Warren Murphy - Look Into My Eyes

"Tell me," said Remo, keeping Anna's hand just where it had been placed, "did you ever learn, little father, how to be in two places at once?"

Chiun did not answer, but stared at the hands. Finally he said:

"You're keeping that obscene slut's touch on you just to bother me."

Anna removed her hand.

"Let's hope he doesn't get pregnant by this," she said, with a sharp smile.

"I never learned to be in two places at once. One place at a time is enough," said Chiun. "More than enough. In fact, essentially wonderful."

"I wonder why the Great Wang wouldn't have taught us that trick, because while he was with you, he was with me also. "

"You didn't see the Great Wang, then," said Chiun. "How disappointing."

"He has a belly like the cold center of the universe, like all that is not of this earth. Perhaps you might want to test this Great Wang."

"He's not 'this' Great Wang. He's the Great Wang," said Chiun.

"Right," said Remo. But he knew Chiun was bothered. Chiun agreed to take them near Wang's friend Rabinowitz if the white slut could control herself.

"You're such a man, Chiun," said Anna. "You're the quintessential man, Chiun."

"Thank you," said Chiun.

"I thought you'd respond like that," said Anna.

Near the headquarters, several Russian prisoners were being herded into trucks. They looked frightened, and Anna assured them they would not be shot. She was angry that any fool would send them in here so close to America for no purpose whatsoever.

Well, she could make them have a purpose. She could quiet down this man. She might just be able to stop him from going further.

It was a tremendous defeat to Russia that he had won. "Remo, I've changed my mind," said Anna.

"Just like a woman," said Chiun. "Changing your mind. Watch out for this one, Remo. She's no good."

"And would it be just like a man not to change even if new facts came in?" asked Anna. She gave him one of her smiles again. He was the sort of man who would be tolerant of amusement, she felt.

"A proper man would know all the facts beforehand," said Chiun. "Where did you fall into this thing, Remo?"

"We met on a plane. She's all right."

"I am going to speak to Rabinowitz. I am going to assure him he is safe, and he can believe it now. If I come back in any strange way, try to get me out of it. If you can't, please kill me quickly," she said.

"Just like that?" asked Chiun. "You want an assassination, for nothing? Free? Remo, don't you see what she's doing now? She's getting away with being murdered."

"If he gets you, what am I going to do?" asked Remo.

"Try to figure out what hasn't been tried yet and try it. But one thing you can't do is go directly in. Stay back and think. I don't know what the hell they're going to do back in Moscow. This is too much of a defeat. I only wanted a little one to make Rabinowitz comfortable."

"Good luck," said Remo, and gave her a light kiss on the lips.

"You're doing that because it bothers me," said Chiun.

"I'm doing that because she's beautiful and courageous."

"I'm supposed to believe that?" said Chiun.

"I don't know what you believe. I never know what you believe. "

"For two decades I have given the best of my life to you, and you remember nothing. I have given you my thinking, and this thinking you now throw away to indulge in public obscenities."

Anna laughed.

"You two sound so much alike," she said.

Off on a hill, Rabinowitz was meeting with his commanders. Anna headed toward the hill as Remo and Chiun stayed back watching her. Chiun wanted to know what the experience was like with the Great Wang, Remo's first experience.

"The second is not nearly as good, I can tell you, Remo."

"He said you and I have the cleanest strokes in the history of Sinanju."

"He said that?"

"Yeah. I think I told you before. He said we have the best strokes. Identical, he said. Said he could be looking at you when he saw me deliver a blow."

"I teach well," said Chiun.

"Not everyone can learn," said Remo. He did not mention Wang had told him that Chiun had a son who had died.

"The teacher is first."

"To pour water into a glass, one needs the glass, even though the water is first. Otherwise it splashes in uselessness," said Remo.

"Where did you learn to talk like that?"

"Who do you think I've been palling around with for the last twenty years?"

"I don't like it."

"Neither did I."

"You sound like a fortune cookie," said Chiun. He folded his hands within his black kimono, and Remo stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Wang said something so silly I don't know if I should repeat it," said Remo.

"Wang never says anything silly," said Chiun.

"He said we were really just alike under it all. That our differences were illusions."

"The Great Wang never said anything silly. Until now."

"Absurd," said Remo.

"I am ashamed that you were the first one he showed his great flaw to."

"What great flaw?"

"He cannot judge people as well as we thought," said Chiun.

"He certainly does know when someone is ready to be a great Master," said Remo. "I mean, he appears."

"He can judge quality, true. I may be the only Master to be at the great level whose student was also at that level. Two for me. That is a record."

"But not enough to be called the Great Chiun. That must be done by succeeding generations in the histories."

"You still have to learn about negotiations. I hope in your passage you have learned to appreciate that."

"He called us dullards. Said we're too serious. Me about America. You about the House of Sinanju."

"Wang was fat," said Chiun.

"I thought so too," said Remo.

"Lacked control of his eating," said Chiun.

"I thought we had no fat on our bodies," said Remo.

"We don't," said Chiun.

"He does," said Remo.

"We're not alike at all," said Chiun.

"Not at all," said Remo, and both of them could not remember a time when they had agreed on something so thoroughly, which was another proof they were not alike. And for a second time they agreed thoroughly.

Anna Chutesov saw him on the high hill. She wished Remo were with her, because he had a way of moving through defenses that was astounding. She thought she might be stopped, but ironically at a headquarters position itself there was more confusion than at some outpost where people might fire.

Rabinowitz had staff aides, of course, and when she said what she wanted, she made a crucial mistake, one that anyone who ever tried to deal with an institution or corporation would have known was an error.

One she should have known. But she had no choice. She had to speak to the aide.

And as in all organizations, the aide was more difficult to deal with than the leader.

"I have come to surrender to Mr. Rabinowitz and offer him anything he wants," said Anna.

"Who are you?"

"I represent Russia in this situation."

"Then how come you're not with the prisoners?" said the aide.

"Because I never surrendered. I am here to speak with Mr. Rabinowitz," she said, hoping he saw Rabinowitz as Rabinowitz and not some love-authority figure from his past.

"You haven't surrendered to anyone yet, right?" said the aide, a young captain.

"That's right."

"Then you're my prisoner," he said.

As Anna passed Remo in a truck crowded with Russian missile technicians, she waved. Remo was on board with hardly a leap, separating her from the men and helping her off the truck.

"I'll have to take you up there myself," he said.

"No. I don't want you near him. You're the world's last chance, Remo. I'll go with Chiun."

"He doesn't like you."

"Spoken like a man. What on earth makes you think that with a possible world disaster, I would care whether he likes me or not? All I want him to do is go with me. You can get him to do that, can't you? And just maybe I'll be able to see something neither of us have. Right now we have to get Vassily defused from his anxiety."