Remo was swatting at the glass door. It might as well have been a hologram.
Carefully, he put one leg in. It went through without sensation. He let the toe of his Italian leather loafer touch the lobby floor. It dropped down and out of sight. He felt nothing. Not warm, not cold. Simply . . . not there.
Remo withdrew the leg. He moved back and looked around frantically. The biggest thing in sight was a light pole. He went to it and began kicking the concrete base with controlled fury.
The pole shattered and began to tip. Remo raced to meet the descending light housings. There were two. The streetlights along this stretch of Fifth Avenue resembled two-headed serpents. He caught one, laid it down on the ground. Going to the base, he chopped away at the cables and copper wiring until they came loose.
Then, using both hands, he levered the base of the pole in a line with the main entrance and began to shove it in.
Remo kept pushing until he felt the other end beginning to tip. He pulled back about a foot of the pole and, certain of its balance, jumped on.
Hands held out to his sides, Remo began to walk the pole like a log bridge. He passed through the glass entrance and found himself balanced over what looked like solid marble flooring, although he knew it wasn't.
His dark eyes said it was solid. His other senses told him otherwise. If he fell, he knew he would be in deep trouble.
While people gathered around, shouting with their mouths but emitting no audible sounds, Remo got down on his knees. He dropped a hand into the flooring.
His hand vanished up to his thick wrist. He felt around experimentally. Nothing.
Remo shouted, "Little Father! Chiun! Can you hear me?"
No sound came back.
He brought his hand back and cupped it over his mouth.
"Chiun!"
Then he heard something. Faint. A voice. Thin. He couldn't make out the words.
"What?"
A single word was repeated. It sounded like "fetch." "Fetch?"
A "no" came back. It was clear enough. The faraway voice was saying "no."
"Not 'fetch'?" Remo called down.
The word that sounded like "fetch" was repeated.
"Louder!" Remo yelled at the marble. "I can't make it out!"
Then, something jumped out of the floor.
It happened so fast and was so unexpected that Remo's reflexes barely warned him to get out of the way in time.
A man came sailing up in a long arc. The parabola of the arc carried him through the second-level atrium floor and out into the street.
He began to fall.
Remo moved then. He flashed along the fallen lamp pole and out onto Fifth Avenue. Getting under the man, he raised his arms.
Remo had no idea if he could catch him. There was no question he'd be in the right place at the right time, but there was no way of knowing if the man would land in the upraised cushion of his arms . . . or fall through them and into the unforgiving pavement.
Remo set himself for the worst.
The man struck his hands like a bony sack of potatoes. Remo felt the impact bring him to his knees. It knocked the breath out of the man, but Remo's arm bones survived without shattering. He laid the man out.
"Who are you, pal?" Remo asked.
The man who had been ejected from the phantom skyscraper seemed to be staring through Remo, as if he had beheld sights that had dazzled his senses. "Never mind me," he gasped. "The others."
"Others?"
"Catch."
" 'Catch'? Was that the word? 'Catch,' not 'fetch'?"
"Hurry," the man gasped.
Remo moved back, his arms lifted. There was no time to figure out what was happening. He had to be ready.
Cheeta Ching came next. Remo heard her shriek of fright seconds before she popped-literally popped-out from the golden facade of the Rumpp Tower in a shallow arc.
Remo called up. "Don't worry! I'll catch you."
Like an infielder, Remo positioned himself for the catch.
Cheeta Ching, still shrieking, landed across his arms. Her arms flung out and took hold of his neck, her nails gouging red streaks in the vicinity of his jugular. She buried her sticky-haired head in Remo's shoulder.
"You can let go now," Remo said. "It's me. Rocco."
Cheeta Ching looked up dazedly.
Her voice sounding surprised, Cheeta said, "I'm alive."
"And clawing," Remo pointed out. "I'd like my neck back. If you don't mind."
Cheeta's manicured talons disengaged, like a gross of hypodermics withdrawing from flesh.
Remo set her on her feet.
"Thank you, Renko," she said. This time, her voice sounded subdued.
"That's-" Remo caught himself. "Never mind. Did you see Chiun?"
"No."