"Idiot," Chiun said.
Nina wanted a doll from It's a Small Small World, and got one on the premier's promise to conclude a SALT agreement as soon as possible. By now, Nina had a large shopping bag filled with souvenirs.
When they passed the haunted house, there was a sign on the front of the building announcing it was closed for the day.
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But a well-tanned young man motioned them to the entrance.
"We've just finished making some improvements inside," he said. "We'd like you to test out the house as our guests. Before we open it to the public."
"You mean free?" the premier asked.
The young man nodded.
"You do not want the Ukraine?"
The man shook his head.
"Our submarine fleet? No cutback in missile construction?" the premier asked suspiciously.
"Free," the young man said.
"Let's go," the premier said. He whispered to Karbenko, "Lenin was right. Given time, the capitalist system will break down."
The heavy door clanged shut behind them as they entered the haunted house. Two of the KGB men led the way as they walked single-file down a long dark corridor.
Remo walked in front of the premier and Nina and Chiun followed them.
Up ahead, there was a faint light at the end of the long dark tunnel, and then they were standing in a large oak-panelled room with oil portraits of men in nineteenth-century garb mounted high up on the walls.
A recorded voice announced that they were going back through time, to another dimension, and as the voice spoke the paintings around the tops of the walls began to change their visage and the men in them seemed to grow younger.
Vassily Karbenko was gone.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The electronic voice intoned, "And now, when the secret panel opens, move through the chamber of the past."
There was a faint hissing sound as one of the oaken walls began to slide to the right, revealing another passageway.
Chiun led Nina and the premier through the opening. The four KGB men followed. Remo turned his back and ran back down the dark passageway toward the front entrance.
For ordinary eyes, it would have been almost impossible to see in the corridor. But for Remo, there was no such thing as darkness; there was only less light and more light, and the eye adjusted accordingly. Once all men had seen this way, but now after thousands and thousands of years of laziness, the eye muscle had lost its tone and the eye surfaces their sensitivity, and men had adopted the habit of being blind in the dark. Only a few animals had retained their ability to see at night, and the darkness belonged to them. It belonged to Remo, too.
Flush against one of the wooden panels on the corridor walls, he saw a pushbutton. He pressed
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it, and the panel hinged back and opened into a small room.
Vassily Karbenko lay on the floor of the room. Blood stained the front of his light blue shirt. His own gun lay in a corner of the room.
Remo knelt over him and Karbenko slowly opened his eyes. He recognized Remo and tried to smile. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"Hiya, pal," he said.
"Who did it?" Remo asked.
"Stantington's men. That was one of them at the entrance way who let us in," he said. "My own fault. I should have known."
"Don't worry," Remo said. "I'll get help."
"Too late," Karbenko said. "Is the premier all right?"
"He's okay," Remo said. "And I'll keep him that way."
"I know," said Karbenko. He tried to smile again, but the small facial movement caused him pain. His voice came in a slight whisper and his breath in a heavy gasp.
"Sorry I didn't meet you sooner," Remo said. "We could have been a helluva team."
Karbenko shook his head.
"No," he said. "Too many miles between us. If Stantington didn't get me today, it would've been you. You'd have to do it later on 'cause I knew too much about you people."
Remo started to protest, then stopped. Karbenko was right, he realized. He remembered the scene in Smith's office. Smith had told him to protect the premier. He had said that was all ...
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"for now." But later, he would have sent Remo after Karbenko.
"Don't feel bad," Karbenko said. "That's the business we're in." He opened his mouth to speak again but a thick gush of bloody ooze welled up in his mouth. He tried to swallow, could not, and then his head lolled off to the side, his eyes still open, staring at the wall.
Remo stood up. He nodded down at the Russian spy. He felt a curious emotion toward the man, an affection he did not often experience. It was respect and he had thought it no longer lived in him.
"That's the biz, pardner," he said. He turned back to the corridor, to follow the premier, to make sure he was kept alive.
The lights in the chamber of the past had been turned out. But Remo knew where the hidden door was, and he jammed his fingertips like the points of screwdrivers into the wood and yanked it to the left. There was a whooshing sound as his power was pitted against a hydraulic door lock. The whoosh turned into a total expulsion of air from the device and as the air rushed out, the machine's pressure against the door ended, and the oaken panel slammed to the left, crashing into the innards of the door, with a wood-cracking sound.
A twisting corridor stretched out in front of him. Remo went down it at full speed. After twenty yards, the corridor twisted off to the left and opened onto a miniature railroad platform.
Chiun stood on the edge of the platform alone. He looked up as Remo approached.
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