Look Into My Eyes td-67
Page 17
"Except Sinanju. That's what Chiun said."
"No, I think he said the techniques. And why has that remained the same? Because people are the same. The Sinanju techniques have not only stayed the same, they have gotten better."
The phone rang again.
"Remo, just hear me out," said Smith. "Please, I'm asking for whatever the last two decades has meant to you. "
"Shoot," said Remo.
Wang laughed. "How grim," he said. "Chiun would be effusing his head off. But you tell the truth. So important. So different, you two."
Rema covered the receiver with his hand.
"Let me get this over with before you start the needles again," said Remo.
"So personal. You and Chiun. Everything is personal."
"Yeah, Smitty," said Remo into the receiver.
"You probably have heard of the war going on in Sornica here in Central America," said Smith.
"No," said Remo. He signaled for Wang to throw him one of the wonderful fresh Florida oranges. Wang's fat hand dropped on a pile set in a pink bowl. He nicked the top one with his thumb and then sent it spinning to Remo. The force of the spin tore the white underbelly of the orange skin away from the meat in a single strand as though a careful cook had removed it. The peel landed on the rugged floor, and the orange dropped into Remo's hand.
"How did you do that?" asked Remo.
"Chiun didn't teach you?"
"No. He doesn't know."
"We must have lost it in the Middle Ages. Works better with the old hard oranges. Less skin. Tighter meat. With the old oranges of Paku you could land both the peel and the orange just where you wanted. No picking up off the rug," said Wang.
"Never heard of Paku."
"See'?" said Wang. "Biggest trading center of its age. Only good thing it ever did was produce the tight small orange that could be spun out of its skin better. Go back to your client with that in mind."
Remo uncovered the receiver again. "Yeah, Smitty."
"Is someone there?"
"Yeah."
"We still have to maintain secrecy, if nothing else. Remo, today there is a battle going on that will decide the future of mankind. We are struggling here in Sornica against an evil that must be eradicated. And for the first time in years, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I see a real chance to save America once and for all."
"Paku," said Remo.
"What's Paku?" asked Smith.
"Another center of the universe," said Remo.
"I don't understand. But look. Chiun is here, and he'll tell you for himself how important this is."
Remo waited, whistling.
"You're hurt and angry, aren't you?" asked Wang.
"Get off my back," said Remo.
Chiun's squeaky voice rattled the telephone.
"Remo. Wonderful news. Wonderful news. We have found the right emperor to serve, and guess who serves him also?"
"I can't imagine you happy, little father," said Remo. "What's going on?"
"See?" said Wang. "Both of you walk around all the time in a state of unhappiness. Identical."
"I'm happy, asshole," said Remo. Wang laughed at the curse.
"Remo, even the Great Wang is here serving Vassily Rabinowitz, a wonderful guy. And do you know what? Mad Harold was wise after all. We're all here, Remo."
Instead of covering the speaker, Remo created a vibration in the plastic. The hand never could cloud a voice to someone who had been trained to hear.
"Can there be two Great Wangs, one in one place and one in the other?"
Wang saw what Remo was doing and understood the problem.
"No."
"How do I know I have the right one?"
"Are you happy?"
"Not really," said Remo.
"Then that's who you are. Is Chiun happy?"
"Yes."
"How many times do you remember him happy?"
"Well, you know, he can get happy at times. Not too long. He likes bitching better, but I've seen him happy."
"You know you have the right one."
"So, does he?"
"Ask him, ask him about any problems. Chiun is always collecting injustices. He talks about them and you pretend they don't exist. You're a wonderful pair."
Remo stopped masquerading the sound vibrations on the receiver.
"Things are pretty good down there, huh?" he asked.
"Perfect. We have finally found the right emperor. And Smith understands too. I tell you, Remo, everything about everyone down here is perfect."
"Thanks, Chiun. I'll be right down," said Remo, getting the coordinates in Sornica where Chiun, Smith, and Rabinowitz expected to be at the end of the next day's advance.
"Wherever you are, I'll find you," said Remo. And he hung up.
"Chiun's in trouble," said Remo. "I don't know if I can save him. That hypnotist has got Smith. I remember Smitty couldn't be hypnotized. Did you know that? He was telling me once. He tried to get hypnotized to relax, and it wouldn't work. He had no imagination. He'd look at a Rorschach ink blot and see an ink blot. True."
"What's a Rorschach ink blot?" asked Wang.
"It's something new. People who are supposed to heal the mind make up random cards with ink blots, and the person is supposed to say what it looks like to him. It really says what's going on in the person's mind. If he sees violence he has violence on the mind. Happiness, he has happiness on the mind."
"Oh, the Tow Dung. It's done with mud on a white plate. Same thing. How can you rescue Chiun now if the man who has him can turn your mind against yourself?"
"I don't know," said Remo. "I'd like that to be my question you've got to answer. How can I save Chiun? How can I save Smith? I'm helpless."
"People are helpless in order to get others to help them. You're not helpless. But I must admit this sounds like the greatest challenge ever to the House of Sinanju. What are you going to do, Remo?"
"I don't know."
"Are you frightened?"
"A little. I hate to think of Chiun with his mind scrambled."
"And what if he thinks you are some enemy who is to be killed? What will you do when you have to fight him to the death? Have you thought of that?"
"Hey, I'm supposed to ask the questions. You're supposed to give me the answers."
"Fine. Here is an answer. Since you cannot figure out a way to rescue Chiun and this client for whom you have developed an attachment even though you claim to hate him, find someone else who can reason. Someone who can think brilliantly."
"I don't need help."
"You just said you were helpless," said Wang, laughing at how much Remo and Chiun were alike.
"Just give me the answer to the big question and get out of here," said Remo.
"Ask me the question," chuckled Wang.
"Never mind the question. Give me the damned answer, and stop playing games. Give me the answer," said Remo.
"Yes," said Wang, and Remo found himself staring at the blueness of the sky over Vistana Views, and he knew the Great Wang was gone. He had come in the last transition of Remo Williams, and he was supposed to answer the one great question Remo had.
And truly Wang had. The answer was yes.
But Remo still didn't know what the question was. Remo did not pack to leave America for good, but walked out of the condo into the Florida sunshine, headed for Sornica and the war that was supposed to be going on there.
Anna Chutesov felt elation at the defeat of the Russian forces stationed in Sornica, then despair as Rabinowitz' columns retreated, then elation again as they seemed to be getting all the gas and ammunition they needed.
"Good, now let's get someone down there to surrender to Vassily Rabinowitz before he fouls up this campaign."
"But we don't want to lose Sornica to the Americans. They're reinforcing."
"Have you noticed how they're reinforcing? Have you ever seen supplies move that well and quickly with the Americans?" asked Anna. "Have you been actually reading the reports inste
ad of looking at colored lines on maps that tell you nothing except where some people surmise other people were at the time the ink was wet?"
"The Americans are getting behind this war on a grand scale. We must support our Sornican brothers," said Ambassador Nomowitz.
Wearily Anna Chutesov brought the ambassador to a large map of the world. What so depressed her was that she was sure the Russian high command was thinking just like Nomowitz. And why shouldn't they? They all had the same testosterone levels. Wasn't a woman in there? She knew now that she herself had to go down to Sornica. There was no alternative. But on the flimsy hope that this might be one of the occasions that the male mind could see light, she drew a line from America to Sornica and had Nomowitz count the inches. Men were good at counting inches, possibly because that's how they judged themselves in so many ways.
Then she drew a line from Russia's munitions factories in the dead center of all the Soviet republics, farthest away from any invasion.
The line went from the middle of Russia to Murmansk and then began a water route. With every inch she drew she described which hostile nations they had to pass-Norway, Holland, France, England-and finally out into the Atlantic, where the greatest navy the world had ever seen now patrolled, the navy of the United States.
The line kept going. It finally arrived at Sornica. And Nomowitz had to move the ruler many times to count the inches.
"Every bullet, every shell, every missile we want to have there, has to travel that far. If we reinforce we will have to supply those men with bullets, and gas and tanks and guns, and toilet paper and food, and cigarettes and hats, and clothes and boots and shoelaces, along all those inches. Every man we put there will be a burden on our economy. The bigger it gets, who do you think is more likely to win? Look at the short hop the Americans have to take."
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going," said Nomowitz.
"You're a real man," said Anna Chutesov.
"Thank you," said Ambassador Nomowitz.
She said no more but headed right out of the Russian embassy toward a plane for Sornica. She would have to figure out a plan there. Her Russia was going to be of no help. And she had heard that stupid phrase used by American football coaches who had a pathological interest in the outcome of a football game which, fortunately, no one's life depended on.
But in real life, if the going gets tough, a person should stop and figure out why. Then he should calculate whether he should pay the price. In other words, think what one is doing, rather than blindly use the last ounce of one's strength.
It was not reassuring that these were the minds that controlled nuclear weapons on both sides.
Should Vassily Rabinowitz fail at this, Anna was sure he would stop at nothing to get control of America's nuclear arsenal. The Russian intelligence reports had indicated a very Rabinowitz-type situation had occurred near a base in Omaha. There he had failed, apparently because he had not reached the high command. But what would prevent him in a panic from reaching America's President?
Then there might be more than just hostile words out of America. Then there might be some force behind their threats. And Russians, being real men, would respond in kind.
Anna lit up a cigarette in the smoking section of the airplane bound for Sornica. As the sulfur flamed intensely at the end of the match, she thought, the world will go like that. No one is going to be a coward.
The flight was filled with American journalists on their way to the war. Only one reporter hadn't decided who was in the right and who was in the wrong. The others didn't have much respect for him. They said he had the mentality of a police reporter.
This was a new breed of journalist who added his interpretations to stories. To show he wasn't prejudiced, he was almost uniformly prejudiced against his country. This group was already determined not to believe anything an American officer told them.
Actually that was a good career move. If the stories were politically correct they won great press awards given out by other journalists who also thought with political correctness. And with enough politically correct stories they would get prestigious columns with bylines and no longer have to hide their prejudices.
It was no accident that an entirely fabricated news story had recently won the top award. Anna's only surprise was that the newspaper actually admitted falsehood and returned the prize. That was different. The story was, of course, politically correct, reestablishing what a hard lot blacks had in America and how little whites cared.
The real problem that none of them seemed to know was that intelligence agencies were just as bad as the supposed free news organizations. The male mind could view nothing without prejudice. In America women were fighting to be just like men, and sadly, they were succeeding.
The plane stopped in Tampa, and a thin man with dark eyes and high cheekbones got on, taking the only seat available, next to Anna. Several other men had attempted to sit down, and Anna, wishing to be left alone, cut their egos in half.
She could still hear mumbling up front about how much she needed a really good act of fornication. What that really meant was that they wanted her to go to bed with them and tell them they had provided such, reestablishing their egos at the level they had enjoyed before they dared to try to sit down next to her.
The man eased his way past her legs to the window seat. He did not buckle up on takeoff.
In a crash that meant he would go flying around. He could fly around into her.
"The sign says buckle up," said Anna. She knew men could read. That was how they passed along their worst misinformation.
"I don't need to be strapped in."
"I suppose you are going to be held in place by your big wonderful male organ?" said Anna.
"No. I have better balance than the plane. But you go ahead," said the man.
"I have. Now you."
"Lady, I've had a lot of trouble today. Let me give you the best advice you have ever had. Leave me alone."
The man turned away from her. Anna gave him one of those smiles she knew could melt men.
"Be a good fellow and buckle up. Won't you? For me." The smile promised a bed with her in it. Men would do anything for that.
"What's the matter with you, lady? You crazy? Didn't you hear me?"
"I am trying to help us both," she said. She gave him the wanting eyes.
"Lady, I'm not going to put on a belt just because you're faking sexual interest. Go play with the reporters in the front of the plane. I have problems and you can't help me. "
"What makes you think I'm faking?"
"I dunno. I know. Like I know balance. Good-bye. Case closed," said the man.
He did not look at her again, but over the Gulf of Mexico some turbulence threw the plane around and even knocked a flight attendant off her feet. Even those buckled into their seats screamed as they were tossed around. Anna gripped her seat with whitened knuckles, and she caught a glimpse of the man to her right.
He was not moving. There was no strain. No being thrown back and forth, held only by a strand of cloth called a seat belt. He was simply seated as he had been since the plane took off.
When the turbulence subsided, she looked closer. His chest was not moving. The man was not breathing. Was he dead? She poked his shoulder.
"Yeah?" he said.
"Oh," she said. "You're alive."
"Been that way since birth," said Remo. "I'm sorry. You weren't breathing."
" 'Course not. I don't need your nicotine sloshing around in my lungs."
"But we've been in the air a half-hour."
"Hard part is keeping the skin from breathing."
"So my smoke bothers you?"
"Any smoke, lady. Not just your smoke."
"Yes, yes. That's what I meant," she said. "Of course I meant that."
"Don't smoke and I'll breathe," said Remo.
"How do you do that?"
"You got twenty years, I'll teach you. In the meanwhile leave me alone. I've got problems."
"Yeah, well, figure this one out. Take the most perfect machine and mess it up because it doesn't know who is who anymore, and then try to save it when it might kill you."
"You going to the war?"
"Sort of."
"Is this messed-up mind hypnotized, by any chance?"
"I didn't say it was a person," said Remo.
"Machines don't forget who is who. People who are hypnotized do. That can be very dangerous."
"I don't know who you are," said Remo.
"I am Anna Chutesov, and I am probably the highestranking Russian official you are ever going to meet. I am on the other side that doesn't have to be the other side. I know your country has not even ordered this war. I know you are facing the most dangerous man who ever lived. I think you need me."
" 'Anna' would have been enough," said Remo, and went back to the window. But he could not shut this cold, beautiful woman out of his mind.
What he couldn't shut out was her remorseless logic.
"Let me guess. We realized Vassily could be dangerous and therefore we panicked and tried to capture him with a special force. General Boris Matesev."
"Never heard of him," said Remo, who had killed Matesev when saving Vassily Rabinowitz, an act he now regretted enormously. How could he have known how dangerous Vassily was?
"Perhaps," said Anna. "But you see, Russia, knowing how dangerous Vassily was, tried to get him back. If you know someone is dangerous, logic dictates 'leave him alone.' If everyone had left poor Vassily alone, he would have bothered no one. But we panicked. We attacked him. That's what men do when they are afraid of something. If they're not running from it, they're killing it. Or trying to. They will do anything but think."
Remo turned from the window.
"Yeah, how would they handle Vassily now? He's not the same man he was when I rescued him."
"Exactly. Now you're thinking."