"Not bad, huh?"
Chiun made a disgusted face. "Check under your fingernail for brain."
Remo looked injured. "There's no brain under my nail."
"Did you check?"
"I don't have to check. That was a perfect stroke."
"Your elbow was not aligned perfectly."
"Are you saying it was bent? It was not bent!"
"I did not say bent," Chiun sniffed. "I said not perfectly aligned. It is not the same."
"It wasn't bent," Remo insisted.
"It was not perfect, either."
"Never mind. Let's finish up our business here."
The eyes of the two Masters of Sinanju looked up toward the helplessly floating figure of the thing Remo had years ago dubbed "the Krahseevah," and which they now knew was a Russian named Captain Rair Brashnikov.
Behind his expanding and contracting face membrane, Rair Brashnikov looked down at the pair of deadly eyes and came to a bitter conclusion.
"I am not dead. I am worse than dead."
His choice was as simple as it was stark. Turn off the vibration suit and be delivered into the hands of the same American agents that had tricked him into a purgatory of fiber-optic cables and American telephone cross-talk, or hope that the suit stayed powered long enough for him to float out into the clear air and drop to his certain death.
Rair Brashnikov was not a brave man. He was, in his heart of hearts, a common thief. It was his kleptomania that had gotten him cashiered from the old KGB in the first place, and the same uncontrollable urge that had compelled his old KGB superiors to reinstate him and unleash him, virtually untraceable in the vibration suit, upon the technological candy shop that was America.
He reached for the buzzing rheostat and gave it a twist. The buzz cut out.
His teeth suddenly hurt, and his vision went blurry.
Gravity took hold and Rair Brashnikov crashed to the carpet, taking a chunk of wall with him.
"I am surrendering peacably to you," he said, as swift hands more strong than Soviet leg irons took hold of his wrists. He was hauled to his feet unceremoniously.
"Gotcha!" said the Caucasian American agent.
"Your ugly head will be set before my emperor by sundown," threatened the Oriental American agent.
"I would like to be keeping head," Rair said thickly.
"That'll be up to our boss," the Caucasian said. "I'd better call him. Here, Chiun, hold both hands so he doesn't pull a fast one."
The Oriental took the wrist the Caucasian surrendered. Rair Brashnikov looked down at the old man through the transparent inner lining of the permeable face membrane, which enabled him to breath in dematerialized oxygen when he was in his bodiless state.
The old man looked impossibly ancient. His arms were like twigs coated by animal hide. He looked frail enough to snap under a kneecap's pressure.
But the strength in his long-nailed hands was anything but frail. And so Rair Brashnikov remained very, very calm. He had seen these two destroy whole buildings with their bare hands when attempting to seize him, and perform other dazzling feats. They were very dangerous.
And it was always better to lull a dangerous foe in the hours before one vanquished him.
The Caucasian was speaking into the telephone.
"That's right, Smitty. We just captured the Krahseevah."
Brashnikov cocked his featureless head in surprise. "Krahseevah?"
"You are misnamed, ugly one," spat the Oriental, tightening his grip. Brashnikov bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from crying out in pain. His shoulder was on fire, and he remembered the single blow that landed on him during their last encounter had struck there.
The Caucasian was asking, "What do you want us to do with him?"
Rair Brashnikov attempted to listen, but he could not hear the other side of the conversation. The conversation that was no doubt deciding his very fate.
"It's what?"
The Caucasian clapped a hand over the telephone mouthpiece and called over to his comrade.
"Smitty says there's new trouble over at the Rumpp Tower. It's sinking."
"Sinking?" asked Rair Brashnikov. "My tower?"
"Yours?"
"Randal Rumpp gave it to me."
"I think Randal Rumpp pulled the wool over your eyes, buddy. You do have eyes under that blob of a face, don't you?"
"Yes. Would you like to see my eyes?" Rair Brashnikov asked hopefully.
Chapter 30
Randal Rumpp learned that he was riding the largest elevator ever built straight to the center of the earth, as he was happily channel-hopping in the security of his Rumpp Tower office.
The electricity was back on. Lights shone, computers hummed, faxes spooled out unimportant transmissions, and the telephones rang and jangled insistently.
Everybody, it seemed, wanted to talk to Randal Rumpp. Just like in the long-ago eighties.
Best of all, the TV sets were working.
The early reports indicated that the Rumpp Regis had become "spectralized." Every channel was using the word, another source of pride.
"Gotta have it trademarked," Rumpp chuckled, "and charge those chumps for using it. This is great! I'm getting ink again. By Christmas, I should be a Barney's display."
It was so great, in fact, that he didn't pay any attention to the furious pounding on the creditor-control doors throughout the twenty-fourth floor.
What the hell are they using? Rumpp wondered. Their thick heads?
An American Networking Conglomerate news report answered the question, when Rumpp paused to check out the local ANC affiliate broadcast.
"At this hour," a reporter was saying, "the Rumpp Tower has been completely evacuated, except for the bankrupted developer himself, whom authorities believe is holed up on the twenty-fourth floor. Police spokesmen tell us that attempts are being made to batter down the doors. Meanwhile, a grand jury has handed down a seventeen-count indictment against Randal Tiberius Rumpp for criminal fraud."
Randal Rumpp jumped up from his chair, shouting.
"Fraud? Is that the best those jerks can come up with? Fraud! I can beat that crummy rap without my law firm. I didn't defraud anyone. I just exaggerated my involvement here and there. The worst they can nail me with is malicious mischief."
The reporter went on. "Adding to the sense of urgency is the bizarre fact that the Rumpp Tower appears to be settling."
"Settling!"
A live shot of the Rumpp Tower facade replaced the reporter's stern face. The brass lintel on which Randal Rumpp's name had been cast in gleaming letters was now at sidewalk level. The lower edges of the bold brass letters were bent and mangled from contact with the too-solid sidewalk.
Rumpp's astonished mouth imploded in an uncomprehending pucker.
"Settling?" he exploded. "I'm sinking! I'm headed straight for China!"
A voice-over added, "Scientists are unable to account for this latest phenomenon, but estimate that if it continues to settle at this present speed, the Rumpp Tower may be entirely underground by Thursday."
Randal Rumpp sat stupefied.
The pounding continued throughout the twenty-fourth floor.
The phone rang. Woodenly, Randal Rumpp picked it up.
"Yeah?" he said dully.
"Dahling . . ."
"Igoria?"
"Dahling, I am watching the news, and I see you are about to be arrested. How droll. Be sure to pack your toothbrush, and an extra set of those snug little monogrammed shorts."
"Igoria!" Rumpp bit out. "What do you want?"
"I was calling because I have a wonderful business opportunity for you, my pet."
Randal Rumpp blinked. Momentarily, he was caught off-guard. His better judgment invariably shut down when he smelled a deal in the air.
He made his voice sound disinterested. "Yeah. What?"