"If you insist . . ."
Remo reached down. Chiun did the same. Their fingers attempted to capture the incapturable.
In a flash of a second, the insubstantial hands of Cheeta Ching grew palpable. Remo and Chiun each grabbed a flailing bunch of fingers.
"Now!" Chiun cried.
They heaved. Cheeta came up out of the floor. They set her on her feet.
In the darkness, Cheeta Ching swayed like tightrope walker.
"You okay now?" Remo asked.
"What? What? What?" Cheeta gulped. "Who's there?"
"It's me," Remo said.
"Frodo?"
"She's okay," Remo said.
"She is not!" Chiun flared. "She has been traumatized by machines. Cruel, white, oil-drinking machines."
"Fine," Remo said, starting off. "You comfort her. I'm going to look around."
"I am coming with you."
"You bring that barracuda, and there will be complications," Remo warned.
"Chico, don't leave me!" Cheeta pleaded.
At that, the Master of Sinanju rendered Cheeta Ching insensate with a simple application of pressure to a neck nerve. She collapsed with a rattly sigh.
Bearing the limp figure, Chiun followed Remo Williams back up to the lobby level.
"In her hour of need, she spoke your name!" he hissed.
"Technically, no," Remo pointed out.
"I am humiliated."
"Wait'll she names the baby."
"Argh!"
They found the Rumpp Regis lobby in an uproar.
The desk clerk was screaming at the IRS men, saying "They're shooting up the fourteenth floor! Do something!"
"Call the police," suggested one IRS man.
"But you're government agents!"
"Yeah, but we're tax collectors, not enforcers. We don't carry guns. Call the police."
Remo turned to Chiun. "The Russians are up on the fourteenth floor."
"Then that is where they will perish," said Chiun, placing Cheeta on a divan. She immediately rolled over and began snoring.
"There they are!" one of the IRS men shouted. It was the one Chiun had imprisoned in the revolving door. "You, stop!"
"Let's go, Little Father!" Remo urged. "The last thing we need now is tax trouble."
"Woe to him who touches the Master of Sinanju's trunk!" Chiun hurled back.
They flashed to the elevators, Remo racing and the Master of Sinanju floating along in an effortless series of leaps.
Three revenue collectors hit the closing elevator doors and bounced off like ping-pong balls.
Remo and Chiun piled out on the fourteenth floor and ran into a wall of frightened hotel guests, who pushed past them in a blind panic and commandeered the elevator.
"They will surely hinder pursuit," Chiun remarked, as the elevator started down.
"Follow me," Remo said grimly. "I know exactly what door to knock on."
Captain Rair Brashnikov floated in the middle of a bullet storm. He knew it was a storm, because all around him the fine gold-leaf molding and framed pictures were cracked and coming apart as assorted Soviet-made ammunition took their toll.
Assorted rounds pierced his brain, his lungs, and other major organs with no effect, other than to cause him to blink when the stray bullet crossed his retina.
Otherwise, it was quite peaceful up here under the ceiling. Much like the bathhouses of his homeland.
He faced an interesting dilemma. He knew that he could not float here forever. Yet to deactivate the vibration suit would be to become vulnerable to the angry bullets.
On the other hand, he seemed to be floating toward an outer wall. This was not good, Brashnikov knew. To float into a outer wall in this bodiless state would be to float out the other side. Depending on how high this particular floor was, he might find himself floating high enough off the ground that to turn off the suit would be to risk a broken neck or a completely pulverized skeletal system.
The third option, no less terrifying, would be to wait until the suit's battery power died. There was no telling how long that might be. He had been trapped in the American telephone system for a very long time-much longer than his reserve supply.
Somehow, the power had not been drained in all that time. This was good. What was not good was that he had no idea how long he had until the power went dead.
Then, in the tight-fitting confines of his white protective helmet, he heard an angry wasp's buzz. Looking down toward his midriff, he saw the red warning light illuminate the core of his belt control rheostat.
Rair Brashnikov knew two things then.
One, that he had only twenty minutes of power left.
The second thing he spoke aloud in a thick voice.