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Rair Brashnikov was feeling better. He was sitting up in bed and ready to eat solid foods. The embassy kitchen was preparing a thick London-broil steak for him. He would have preferred porterhouse, and he thought wistfully of the steaks he had had to leave behind in North Dakota. He didn't mind the missile parts that he could not bring with him. He was not paid for each item stolen, receiving only his monthly salary. He wondered what was wrong with Kremlin thinking that they offered a man no incentive to excel at the tasks given him to perform.

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For three years now Rair had contented himself with stealing a little here and there for Mother Russia, and stealing a lot for himself. Every week he shipped big packages to his cousin Radomir in Soviet Georgia. And he knew that every week his cousin sold them on the black market for American dollars. Quite a pile of dollars would be awaiting Rair when he returned to Russia. If he ever did. After all, it was very nice in America. And it would be nicer now that Batenin was no longer around to bother him.

Footsteps sounded outside the dispensary door and Rair Brashnikov sat up straighter in anticipation of a London-broil steak and salty french fries on the side.

But these footsteps were heavy and menacing. Rair's thin dark brows puckered. There was an unmistakably familiar sound to them.

"Nyet," he muttered. "It could not be."

But when the door slammed open and Major Yuli Batenin stood framed in it, huge shoulders heaving, Rair Brashnikov frantically reached for his belt-buckle rheostat.

His hand encountered only the drawstring of his pajamas.

And then Batenin was on him like an avalanche. Brashnikov felt himself being hauled out of bed and slammed against the wall.

"Where is it?" Batenin demanded vehemently, the force of his words expelling hot saliva on Brashnikov's shrinking features.

"Tovarich, what is wrong?" Brashnikov asked innocently.

Major Batenin slapped him across the face once. Then again with the back of his hand. Rair's cheeks stung.

"Under mattress," Rair said fearfully, recognizing blazing, naked hatred in the other man's eyes.

Batenin dropped him, and Brashnikov collapsed on the floor.

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He watched as Yuli Batenin rooted around under the mattress. In frustration he heaved the mattress off its springs with both arms. It was a heavy mattress. Brashnikov was impressed by the major's strength. Or possibly it was not mere strength, but sheer rage that empowered him so.

Brashnikov shrank into a corner of the room, awaiting the worst.

When Major Batenin straightened up, his wallet in hand, he turned to Brashnikov, his eyes fierce.

"If you ever steal from me again, I will wring your neck like a chicken's," he said in a too-low voice. "Do you understand, Brashnikov?"

"Da, da, Tovarich Major. I am sorry. It is merely irresistible urge that comes over me. I cannot help myself."

Batenin's red face was suddenly nose-to-nose with his own.

"I understand, Tovarich Brashnikov," Batenin said in a tone like grinding teeth.

"You do?"

"Da." He sneered. "I am even now seized by compulsion. Only mine does not urge me to steal. Only to break your thieving neck. I will make deal with you. I will smother my compulsion if you control yours."

"Deal," Rair Brashnikov said, gulping. The major's alcoholic breath filled his nose with fumes.

"Now, Brashnikov," Batenin said, straightening up, "I would advise you to get well soon. By dawn at very latest. You have important task before you."

"I do?"

"You are going back to place where Stealth tiles are made. You will obtain more."

"I did not obtain enough?" Brashnikov asked in a puzzled voice.

"If I have to explain, I may lose control of myself," Batenin warned. "And neither of us wish that-do we?"

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"Nyet, nyet," Brashnikov said, shaking his head.

"Good. Because until more tiles are in my hands, I cannot return to Moscow. And as long as I am stuck in embassy, your safety is in doubt. Are we in agreement on this, Brashnikov?"

"I feel much better already," Brashnikov told him. He cracked a lopsided, ingratiating smile.

14

Plant Forty-two of Northrop's high-security Palmdale facility was a completely windowless corrugated-steel building painted the color of the surrounding desert sands. No one who toiled within its fortresslike walls ever saw daylight during the working day. This unusual construction was necessary because of the number of special-access, or "black-budget," defense projects that were hatched within its austere confines; Spies both industrial and international were everywhere. And in today's world of high-tech espionage, a window was an open invitation to everything from a parabolic microphone to orbiting reconnaissance satellites.

The problem with having no windows was that while it inhibited opportunities for spying or invasion, it also made it more difficult to detect approaching threats.

"No windows," Remo said. "Great." He and Chiun watched the building from behind their rented car. It was parked on a lonely highway some distance from the barbed-wire-ringed facility. "We can get really close to the building without being seen."

They were out in a scrub-desert area of California. Telephone poles quaked in the brittle heat. In the distance were the sullen San Gabriel Mountains.

"Not necessarily," the Master of Sinanju said. "We are better off stationing ourselves far from this so-

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called plant. For it will not be our objective to prevent the Krahseevah from gaining entrance to this place, but to follow him after he leaves it."

"Isn't that risky?" Remo said. "What if he gets away with another batch of RAM tiles?"

Chiun shrugged as if it were an inconsequential matter.

"He will attempt to enter in this smokelike state," Chiun intoned. "We will not be able to stop him in that case. But if we allow him to leave unchallenged and, to his lights, unobserved, he will be less careful. Then we will follow him to his lair and catch him unawares, recovering any stolen artifacts."

"I like it," Remo said. "It's direct and simple."

"I tailored it for your mentality," Chiun told him. Before Remo could formulate a reply, the Master of Sinanju went on. "We will split up. I will position myself to the northeast, so that two walls are always in sight of my incomparable eyes. You, Remo, will take the southwest. Try to stay awake."

"Thanks a bunch," Remo said dryly. "You know we could be here for weeks."

"We will do what we have to do. That creature has angered me. I will take special delight in capturing and punishing it."

"Okay by me. Let's just hope something breaks soon. This isn't exactly my idea of the perfect place for an indefinite roost. I guess if you're taking northeast, and we happen to be parked southwest of the place, that means I get to wait in the car, huh?"

Chiun turned to Remo with his parchment features etched with disdain.

"Of course . . ." he began.

Remo grinned.

"... not," Chiun finished. "You will drive me to the northeast point of vantage and I will wait in the automobile."

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"And what am I supposed to do?" Remo growled. "Walk back?"

"You have something against walking, you who are young and smooth of skin, with unnumbered years stretching before you?"

"All right, all right," Remo said, getting behind the wheel. The Master of Sinanju settled into the passenger seat without a sound. The door closed like an infant's midnight exhalation.

Later, after Remo had parked the car in the shelter of a ridge, he picked his way through the triple ring of barbed wire and into the multibuilding facility. He secreted himself in an alley near a loading dock and crouched under the lip of a garbage dumpster. Fortunately, Remo thought, regulating his breathing so that the air came in too slowly to stir the scent receptors in his sensitive nose, this was an industrial area. Instead of smelling like dead fish, rotted cheese, and other rancid food smells, this particular dumpster reeked of hot plastic and acetone.