"What?" he muttered. Then he noticed that the bracelet attached to the case's handle was warped. He looked closer. It was fused at the locking point. It had not been that way during the drive. Could the multiple X-rays have fused the metal? he wondered anxiously.
And what about the contents?
Yuli Batenin pulled another key from his right shoe. It would not open the case. Not at all.
Fiercely, fearing the worst, he tore at the case with fingers like hooks. He broke his nails in the process, but by sheer might he ripped away one corner of the case.
Bits of torn paper fluttered out. There had been no paper in Batenin's case. Anxiously he dug his fingers in. They came away red. He had cut them on something. Glass.
"There was no glass in this case," he howled aloud.
Digging further, he found a slick sheet of paper. It looked like a page from a book or magazine. There was a color photograph printed on it. A woman's face. Yuli Batenin thought the face was familiar. It took him until the Aeroflot flight had rolled into position for takeoff before he recognized the face of the famous American singer and actress Barbra Streisand.
"Let me off plane!" Batenin screamed. "I must get off!"
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Back at the X-ray station, the operator pointed out to the guard that foot traffic had finally quieted down.
"Wanna get us both a cup of coffee?" he suggested.
"Sure. Take it black?"
"Yeah, black is fine," said Remo, to whom a cup of coffee was the equivalent to a dose of strychnine.
After the guard had disappeared around the corner, Remo rapped on the X-ray device and whispered, "It's okay, Chiun. You can come out now."
The Master of Sinanju slithered out of the compartment with a distasteful expression on his parchment face. He hauled a big boxy case with him.
"Next time, I will handle the buttons and you will hide inside," he hissed.
"Let's hope there isn't a next time," Remo said, taking the case. "And I apologize for the long wait. How was I to know he'd wait until the very last minute to board?"
"At least we did not have to resort to further subterfuge to make him relinquish his case."
"Yeah," Remo said as they walked away. "Funny how that worked out. I must've shown my FAA ID card to thirty or forty airline reps before they'd let me sub for the regular X-ray operator, and then had to coach the guard over and over to pretend the guy's diplomatic card had expired so we could get at the case. He was so nervous, I was positive he was going to blow it. And what happens? The Russian loses his ID. Must be my lucky day."
"Next time, I will handle the buttons," Chiun repeated as they sat down in a quiet corner of a waiting area.
"You know how you are with machines. Something could have gone wrong." Remo looked into the case. His face fell. "Uh-oh, I think something did."
"What?" Chiun asked quickly, leaning over to see.
"You did switch cases, didn't you?"
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"Do you doubt my prowess?" Chiun asked huffily.
"No, but I think we've been rooked. Look."
Remo held up an assortment of squares, like graphite tiles. Except they were a flat unreflective black and seemingly nonmetallic.
"What are these?" Chiun asked.
"Got me," Remo said quietly. "They look like Dracula's bathroom tiles. One thing for sure, they're not missile components or anything of the kind."
"Then you have failed," Chiun said coldly.
"Me? You did the switch."
"But you pressed the buttons."
Remo sighed. "Let's grab the next flight home. Maybe Smith can make sense of things," he said, sending the tiles clattering back into the case.
They went in search of a flight back to New York.
13
"You were not tricked," Dr. Harold W. Smith told them firmly. Smith was sitting in his cracked leather chair at Folcroft Sanitarium. The big picture window behind him framed Long Island Sound. Smith soberly turned one of the black tiles over and over in his thin hands.
"No?" Remo asked, pleased.
"I told you so," Chiun squeaked. "You worry too much, Remo. Imagine, Emperor, Remo left the critical task of switching cases to me and he had the audacity to suggest that I could make a mistake."
"Thanks a lot, Chiun," Remo muttered.
"These are RAM tiles," Smith said bitterly.
"Ah, of course, I have seen their commercials on TV," Chiun said pleasantly. "They are a big company. Perhaps they will agree to sponsor us in gratitude for recovering their valuable property."
"I doubt that," Smith replied dryly. "RAM is not a brand name. It stands for Radar-Absorbing Material. These tiles are made of a top-secret carbon-epoxy composition, and constitute the skin of our new generation of Stealth aircraft. It is fortunate, Remo, that you intercepted these before they reached Moscow."
"Remo?" Chiun squeaked. "It was I who made the exchange. Brilliantly, I might add."
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Smith cleared his throat. "Yes, Of course I meant both of you," he said.
"Remo just pressed unimportant buttons," Chiun said pointedly. "Anyone could have done that. A monkey could have performed Remo's task. I, on the other hand, performed the all-important exchange completely unsuspected by our adversary. Would you like to hear the story again, Emperor?"
"Er, no. Not just now," Smith said hastily. "I'm sorry. But let's stay on the subject. These particular tiles are from the Stealth bomber. There is only one place they could have come from and that is their point of manufacture, the Northrop Corporation facility in Palmdale, California, known as Plant Forty-two."
"These grow from plants?" Chiun asked, examining one tile.
"We have no leads on our thief," Smith said, ignoring him. "But these tiles tie in with the rash of Stealth crashes we've been having."
"How so, Smitty?" Remo asked with interest. Chiun pretended to examine his long curved nails. There was no sense in paying attention to whites when they rambled on in their unnecessary details. Let Remo explain the salient items later.
"What we know of the near-launch at Fox-4 tells us that this thief is capable of removing working parts from operational equipment. Suppose he extracted critical elements from hangared Stealth aircraft? If this went undetected, then the string of inexplicable Stealth failures is understandable."
Remo snapped his fingers. "I get it," he said. "They crashed because they were missing components."
"Exactly. And who would suspect that an unaccounted-for piece of Stealth wreckage had been extracted before the crash? At the same time, it would be impossible to steal sample tiles from a working aircraft because they are bonded to the frame." Smith paused. "He had to obtain them from the manufac-
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turer. And if the Soviets are attempting to develop a wing of Stealth aircraft of their own from our parts, they cannot accept this setback. They must acquire more tiles, otherwise the components they do have are valueless."
"You think our Krahseevah will try for these again?" Remo asked, hefting one of the tiles in his hand. It was unusually light.
"The Soviets have no choice. They may not move for weeks or even months, but unless a better lead develops, you and Chiun will guard the Palmdale facility."
"You haven't told us what we do to the Krahseevah if we meet him again," Remo mentioned.
Smith's face fell.
"I have no answer for that, Remo," he said helplessly. "I only wish I did. But at the very minimum, your mission is to keep any more RAM tiles from falling into Soviet hands."
"We'll do what we can," Remo promised.
"Remo will do what he can," Chiun said acidly. "I will do what you wish. As always."
"Don't mind him," Remo told Smith. "He's just in a snotty mood because he didn't get a window seat on the flight back. Probably not on the flight to California, either, the way he's acting."