"Yes," replied a male voice, dry and bitter as a week-old lemon peel. "Please do not exert yourself until the bandages are removed."
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Robin gasped involuntarily. "Bandages? Am I okay?"
"Sure," another voice said from behind her. "The X rays were all negative. Now, just sit still a minute." It was that first voice. Remo whatever-his-name-was.
Then it all came back in a rush of memory. The car crash. The fight at the motel. Remo's hand reaching out to her, and then . . . oblivion.
"What . . . what did you do to me?" she sobbed, reaching for her face. She couldn't feel her face. She couldn't even feel her fingertips. They were swathed in fabric. Or was it her face? Then her vision cleared.
Robin realized she was in a small room. The walls were odd. Not covered with paint or wallpaper, but Naugahyde or something similar. Like overstuffed upholstery. Padded and . . . Padded . . .
"Oh, God," she gasped. "I'm in a padded cell."
Then she saw the man. He was all in gray. A handheld mirror shielded his face. The mirror side reflected Robin's own face. It was the face of a Hollywood mummy. Only her stark and staring blue eyes showed through the winding gauze.
"Please calm yourself," the gray man said from behind the mirror. "The procedure is quite painless, I can assure you."
Robin felt a strong hand-presumably Remo's-take the top of her head, and the tiny snippings of surgical scissors began. She looked down and saw her bandaged hands clutching the armrests of a chair.
"Am I ...?" Robin choked out. "Will I be ... disfigured?"
"Nah," Remo said. "The bandages were so we could get you onto the airline flight while you were unconscious."
"What?" Robin barked indignantly.
"I asked Remo to bring you here," the gray man said. "It was necessary that you not see anything that could lead you back to Remo or myself. You were transported as a catatonic burn patient."
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"Smith! Are you Smith?" Robin demanded. "Because if you are, you're in big trouble, buster."
The gray man gasped involuntarily. "Remo," he said in a shocked voice.
"Sorry, Smitty. Your name slipped out. But don't worry. Robin's on our side."
"The hell I am," Robin shouted. Suddenly the bandages fell away. Her mouth hung open. Her reflection stared back at her. Except for a few bruises and a cut near her hairline, it was normal-if paler than usual. She breathed a sigh of relief.
"See?" Remo said brightly, coming around the front. "Good as new."
"Step aside," Robin told him acidly. "I want to talk with your boss."
"And we want to talk with you," the man Robin took for Smith said matter-of-factly. "So please try to calm yourself."
"Calm myself!" Robin cried, pushing herself from the chair. "This loon just kidnapped me. I'm an Air Force investigator. You can't get away with this crap."
"Allow me, Emperor," a squeaky voice said from behind her left ear. And a hand with long curved fingernails reached up behind her hair and took the nape of her neck.
Robin felt her legs suddenly go numb, as if they had gone to sleep. She fell back into the chair.
"What is this?" she demanded. And then she noticed for the first time that she was sitting in a wheelchair.
"Oh, dear Lord," she said weakly, the fight going out of her.
"The paralysis is only temporary," Smith told her. "Chiun will restore the use of your legs after we have the answers we seek."
Chiun stepped into view, his face placid.
"You bastard," she hissed at him. And the old Oriental's face took on an injured expression.
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"Perhaps if you continue to insult me, I will forget how to realign your spine," Chiun warned her.
"He doesn't mean that," Remo put in quickly.
"Yes, I do," Chiun snapped.
"Please, please," Smith said. "Miss Green, if you will just answer my questions, we can be done with this interview."
"Why don't you put down that stupid mirror first? I can see that my face is fine, thank you."
"This mirror is not for your benefit," Smith told her. "It is so that you cannot see my face for later identification."
"Then could you please turn it around? You can stare at your own face for a change."
"This is a two-way mirror. I can see you from this end. If I turn it around, ray features will be visible to you."
At that, Chiun sidled up to Smith, his face craning up at the mirror. He examined it from front and rear. "May I borrow that when you are through with it?" he asked curiously. "It may be what I have been looking for."
"Later," Smith said testily.
"What do you want to know?" Robin said quietly, her face flushed.
"How did you happen to be on the scene when the Krahseevah, as Remo has styled him, reappeared?"
"You know, I could ask the same of you."
"Simply answer the question."
"All right. Did Remo-if that's really his name- tell you about the gas-station owner who saw the guy without his helmet?"
"Yes," Smith said, voice puzzled.
"Well, after I was ditched by your friends, I had a hard time explaining the demolished Holiday Inn, but fortunately, I have friends in high places."
"We know your father has been protecting you. He's been informed that you are well and not to
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worry. And just to be certain we have no problems from that quarter, I had him shipped off to a NATO base in Europe. He will not interfere."
"Oh," Robin said, subsiding. She swallowed and went on. "Anyway, strings were pulled and I was allowed to stay on the case. I rounded up Ed, the gas-station owner, his brother Ned, and the Holiday Inn desk clerk and had them describe the Russian's face for an artist I hired. We came up with a great likeness. Since then, we've had Air Force personnel watching airports and train stations all over the country. When someone who looked like our guy showed up at Los Angeles International Airport, I flew out there. I tracked him as far as the Northrop plant. Then he slipped into the suit and got away from me. I kept his car under surveillance, waiting for him to return. When he took off, I took off after him." She turned to glare at Remo. "I would have had him, too, but Remo Roadrunner here screwed things up."
"Me?" Remo said hotly. "I was on his tail first. You're a Robin-come-lately as far as I'm concerned."
"That's it?" Smith asked in a disappointed voice. "That's the lead you followed?"
Robin defiantly shook red hair out of her eyes. "What did you expect? That he called, asked for a date, and gave me his phone number?"
"That much we know," Smith said dryly. "He operates out of the Soviet embassy in Washington."
"Well, back to square one," Remo said. "Sorry, Smitty. I thought she'd have a better story than that."
"I thought it was a pretty sound piece of investigation," Robin muttered. "Why didn't any of you think of it?"
"She's got us there, Smitty," Remo admitted.
"Never mind," Smith said.
"Look," Robin said. "This was my investigation before it was yours. I know you guys aren't what you claim to be. I can live with that. But thanks to Punch
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and Judy over there"-Robin indicated Remo and Chiun with a disdainful toss of her head-"I'm probably AWOL from the scene of yet another demolished hotel. If I don't bag this Krahseevah, my career has flown south forever. Help me, and I'll help you. I'm in so deep even my father can't pull me out of this mess."
"We do not need you," Chiun told her pointedly. "You, who think that blue smoke and mirrors can explain anything your feeble mind cannot trouble itself to understand."
Robin just stared at the Master of Sinanju uncom-prehendingly.
"We have recovered the RAM tiles," Smith said slowly. "There is a chance that the Krahseevah will return to Palmdale, but it's doubtful he would dare to anytime in the near future. He knows we would expect that. Given his past pattern of infiltration and theft, he could strike anywhere in our military-industrial complex. We cannot afford to wait. He must be captured and neutralized as soon as possible."