Look Into My Eyes

"I knew there wouldn't be. I knew it," said Anna. Across the street a man in a white blouse, high boots, and dark pants glanced at Remo.

"You, stranger, come here," he said.

"Yes, little father," said Remo. It was a good thing Chiun was here too, because Remo didn't really speak Russian. Of course he could get by if he had to. Chiun was always working on him to improve his language.

"Sir, sir," called out Anna in Russian to the man whom Remo was calling Chiun. "We're friends of Vassily Rabinowitz. Please. Please. We mean you no harm."

"That one is very dangerous," said the man.

"Can you release him?"

"I am afraid."

"You can always do that to him again, can't you?"

"Oh yes, whenever I am afraid again."

"You mean it works automatically when you are afraid."

"Yes, pretty miss. And I cannot turn it off."

"Chiun," said Remo to the man, "why the Master's death challenge?"

"What is he talking about?" asked the man. "I don't speak English."

"A Master never challenges his son," said Remo in English.

"He sounds dangerous. I know he is dangerous," said the villager.

"Do you know what he's talking about?" asked Anna. The man shrugged.

"I won't fight you. Of course I won't fight you," said Remo in English.

And then turning to Anna, he asked: "Where'd Chiun go?"

"He was never here, Remo. You have been talking to this man, and we've learned a lot. They transmit whatever they need to survive into your mind."

"Okay," said Remo. "But where's Chiun?"

"He was never here, Remo."

"I know he was here. He was more here than he's ever been. "

"No. This man needs you to believe that for his survival. It's automatic. It's the greatest survival mechanism I've ever seen in a human being."

"If you have come to help Vassily, let me take you to his mother. The poor woman has been grief-stricken since he left."

Mrs. Rabinowitz lived in a thatched cottage with a small garden in front. She was visiting with some other women. They sat around a pot of tea. Anna wiped her feet on a brush mat at the entrance. The door looked as though it had been hand-carved.

"I still feel it was Chiun," said Remo.

"That's what makes the whole situation so dangerous. And yet you might be the first who has come out of this. You understand it wasn't Chiun?"

"I have to tell myself that," said Remo. The two were invited in and now Anna said:

"Hi, Mama." But Remo didn't understand it. It was in Russian.

"Remo, I'd like you to meet my mother," said Anna.

"You've threatened one or two of those women," said Remo. "I doubt your mother is here."

"She's visiting," said Anna.

"Don't you remember what we were here for?"

"Well, maybe my mother can help," said Anna.

"Ask your mother or mothers if any of them speak English."

Anna spoke in Russian again and three women nodded. "Look," said Remo. "There's a big danger to the world, and one of your boys is causing it."

"Vassily," said one woman, round-faced as the rest. "What has he done now?" she said in English.

"He's gone to America, and he's taking it over," said Remo. "He's already started one war."

"What does he want with a war?"

"I dunno. He wanted a war. Anna understands him better. She's all right. She's Russian. She wants to help."

"There are Russians and Russians," said all the women. "What kind of Russian?"

Remo shrugged.

"Is she from the government?"

"She thinks they're all idiots," said Remo.

"Did you see where my mother went?" asked Anna in English.

"She was never here," said Remo.

"Now I know how powerful this thing is," said Anna. "She was more real than my own mother."

"So you think the government is run by idiots," said one of the women.

"They're men, aren't they? Look. We have a real problem going on here. Vassily Rabinowitz, who went to the parapsychology village, has gone on to make lots of trouble. America and Russia are about to go to war. I don't know what the idiots are going to do in Moscow but I suspect now that there is going to be another arms buildup or something even more useless. And in America, Vassily is in the process now of taking it over."

"That's Vassily's problem. We never get harmed by wars," said Vassily's mother.

"You will by this one. You can't convince an atomic weapon you are close relatives or teachers," said Anna.

"You mean those bombs that blow up countries?" asked another woman.

"The very kind," said Anna.

"Vassily was always a troublemaker," said his mother. "Not meaning to be insulting, Mrs. Rabinowitz, Vassily was everyone's problem."

"That's why he left," said another woman.

"He was different," said another.

"Maybe you could tell me something about these powers," said Anna. "I suspected everyone had them when there were no histories of battles around here. Every patrol must have thought they had stumbled onto their home towns."

"Something like that," said one of the women.

"And when I saw the asphalt road coming in here I assumed the commissar for the district thought he had relatives here as well as the production leaders."

"Something like that," said another woman.

"Everyone in this village has these powers, don't they?" said Anna.

"Something like that," said another woman.

"I guess it's a natural survival attribute of Dulsk," said Anna.

"Nothing like that," said one of the women.

"It's a miracle," said another.

"It's a blessing. It's kept us all safe, and if Vassily hadn't left, we'd still all be safe."

"What I meant was that this miracle is a natural phenomenon of the people of this village. As you know, certain species have survival attributes which enable them to be around longer than these species that don't. Apparently you-"

"Shut up with your scientific nonsense, pretty little girl. What we have here is a miracle. A downright genuine miracle."

"A wonderful miracle. But if you're a communist you wouldn't understand it."

"I am willing to listen," said Anna. They poured her a cup of tea, and several of the women insisted she eat something because she could use some meat on her bones. Didn't Remo think so? Remo didn't think so. Remo was too skinny too, they said.

Anna ate the delicious ginger cookies while Remo sipped water. They were the first outsiders to hear the story of the miracle of Dulsk.

In the twelfth century there were many wars around Dulsk, and sometimes holy men started them and other times holy men were victims of them.

But it came to pass that one especially battered holy man made it to their village in very bad shape. His head was bleeding, his eyes were puffed closed, and both his arms were severely broken.

The villagers could not tell if he were a Ruthenian-rite Catholic, a Russian Orthodox Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. His mouth was so battered that he could barely speak. But they knew he was a holy man because he mumbled prayers constantly.

As he recovered he realized that the villagers did not know of which faith he was. Which group would the holy man favor? All of them had taken good care of him.

Now, in Russia, special holy men all had special powers. Some could see in the dark. Others, like Rasputin, could heal the sick. Some could be in two places at once. And yet others could make objects fly from a distance.

And he most certainly was a holy man.

Which group would he be with? Each wanted him because these holy men could bestow special blessings. And each knew there would be many blessings for those who rescued a holy man.

When his mouth healed and he could speak, he refused to do so, because some people could tell a man's sect by his voice. He chose instead to write on paper. And what he wrote would change Dulsk forever.

"There is something beautiful in all of you. Look at how well you treat me, each of you thinking I am one of your own. I see for all of you arising out of my misfortune an even greater blessing. From this day forth, everyone who looks upon you will see the one closest to his heart. No one will come here but he will be of your group, or kind, because he will be like me, of your family."

The women repeated the note word for word.

"And so by our good deed, we were all blessed by this holy man and we never had any trouble until my son, thinking he could show off, went to that parapsychology village."

"They didn't think that there were others like Vassily where he came from, did they?"

"Oh, someone came, but his mother told him to leave the village alone," said one of the women, grinning.

"Would one of you come with us, and tell Vassily to stop what he is doing? Because with us it's like speaking to a mother. No, worse, I used to be able to disagree with my mother," said Anna.

All the women shook their heads.

"Vassily never listened to anyone," said one of the women. His mother sadly nodded agreement.

"He was a problem child," said the mother. "What I did to deserve that, I don't know. What did I do? I ask myself. And do you know what I tell myself? I tell myself, 'Nothing.' I did nothing. He's your problem now."

"And if he starts a war?" asked Remo.

"It would be just like Vassily to start a war if he felt he was being picked on."

"I'm talking about a war that could destroy the world," said Remo.

"He'd do that," said his mother.

The other women nodded. "Just like Vassily."

"Is there anything you can give us to help us?" said Anna. "How can we get through his defenses?"

"There is nothing you can do to him. He is not the problem. It's what happens in your head, young lady. That's the problem. Your problem is all in the mind. Your mind."

"That doesn't make it less of a problem," said Remo.

"We don't have our minds," said Anna. "That is the problem."

An old man in a green KGB uniform ran up the path to the Rabinowitz door. He banged heavily on the handcrafted wood.

"Ma. Ma," he screamed.

"Do you want me to get it, Mrs. Rabinowitz?" asked one of the women.

"Yes, thank you," said Mrs. Rabinowitz.

The youngest woman answered the door, and the KGB man, who was at least ten years her senior, said:

"Ma, Ma. They've got the village surrounded. Someone spotted a high official returning to Russia without going through channels. And she's got enemies. Her name is Anna Chutesov, and she's gorgeous. She's with a man. Who are they?"

"Your brother and sister. Help them," said the woman who answered the door.

"C'mon, sis. We gotta run," said the officer. And it was just like that. Instantaneous.

"I'm not worried about the Russians," said Remo. "I'm worried about what we do when we get back to America. I still feel my little father is around here."

"I feel the same way about my mother," said Anna.

"Sis, will you hurry up? I can get you through the cordon but you have to move quickly."

Remo and Chiun thanked the ladies. It was a peaceful town, this Dulsk, and perhaps it was because of those powers that the people could be peaceful to themselves. Anna still thought it was heredity.

"Totally logical that it was an inherited characteristic of the people," said Anna. "And they made up a holy-man tale to explain it to themselves. That's how religions get going."

"You communists will do anything to explain away a miracle."

"And how do you explain it, Remo?"

"I don't," said Remo.

At the cordon, the Russian officer had to be restrained from explaining Remo and Anna were his sister and brother, because the others would not believe what he said.

"But, sis, you've dated a couple of the guys. They'll let you through."

"You go up there and tell them that," said Remo. And when he was gone, Remo told Anna that there would be a time in a very short moment when she could drive right through the roadblock.

"All you have to do is wait for that time. I'm going up ahead."

"What are you going to do?"

"A Sinanju miracle," said Remo.

"But there are no miracles in Sinanju. You're an accumulation of body techniques over millennia."

"I wouldn't bet on that. I punched the belly of a dead man and found the center of a laughing universe," said Remo. "I don't know we're not a miracle."

"You're saying that to bother me, Remo."

Remo smiled and leaned back into the car, kissing Anna long and softly, his body close to hers.

"That bothers me, too," she said. Remo didn't say anything but he was feeling it work both ways now.

At the guard post it became apparent that Remo was not the brother of the officer even though the officer swore it. Remo fit the description of the man with Anna Chutesov, a high party official who had reentered the country without clearance.

Remo was told to put his hands in the air and walk slowly back to the car with the guards. There, they would take Comrade Chutesov back to Moscow.

Remo lifted his arms. Unfortunately he had two throats in his hands as he did so. This rapid movement broke vertebrae. A kick into a sternum transformed the heart muscle into goulash. The officer who thought Remo was his brother told him they both would never get away with it. Remo told him not to worry.

"Even though you're my brother, I'm going to have to take you in after this," said the officer, reaching for his gun. But he shook his head instead. "I can't do it. I can't do it. I could never do this to you. And what's so strange, I never liked you. In fact I used to arrest you all the time." Remo waved for Anna to bring up the car.

"That was amazing. I never even saw your hands move," she said.

"What are you happy about? I've got to face the man who taught me," said Remo. "No one's better than him."

Chapter 16

She could sense his eyes on her, and her body almost tore itself away from her will to throw itself at his feet. Thousands of men, perhaps millions of men, had loved her from afar, had seen her on the screen. She got hundreds of flattering letters a week from men and women, begging to be near her cool beauty. And never before had she responded.

But just minutes ago she had met a man at the most important party in New York. He was short with sad brown eyes, and spoke with a Russian accent that could stop your breathing if the onions he had just eaten didn't do it to you first. Everyone was saying he was the most important man in America. And no one knew why. He knew everything about everyone. Actress Berell Neek had been told not to cross him. Cross anyone in the room but him.

Berell had that perpetually sensitive face that was always playing sensitive roles. Directors gave her plenty of screen time to be silent with her warm sensitive eyes and her full sensitive lips, and sometimes they would have wind blow through her soft blond sensitive hair.

But Berell Neek had the soul of a calculator. She had been in front of audiences since she was five, and the only spontaneous orgasms she had in her life came during dreams about being raped by gold Oscars while reviewers tauntingly screamed how great an actress she was. Men held no appeal for her. Women held no appeal for her. Even fans held no real appeal for her. She preferred to be worshiped loudly, but from afar.

The only food for her soul was applause. And so when she met the man smelling of onions downstairs at the party, she endured his gross mannerisms, his onion smell, his too loud laugh, because he was important. She had decided to give him a whole fifteen seconds of her sensitive, nodding approval, then move her sensitive, caring face and body off toward other important people. She had never seen so many in one place before as at this party. It had truly lived up to its name. It was The Party. Not just the party of the year, or the party of the decade, but The Party.

Everyone who was anyone was here, and those who were not here would forever feel some shame if they thought themselves of any significance. All the cabinet members had attended, and the President was supposed to arrive later. The five biggest producers in Hollywood were here as well as a half-dozen scientists Neek had recognized, and if she recognized a scientist he had to be colossally important because she knew so few of them, even though her sensitive picture had appeared in scientific magazines.

She even recognized major industrialists. And they had to be major for her to recognize them, although Berell Neek's sensitive beautiful face had appeared in many business magazines.

Everyone talked of power, of a man who could do anything, knew everything. She had heard stories about this man who could tell if you cheated on your tax return fifteen years ago and what the soil was like on your Darien, Connecticut, estate. He knew everyone there was to know, and everything about them there was to know. And so the party was more than just electric. It was thunderous.

Like a storm, it fed on itself. The more important people saw other important people, the more they felt their power and the power of others.

There were comments about the invitations too.

"I got mine at my winter hideaway which no one but me and my wife knew about and she died five years ago," said the inventor of a new generation of computer technology.

"I got mine on my own computer terminal that no one could get into," said another.

"I got mine from my banker, who said I had better go," said a Hollywood producer.

This party was for the powerful and by the powerful, thrown by someone who might be more powerful than all of them combined. The noise was incredible as people who could make decisions by themselves met others of the same stripe, and almost by the sheer impact of their ability to get things done by colliding in this room, began to change the world they lived in on their own.

It was in this exhilarating atmosphere that Berell Neek tried to get away from an onion-smelling sad-eyed man with a Russian accent, even though she knew he had thrown the party.

But at that moment, she couldn't get enough of him. She wanted him more than William Shakespeare telling her she was the greatest actress of all time (one of her most erotic dreams). She wanted him more than a Broadway smash in which applause for her lasted over ten minutes. She wanted him more than all the Oscars lined up end to end, even more than the three she kept in her bathrooms, kept there of course to be used in interesting ways.

And so she left with him for a private room upstairs where, slowly and tantalizingly, she unbuttoned her blouse and revealed her bosom, never shown on the screen because that would have ruined her sensitive image, when in fact she would have posed nude mounting a giraffe with an umbilical cord in her teeth if it would have furthered her career. As she exposed these wonderful breasts, Berell Neek was barely able to keep from leaping on the magnificent Vassily Rabinowitz. Even his onion breath was sexy.

"Get with it. I don't have all day, already," he said. And the passion of his voice sent rapturous vibrations through Berell's quivering body.

"You're going insane with lust for me," said Vassily as he felt her perfect body on his. "Hurry up," he said, while watching her smooth pink flanks work against him. "Whoopsa daisy. That's it," he said on his quick completion. "Okay, get off, and tell the world, especially that good-looking redhead downstairs, about the best sexual experience of your life."

"It was magnificent," gasped Berell Neek.

"You're going to kiss and tell about this all over Hollywood. Get my phone number from my assistant, Smith, and give him any details about anything or anyone he wants to know. He's the morose gaunt one."

"Everyone is morose and gaunt after you, darling." Berell Neek wept the first real tears she could remember. It had been such a strong experience, she could not stop her crying.

"And zip," said Vassily, picking up a magazine as he lay on the soft couch underneath the soft lights of brass and gold lamps.

"What?" she asked.

"Fly," said Vassily. "You unzipped while getting on. Now you're off. Zip back up."

"Oh, yes, dear. Yes, dear. Yes," she said, kissing him even as she delicately, and with the sensitivity only Berell Neek could show, pulled the metal zipper over his magnificent love organ.

"Don't make a production of it, already. It's a zipper. Zip it and get out. "

Vassily Rabinowitz sighed as she left. He was really alone. At last he was alone. No one would dare come up to him, the man who had drawn the most powerful people of America to his Fifth Avenue duplex. The President would arrive soon and then he would control the presidency as well, doing whatever he wanted.

And so he would control America. Then what? Maybe he would go for Russia too. Have a big summit meeting and get them in line also. And then what? China? He didn't want China. The truth was, the world was beginning to be boring.

Vassily Rabinowitz had discovered what the Romans found when they had conquered the world and organized it. What every businessman felt after he achieved a goal he had set for a lifetime, Vassily now felt.

Everything he wanted was his whenever he wanted it, and the human animal, designed to struggle for its existence, and now without that struggle, began to malfunction in massive gloom. He understood now why people stayed in Dulsk and warned him never to leave.

"You'll be unhappy, Vassily. None of us is ever happy outside. Here we work. We have to work. And it's good. We have peace, and we have winter, which is hard. But we have spring, which is sweet. And as the holy man said, a spring without winter lacks taste and joy, but is just the weary weather of our souls."

Vassily remembered these sayings from Dulsk, and understood now why it was important to have a woman able to say no, to make the yes worthwhile. He understood it was important to have someone actually be your friend instead of being tricked into friendship. He understood the importance of hard work to make play fun. He understood now, he thought, even the meaning of death, to make life so precious.

And so in his own pain, he understood that to make his days even bearable now, he would have to bring the world to the brink of destruction because then he might be destroyed also, and stepping toward this edge was the last excitement the world allowed a man who could instantly hypnotize anyone.

At first he only wanted to be left alone; but that was when he left Russia. Now he wanted excitement. And a nuclear war would actually do that. It was perhaps the last thing that would do that.

He called in Smith. He liked the man's mind, what was left of it. Smith came in with his hair neatly combed, smiling as though he were back in Putney Day School. Rabinowitz liked the way this genius who could get to the insides of every organization would often raise his hand for permission to go to the bathroom.

"Smith, I'd like a nuclear war. What do you think?"

"It would destroy everything, Miss Ashford. Do you really want that, ma'am?"

"No. Not destruction of everything. But how could we risk destruction of everything? You know. How many missiles would have to be fired in order to risk starting a nuclear war? Is it one nuclear warhead? Three? Fifteen? Ten fired at Moscow, what?"

"Could it be none of the above?" asked Smith. "Might."

"I would say three would be a real risk, and two would be a minor risk. Everyone knows that one would not do it, although almost everyone who isn't aware of nuclear strategy thinks one would do it."

"Yes, one is a warning."

"No. One is an accident. Two is a warning. "

"And I always thought one was a warning."

"No, Miss Ashford. I would estimate two was a warning. One could be an accident, and in a secret agreement made years ago between the Russian premier and an American president, each gave the other to understand that they were not going to go to nuclear war over a possible accident. I believe the Russian said: 'We're not going to destroy the Communist party for a few hundred thousand deaths.' "

"And the American president?"

"He said that while the loss of an American city would mean a staggering loss to America, he probably could explain it away to a nation numbed by fear, that it was an accident. "

"Funny, I always thought that one would at least be a message," said Vassily, remembering what he had tried in Omaha. Now he saw he would have needed at least two.

"But three, aimed directly at nuclear installations, would be more than a message. It would be war."

"But what about three unimportant cities?" asked Vassily.

"That I would estimate would be the gray area of nuclear war."

"I'd like to use the submarines."

"We have an admiral here tonight, Miss Ashford, but as you know, firing America's missiles is not an easy thing. There are safeguards upon safeguards."

"Well, Harold, work it out," said Vassily.

"Can I go to the bathroom first?" was Harold W. Smith's last question before he set the enormous network of CURE to subverting the nuclear safeguards of his nation.

It was perhaps one of the great hotwires of all time that Smith performed that evening. He first tickled out the defenses at the Strategic Air Command, and at the Naval Nuclear Strike Force.

The tickling was really seeing the defenses come into action, those passwords around the country that had to be sent in order to arm the nuclear arsenal. As a backup there had to be people physically placing keys into triggers, but Harold Smith, always an ingenious boy as well as a good boy, figured out that these keys used the same electronic codes. In other words, the physical backups were ordered by another set of electronics.

Everywhere Smith's computer encountered a code word, it marked a block. The organized mind, which Smith acutely had, understood that the way to solve a problem was not to batter one's head at an obstacle. An obstacle was just that. An obstacle. So when he came to a password defense he labeled it and moved on. Within twenty-five minutes he had a network of obstacles laid before him on his computer screen, but they also told him exactly how America's nuclear defense system could be used.

There were always two codes, each requiring the other to kick on with a yes before it went further. And they followed two distinct paths, as clear as telephone poles. Two parallel poles that were required to work in unison or the missiles would not be fired. They were the President and the military. Both had to agree along their lines of command or there would be no launch.

There had to be one high-ranking officer on one line to start the command and the President on the other. All Smith had to do was break the top password along both these lines and the rest of the orders would follow like a switch on a lamp. Bingo. He was going to light up the world.

The news was so good, he had to run to tell Miss Ashford. He almost skipped into her office.

"Harold," he heard her say. "Don't be ashamed to boast. Boasting is fine. Lets me know what I have. I think you've done good work. But we don't have to break any code at all. We have the admiral we need right here, at the party, and the President is arriving soon."

Vassily waved the happy old man out of the room with the one reward Smith had asked for.

"Sure I'll give you an A. I'll give you an A-plus. But only when the first three bombs drop. Hey, can you change one of those targets to be outside Russia? Maybe we can do Paris. Nice cloud over the Eiffel Tower and everything. Make sure you don't come anywhere near Dulsk. Not within a hundred miles. And send in the admiral for a little talk."

The talk lasted less than fifty-two seconds, whereupon he got the password from an admiral who would not even tell it to his father but would tell it to his subordinate when he believed a nuclear war had started.

Vassily removed that idea from the admiral before sending him down to the party, and then sent the first code word for what Smith had called first parallel path.

"All we need now is the President's code word to launch," came back Smith's voice over the line to his computer room in the Fifth Avenue duplex that combined two entire floors of a building. It was down the street from where Vassily had started his weight-loss/quit-smoking/improve-your-sex-life clinic.

"In a few minutes," said Vassily.

"I wonder if I might go to the bathroom again," came the voice of his computer operator.

"You've been," said Vassily, reminding himself that just because he was the most powerful man in the world didn't mean he should be the easiest to get along with. He was going to reduce the old man to one BM a day and that was it.

He walked to the large picture window. He could feel the vibrations from the dancing below. It was a very loud party, but there wasn't a neighbor important enough to complain. He looked out over Central Park. All of this might be a nuclear cinder before morning. Risk. It was a wonderful stimulant.

It made life livable. Down on Fifth Avenue he saw the motorcycle policemen lead the long dark limousine. It was the President of the United States. He wondered if he could spit down from the window and hit him. But he knew too many Secret Servicemen might panic and he could be dead. They were all over the place protecting the President, but Vassily knew they were no match for him. He had the best protection in the world.

A man moved through the Secret Servicemen like a ballet dancer through a subway crowd. They couldn't stop him. He got to the President. He pointed up toward the party. The President looked up. The man looked up. It was Vassily's only friend he met in America, Remo, the one who saved him from the Russian commandos.

The President nodded. The President turned back to his car, almost pushing his beautiful wife ahead of him. The motorcade sped off with sirens blaring, and the other password was going with him.

"Chiun. Chiun," called Vassily. "Get up here." Chiun was there so silently and so quickly, Vassily could have sworn he had been waiting all along.

"Get me the President. I want him here now. He's running away."

"Are we finally going to make Smith president, O Great Wang?"

"Just get him, and if you see Remo again, kill him. He's got to be killed. You must kill him. He's in my way. He has pushed friendship too far."

But something strange happened. The old Oriental with the great powers began to tremble, the beginning of the word "No" was coming out of his mouth, wrestled by his own mind back into his throat, and the very energy coming from the body began to vibrate the plaster off the ceiling.

"All right, all right already," yelled Vassily. "He's not Remo, but your worst enemy wanting to do battle. Is that easier? Do I have to go back to the stuff I used on you back at Sornica? All right, I've done it. I'm Mr. Easy. The guy who looks and acts like Remo is your archenemy. Now kill him in peace. Or he'll kill you. But on one condition, the same I gave you at Sornica."

Chiun listened and felt a relief of such sweetness as he had never felt before in his life. He did not know why he was relieved, but the world was now good again, devoid of the awful conflict that had racked his soul.

"Bring your great enemy before me and let me see a fight between you two. The kind of fight I would have seen if he didn't run from you back in Sornica. Okay? That kind of a fight. Could you give me that?"

"Great Wang, it shall be a fight to glorify you and Sinanju. It shall-"

"All right already," said the Great Wang, in the person of Vassily Rabinowitz. "Can we have it here right after you get the President?"

But the fight was not to be in the living room of the Great Wang on Fifth Avenue. In the elevator of the building, coming in as Chiun was going out, was his worst enemy.

He looked like Remo. He spoke like Remo, and that made it all the more onerous. Chiun felt a deadly hiss emerge from his throat. His entire body assumed its most acute form of power, as he had been trained since childhood. Total energy. Total concentration as the hands made wide circling arcs in the death challenge.

Anna Chutesov screamed and tried to press herself into the walls of the elevator. The light bulbs above them shattered from the force of a human being coming into its total power.

"Little father. Don't fight me. Don't fight me. I'm Remo," said Remo, even though he was not sure whether he was facing Chiun or Vassily Rabinowitz. Anna had warned him about that and he had practiced in his mind, going up against Chiun despite his own will. This was what he had to do. His mind had to conquer itself. It was like turning one's own intestines inside out.

And it was not working. Remo could not lift his hand against this man.

And then he knew his body would do it for him. The stroke was coming from Chiun. That perfect stroke of pure cleanliness made more powerful by its purity. He knew it and his little father knew it, as his little father had taught it so long ago, so often, over and over from those first days right after the breath training.

The stroke that Remo did not even think about making because it was more a part of him now than his most intimate ideas.

And the horrible thing about that stroke was never before in all his years had Remo in the training sessions been able to stop it. Chiun, by his own volition, had stopped himself. But this stroke was not going to stop until Remo was crushed by it, the one stroke made perfect by a lifetime of devotion. His body moved in what was the defense, trained into him over and over, and never before able to stop that blow. And the stroke went by him, deflected by the proper acceptance of it, fast enough and strong enough for the first time in Remo's life.

Remo had done it. He had transcended Chiun for the first time, and even as he drove into his beloved teacher's body with a stroke to destabilize but not harm Chiun, Remo understood why. It was the Great Wang's visit.

When Wang visited Remo it was at Remo's transition to his ultimate.

"You are at your peak," Wang had said.

When Wang had visited Chiun, Chiun was at his peak. And it was the law of the universe that that which was at its most powerful was beginning its decline. All these years Chiun had been declining, and now Remo had made that transformation to stand above him.

There was both sadness and relief as Remo laid the great Chiun, now stunned, in the corner of the elevator.

The lights came back on.

"What happened? The lights blinked off and now they're on. What happened to Chiun?" asked Anna.

"The greatest fight of my life," said Remo.

"But it happened so quickly. It was an instant," said Anna.

"What do you want, fifteen rounds of people punching at each other's bodies in padded gloves?"

"I wish I could have seen some of it, at least," said Anna.

"You wouldn't have been able to, even if the lights were on. Too fast for your eyes. But even if I slowed it down, you wouldn't know what was happening."

"That is Chiun," she said. "Unfortunately you have met the Chiun who is not the most Chiun. He's waiting for us somewhere in this building under the name of Vassily Rabinowitz. Good luck, Remo."

"Thanks, and when Chiun gathers himself together again, don't tell him he lost a fight, all right?"

"He'll remember, won't he?"

"I don't know what he'll remember," said Remo, and he took the elevator up to the floor where the big party was going on, and asked around for Vassily Rabinowitz.

Everyone knew Vassily. He was either a great guy or a person one should know. It was a room filled with people impressed by their own importance. The very fact of being with each other seemed to make these people turn on to themselves.

There were bankers and publishers and owners of networks. There were surgeons and scientists, and industrialists and politicians. There was the presidential cabinet. All the power brokers in America were here, and there was the only one person Remo cared much about and he was unconscious in an elevator. And another he cared about somewhat and that one's brains were fried. And the man who did it could do it to Remo.

Everyone knew Vassily but no one knew where he was. A television anchorwoman turned her charm on Remo. Remo turned it back to her.

"You don't have to be rude," she said.

"Yes I do," said Remo.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Another jerk in a roomful of jerks," said Remo. Suddenly in the vast length of the floor, there was silence. Someone had called this august assembly of personages "jerks."

A titter of laughter played through the crowd. Most of the important people dared not laugh lest someone think they were threatened.

"Jerks?" asked the anchorwoman. And she laughed quite loudly.

"Yeah. None of you or anything you do will be remembered a thousand years from now. Even your children, if they're twice as important as you are, won't be remembered. So who are you?"

"It's not a thousand years from now that matters, but now," said the woman.

"Now you always have," said Remo, and someone said that because he wore jeans and a T-shirt, he probably was never invited at all, and several of the many bodyguards were invited to throw Remo out, to loud applause.

They joined the art on the walls, some of them sticking, some of them not.

"Rabinowitz," bellowed Remo. "I want you. And I want you now."

The room was quiet. A door opened. The crowd parted.

A little man with sad eyes walked in quite confidently. Remo went for his head, but this time he did not harm Chiun. Chiun was more frail than he should have been. More worthy of love than usual.

"Are you all right, little father?" said Remo.

"Yes. But I'm your friend Vassily Rabinowitz and you do whatever I say."

"Good, Vassily. I'm glad to see you again. For a moment I thought you were Chiun."

"You're going to kill Chiun. He's no good."

Remo was nodding yes, when he thought of Chiun. All the being that was his said kill Chiun. Everything said kill Chiun. All breathing said kill Chiun. He would kill Chiun, except there was a thing coming up in his throat, and it was something far off in the cosmos that he was a part of. It required the answer "No." And the answer "No" came out of his mouth. No was the answer to that.

"I've got to have your total loyalty. You cannot resist. There is nothing left in you to resist," came the words, and even Remo's blood cried out: Kill Chiun.

Remo threw himself onto the floor and fought his blood. He fought his blood and his being and his knowledge and everything he felt and saw and understood. His hands and his heart would not lift against his little father, Master of Sinanju. If they reached for Chiun, Remo would crush them. If his legs carried him to Chiun, Remo would break them, and far off in a place without light, but of all light, Remo heard the word he needed to hear. It was the great answer to the greatest of all questions.

And the answer was "Yes." The Hebrews heard it in the words of Mount Sinai which said: "I Am Who Is." And the Christians heard it on the third day, when the answer for all eternity was a yes to life.

"Yes," was the answer to all that was. All that was good was yes. All being was the great yes of the universe. And Remo saw the Great Wang laughing at him, and in the cleanest strokes of the history of Sinanju, Remo did as his little father taught him, bringing the blow from the very breathing itself, and severed the head of the Great Wang laughing at him.

When Vassily Rabinowitz' head rolled on the ballroom floor people screamed in horror. Remo's eyes cleared. His body ached where he had hurled it down, shattering parquet flooring into splinters.

He had performed a perfect blow. There was not a drop of blood on his hand. It had been in and out of Rabinowitz' vertebrae at the precise speed to sever with both heat and force. In fact, it was only now that the heart muscle of the headless corpse on the floor finished its last pumping action, creating a dark red pool where the head containing the sad brown eyes had been.

"Who are you?" asked a stunned broadcaster.

Remo didn't answer questions. He went upstairs and following wire circuitry to its source found Smith behind a computer terminal.

Smith was tired and confused. "Remo. Where are we?"

"Fifth Avenue. Rabinowitz' duplex."

"Strange. Last thing I remember is preparing to kill him. What's this on the computer screen?" Smith shook his head. "Oh no. Have they gone off yet?"

"Have what gone off?" asked Remo.

"You would have known if they did. I hot-wired our whole nuclear-defense establishment. Has the President been here?"

"No. I turned him back," said Remo.

"Good. I see. Yes. Right. Let me close this down before we all go up. Where's Rabinowitz?"

"Part of him is in the ballroom and another part, I think, has rolled into another room. I'm not sure."

"Thank you. We needed you and you did your job. You can go now, Remo."

"Here's as good as anywhere," said Remo. "I'm an American. I believe in this country."

"You mean you've veered away from Sinanju philosophy?"

"No. It is Sinanju philosophy. Here is good. I'm here. Yes. I'll stay."

"Did Rabinowitz find out about CURE?"

"You not only told him about it, you put it at his service. "

Smith groaned. "Anyone else?" he asked.

"There's a Russian lady who knows."

"She's got to go."

"I think she's a good person."

"I'm not judging anyone. I'm trying to save the country."

"I don't think there'll be any harm to her knowing. Talk to her."

"Is she good-looking?"

"She's stunning, Smitty."

"I thought so," said Smith suspiciously.

"She's got brains."

"Even more reason to terminate her."

"Talk to her."

Anna Chutesov was still cradling Chiun's head in her hands when Remo helped them both out of the elevator, carrying Chiun in his arms.

He hated himself for the blow he had delivered to Chiun, and yet if he had not, he would have been in pieces like Rabinowitz.

"Remo says I should talk to you," said Smith to Anna. "I'm afraid you understand why we must terminate you. You know about us."

"Typical stupid male response. If you don't know what to do, kill. Gorilla."

"We can't be compromised," said Smith.

"Why would I want to compromise you?"

"To take over our country. Weaken America."

"Why on earth would I want to do that? Do you think we don't have enough troubles in Russia? Do you think we need two countries to mismanage instead of one?"

"That hasn't stopped you from taking Eastern Europe and trying to do the same thing in Afghanistan," said Smith.

"Men. We are lucky to have you as an enemy. Now we have someone to wage some kinds of war against. Do you know why we fight wars? Because that's what we've always done. Do you know why we have yet to build successful socialism?"

Smith shook his head.

"Because no one has done it. And I'll tell you what you have done, jerk. In defeating us so handily in Sornica, you now have all our idiot generals planning revenge just like after the Cuban missile crisis. Little boys' egos are now at work, bankrupting my country and endangering yours. If you wish to kill me, go ahead. I can't stop you. It's what morons do. You can kill someone, so go ahead and do it."

"But how can we be sure we will not be compromised?"

"Because I may want to call on you someday, jerk, and you may want to call on me. There, you have it. An ally for peace or a corpse. Take your choice. Since you are a man, I assume I am dead."

"No one has ever called me a moron," said Smith.

"I bet Miss Ashford did," said Anna.

"How do you know about her?" asked Smith.

"You were taking her orders down in Sornica."

Smith sighed.

"All right. We'll take a chance."

"No choice anyway, Smitty. I'm not doing it," said Remo. "And neither will Chiun. You want to kill Anna, you'll have to figure out a way yourself, and probably over my dead body. Which means you won't."

Remo smiled at Anna.

"I'm thinking of giving you a crack at more than a wrist," he said.

"If you didn't come to me, I think I'd start an atomic war to get you," said Anna. Her voice was soft and low.

"Really?" said Remo, and Anna threw back her head and laughed.

"Only a man would believe something so stupid," she said, blowing him a kiss. "What egos you all have. It's a wonder we haven't been blown up yet."

Remo took Chiun out into the fresh air of Central Park beneath the late Vassily Rabinowitz' apartment. The lights of the city glowed around them. Remo worked Chiun's spine to get the nervous system working toward healing itself.

"Where am I?" asked Chiun.

"Just came out of hypnotism. You locked eyes with the late Vassily Rabinowitz."

"Did I do anything embarrassing?" asked Chiun, rubbing his chest where Remo had stopped his blow from going further.

"No. Never, little father," said Remo.

"Did someone land a blow on me?" asked Chiun, horrified.

"No, little father. No one could do that," said Remo.

"Then how did I get this contusion?" asked Chiun.

"I think Vassily hypnotized you into fighting yourself, little father."

"Really?" asked Chiun. "And who won?"

"You, of course, little father. No one can beat you," said Remo, and he felt in the night all around them the great yes of the universe. It was love.