptic cables, he decided.

"Does it feel solid to you?" the general asked pleasantly.

"Yes, of course. It is very substantial. Is it bulletproof?"

The general laughed loudly. "Yes," he said. "But not in the way you think. I mean, did it feel solid to the touch?"

"Yes," Rair said. What did the general mean? Of course it was solid. What else could it be?

"And this," General Semoyan asked, rapping on the bench. "Is it solid?"

Rair Brashnikov ran his fingers along the edges of the bench. He was careful to keep his fingers away from the shuttle parts which sat so carelessly, so temptingly within reach.

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"Yes. It is oak."

"If you were to examine this table or that suit under an electron microscope, you would see that it is not as solid as it appears. For all matter in the universe is composed of atoms, all clustered together like the stars in the night sky."

"I know my science," Rair said defensively. "I have read of this."

"Then you doubtless understand that atoms are very, very tiny. And that they are protected by electrons whirling at speeds so high that they form protective shell like whirling blades of high-speed fan. And there are spaces between atoms as vast as void between stars."

"Yes."

"That table, that man, even you and I, are composed of vast empty spaces in which these tiny spheres cluster. You, when you are struck, you feel impact. You feel pain. Because these electrons protect empty spaces. From earth, stars in cosmos look to be mere inches apart, but we know that is not so. It is very opposite with atoms. We can see denseness which make them solid to touch, but not spaces between."

"I do not follow," Rair admitted.

"Then follow this." The general signed to the technician in the white plastic suit.

The technician reached down to his belt buckle. For the first time, Rair noticed a white rheostat on the buckle. The man turned it. Then, softly, the suit glowed.

Rair watched. His eyes hurt suddenly. He tried to focus them. But they wouldn't focus. The man seemed to blur at the edges. The veinlike network of filaments pulsed and ran with tiny golden lights. Even the webbing straps that held the battery pack in place grew indistinct.

Rair looked away. A blueprint on a wall was crystal clear. But when his gaze returned to the man in the suit, he couldn't quite focus on him.

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"The effect you are trying to understand is result of hypervibration," General Semoyan announced. "Suit is vibrating at trillions of pulses per millisecond. This is why we have dubbed it our zibriruyushchiy kostyum, or vibration suit."

Rair walked around the man in the suit. There was something very odd about him now. Something he could not quite put his finger on.

When he looked closer at the man's concealed face, he recognized it. The featureless membrane expanded out like bubblegum bubble, but there was no crinkling sound anymore.

"If he spoke, we could not hear his voice, although he can understand us," the general explained.

"Will he become invisible?" Rair asked. Reasonably, he thought.

"That would be perfect, but no. You may touch him if you wish."

Rair hesitate. "Will it hurt?"

"Nyet, you will feel no pain. Nor will he."

Rair Brashnikov still held back. Why would they want him to touch the suit again? He reached out careful fingers. The tips of his fingers disappeared into it.

"Ahhh!" he cried, recoiling as if stung. "My hand!"

"Your hand is fine," General Semoyan assured him.

"I felt . . . nothing," Rair said in a dull incom-prehending tone. He was pleased to see that he still had fingertips.

"Exactly," General Semoyan said. "It is much like known phenomenon of colliding galaxies. Astronomers know that in cosmos, galaxies sometimes collide. But there is no resulting catastrophe, for suns merely pass one another, so great are spaces between them. Vibration suit is vibrating so that its atomic structure is fluid, like water. When you place your hand within the field, suit compensates for your atomic structure. Its electrons are repelled by your electrons. The spaces

merge, but atoms remain apart. Thus, your hand coexisted in the same physical space as his chest. At least, that is our theory."

"No bullet, no hand could harm him," Rair breathed, inching closer.

"No wall can stop him either." General Semoyan smiled. "Comrade, please demonstrate."

As Rair Brashnikov watched with wide black eyes, the man in tht suit walked through the solid oak bench. He passed from it to one wall, walking as soundlessly as a ghost. He passed through the wall. Then he was gone. Utter silence filled the room as they stared at the blank white wall.

Soon the technician stepped from another wall. He emerged from it as if coming through a dense fog. Except he was the fog and the wall was solid.

"This is astonishing! This is incredible!" Rair Brashnikov shouted eagerly. "Who says Russian technology is backward? Who says we cannot compete with West? If Soviet science can produce such a wonder, there is nothing we cannot do!"

"We stole the suit from the Japanese," General Semoyan said dryly.

Rair subsided. "It is Japanese?"

"Another reason why you were chosen, captain. Aside from your criminal past, you are short and slim enough to fit into the suit. It was built by the Nishitsu Corporation, and is designed for the average Japanese male physique. We believe it is a by-product of their recent superconductor breakthroughs."

''You do not know?" Raid asked in surprise. "Why not take it apart and make blueprints, then build suit that will fit sturdy Russian?"

General Semoyan shook his leonine head.

"It is too complicated. We dare not dismantle it for fear of not being able to restore suit to proper operating order. Better to risk the suit in the field than to lose it to our incompetent technicians."

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The technicians in the room shifted their feet and looked down in embarrassment.

General Semoyan cleared his throat. The technician in the suit turned it off. The blurry indistinctness of his outline faded with the lambent glow of the suit itself.

"We will train you to walk in suit," General Semoyan told him as the man was helped out of the suit, "to pass through solid objects without hesitation or fear. Then we will let you loose in America, with a shopping list of what we most need. Are you prepared for this, Captain Brashnikov?"

"As always, I am brave in the service of my motherland," Rair Brashnikov said, visions of American blue jeans and VCR's dancing in his head. He was so elated he did something he had never done since he picked his first pocket. He slipped the gold pen into the general's coat pocket.

That way, when Semoyan noticed it missing, even if he suspected Brashnikov, the proof of his innocence would eventually be found.

For Rair Brashnikov was not about to risk losing the opportunity to be set loose in the consumers' paradise of the world for a mere gold pen.

For months, they trained him. He learned that for all its wonders the vibration suit was fraught with hidden perils. One had to be careful how one walked. For the vibrations which allowed a man to pass through six feet of concrete would also cause him to sink into a floor.

The technicians who maintained it, obviously only dimly understood the suit. They explained to him that the thick boot soles contained tiny vibrating elements that caused the bottoms to vibrate in counterpoint to the suit vibration. Only a micron thickness of the bottom vibrated out of synchronization, they theorized. But it was enough to allow for footing and traction. Still, the suit wearer had to be careful, when he passed through an obstacle, that he did it with the toes and soles kept level.

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Rair tried this a few times. It was a difficult skill to learn. If he stepped wrong, his upper body passed through the test walls, but his feet got hung up.

It took thirty days until he mastered the art of walking through a wall. At the same time, he had to deal with the eye's blinking reflex. The face membrane helped, but when a concrete wall came up to the eye, the eye naturally flinched and the body flinched too. Merely shutting the eyes was not enough. For Rair was taught that although he could pass through walls, he could not see through them. He could never be certain what was on the other side. It was imperative that before he dared enter such walls, he stick his face into them like a swimmer sticking his face above water to see what lay on the surface.

It took time, and skill, and it was difficult.

They taught him that he could trot while in the suit, but he could not run. Even with his body as insubstantial as smoke, his micron-thick soles could trip on ground rocks. If he tripped, he was told, he would fall. And if he fell . . .

"What?" Rair had asked anxiously.

The technician shrugged. They did not actually know, but they theorized that a fall would propel the suit through the earth's crust, where a man might, in theory, sink until he emerged on the opposite side of the globe.

"That would not be so terrible," Rair had said, visibly relieved.

True, they told him. But no one could say if, after passing through the earth, the man might not keep going, forever and ever, into deepest space.

"Oh," Rair had said in a sober voice.

There were other problems with the suit. The more he learned, the less he liked the assignment, but because giving up meant facing a firing squad, Rair Brashnikov continued training.

Even after they warned him that he must never, ever, turn off the suit while inside something solid.

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"What would happen then?" he had asked fearfully.

On this the technicians were not in complete agreement.

One thought that Rair would become trapped like a fly in amber.

Another believed that the atomic structure of both substances would become inextricable, so that in his last moments Rair would taste wood or concrete in his mouth, his stomach would feel full of matter. His brain would be riddled with foreign nonorganic substances. His bodily fluids would mingle with the material. It would be a weird, terrible, suffocating death.

Still another theorized that with the vibration suit shut down, the repelling forces that kept the atoms separated would cease, possibly result in a nuclear explosion.

Rair Brashnikov kept the thought of becoming a walking Chernobyl in mind all through the Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Washington, D.C., where he met his case officer, the charge d'affaires of the Soviet embassy, actually a KGB major. The charge d'affaires provided Rair with a secure place to live between pentrations, which ranged from plucking key parts from U.S. missiles so that when they went awry and had to be destroyed, no one dreamed that they had malfunctioned because they had been pilfered, to obtaining mission-critical computer chips from Pentagon super-computers.

Through it all, Rair Brashnikov had been extra, extra careful not to be seen, not to be heard, not to be suspected. American security was so lax it was relatively easy. And Rair Brashnikov had been very, very well-trained. Even in America, the training continued. He was forced to enter mock-ups of cramped missile interiors, positioning himself so that when he deactivated the suit, no toe or finger remained inside anything solid. It was a simple matter, then, to remove whatever he wished, reactivate the suit, and slip away.

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It was a happy property of the suit that whatever Brashnikov held in his hands when the suit activated, vibrated in sympathy so that it could be carried through solids as well.

Rair Brashnikov trained very hard. He did not desire to go up in a small mushroom cloud. Nor did he wish to be captured when the battery pack ran down, as it did when he was being pursued from LCF-Fox by the American with unusually thick wrists and the absurdly garbed Oriental.

The pair had been incredibly fleet of foot. And strong. They had chopped down a thick tree while he hid within. Rair had no idea who they were. He had been fascinated by them-until the rheostat warning light went on, indicating that he had only the sixty-minute reserve-energy supply left.

Rair had counted himself fortunate that he had so many trees to hide in. He had finally given them the slip, and made it back to his hotel, where he immediately reported his encounter with U.S. military personnel to the charge d'affaires.

Rair had been certain that the trio had been left far behind. That had been a fatal mistake, he now realized.

As the dark tunnel walls zoomed past him, Brashnikov tried to remember his last moment of life. He had dialed the Soviet embassy. The switchboard had answered, and Rair had asked to speak with the charge d'affaires, giving his code name, Lyovkiy Dukh-Nimble Ghost.

While he waited to be connected, the hotel-room door crashed in. Rair did not turn to see what had happened. That was not important. Turning on the suit was by then a reflex in any dangerous situation.

He remembered reaching for the belt rheostat. At the same time, the charge d'affaire's voice came over the line, saying, "Hello?" That was the last thing Rair heard. The room went white like a star going nova, and now he was hurling through this endless tunnel at the speed of light.

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The explanation was obvious. The suit must have gone nuclear. There was no other possible answer.

It had been the thing that Rair Brashnikov had most feared. Yet now that it had happened, he felt a curious lack of concern. It had been quick and painless. How much more could one expect from death?

And so Rair Brashnikov, only a little sad, rushed through the snaking tube, searching for the light his grandfather had spoken of so long ago, in another time and place.

It was a strange thing. In his ears, he could still hear the charge d'affaires' angry voice. It kept repeating, "Hello? Hello? Are you there, Brashnikov? Answer me!"

And behind it, there were other voices. A multitude of them. Laughing and whispering. Shouting and sobbing. Rair thought they were the voices of the dead. If he listened hard enough, could he pick out his grandfather's voice too? he wondered.

But when he tried, he discovered a strange thing.

All the voices spoke English. American English.

How curious, Brashnikov thought. Were there no Soviets in the afterlife?

Then he heard the charge d'affaires' voice again, angry and anxious, calling his name over and over again. It was most passing strange.

11

"It's okay, I'll get it," Remo Williams called out in response to the familiar knock. He leapt to the back door, swiping at the smoke that had seeped into the kitchen despite the insulation of two closed doors.

"Hi, Smitty," Remo said. "Back for more rice?" Then he stopped. "You look different. Did you break down and get a face lift?"

"Nonsense," Smith snapped, closing the door behind him like a nervous milkman on a dawn assignation.

"No, really," Remo returned, following him to the kitchen table. "There's something different about you. New haircut?"

"I have been using the same barber for nearly thirty years."

"And you probably tip him the same way you did in 1962."

"I consider my loyal patronage to be tip enough." Smith looked around, noticing the haze.

"Has someone been smoking?" he asked.

"Sort of. This is Chiun's latest kick."

Smith looked at Remo with disbelief. "I cannot imagine Chiun smoking."

"I'll explain later. I'm still trying to put my finger on what's different about you today. A new tie?" Remo asked. "No, that's a Dartmouth tie. And your suit the same. Gray as a mouse."

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Smith took a seat at the table and laid a small brown carrying case on it.

Noticing this, Remo snapped his fingers.

"That's it!" he said. "That's not your usual briefcase. I knew you look different."

Smith looked at Remo as if uncertain if he was being kidded.

"Please sit down, Remo," he said quietly. Remo sat. He looked at the case. It was smaller than a suitcase, but larger than a valise. It was nearly a box. Remo wondered what was in it.

"Any leads on our missing spook?" Remo asked.

"None. I ran computer checks on all commerical and charter flights out of North Dakota. I don't believe our man was on any of them. And the name he was registered under-Ivan Grozny-is fictitious. It means 'Ivan the Terrible.' We will have to pick up his trail when we can. Right now I have a more pressing task for you and Chiun."

"Did I hear my name spoken?" a squeaky voice said suddenly.

The Master of Sinanju suddenly stood in the now-open door. He wore a plain kimono. It was as white as a snowdrift, and it made the aged ivory texture of his wrinkled skin look actually brown.

Bluish smoke rolled around him like a fogbank.

"I was just starting to explain your next assignments," Smith said, his gray eyes alert to the excessive amount of smoke. He felt it tickle his throat and he coughed into his fist uncomfortably.

"Then I should be present to see that Remo does not misinterpret your precise instructions," Chiun remarked.

"I was just about to tell Remo that my computers have so far had no luck in tracing the creature you both encountered."

"What about his secret?" Chiun asked eagerly.

"It represents a technology beyond current knowl-

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edge," Smith admitted. "Although it is possible to assume the Russian-for surely the evidence points to a Soviet agent-wore an electronic suit that somehow enables him to pass through solids."

Chiun's face lost its hopeful expression. "Oh," he said. "I was hoping you, as a white familiar with machine techniques, could help me with my experiment."

"What experiment is that?" asked Smith.

"You'll be sorry you asked," Remo warned.

Chiun made low, furtive shooing motions at Remo.

"I have been attempting to duplicate this power, which no Master of Sinanju has ever possessed," Chiun said loftily.

"Really? I would like to see this."

Chiun stepped aside and bowed. "Enter."

Remo followed Smith into Chiun's personal room. The walls were covered with mirrors. They hung on the walls and leaned precariously against closet doors. Mirror tiles were neatly arranged on the floor and others were attached to the ceiling. In the center of the room stood a tall brass censer. Something smoldered in the center, emitting billows of bluish smoke.

As Smith reached for a handkerchief to cover his stinging nostrils, Chiun pulled a red silk pouch from his sleeve and sprinkled a powder into the censer. A brief flame flared up and the smoke intensified.

"Observe," Chiun said.

He then walked to a wall and with arms outstretched attempted to pass through a leaning mirror. His long fingernails tapped the reflective surface. He pushed. The pane shattered, shards falling at Chiun's sandaled feet.

"You see?" Chiun said in an exasperated voice. "It does not work. Could you tell me what is wrong, the mirror or the smoke?"

"Excuse me?" Smith said as Remo hid a widening grin behind his hand.

"Is this the correct kind of mirror?" Chiun went on.

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"Or is it that the smoke is not properly colored? I am inclined to think that the smoke is not blue enough, but Remo refuses to advise me."

Remo caught Smith's helpless sidelong glance.

"Blue smoke and mirrors," Remo whispered. "Chiun overheard Robin suggest it as a possible explanation. He's trying to crack the method."

"Uh, excuse me, Master of Sinanju," Smith ventured. "But the phrase 'blue smoke and mirrors' is just an expression. It's meaningless."

"That is what Remo told me, but I heard two different persons profess that the thief used blue smoke and mirrors to accomplish his nefarious deeds. I saw no evidence of this myself, but whites are so devious" -Chiun looked at Remo with special pointedness- "that I cannot be certain."

"I assure you, Master of Sinanju," Smith said, backing away from the smoke, his eyes tearing, "that the device used was electronic."

"Ah, electronic," Chiun murmured. "I understand now. But tell me, which was electronic-the smoke or the mirrors?"

And Remo burst out into such laughter that Smith never got a chance to answer. Chiun flew out of the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that the sound of breaking glass was a crescendo as he unleashed a torrent of invective in both Korean and English. Smith couldn't follow the Korean portion- and the English was delivered at such speed that he had trouble catching all of that too-but he was certain that Chiun called Remo "a pale piece of pig's ear" at least six times.

When Chiun finally subsided, he joined Remo and Smith at the kitchen table. His face was stormy and Remo had to hold up Chiun's end of the conversation as well as his own.

"This much we know," Smith was saying. "This agent worked out of the Soviet embassy in Washing-

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ton, D.C. I have been tapping CIA intercepts of telephone and telex traffic between the embassy and Moscow. Much of it is in open code-mundane words used to substitute for critical terms-but I believe I have the general idea. It seems that the charge d'affaires there is about to return to Moscow with unspecified stolen U.S. technology."

"But we recovered the stuff the guy lifted in North Dakota," Remo insisted.

"Yes, but that apparently represents only the most recent looting. I have been running checks on other military installations for phenomena such as occurred at LCF-Fox. Missing food and personal items. Things of that sort.'

"Yeah?"

Smith sighed. "Either U.S. military personnel are all stealing one another blind, or this pattern of activity has been going on for a long time."

"How long?"

"Two or three years."

"Years!" Remo exploded. "He's been ripping us off for years and nobody's even noticed?"

"I am afraid so. You must understand that we inventory so many parts with redundant backups and all, that missing components are often dismissed as bookkeeping errors. It's easier to call it that than to disrupt the status quo with a full-fledged investigation."

"Well, hip-hip-hooray for the U.S. serviceman, protector of his precious behind."

"But personal thefts are reported," Smith went on. "I have accumulated a list of missing blue jeans, personal computers, VCR's, and Walkmen."

"I think it's Walkmans," Remo said sourly.

"Whatever. These are exactly the kinds of items that are in demand on the Russian black market."

"Now, why would a Soviet agent risk his mission to lift stuff like that on the side?" Remo wondered. "When

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we caught up with him he was carrying steaks. That was all. Just steaks."

"Because he is stupid, like all Russians," Chiun interjected suddenly.

"It's because he's a kleptomaniac," Smith added.

"Kleptomaniac?" Remo asked. Chiun leaned closer, interest on his wise face.

"I presented my findings, disguised, of course, to Folcroft's head psychiatrist," Smith explained. "It's his reasoned belief that we are dealing with a classic compulsive kleptomaniac."

"I understand a maniac," Chiun said, glancing at Remo. "I live with one. But what is a klepto? Is it like a poltergeist?"

"A kleptomaniac is a person who has a compulsive mania to steal," Smith explained. "He cannot help himself. He will steal anything that catches his fancy, regardless of its value or the risk involved."

"You know, Chiun," Remo put in pointedly, "like certain persons who lift all the toothpicks and mints at restaurant cash registers."

"They are there for the benefit of customers," Chiun snapped back. "And I do not take them all. I leave some."

"Three or four out of fifty toothpicks is not some. It's a token gesture to your conscience. And you don't even eat candy."

"I give the mints to children," Chiun replied huffily. "Would you deny an old man the simple pleasure of sharing with children?"

"You charge them a nickel a pop."

"Only the ones who look as if they can afford to pay. The ragamuffins get them without cost."

"Could you two please stop this?" Smith said testily. "Time is of the essence."

"Yes, of course. The mission. Please forgive Remo's carping, Emperor. I do not know where he gets these ugly habits from."

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Remo rolled his eyes ceilingward. He drummed his fingers on the kitchen table impatiently.

"As I was saying," Smith continued, "the charge d'affaires is about to fly to Moscow. He's leaving from Dulles on an Aeroflot flight. And he will be carrying a case identical to this one."

"Really?" Chiun said, examining the case. "How do you know this?"

"This is a standard diplomatic case, nicknamed 'Jaws' because of its capaciousness."

"That means it is large," Chiun said for Remo's benefit.

"Thanks," Remo said dryly. "I caught the drift all by myself."

"Lucky you."

Smith cleared his throat. "Airport security people do not X-ray or inspect these cases when embassy officials carry them. I am certain that the charge d'affaires will be carrying sensitive military parts in his case."

"He will not live to enjoy his ill-gotten gains," Chiun promised vehemently.

"No, that's exactly what we do not want," Smith said hastily. "You must not harm him. The diplomatic repercussions could be grave."

"Then let me suggest a tiny blow," Chiun said in a conspiratorial tone. "Harmless as a fly's bite at first, but three weeks later the victim drops dead from kidney failure. This service was very much in demand during Roman times."

"Please," Smith pleaded. "This must not get back to us in any way."

"It will not," Chiun said firmly. "I assure you."

"No," Smith said just as firmly. "I want to switch cases. That's all. Do it so he doesn't suspect the exchange has taken place. Can you accomplish this?"

"We will be as the drifting smoke in our stealth," Chiun promised. "The drifting blue smoke."

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Remo opened the case. "It's empty," he said. "Won't he notice the switch?"

"Fill it with junk," Smith suggested.

Remo shut the case. "I don't do junk collecting," he said. "It's not in my job description."

"Do not fret, Emperor Smith," Chiun said. "I have just the thing."

"You do?" Smith said.

"He does," Remo said. "Fourteen steamer trunks full."

"I see," Smith said as he rose from his chair. "Here is a photograph of your target. His name is Yuli Batenin."

"Rice paper?" Remo asked, looking at the face.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Who, me?"

Smith paused at the open back door. "By the way, did you dispose of those files?"

"Of course," Remo lied, suddenly remembering the files tucked into his back pocket.

"Good. And I suggest you clear this house of smoke before someone calls the fire department."

"Fear not, Emperor," Chiun called loudly. "We will serve your needs with skill and daring, for we honor your wisdom and your graciousness."

His patrician face embarrassed, Smith hastily closed the door after him.

"Why do you always raise your voice when he's got the door open?" Remo asked. "You know how he is about security."

Chiun shrugged, pulling the case off the table. "Perhaps it will encourage him to visit less often." He disappeared into another room.

A few minutes later, the racket coming from the attic was too much for Remo to ignore and he went up the folding stairs.

He found the Master of Sinanju dumping the contents of one of his steamer trunks into the diplomatic

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valise. Remo noticed that the items included videotapes and phonograph albums.

Remo plucked up one of the latter as Chiun began stuffing posters in between the heavier objects as packing.

"Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits?" Remo asked, pointing to the smiling face on the album cover.

"When one has a retentive mind, one need listen to a song but once and it will stay in the heart forever," Chiun said distantly.

"That's not what I meant. I thought you still harbored a crush on her-although I'll admit it's been a long time since you've mentioned it."

"She has spurned me for too long."

"The love letters still coming back unopened, eh?"

Chiun shrugged his frail shoulders. "It is not that so much. I assume that selfish sycophants around her are responsible for that. But I lost respect for Barbra after she took up with that mere boy."

"And who might that be?" Remo asked, handing the album to Chiun. The Master of Sinanju snapped it in two without hesitating and stuffed it into the case. A framed portrait of Streisand followed it in, its glass front cracked.

"I do not recall his name. John Donson, or something. He is the one on that absurd flamingo show. Florida Lice, I think it is called."

"Florida . . .? Oh, that. Yeah. I can see how you'd be upset, getting shut out by a twerp like that. I mean, the guy must be ... what, forty, fifty years younger than you?"

"She could have had perfection," Chiun growled. "Instead she settled for one who shows so little respect for himself that he wears no socks and shaves only once a week."

"I got news for you, Little Father. Miami Vice is off the air, and I think Barbra Streisand dumped him long ago."

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"It is? She did?" Chiun looked up, his facial hair quivering with hope.

"Of course, that's just a rumor," Remo admitted. "It may not be true."

Chiun hesitated. Then he shredded the unauthorized Barbra Streisand life story-both the hardcover and paperback editions-into confetti and used them for packing as well.

"It no longer matters," the Master of Sinanju said resignedly. "That she kissed such a one as that is enough of an insult to my feelings."

"She actually kissed him, huh?"

"I know it is shocking, but I have it on excellent authority. Now I can never forgive, nor will I forget this humiliation."

Chiun slammed the case closed. Then, hands tucked into his sleeves, he marched, chin lifted high and only slightly quivering, to the ladder steps. He floated down them with stolid dignity. Only Remo recognized the square set of his thin shoulders as indicating a breaking heart.

"What about this case?" Remo called after him. "You gonna just leave it here?"

"No," Chiun returned dully. "You may carry it."

"Why not?" Remo muttered, hefting the case. "I've been carrying your spear for years." It was surprisingly heavy. He hoped it weighed as much as a case full of stolen military equipment.

Outside, Remo placed the case in the trunk of his blue Buick. It felt strange to think of a car as his. He used to rent cars exclusively for security reasons, often leaving them in remote locations so that the rental bills would go through the roof. But now that he had a permanent home, Remo figured security wouldn't suffer from owning a permanent car too-although he missed Smith's howls of protest when the rental bills came in.

Chiun was already in the passenger seat when Remo

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got behind the wheel. The Master of Sinanju stared ahead woodenly.

"When we get back," he said in a low, bitter voice, "remind me to speak to Smith about John Donson."

Remo started the engine. "What about him?"

"I have heard rumors that he has a criminal past."

"I think you're confusing the TV role with the actor."

"We shall see. But perhaps Smith's computer things will turn up something, and I can persuade him to allow me to punish Donson for his vicious infractions committed against the glorious American Constitution. In God We Trust."

Remo grunted. "I'm glad you're taking this so well."

"Masters of Sinanju learn how to bear up under disappointment," Chiun sniffed, rearranging his kimono skirts primly. "Besides, there is always Cheeta Ching, the beautiful Korean anchorperson."

"Isn't she married now?"

Chiun's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "I have written to her about her husband. He has been laying hands on other women, the pervert."

"How do you know that?" Remo asked as he backed out of the driveway.

"He is a gynecologist," Chiun hissed. "He admits this."

"No!" Remo said in a mock-serious voice.

Chiun nodded seriously. "They are worse than kleptomaniacs. Believe me, Remo. Cheeta will be eternally grateful for the information I have provided her."

"If it works out, can I be your best man?"

"No. When a Master of Sinanju marries, there is only one best man in attendance. And that is the bridegroom."

"Oh," Remo said in a small voice.

Chiun reached out to touch Remo on the arm.

"Oh, do not fret, my son. I have not forgotten you. You may be second-best man at my wedding. Or third. Possibly fourth. But no lower than fourth. Un-

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less, of course, you disgrace me in some horrible way. Then I might demote you to fifth-best-man position. But that is the absolutely lowest, unless-"

"I get the picture," Remo snapped, pressing the accelerator harder. He promised himself that he would grab the window seat on the flight down, and to hell with Chiun's protests about having to have a clear view of the wings in case they started to fall off.

12

Major Yuli Batenin hummed "Moscow Nights" contentedly. He looked forward to going home after so long.

Most would consider the Washington-embassy post the plum assignment in the Soviet diplomatic corps. Or in the KGB, for that matter, for Yuli Batenin was first and foremost KGB station chief in Washington. He was attached to the Soviet embassy as charge d'affaires.

But as the white embassy compound receded in the narrow rear window of the ambassador's Lincoln Continental, Yuli Batenin did not look back. Washington was fine. America was fascinating, but this particular assignment had gone on too long. When he reached Moscow and handed over the latest plunder from U.S. installations, Batenin would request a new posting. Three years was enough.