Remo had settled down to a long wait. An occasional security guard drifted by. Remo, in shadow, avoided them easily. The trick was not to catch their eye. Keeping still was a big part of it. Human peripheral vision picked up even the slightest movement, while a person looking straight on often missed the most obvious dangers because they did not act like threats.
Not watching an enemy was the other half of successful concealment. What the eyes missed, other senses often picked up. No one-not even Chiun-had ever satisfactorily explained human intuition to him, but Remo knew that even the worst-trained ordinary man could sometimes feel eyes on him. So he always looked away when the guards came by, confident that he would not be seen or sensed.
He was not.
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Long after midnight-Remo, who never wore a watch, knew it was exactly 3:44 A.M. because the last time he had happened to notice a clock it had been 10:06 and his biological clock told him that that was exactly five hours and thirty-eight minutes ago-he suddenly felt the air on his bare forearms lift in warning.
It was not cold, and even if it was, Remo should have been able to will his tightening flesh to relax. It would not. That meant an electrical phenomenon. Maybe the Krahseevah.
Remo slipped around behind the dumpster, looking for any sign of the creature.
The hair on his forearms grew stiffer. And the short hairs at the back of his neck rose up too. It was the identical sensation he had felt during his first encounter with the thing. Robin Green had reported exactly the same thing.
Remo was on his feet, staring up at the darkened edges of the surrounding buildings, when the Krahseevah walked by him as casually as a Sunday stroller.
Except that the Krahseevah was glowing like a misty moon with legs.
Remo faded back with alacrity. The speed and silence of the creature's abrupt appearance had taken even him by surprise. The Krahseevah had emerged from the steel tank of the garbage dumpster like an alien stepping out of the fifth dimension.
Remo watched it walk stiffly to the side of a building. It stuck its head in tentatively, paused, and then slipped inside.
Remo glided to the building's edge.
He stared around the corner. Down at the far end, the Krahseevah's glowing blister face emerged from the ridged steel like a forming bubble. The face hesitated, expanding and contracting regularly; then the Krahseevah stepped free of the wall. It cleared an open parking area with jerky strides. Then it crouched
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beside a tan Firebird. It melted into the car, causing the dim interior to glow faintly.
Remo hung back, seeing the thing's featureless face hovering over the dashboard. Ludicrously, its gold-veined boots stuck out below the chassis. The head swiveled slowly. It was obviously being very cautious.
Then the Krahseevah stepped from the car and, hugging walls and concrete loading docks, made its way to the windowless Plant Forty-two building.
Remo decided that he'd better get back to the garbage dumpster, where he would have a clear view of the building, but be least likely to attract notice. He did so.
Long minutes crawled by. Remo's eyes were trained on the building, but he fretted inwardly. Would the Krahseevah come out this way? He wished there was some way to warn Chiun. But he knew the Master of Sinanju was alert. But the problem would be that if the Krahseevah moved too fast, there wouldn't be time to get word to Chiun.
The Krahseevah appeared less than fifteen minutes later. Its glowing head poked out of Plant Forty-two's hangar doors-the same doors out of which the first Stealth bomber had rolled for media cameras. Evidently satisfied, the head withdrew and the hands came out, followed by the chest and the knees. The Krahseevah stood, one arm crooked, in the open. Then, clutching what Remo took to be an armful of RAM tiles, it backtracked its approach, going to the car, pausing, then working its way to the nearby building again.
Remo slipped around the back of the dumpster. The hairs on his arm began to rise again.
When they were at maximum elevation, Remo knew the Krahseevah was practically on top of him. He sneaked a peek around the corner.
The Krahseevah emerged from the other side of the dumpster and walked through a raised concrete walkway. Its legs disappeared below the thigh, which made
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it look as if it were wading through solid concrete. It vanished into a wall.
Remo went up the side of the wall like a spider. He crouched down on the roof, unseen in his black T-shirt and chinos.
The Krahseevah came out of the building on the other side and picked its way from object to object, like an octopus through coral. Whenever it found something to hide in-a wall or a car-it did. Once it scrunched down to conceal itself in a humming air-conditioning unit set in concrete.
Remo followed it with his eyes as far as he could. Then he floated to the ground and trailed it through the maze of barbed wire. The Krahseevah seemed to be heading north, which Remo hoped might mean he'd have a chance to tip off Chiun.
As the industrial park fell behind, Remo spotted the Krahseevah loping through open desert, toward the highway. Remo hung back to see if he could spot the Master of Sinanju.
Their rented car was about a mile down the road, which forked so that the car sat on the low road, in the shadow of a ridge. The high road climbed the ridge.
It was too far for Remo to attract Chiun's attention. Frowning, he returned to trailing the Krahseevah. The creature was moving from telephone pole to telephone pole, repeating its old tricks, Remo saw.
Then it stopped. As Remo watched, its lambent glow faded.
It had turned off the suit.
Remo moved. He knew this would be his one chance. He flashed through the desert, his toes making only tiny wedge-shaped marks in the sand, he was running so fast.
Then the low growl of an ignition sounded. A car! The Krahseevah had a car waiting.
The car was a big one. A black Cadillac. Its tail-
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lights flared; then it backed out of the shadows, stopped, and purred down the highway.
It was heading for the fork in the road.
"Damn!" Remo said, shifting direction. If it took the low road, it would pass Chiun. But if it took the high road, the Master of Sinanju might assume it was only a passing car.
Remo decided to take the ridge. He sprinted harder. Let Chiun be pissed for missing out. There was no way to avoid it.
Remo cut across the highway and hit the bottom of the ridge at full speed. Without pausing, he transferred his running motion into a four-limbed climb. He went up the rocks like a beetle fleeing a grass fire. Momentum took him halfway up before he needed to exert any effort. His hands and feet found plenty of handholds.
Remo levered himself up to the road just in time to spot the Cadillac's taillights whisk by like retreating eyes. The car was accelerating rapidly. Remo took off after it. They hit the downhill slope, so gravity helped carry him along. Not that he needed gravity's help. Remo's toes dug into the heat-softened blacktop like climbing spikes. Dig, pause, and push. Left and right. Right and left. Loosened granules of tar kicked up behind him. And soon he was running as fast as the speeding Cadillac, which had to run with its brake drums touching the wheel rims to negotiate the steep slope. Remo caught up with the car. Then he was running with the Cadillac, as if the car were merely coasting.
Rair Brashnikov was pleased with himself. He had successfully penetrated the high-security Northrop facility once again. It was easier this second time, for he had already explored the best approaches the first time. The RAM tiles were in the same storage area. It