An Old Fashioned War td-68

by Warren Murphy

  "How many good markets are there?" asked Chiun. "Look at what I'm walking away from. America. Now, that's an active country for you. South America. It's coming into its age, and all of Europe, and the Middle East. Do you wish to deal or not?"

  "You're not in a position to bargain. You can't give me what I want or deserve. You just don't have the goods anymore. You can cause me a little trouble here and there, but your boy Remo is just a diversion. I will let you have Japan."

  "And Indochina."

  "No. Too much."

  "You have all China. You have Russia. Are we bargaining or are you dictating?" asked Chiun.

  "Done," said Arieson. He offered a hand that Chiun refused to shake.

  "Done," said Chiun.

  Arieson offered the same hand to Remo.

  "No," said Remo. "No deals. And you, Little Father, you said you'd show me how to deal with Arieson."

  "I just did. We just did. You don't want to live with it, that's all."

  "Walking away from most of the world, Little Father, is not dealing with Mr. Arieson."

  "It's the best I can do until you get back the treasure of Sinanju."

  "That's still lost, is it?" laughed Arieson.

  "How do you know so much?" asked Remo.

  "I just watch you guys hack around and laugh my insides out," said Areison. "Let me tell you about this city. It's good to be home again. I hated Hibernia, and your new country, Remo."

  "What the hell do you want?" asked Remo.

  "To do what I do. I'll get what I want unless you fellas give me what I deserve."

  "And what does that mean?" asked Remo.

  "Chiun will tell you. Don't worry, only the dead have seen the last of me."

  "Well, you haven't seen the last of me," said Remo.

  "Wanta fight, big boy?" laughed Arieson.

  This time Remo tried something entirely strange. If all the blows of Sinanju had not worked, then perhaps a straight punch to the stomach, fairly slow, not much faster than a professional boxer, would work. Remo let it go and shattered the fine wooden chair on which Mr. Arieson had sat.

  The room was filled with the dead and the quiet. But not with Mr. Arieson.

  "I can believe this troublemaker has some strange powers. But I can't believe, Little Father, that pile of junk you call the treasure of Sinanju has any bearing on this. You just want it back."

  "Until we regain the treasure of Sinanju, Remo, we will be helpless against Mr. Arieson. I am sorry you do not believe me. But you can believe this. Until we regain that treasure, I will consider you obliged to consummate your marriage with Poo."

  "But you heard the pope. I'm not married. I've never been married."

  "That's for Roman Catholics, Remo. You're Sinanju."

  "But you said you followed the Catholic laws."

  "And since when, Remo, do you believe anything I tell an emperor?" said Chiun.

  They left the Vatican the way they came. Out on the street in front of the restaurant, where the owner was trying to have the two arrested for ruining his basement, Chiun said:

  "We have missed the glorious ages of Sinanju, Remo. Make a son for us, so that he might see an age of assassinry, where the corrupt and despotic do not take their people to war, but hire professionals like ourselves to do the proper work."

  "I'm happy with the time I'm in," said Remo.

  "You're never happy," said Chiun.

  "Neither are you," said Remo.

  "No," said Chiun, "I always say I am unhappy but I enjoy it. You always say you are happy but you never enjoy it."

  "I'm not going back to Sinanju, Little Father."

  "And I am not leaving Sinanju until you recover the treasure."

  "Then good-bye, Little Father," said Remo.

  "Good-bye," said Chiun, refusing to look at him.

  "Would you want to marry Poo if you were me?" asked Remo. But Chiun did not answer. He chose to walk around one of his favorite cities as Remo hailed a cab to take him to the airport.

  Back in America, Smith made the rare gesture of allowing Remo to return to Folcroft, an area he was supposed to avoid to help sustain the cover of the sanitarium. Remo as well as Chiun had been seen at random points around the country, but no one had yet connected them to the organization housed on Long Island Sound. No one, that is, who was allowed to live.

  Smith was even more serious as he brought Remo into a special situation room, with maps on the wall and grids on a table. They were alone here, and Remo could see that Smith was figuring out patterns of Mr. Arieson.

  "So far, Mr. Arieson has been random, like a ball in a roulette wheel. He would bounce into a major area of conflict and bounce to a minor one."

  Remo nodded this was true.

  "Now, he is back to the most major of all. I think we're going to have a war with Soviet Russia, and you may be the only one who can stop it," said Smith.

  "Stop it?" asked Remo. "I can't even lay a hand on the guy." But even now, he was having an especially good thought about Russia, and her name was Anna.

  Chapter 10

  Anna Chutesov once again saw the panic. It always came with field marshal's braid on its shoulders, and the traditional ranking officer's field cap.

  Panic came in stone faces talking with apparent calm about opportunities and risks. It always came cloaked in that all-encompassing garbage bag called: "National Security."

  In Russia those words were more holy and central to life than Jesus was to Christianity. And they were always invoked when the military leadership was being pressured to act rationally in a time of crisis.

  "Comrade Sister Chutesov, you cannot call in the Americans. You are endangering national security," said a field marshal who had survived the Second World War and Stalin and had enough big shiny medals on his chest to fill a checkerboard. He was indeed a hero of the Soviet Union, known for his implacable calm in the face of danger.

  All heads nodded around the little clearing in the woods just south of Moscow. There were fifteen generals and Politburo members. Their most loyal aides, some colonels, some majors, stood just beyond the clearing with AK-47's at the ready. Some of the men stamped their feet to keep out the early-autumn cold. Someone passed around a lone hot cup of tea. Anna ignored the cold. She always wore the latest thermal underclothes from the West as soon as September came and switched to lighter clothes only in the middle of April.

  Her head was bundled in a fur hat and her fine beautiful high-cheekboned features were framed by a band of silvery fur. If anything, this strategic adviser to the Premier looked like a Kewpie doll. She spoke in a low whisper that forced the taller men to lean down to hear her.

  "And you think national security has not been breached? What, then, is the top military command doing meeting here like frightened rabbits in a hole?"

  "But to willfully invite an American operative into the inner reaches of our command structure. To invite a foreigner here to attack Russians. It is treason." This from the commander of the KGB, a field marshal in a stiff'green uniform.

  "Tell me, field marshal, what would you propose instead? The fact is, you are supposed to run the finest security network in the world. The fact is, comrade field marshal, you are helpless."

  "If the Premier-"

  "The Premier is not here. Most of your junior officers are not here. We do not know which units of the KGB are with the government and which are not. We do not know which units of the great Red Army are with us or not. We do not know which units of the air force and the navy are with us or not. We know one thing: major elements of our defensive structure have suddenly gone berserk. We cannot control them and the government is terrified that we are definitely heading into a major war with America."

  "Well, that's our problem," said the KGB commander. His name was Nevsky. He had a face like a beagle's. It looked kind. But the man wasn't. He made a motion with his hands indicating the case was closed.

  "It's our problem," said Anna. "And there is nothing anyone of us here can do abo
ut it. We are meeting here in these woods instead of the Kremlin precisely because none of us knows which of his own units will kidnap him the way our premier has been kidnapped. We are here because we cannot solve the problem."

  "But they are our units," said the army field marshal. "They are Russian. They have, like many of us, become frustrated by this long twilight war orchestrated by the KGB as the way to defeat the West. They are tired of getting new tanks and seeing them rust as they become outmoded before being used in combat. The soldiers of the brave Red Army are better than watchdogs on our border. They are warriors."

  "I see you too have been infected by that mysteriously sudden disease that has spread throughout the defense forces."

  "Honor and courage are not a disease," said the army field marshal. His name was Rossocov. When he spoke, his pantheon of medals jingled.

  "When the army decides it is going to declare war on America itself, and kidnaps the Premier to do so, I would say that is a bit of a trauma in the body of the defense system," said Anna. "The arms and legs have gone off without the head. And the head stands around here in these woods, terrified of getting its body back."

  "The army might win. You don't know it will lose," said Field Marshal Rossocov.

  KGB Field Marshal Nevsky nodded agreement. A few of the Politburo also nodded. Even if this was a Russian rebellion, it was still being run by Russian Communists.

  It was then that Anna Chutesov stepped into the center of the little circle in the cleared section of the woods. She inhaled the cold Russian autumn air and said more loudly than she had before, loudly but not quite a scream:

  "Win what?"

  Then she turned and looked every one of them in the eye.

  Finally Field Marshal Rossocov said bluntly: "The war."

  "And what does the war win us?" she asked.

  "Victory," said Rossocov.

  "What is the gain of that victory, which, by the way, could well result in the annihilation of multimillions and a planet much less inhabitable than before?"

  "The gain is that we have destroyed the center of capitalism. We have defeated our major foe. We have triumphed against the strongest nation in the world."

  "You still didn't answer the question," said Anna. Rossocov wanted to slap the woman across her pretty face. Women could never understand war like men, even the brilliant Anna Chutesov.

  "Defeating capitalism is not winning something."

  "It most certainly is. It is the triumph of communism. It is the end of the struggle. No more war."

  "Excuse me, but this flies in the face of reality. We have until recently been closer to war with China, a communist country, than with America. So the triumph of international communism as we know it will not mean an end to war any more than the advent of Christianity among nations meant an end to war."

  "Is the triumph of communism nothing, then?" asked Field Marshal Rossocov.

  Anna could see the sympathy for this argument in the faces around her, supported by the patriotic and socialist fervor they had lived with all their lives.

  Men she thought. What idiots. She wanted to say, "Probably nothing," but that would have required in these men a sophistication to understand that every social system tended to function by its own human rules rather than the ones laid down from the top, like communism.

  Instead, she stressed again that the defeat of capitalism would not mean an end to struggle, that there would always be more enemies and that they would face those enemies on a planet far less inhabitable than it was before.

  "Given that there is no prospect of winning anything worthwhile, and given that we cannot do anything about this mental disease infecting vast segments of the Russian defense forces, I must recommend we go outside for help."

  No one spoke in agreement. They were silent, too panicked to move. But as men they had developed the calm exterior of those who are in control. The reason they had gotten away with it for so long was that most women wanted to believe that men could really defend them with their superior stability. Most men were in fact as stable as daisies in a windstorm, and at the first sign of danger, they stopped thinking and began mouthing platitudes about national security and winning wars.

  "In America there is one man of special and awesome abilities, whom I have had the distinct pleasure of working with. He belongs to their highest secret organization, used only for the most vital situations, and I believe we can get his services again precisely because it is in America's interest also not to have a war with us."

  "This man you wish to see," said KGB Field Marshal Nevsky, "would he happen to be somewhat handsome, with dark hair and dark eyes and high cheekbones, and be named Remo?"

  "He would," said Anna.

  "And would this Remo be the same one you were seen with on several different occasions, once during a penetration of Russia and twice in America while you were on assignment there?"

  "He would."

  "And did this foreigner American seduce you, Comrade Chutesov?"

  "No," said Anna, "I seduced him." She did not want to get entangled in men's romantic myths, so she cleared up the questions she knew were coming. "No, I am not in love with him, and yes, the sex was wonderful, and no, I am not so desperate to copulate with this man that I would destroy the planet in a nuclear holocaust."

  And then KGB Field Marshal Nevsky said with absolutely typical male stupidity, "How do we know that?" She saw a few heads nod.

  She would have to lie. If there was one man among them who could accept the bald-faced realistic truth, he would be a lot.

  "If I want sex, who is better than a Russian man?" she said.

  It was a suitable fib so that now these male leaders, all in their sixties and seventies, could allow Anna to go on with saving them from possible nuclear annihilation.

  "Do what you have to do, Comrade Anna," said Nevsky.

  "Thank you," she said. She was even able to keep a straight face.

  She had already contacted Remo's superior, a Mr. Harold W. Smith, who for a man was extremely rational. He had explained that this phenomenon of men lusting for war was not new to Russia and had been occurring randomly around the globe.

  "I must tell you, Ms. Chutesov, Remo has had no luck so far in stopping the force behind this. The man's name is Arieson. Does that ring a bell with you?"

  "No," Anna had said. "But names mean nothing."

  "Sometimes," said Smith. "But I don't know how helpful Remo can be."

  "It is truly sad to hear that Remo has met this man and failed. However, Remo can do things that none of our people can, and he has succeeded at something no other man has managed to do."

  "What's that?"

  "From everything you have told me, Remo is the one man who has not been seduced into going to war under the spell of Mr. Arieson."

  "That's right," Smith said.

  "With my calculating ability and Remo's extraordinary powers, I think that's the best chance to get back our Russian armies."

  "You may be right. But you could be wrong."

  "We have nothing else available unless the Oriental, his surrogate father, wishes to help."

  "No. He doesn't. He cut a deal with Arieson." This had interested Anna, and since Remo had been present at the bargaining, Anna decided to wait until Remo arrived. He had already taken off from the U.S. when the meeting in the woods started, and Anna waited until just before his American aircraft landed just outside Moscow to show up to greet him. She never knew which troops were loyal to whom now.

  Remo in his light and smooth way almost danced down the ramp. She saw him smile when he spotted her. The KGB was undoubtedly watching her in some way. That was their custom. But she didn't care now. With Remo here, they didn't matter.

  "Hello, darling," she said.

  "Hello, darling," he said, and she was in his arms for a long warm kiss before she even saw his hands move.

  "Not here on the tarmac," she whispered.

  "Tarmac is better than a bed," he whispered.
r />   "Where did you hear that?"

  "I Just made it up."

  "I like it, but we are probably being photographed by the KGB."

  "Good, I'll give them lessons."

  "Stop that," she said, moving his arm away from one of the many points he could use to send her body into writhing pleasure. "I want you, not just fingers playing on the keyboard of my nervous system."

  "I can live with that," said Remo.

  "I could live for that," said Anna.

  "It's good to be back with you," said Remo. He did not tell her about Poo.

  "The whole country may have turned against us. It is a nightmare. We don't know which units have been infected and which have not. To make matters worse, the defecting units have seized the Premier so that they can declare war on America. They want a declaration of war. They want to give America time to get its best army into the field. They even want a place designated to fight it."

  "Let's go to a hotel," said Remo. He could sense Anna's charms, and he wanted them. Her cool sparkling smile. Her delightful blue eyes. Her body that had been his in many delightful moments, and of course that great mind.

  "Did you come here to save your country and mine from a disastrous war, or did you come here to make love?"

  "I came here to screw," said Remo casually.

  "Yes, well, let's do that after we do business."

  "You women are all business," said Remo.

  The facts were similar to the Vatican, the Bath, the USS Polk, and the Little Big Horn incidents.

  A Mr. Arieson had transformed ordinary men into warriors whose only desire was to get into a battle. As with his previous appearances, there seemed to be no purpose for the war but the war itself.

  "We have got to get control of our armies back into the hands of the Communist party," said Anna as her pass got her by the guards in the airport. Her Zil limousine was waiting for her for their ride back to Moscow.

  "Wait a minute. I'm not putting an army into the hands of the Communist party," said Remo, the ex-marine.

  "Well, where would you put it, Remo?" asked Anna. Remo was darling, Remo was exceptional, but Remo, Anna had to admit, thought like a man.

  "Maybe some democratic form of government."