And the cold, dismissive tones of Colonel Rushenko made Yuli Batenin's KGB-trained heart warm in response.
It was almost like being back in the USSR again.
Chapter 23
Remo and Chiun stared at the image on the TV screen.
It was a floating white figure, with cables looping up from its shoulders like the transparent wings of a fly.
"It can't be," Remo said.
"The fiend," Chiun rasped.
"I don't believe it," Remo growled.
The sniffling anchor was saying, "This footage was shot from a helicopter, and purports to show a supernatural being inhabiting the Rumpp Tower."
As they watched the white figure, visible through a darkened pane in the southwest corner of the Rumpp Tower, it rolled in midair like a drowned corpse.
Probably no one watching the tape could make out the blocky object that hung in the white webbing knapsack on the back of the floating figure. It was too indistinct. The letters on the back of the boxy object were too faint to be read by normal eyes.
But the eyes of the only two living Masters of Sinanju were not ordinary.
And they knew exactly what to look for.
A logo that said: SEARS DIEHARD.
"I believe it," Remo said unhappily.
"The Krahseevah," hissed Chiun, making tiny yellow mallets with his bone-hard fists.
"Mystery solved." Remo said glumly, snatching up the telephone. He got Smith immediately.
"Smitty. Turn on Channel Four. Right now."
"One moment."
A moment later Harold W. Smith's surprised voice came back, saying, "What should I be looking for?"
"It shiny and white and trouble."
"All I am getting, Remo, are two rhinoceroses copulating."
"Your Channel Four must be different than ours. Try MBC News."
The sound of Smith's breathing went away. Then there came a hoarse, "Oh my God."
"Look like the Krahseevah to you?" Remo asked.
"I do not know. I have never seen this creature."
"Well, Chiun and I have. And it's the Krahseevah all right. I thought you call-wasted him."
"By all rights, Remo, the Krahseevah, as you call him, should have been atomically scattered through the nation's telephone system, after we tricked him into teleporting himself to a dead phone here at Folcroft. "
"Well, he's loose in the Rumpp Tower. And five will get you ten, he's responsible for what's going on down there."
"I wonder," Smith said.
"Wonder what?" Remo asked.
"Remo, do you recall reading of system-wide telephone difficulties over the last few years?"
"Sure. Once La Guardia was shut down for over an hour, because flight-tracking information is carried between airports through Ma Bell's lines."
"These service interruptions date back approximately three years."
"Yeah. About that."
"The same length of time since we tricked the Krahseevah into, we thought, destroying himself."
"You don't think . . . ?"
"The Krahseevah, you will recall, possessed the ability to make himself insubstantial. This enabled him to steal into high-security installations throughout the nation and make off with valuable technology for his Russian superiors. It was one of the last-gasp efforts of the former Soviet Union to achieve technological parity with the U.S., before their system finally collapsed of its own backwardness."
"Don't remind me," Remo said sourly, glancing at the footage of their most aggravating opponent as it was replayed.
"A side effect of this property was that if he energized the suit that provided him with this ability while holding an openline telephone, his unstable, dematerialized atoms and molecules would be sucked into the phone lines, much the way electrons travel as electricity, only to reintegrate, intact and alive, on the other end."
"Yeah," Remo said bitterly. "He was a human fax. Chiun and I couldn't touch him, catch him, or stop him."
"Until I devised a foolproof plan to destroy him," said Smith.
"So much for foolproof," Remo pointed out.
Smith's harsh voice softened, as if he were reliving the entire operation.
"We set it up perfectly. A lure on an Air Force base."
"I remember. We had a stealth plane that didn't exist. It was a hologram."
"Designed to make the Krahseevah, when he turned off his suit in order to steal the prototype model, doubt the status of his molecular state."
"It was good enough for me to get a good shot in."
Chiun squeaked contrarily, "A proper blow, and we would not be having this problem!"
"So? I only winged him. It happens."
"Your repeated failures will go against us at the next negotiation!" Chiun said loudly. "But at least no blame will attach itself to our emperor. His head will be spared by the President, whoever that person will be this time."
Remo said, "I think Chiun's trying to brown-nose you, Smitty."
Smith ignored the outburst and went on: "The Krahseevah reacted as I thought he would. He went to the nearest phone and dialed the Soviet Embassy in Washington, from which he apparently operated. But the phone was programmed to dial only one number. That of a Folcroft phone."
"Which you disconnected," Remo pointed out. "You said it would scatter the guy into a million dial tones."
"The only explanation is that the Krahseevah has been caught up in the telephone system, wreaking havoc, and somehow emerged through one of the Rumpp Tower lines," Smith said.
"Talk about a wrong number," Remo remarked glumly.
"And I am responsible for it," Smith said, his voice aghast.
"Okay, we know what's up. Now we just have to figure out how to stop this jerk."
"There is more to it than that, Remo," Smith said slowly.
"Yeah?"
"Recall that Randal Rumpp had claimed credit for the events of this night. We have every reason to believe that Rumpp and the Krahseevah have joined forces."
"So? Chiun and I are running a two-for-one Halloween special. We'll take them both out."
"Not until we better understand the situation. Sit tight. I will get back to you."
"Do not forget my trunk!" Chiun called, just as Smith hung up.
Remo snapped his fingers. "Now I remember. That trunk! It was full of your shaman junk. The stuff you used to exorcise that missile base, before we knew we were dealing with a Russian scam and not poltergeist."
Chiun gave his kimono skirts a resolute hitch. "We were dealing with dark forces. This time, we will deal with them intelligently and atone for our past failures."
"Chiun, this is science, not magic. We gotta fight it scientifically."
"White ignorance," Chiun scoffed.
The TV began scrolling vertically. Absently, Remo stuck out his two outer fingers and folded back the middle pair and his thumb. He pointed them at the rising black transmission line and said, "There's no such thing as magic."
The line followed Remo's fingers when he lifted them.
"Machine-worshipper," Chiun spat.
"Bulldookey," said Remo. The transmission line slipped back just before it got to the top edge of the tube and Remo caught it again. This time it followed his fingers until the picture was perfect once more.
"When Emperor Smith instructs us to seek out this enemy," Chiun said firmly, "I will have my herbs and bells and you may attack it with a turbocharged hotcheese blaster, and we will see which is more effective."
"There is no such thing as a turbocharged hotcheese blaster," Remo pointed out.
"By morning, some greedy white tinkerer will have invented one. You may be first in line to purchase the worthless thing. Heh heh heh."
Ignoring the dry cackling of the Master of Sinanju, Remo went to the hotel window.
The Rumpp Tower was visible only a few blocks away. It was as dark as Remo's mood.
"This is not going to be easy," he muttered unhappily.
Chapter 24
The Aeroflot flight that carried Major Yuli Batenin of the supersecret Russian organization known only as "Shield" out of Russia had to refuel in Minsk because of insufficient fuel. And again in Warsaw, Oslo, Reykjavik, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, because Areoflot's credit standing was so poor no airport was willing to fill the Ilyushin jet's fuel tanks.