Warren Murphy - Blue Smoke and Mirrors

"What?" Robin barked indignantly.

"I asked Remo to bring you here," the gray man said. "It was necessary that you not see anything that could lead you back to Remo or myself. You were transported as a catatonic burn patient."

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"Smith! Are you Smith?" Robin demanded. "Because if you are, you're in big trouble, buster."

The gray man gasped involuntarily. "Remo," he said in a shocked voice.

"Sorry, Smitty. Your name slipped out. But don't worry. Robin's on our side."

"The hell I am," Robin shouted. Suddenly the bandages fell away. Her mouth hung open. Her reflection stared back at her. Except for a few bruises and a cut near her hairline, it was normal-if paler than usual. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"See?" Remo said brightly, coming around the front. "Good as new."

"Step aside," Robin told him acidly. "I want to talk with your boss."

"And we want to talk with you," the man Robin took for Smith said matter-of-factly. "So please try to calm yourself."

"Calm myself!" Robin cried, pushing herself from the chair. "This loon just kidnapped me. I'm an Air Force investigator. You can't get away with this crap."

"Allow me, Emperor," a squeaky voice said from behind her left ear. And a hand with long curved fingernails reached up behind her hair and took the nape of her neck.

Robin felt her legs suddenly go numb, as if they had gone to sleep. She fell back into the chair.

"What is this?" she demanded. And then she noticed for the first time that she was sitting in a wheelchair.

"Oh, dear Lord," she said weakly, the fight going out of her.

"The paralysis is only temporary," Smith told her. "Chiun will restore the use of your legs after we have the answers we seek."

Chiun stepped into view, his face placid.

"You bastard," she hissed at him. And the old Oriental's face took on an injured expression.

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"Perhaps if you continue to insult me, I will forget how to realign your spine," Chiun warned her.

"He doesn't mean that," Remo put in quickly.

"Yes, I do," Chiun snapped.

"Please, please," Smith said. "Miss Green, if you will just answer my questions, we can be done with this interview."

"Why don't you put down that stupid mirror first? I can see that my face is fine, thank you."

"This mirror is not for your benefit," Smith told her. "It is so that you cannot see my face for later identification."

"Then could you please turn it around? You can stare at your own face for a change."

"This is a two-way mirror. I can see you from this end. If I turn it around, ray features will be visible to you."

At that, Chiun sidled up to Smith, his face craning up at the mirror. He examined it from front and rear. "May I borrow that when you are through with it?" he asked curiously. "It may be what I have been looking for."

"Later," Smith said testily.

"What do you want to know?" Robin said quietly, her face flushed.

"How did you happen to be on the scene when the Krahseevah, as Remo has styled him, reappeared?"

"You know, I could ask the same of you."

"Simply answer the question."

"All right. Did Remo-if that's really his name- tell you about the gas-station owner who saw the guy without his helmet?"

"Yes," Smith said, voice puzzled.

"Well, after I was ditched by your friends, I had a hard time explaining the demolished Holiday Inn, but fortunately, I have friends in high places."

"We know your father has been protecting you. He's been informed that you are well and not to

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worry. And just to be certain we have no problems from that quarter, I had him shipped off to a NATO base in Europe. He will not interfere."

"Oh," Robin said, subsiding. She swallowed and went on. "Anyway, strings were pulled and I was allowed to stay on the case. I rounded up Ed, the gas-station owner, his brother Ned, and the Holiday Inn desk clerk and had them describe the Russian's face for an artist I hired. We came up with a great likeness. Since then, we've had Air Force personnel watching airports and train stations all over the country. When someone who looked like our guy showed up at Los Angeles International Airport, I flew out there. I tracked him as far as the Northrop plant. Then he slipped into the suit and got away from me. I kept his car under surveillance, waiting for him to return. When he took off, I took off after him." She turned to glare at Remo. "I would have had him, too, but Remo Roadrunner here screwed things up."

"Me?" Remo said hotly. "I was on his tail first. You're a Robin-come-lately as far as I'm concerned."

"That's it?" Smith asked in a disappointed voice. "That's the lead you followed?"

Robin defiantly shook red hair out of her eyes. "What did you expect? That he called, asked for a date, and gave me his phone number?"

"That much we know," Smith said dryly. "He operates out of the Soviet embassy in Washington."

"Well, back to square one," Remo said. "Sorry, Smitty. I thought she'd have a better story than that."

"I thought it was a pretty sound piece of investigation," Robin muttered. "Why didn't any of you think of it?"

"She's got us there, Smitty," Remo admitted.

"Never mind," Smith said.

"Look," Robin said. "This was my investigation before it was yours. I know you guys aren't what you claim to be. I can live with that. But thanks to Punch

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and Judy over there"-Robin indicated Remo and Chiun with a disdainful toss of her head-"I'm probably AWOL from the scene of yet another demolished hotel. If I don't bag this Krahseevah, my career has flown south forever. Help me, and I'll help you. I'm in so deep even my father can't pull me out of this mess."

"We do not need you," Chiun told her pointedly. "You, who think that blue smoke and mirrors can explain anything your feeble mind cannot trouble itself to understand."

Robin just stared at the Master of Sinanju uncom-prehendingly.

"We have recovered the RAM tiles," Smith said slowly. "There is a chance that the Krahseevah will return to Palmdale, but it's doubtful he would dare to anytime in the near future. He knows we would expect that. Given his past pattern of infiltration and theft, he could strike anywhere in our military-industrial complex. We cannot afford to wait. He must be captured and neutralized as soon as possible."

Remo stepped forward. "But how, Smitty?" he said. "It was bad enough when we just couldn't lay hands on him. But now that we know he can just dive into any handy telephone at the first sign of trouble, I don't see what even Chiun and I can do."

"I suggest we descend upon the Russian embassy," Chiun proclaimed loudly. "We will take hostages. We will force them to deliver the Krahseevah to us and then we will kill him and every other Russian as a warning to their leader not to send any more such as him to America's well-protected shores."

"No," Smith said. "The principle of diplomatic immunity is important to our side too. We cannot jeopardize that privilege. It is out of the question."

"What is this faintheartedness I am hearing?" Chiun asked Remo sotto voce. "Smith never used to be like this."

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"Relations with Russia have warmed," Remo whispered back. "Smith doesn't want to rock the boat."

"I have been doing some research," Smith said carefully. "It seems that three years ago there was an event at a Nishitsu Corporation plant in Osaka. Several top physicists perished and the matter was hushed up. Prior to that there had been leaks from Nishitsu of an incredible superconductor breakthrough involving atomic matter. Not energy, but matter. If, as I suspect, this was a KGB 'wet-affairs' operation, we can deduce that the suit now in Soviet hands is not a product of their limited technology, but a Japanese prototype. In other words, I doubt there is another Krahseevah waiting in the wings."