Look Into My Eyes td-67

by Warren Murphy

  "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 importa
nce 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. "