"It is a disguise," said Chiun dismissively. "Come. We must free the others."
The keys had not been left in the other locks. Chiun knew that the sound of the stubborn locks might have carried. Delay could be dangerous. First he went to Kula's door and examined the hinge pins. They were as thick as rifle barrels. Strong. But also large. Sometimes a large obstacle was more easily defeated.
Kneeling, he struck the lower pins with the edge of his hand. A short, sharp blow. The hinges came apart like a log split by an ax. The top pin surrendered in like fashion.
Impatient, Kula pushed the door outward and set it aside.
The other door hinges were no less resistant to the skills of the Master of Sinanju.
After Lobsang Drom had emerged, Squirrelly Chicane threw her maroon lama's cap into the air.
"This is great! This is great. This is the reel I've been waiting for!" Squirrelly bent and kissed Chiun on the top of his head, saying, "I wish you were tall, dark and handsome, but hey, by the time they cast the part, maybe you will be."
"What is this woman railing about?" the Master of Sinanju asked Kula. The big Mongol shrugged, a resigned who-can-fathom-the-mind-of-a-white-lama shrug.
Squirrelly noticed a strange taste on her lips. She wiped them, and there was a smear of black on her saffron sleeve. "What is this stuff?"
Chiun ignored her. "There is no time to dawdle. We must get past the Chinese guards"
"Just get me to a telephone. I'll have the Marines here in no time."
THERE was only one telephone in all of Drapchi Prison. It was a desk model in the office of Colonel Fang Lin of the ministry of state security, in charge of Drapchi Prison.
Right now he was using it to talk to Beijing.
He was having a hard time getting through to Beijing. More specifically, getting through to the minister of state security. It had been on the minister's orders that he had thrown the internationally recognized Squirrelly Chicane into a cell and denied her any contact with America. Now he wanted further instructions.
If only the minister of state security would take his call.
He had been trying all night. He had left messages. None had been returned. Colonel Fang was beginning to get the message: Squirrelly Chicane was a tiger he would have to ride without further instruction. His original orders were simple. Imprison the would-be Bunji Lama until further notice. No food. No water. No contact with the outside world.
The orders were fixed. He could not deviate from them without bringing great reprimands down on his own head.
No food, no water, no contact. In time, if those orders were not countermanded, Squirrelly Chicane would perish of starvation. Blame would be attached to Colonel Fang for not exercising initiative and common sense and preserving her life.
As Colonel Fang hung up the still-ringing telephone receiver, he shook a slim cigarette out of his last box of Pandas. The supply plane was late again. No doubt there would be no contact with Beijing until the Bunji Lama had expired.
As he smoked, Colonel Fang tried to fathom the Byzantine reasons for the security minister not returning his messages. He could only guess at them, but he had been with the PLA for twenty years. He understood how things worked, even if the why was often elusive.
The security minister had received his orders from the premier of China himself. They were stark orders. The security minister had related them to Colonel Fang, and then possibly went on an unexpected vacation. Or arranged for trouble with his office telephone. Phone outages were common in Beijing.
The Bunji Lama would die in Drapchi Prison, and Colonel Fang would receive the blame because if she did not die in Drapchi Prison, the premier would blame the minister of state security, who would in turn blame Colonel Fang for not carrying out his orders to the letter.
It was a typically communist way of dealing with unpleasant duties. And Colonel Fang had grown to hate it.
He smoked furiously, one eye half-closed in sly rumination. On his desk stood the gilt statuette confiscated from the American lama in the hope it was made of true gold. It was not. Still, Colonel Fang had decided to keep it. He had always dreamed of winning an Oscar.
Now who among his underlings could he inveigle to take the blame for the inevitable international storm?
AT THE FIRST SET of control doors, there was a PLA guard standing at attention, chin high, eyes all but concealed by his low green helmet.
The Master of Sinanju waved to those who followed to remain behind and then he padded toward the lone sentry.
The sentry heard nothing of his approach, of course. How could he? He was a dull-witted Chinese, and a steel helmet covered his unhearing ears.
So when the rifle left his clenched hands, skinning his trigger finger, the guard was quite surprised to look down and see an ancient Korean standing not two feet in front of him and below his normal line of sight, holding the rifle.
Snarling a pungent curse, the guard reached down to recapture his precious assault rifle. The rifle suddenly dropped from the old Korean's grasp to clatter on the stone floor. He bent at the waist.
This brought his helmeted head within the reach of those long-nailed fingers. One nail swept up and traced a quick circle, using the rim of the steel helmet as a guide. The guard never felt the sting of the nail that scored through skin and skull bone.
With a sound like a champagne cork popping, the top of the guard's head jumped straight up, helmet and all.
These sounds were strange in the guard's ears. A quick rasp against skull bone and the noise of a cork popping. The top of his head felt odd.
Something was wrong. He reached up to touch his helmet and felt something warm and throbbing like a great organ.
Then he saw his helmet drop into the line of his vision to join his rifle on the floor. The inside of the helmet was like the inner portion of a halved coconut. Except instead of white coconut meat, he saw raw red bone.
And he knew.
The stabbing fingernail that burst his pounding heart was a mercy.
Chiun took the iron key from the belt of the quivering Chinese guard and unlocked the control door. Then he beckoned the others to follow.
Squirrelly took one look and shut her eyes. Kula paused to claim the assault rifle. Lobsang sniffed, "It is wrong to kill"
"It is wronger to die at the hands of oppressors," retorted the Master of Sinanju.
Three times they encountered guards. Each time the Bunji Lama and her entourage were made to stay back until they heard an ugly sound as of a great cork popping. They learned not to look as they stepped over each fallen PLA soldier.
COLONEL FANG HEARD a hollow popping sound and sat up in his hard wooden chair. His precious cigarette was almost exhausted, so he snuffed it out on the bare desktop and went to the door.
Through the frosted glass in the door, he saw a short shadow. It looked Tibetan. No Tibetan should have been walking unescorted through Drapchi Prison.
He reached into his belt holster for his Tokarev pistol, unlatched the safety and debated with himself whether or not to shoot through the valuable glass. It had been exceedingly difficult to requisition a door with a frosted-glass panel from Beijing, so he decided against it.
Instead, he flung open the door.
There was no one standing there when the door stood open.
The shadow had been there a second before. He was sure of it. Startled, Colonel Fang shut the door. The shadow had returned. He flung open the door a second time. No shadow. No little figure. It was baffling.
He pushed his square head out of the door. The act cost him his life. Without warning, long-nailed fingers grasped his collar with irresistible force, pulling him down.
Colonel Fang felt something sharp run across his forehead, cutting a thin swath through the hair at the back of his skull. He heard a very distinct pop.