Warren Murphy: Blue Smoke and Mirrors

"So if we capture our Krahseevah" Remo said, "the problem is solved. Right?"

"I assume so."

"But how? He's like the little man who wasn't there. We can see him, but we can't touch him."

"Except when the suit is off," Smith pointed out.

"Yeah. But he never has his hands far from his belt-buckle control. He sees us coming and he's covered."

"I have been thinking about this suit," Smith told them. "I believe I understand the telephone phenomenon. It is a kind of teleportation, which physicists have long theorized as possible. You, Remo, have described how the Krahseevah stuck his head out of the Palmdale motel to observe you. Yet he had the suit off moments later when he used the telephone. It was only when you arrived that he turned it back on."

"That's right," Remo admitted.

"We know we cannot touch him while the suit is on. The reverse, therefore, must be true. The Krahseevah has to turn the suit off before he can physically touch something he intends to steal. Then he must reactivate the suit, and the object somehow becomes, as he is, noncorporeal."

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"What does his military rank have to do with this?" Chiun snapped, feeling left out of all this white mumbo-jumbo.

"He said 'noncorporeal.' Not 'noncorporal,' " Remo told him. "It means 'insubstantial.' "

"I knew that," Chiun said, not wishing to appear foolish. Why did these Americans have to have so many names for the same thing? he wondered. They were worse than the old Romans.

Smith went on. "If we know the Krahseevah's next target, we can be waiting for him. In the few seconds the suit is not operating, either you, Remo, or Chiun might be able to take him. You're fast enough."

"Definitely," Chiun said with confidence.

"But how do we figure out where he's going to turn up next?" Robin wanted to know.

"We are going to set a trap for him," Smith told her. "And you, Miss Green, are going to be the bait."

And suddenly OSI Special Agent Robin Green wasn't as anxious to be freed from her wheelchair imprisonment as she had thought.

17

Major Yuli Batenin grabbed the edge of his desk when the phone rang. Even from beyond the closed door, the shrill, insistent sound went through him like a hot needle.

"Answer that damned thing!" he shouted into the intercom.

There was no telephone in Major Batenin's embassy office anymore. He had had the line removed to the reception area. Never again would Major Yuli Batenin answer a telephone as long as he lived. Not after what Brashnikov had done to him. Again.

It had not been as horrendous an experience, having Rair Brashnikov explode from the receiver a second time. At the warning roar of static, Batenin had thrown the receiver away and dived under his desk.

When he emerged, after the flash of white light faded, Brashnikov was not to be seen. Frantic, Batenin called in his staff and instituted a thorough search. The embassy was put on yellow alert. Every staff member, from the now-furious ambassador to the lowliest clerk, rushed about the embassy searching for him.

It was getting so that the existence of the vibration suit could not be kept secret much longer. Even the cleaning staff whispered about it.

They found Brashnikov in the office directly under Batenin's. Or rather, they found his feet.

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For Rair Brashnikov's gold-veined white boots were sticking up from the floor as if cut off at the ankles and placed upside down by a ghoulish prankster. And of course, they were sinking into the floor.

This realization sent everyone scrambling down another floor, where they discovered Brashnikov hanging from the ceiling like a great white bat.

Brashnikov's face membrane was in an expanded position, Batenin saw. Then the red belt light winked on and half the staff cleared the room in mute panic. The half that stayed had not known the significance of the red light. Batenin took careful pains to explain it to them.

After he had finished, others began to edge toward the door. Batenin was about to warn them of the consequences of not obeying him, when someone pointed at Brashnikov.

Batenin turned. The face was silently contracting. Brashnikov was breathing. Batenin looked ceilingward and saw that Brashnikov's booted toes were just about to come free of the ceiling.

"Brashnikov," Batenin shouted at him. "Do not turn off suit. Do you understand me? Do not touch suit."

Brashnikov waved his arms feebly. Batenin couldn't tell if he had heard him.

Then the tip of his toes emerged from the ceiling. Batenin examined the toes from every angle before satisfying himself that they were not in contact with the plaster.

"Now, Brashnikov.f Turn off suit now!"

Weakly Rair Brashnikov reached for his buckle. His hand twisted. Brashnikov's fuzzy outline clarified, and the suit came into hard focus. Rair Brashnikov landed on his head with a loud thunk.

Batenin rushed to the fallen man and pulled off his helmet, which came away with the ripping sound of separating Velcro.

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"Brashnikov! Are you well?" demanded Batenin, who secretly hoped the stupid thief had broken his neck.

"Da," Rair Brashnikov said feebly.

"You have Stealth tiles?"

Brashnikov shook his head dazedly. "Nyet. They found me again. The two I spoke of. I had to escape."

Hearing that, Yuli Batenin became a madman. He had to be pulled off Rair Brashnikov before he could strangle him. The thief s true face had turned a smoky lavender before Batenin's thick fingers were pried from Brashnikov's throat.

Now, a day later, Yuli Batenin sat in his phoneless office, worrying about the messages being telexed between Moscow and the Soviet ambassador. Twice he had failed to deliver the promised RAM tiles. He knew he could not honorably return to the Motherland until that last piece of Stealth technology was in his hands.

So when his secretary informed him that there was a call for him, Yuli Batenin pried his clenched fingers from the desk's edge and opened a drawer. He extracted a desktop speaker. It was wired to the reception-room line. Batenin had insisted on this after being assured by the technical-support person who maintained the vibration suit that there was no way that Brashnikov could emerge from a mere satellite speaker.

Just to be certain, he tripped the intercom. "Where is Brashnikov?" he demanded. Receiving assurances that the thief was recuperating in the infirmary, Batenin placed the speaker on his desk and turned it on.

"Yes?" he said, fearing the worst-a call from the Kremlin.

"You are the embassy's charge" d'affaires?" a saucy female voice asked in an unidentifiable American regional accent.

"Yes. Who is this, please?"

"I am an Air Force investigator who's had to go AWOL, thanks to your phantom thief."

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"I do not understand."

"I was assigned to LCF-Fox. Your man made a monkey of me there, and again at the Northrop Stealth plant. Let's not pussyfoot around. I'm a dead duck as far as my superiors are concerned. There were too many unexplained thefts and no one believed me when I tried to tell them the truth."

"What truth?" Batenin asked cautiously.

"About the white ghost with no face."

"I am not following you," Batenin said vaguely.

"You can check my story if you want. See if a special agent Robin Green is AWOL from the OSI. You know what the OSI is?"

"No, but I can look it up. What are you suggesting?" he asked, having received such calls from disgruntled U.S. military personnel before. They always wanted one thing, and Batenin thought that the less they discussed Brashnikov over an open line, the better.

"Political asylum. And I have something to trade for it."

"And what is that?"

"A U.S. military device even your ghost cannot steal without help."

"Naturally, I have no idea what you talk about. Ghosts are for children's fairy tales."