His heart high in his mouth, Brashnikov turned the control.
Too late! He felt the pain of impact. He screamed. His vision went red as he clutched at his pain-seared shoulder. The agony was unendurable. It felt as if the ball-and-socket joint had exploded, sending bone splinters flying into every muscle and nerve he possessed.
His vision cleared instantly, just in time for him to see the man with the dead eyes carried through his own chest with the momentum of his attack. That, and that alone, told Rair Brashnikov that despite the incredible pain, the man had just grazed him.
And the suit was operating!
The Oriental was upon him next. Fingernails tore at his face, his chest, his hands. They passed through him harmlessly, but something in their very fury filled Brashnikov with fear.
All thoughts of his mission gone from his mind, Brashnikov frantically flailed around. He must escape. He moved toward the third mirror, but it came apart
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to reveal a recess in the wall and a redheaded woman in an Air Force blue dress uniform.
She was firing at him. The bullets passed through him, but Brashnikov dared not take any chances with the suit malfunctioning so strangely.
He stepped quickly toward the other room. He remembered the wall telephone there. That would be his escape. He dared not engage the two men-he recognized them as his adversaries from two earlier encounters -in a game of hide-and-seek. He knew now that their powers and stamina would outlast his battery-DieHard or not.
Brashnikov emerged on the other side of the wall. The telephone gleamed like a faint beacon. It looked like any telephone, but to Rair Brashnikov it was a lifeline to safety.
The air-lock door reverberated with a pounding like sledgehammers, echoes bouncing off the bare walls. But in Brashnikov's panicky imagination, he did not see the pair taking sledgehammers to the opposite side. He saw them beating on it with bare fists. Bumps appeared on Brashnikov's side. They were fist-size bumps.
Brashnikov turned off the suit and with a prayer on his quivering lips reached out for the phone.
"Raduysa Mariye, blagodati poliaya, Gospod s't'voyu ..." he whispered, surprised that the old words came so easily from memory.
He felt the pressure of the gray plastic receiver against the thick material of his gloves, and tears of relief jumped from his eyes. He was solid! He could use the phone!
Brashnikov dialed the Soviet embassy in Washington with frantic stabs of his gloved fingers as the air-lock door behind him started to protest as it was forced out of its frame by an increasing machine-gun volley of blows. He hesitated. Had he just hit five? Or four? It should have been five. Should he hang up and
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start over? The air-lock door screeched horribly. He kept dialing. There was no time to waste. Even if he had misdialed, anyplace would be better than here.
He heard the first ring.
Then the door flew out. It came at him like a truck.
Brashnikov turned the rheostat hard.
He saw the skinny white man and the Oriental leap into the room, and then everything went white. Brashnikov wanted to shout at them. Too late, too late, Americans! But it was too late even for gloating.
Everything was all right. Everything would be all right.
Rair Brashnikov found himself hurtling through a dark tunnel. Voices sounded in his head. He listened, trying to separate a Russian accent from the babble of English. But all he heard was the insistent ringing of a telephone somewhere-far, far away.
He prayed that the switchboard operator would answer soon. She seemed to be taking an obscenely long time.
20
"We're getting nowhere," Remo Williams snapped hotly, stepping away from the door. "We're supposed to be a team. Let's see some teamwork."
"We are already too late," the Master of Sinanju fumed.
"Then we're trying to beat one another to something that isn't there anymore. So come on."
Remo and Chiun set themselves before the battered air-lock door. Together they slammed their palms into the center of the door. It jumped from its frame as if shot from a cannon.
They leapt into the room.
"There!" Remo said, seeing the Krahseevah frantically punching numbers on the keypad. He flew at him, hoping this time he wouldn't be too late. He knew he had touched the Russian's shoulder in the split second before the suit had activated. It was like touching a frustratingly elusive mirage-which of course the Krahseevah had been in every previous encounter. And although Remo had inflicted damage, he had not incapacitated the Russian. He wanted another crack at him.
But the Master of Sinanju had other ideas. "It is my turn," he cried.
"He's up for grabs," Remo growled.
They converged on the Krahseevah just as his glow-
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ing form misted over and was hungrily gobbled up by the telephone receiver. Their reaching hands grasped and clutched at the nebulous white shape as it collapsed and was drawn away. But to no avail. The last tendrils that were the Krahseevah's hand entered the mouthpiece, and it was gone.
Chiun caught the receiver as it fell.
"We are too late," he said angrily.
"Give me that," Remo said, taking the receiver away from him and clapping it to one ear. He listened anxiously as Robin Green, reloading a smoking automatic, stepped into the room.
"You lied to me," she said harshly. "You tricked me!"
"Quiet," Remo said, listening. He heard crackling static, and under it, the steady ringing of a telephone on the other end.
"Great," he said, punching a button on the telephone. He got another line and pressed the pound button continuously. A relay triggered an automatic dialing sequence, and soon Remo was hearing another phone ringing.
The receiver was picked up on the other end.
"Yes?" a dry voice said.
"Smitty. He got away from us. But he's coming your way."
"I know. The special phone is ringing," Dr. Harold W. Smith said.
In the background, Remo heard a telephone jangling.