"Oh," said Remo. "I think there's something I should tell you."
"Later," Chiun broke in. "The evil place looms ahead." Remo coasted to the bottom of the ramp, letting two cars pass before he slid onto the grounds of the car wash. There was no activity about the place. The wind shook the banks of oak trees behind it. There was a cardboard CLOSED sign taped to the front.
"Looks deserted," Remo said after a long pause.
"A brilliant observation," Anna Chutesov snorted, stepping out of the car, pistol in hand.
"Hey!" Remo said. "Wait up!"
"Hush!" said Chiun. "Let her do as she will." "She might get killed," Remo pointed out.
"Better her than us. Besides, it is her fault I have been unmanned."
"Unmanned? Oh, right."
"Let us see how the car-wash machine treats her," Chiun said.
"Nothing doing, Little Father," Remo said. "She might do something crazy." Remo trotted after her.
Anna Chutesov had stepped into the open entrance. She moved like a cat, supple and silent, and Remo felt, vaguely, a stirring of his old feelings for her. She was a graceful female animal, cool as a snow leopard, and fearless. She paused before the hanging leather strips to examine a control board.
The leather strips lifted quietly like the tendrils of a great plant and wrapped around her head, arms, and legs. Anna Chutesov screamed as they dragged her inside.
Remo broke into a run.
The Master of Sinanju pounced after him and got in his way.
"No, Remo!" said Chiun, pushing against Remo's stomach. "I will attend to this. You must not risk your seed too."
"You're not well. You stay."
"We will both go, then, stubborn one," Chiun said, and they flashed into the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash. They went through the hanging leather strips so fast they cracked like sails in the wind.
Inside, Remo saw an incredible sight. The interior of the car wash was dark, hot, and stifling, but its mechanisms were alive. Looking down the length of the car track, he saw frantic mechanical movement. It was like a fun-house tunnel come to malevolent life.
Huge bundles of hanging strips of leather, like seaweed, dragged along the wet flooring, and out of the tangle poked a pair of slim legs. Anna's legs. And Anna screamed as they dragged her toward the flailing machinery.
"Hold!" Chiun cried. Remo, his eyes automatically adjusting to the light, saw the Master of Sinanju jump to one side of the leather tangle. There was a flurry of flashing fingernails, and in a twinkling, the leather strips fell into a wet heap.
Remo helped Anna Chutesov to her feet.
"Good going, Little Father," said Remo. "I have her. "
"Now take her," Chiun cried. "I demand you leave. Go! This instant!"
"Nothing doing," said Remo stubbornly.
"The danger is not at this end," Anna said suddenly, "but at the other."
Remo and Chiun looked at her. She was dripping wet.
"How do you know that?"
"Trust me. I know," said Anna, wringing out her hair.
"What do you think, Little Father?"
Remo never heard what Chiun thought, because suddenly jets of water sprayed at them from all directions and the huge spinning buffers bore down on them.
"You take the right side, Remo. And I will take the left," said Chiun.
"And you follow us," Remo told Anna.
Remo moved to one side as the buffer, red and blue like a child's ball, came at him suspended on the end of a strut mechanism.
Remo went for the strut, avoiding the buffer, which, despite its size, looked harmless. But Remo knew those bristles, designed to scour enameled car bodies, would tear off his skin in a twinkling.
They never even got close.
Remo hit the strut at the lug point and sent the buffer flying into a wall. It bounced off, teetered like a rolling tire, and wobbled to the ground.
Remo looked back. The Master of Sinanju was still occupied with the twin of Remo's buffer.
Chiun had set himself off to one side, his feet apart in a fighting stance, as the whirling pom-pom of plastic came at him.
"Stand back," he said.
"What is he doing?" demanded Anna, her voice on edge. "He is just standing there. He will be killed." But the Master of Sinanju was not just standing there. His hazel eyes were fixed on the whirling device. When it was a whisker's length from his face, he stepped back and pushed out both hands, the fingers held loosely, as if he were a magician throwing flash powder onto a brazier.
The heavy bristles encountered Chiun's long, Sinanju-trained fingernails.
It was no contest.
The buffer spun like a buzz saw, but it was a buzz saw that had lost its teeth. Red and blue bristles flew off in all directions like rice at a wedding. Wet, they coated the walls and floor.
Anna screamed.
Chiun laughed at the sight of the Russian woman pawing at her clothes. Snippets of bristle clung to her, making her look like a human ice-cream cone sprinkled with red and blue jimmies.
"I warned you to stand back," Chiun said.
Remo took Anna by one arm and spun her in place, and although his hands moved as if he were slapping her body at high speed, Anna felt nothing more than the fanning breeze of his hands in motion.
When Remo stepped back, there wasn't a speck of plastic on her clothes.
"Thank you," she said formally.