Warren Murphy - Identity Crisis

Remo went over the tubular rail, alighting on the next landing a split second ahead of the tumbling steel door. Whirling, he batted it away. It went over the rail to crash far below.

The drumming continued down the stairs. Remo jumped again. The second-floor landing absorbed the shock to his powerful leg muscles.

Out of the corner of one eye, Remo caught a glimpse of something pink. It was low to the floor and moving toward the green wall. But when he whirled, there was nothing. Just wall.

Chiun's squeaky voice called down. "Remo! What have you found?"

"I don't know," Remo called back, "but it's on the other side of this wall, whatever it is." He hit the fire door.

The door came off its hinges as if hit by a highpressure fire hose. It struck something meaty and flopped flat.

Remo jumped over the squirming plate of steel from which arms and legs waved helplessly. His heels went click on the floor when he stepped off.

IRS agents were still recoiling from the flying door, their senses not quite taking him in, when Remo spotted the pink creature.

It was barely a foot tall and stood on its hind legs looking up at him, a tiny drumstick in each paw. In alternating rhythm, it was beating the toy drum strapped over his potbellied stomach. It looked up at Remo with a confident, almost bemused expression on its whiskered face. One floppy velour ear dropped doubtfully.

Then it spun in place and started back toward the stairwell.

Big Dick Brull shouted, "What the fuck was that thing?"

"It's the Polarizer Bunny, what does it look like?" Remo snapped, jumping after it.

"That's what I fucking thought it was," Brull said in a disbelieving voice.

Remo chased the plush pink cartoon bunny back up the stairs. The bunny had short little legs, but it wasn't using them. Yet it took the steps as if it was on wheels and the staircase was a flat ramp.

Coming down the steps, the Master of Sinanju saw it scooting back up. His hazel eyes exploded in astonishment.

"Remo! Do you see this thing?"

"I not only see it, I plan to wring its little pink neck. I hated those commercials!"

"I will catch it," said Chiun, squatting down to gather up the speeding apparition in his long-nailed hands.

Beating its drum, the bunny twirled, reversing itself.

"I got it," said Remo.

"Do not hurt it, Remo!" Chiun squeaked.

"No promises," said Remo, lunging low. His hands came together like a vise. But when they clapped together, there was no bunny.

"Where did it go?" he blurted, looking around.

"It is between your legs, blind one," Chiun squeaked.

Remo looked down. He brought his heels together with a hard final click.

The bunny was not where Remo's heels met.

Remo blinked. He was fast enough to pace a car, snatch an arrow in midair or dodge a bullet. No way was a battery-powered windup bunny rabbit faster than him.

"I will catch it," Chiun repeated. "Come to me, 0 annoying rodent. I will not harm you."

There was no chance of that. The bunny scooted between the Master of Sinanju's sandals like a ray of pink-colored light, all the time pounding on its toy drum.

Doom doom doom doom...

Chiun gave out a shriek of pure frustration.

"What'd I tell you?" said Remo as they raced up the steps after it.

It led them out into the psychiatric wing once more, past the cell rooms and Harold Smith's gray-and-shading-to-bone-white face, to the ladder leading to the roof hatch.

The bunny was not equipped to climb a full-size ladder. Not with its legs permanently bent and its hands full of drumstick.

But as Remo and Chiun closed in on the ladder, it shot upward as if jerked by an invisible string.

The pink bunny melted through the closed hatch as if the hatch were a screen permeable to tiny hot-pink bunnies.

Remo went up the ladder and knocked the hatch aside. Chiun floated up after him, his face furious.

The plush pink bunny twirled in the middle of the roof, as if seeking shelter.

"We've got it now," growled Remo.

"No. The honor of defeating the hitherto-invincible Polarizer Bunny is mine!"

And the Master of Sinanju executed a flying leap that carried him to the pink apparition. One black sandal struck the exact spot where it stood on the roof asphalt with a thud.

"Hah!" cried Chiun, lifting his foot. He looked down. There was a crater in the asphalt, but no pink splotch. His face fell.

"Try behind you," Remo said dryly.

Doom doom doom doom...

Skirts swirling, Chiun whirled. His cheeks puffing out in frustration, he extended his long killing fingernails like a pouncing tiger and flew at it.

The bunny spun, feinted, doubled back and almost succeeded in tricking the Master of Sinanju into leaping off the roof in pursuit.

By that time Remo was moving in on the elusive creature, too. The bunny skated between their legs, circled around them, all the time beating its drum unhurriedly.

"Go for the battery!" Remo shouted. "Maybe that'll stop it!'

Chiun slashed, failed to connect and began stamping every place the energetic rabbit seemed to be. But the bunny was too tricky. Each time Chiun stamped empty air. But inexorably he maneuvered the thing in Remo's direction.

Blocking its path, Remo tried for the battery. His hands swiped empty air futilely.

"Is that the best you can do, sluggish one?" Chiun snapped.

"I can't help it. It just keeps going and going, just like on TV"

The bunny stopped, its plush head going from side to side, as if taunting them with their impotence.

"I got an idea," Remo said, fists clenching.

"Remo, look!"

The Master of Sinanju was pointing skyward. Remo looked up. And forgot all about the impossible pink bunny.

So low over their heads that they could see the menace in their eyes, circled the three shadowy birds of prey. Only now they were no longer shadowy and indistinct, but very near overhead.

They were purple and bony. Their hatchet faces twisted as they peered down at Remo and Chiun, leathery wings flapping, soundless and unreal.

"Terror birds!" squeaked Chiun.

"Pterodactyls, you mean," said Remo, face hardening to bone.

One purple pterodactyl broke off and, beak yawning, made a snatch at Remo. Remo backpedaled easily. Then he caught himself.

"What am I doing? It's not real."

"Do not take a chance, Remo," warned Chiun.

"You know what this is," Remo said to Chiun, circling the roof. "It's no more real than that stupid windup rabbit."

The Master of Sinanju stood rooted as a second purple pterodactyl fixed its beady eyes upon him. Wings folding, it broke off its lazy spiral and went for Chiun's upraised arm.

Chiun wove a web before his face with his fingernails. The pterodactyl's face should have been clawed to ribbons. Instead, it twisted, wings straining to their utmost, vaulting back to rejoin the circle, face unscathed.

"See?" said Remo. "It's not real. None of them are real." He strode over to the pink bunny. "Not even this little guy."

The bunny was zipping around in broken circles, beating its drum in agitation, the name-brand battery on its back clearly visible.

"Forget it, Purcell," Remo shouted through cupped hands. "We know it's you. You don't fool us."

The pink plush bunny continued its crazy weaving pattern, while the purple pterodactyls swarmed so close their claw-tipped wings dipped within reach.

Remo gave one an angry swipe. Remo's hand seemed to disappear into the thing's skin. The batlike creature flew on, unfazed.

The Polarizer Bunny suddenly halted and started spinning in place. It became a whirling top, then a cone that grew, changing color as it expanded. Pink became purple in which other colors made streaks of flesh, yellow blond and neon blue.

When it stopped spinning, the purple-robed figure of the Dutchman, Jeremiah Purcell, stood tall and proud. He gave a toss of his long corn-silk tresses and fixed Remo with his electric blue eyes.