"A Russian," Remo said quickly.
"Aaaaagh," Chiun said. "Battalions of women with faces like gun butts and bodies like garages. A fine choice, meat-eater."
"She is a beauty," Remo said. "You shouldn't judge until you see. That's what you're always telling me."
"There are things you can judge without seeing, if you have any sense at all left in your head. You do not have to see every sunrise to know what the next one will look like. You do not have to spy on the moon every minute to make sure that it does not take the form of a square. Some things one knows. I know about Russian women."
"Not this one," Remo insisted.
"Where did you meet this creature?" Chiun asked.
"Woman, Chiun, not creature."
"Yes. Where did you met this meet this… one?"
"Woman, Chiun. I met her when she was trying to kill me."
"Very good," said Chiun. "And that of course told you it was love at first sight."
"Not really. For her, it had to grow."
"Good," Chiun said. "Now she is in love with you and will not try to kill you any more."
"Right."
Chiun shook his head. "Some day when all this world is ended and all the Masters of Sinanju who have ever lived gather with their ancestors to review the past, surely I will have the most elevated station of all. Because I have suffered the most. I have had to deal with you."
"Maybe not much longer," said Remo.
"I would meet this Russian barracks beauty with the face of a shovel and the form of a tractor."
"Good," said Remo. "I'd like you to meet her. I've told her a great deal about you."
"Will she try to kill me too?"
Remo shook his head. "I didn't tell her that much about you."
Remo and Chiun paused inside the door of the restaurant where they were to meet Ludmilla.
"There she is," Remo said. He pointed to the young Russian woman. No one in the restaurant saw him point because they were all already staring at Ludmilla, the men with lust, the women with envy.
"She is ugly," Chiun said.
"She has skin like cream," Remo said.
"Yes. That is one of the reasons she is ugly. The beautiful people have a different color skin."
"Look at her eyes."
"Yes, poor thing. Hers are straight. And violet. Violet eyes give very little protection against the sun. Marry that woman and you will have a blind crone on your hands before you get through your first thirty summers together."
"Have you ever seen hands like that?" Remo said. Ludmilla rose as she saw Remo. "A body like that?"
"No, thank the eternal powers that protect old men from shock. What an ugly creature."
"I love her," Remo said.
"I hate her," Chiun said. "I'm going home." He spun and brushed past Remo and walked back to their hotel, thinking deeply.
CHAPTER NINE
Walking to her hotel from the restaurant, Remo finally broke down. He had held strong through the salad, the soup, the main course, the coffee, and the dessert none of which he had eaten but Ludmilla finally got to him, and he told her the secret of his power.
It was candles. He had to sleep with candles lit in the room. If the candles weren't there or if they burned out, his strength vanished.
"Why did you not lose your power last night?" Ludmilla asked.
"Because I didn't sleep," Remo said. To prove his point, he stopped at a store and bought three thick red candles, the size of large instant coffee jars.
That night, as Remo slept in her playground sized bed, Ludmilla went into the drawing room of her suite, made a telephone call, then extinguished the candles and lay down beside Remo.
Remo slept through her getting up and slept through her extinguishing of the candles and slept through her phone call and her return to bed.
He woke only long enough to take care of the man who sneaked into the room, wrapped powerful fingers around Remo's throat and began to squeeze. Remo impaled him on the bed post.
"You lied to me," Ludmilla screamed.
"Tell me about it in the morning."
"You said candles were the secret of your strength," she bawled. "You lied."
Remo shrugged and rolled over.
"I want you out of here. Now. And take your body with you."
"It's hard for me to go anywhere without it," Remo said.
"I don't mean your body, I mean that body on the end of my bed."
"Oh, no," Remo said, rolling over to look at Ludmilla. "Call the Russian embassy. They sent him; let them get him. I don't clean up any more bodies. That's all. Forget it. I won't."
Ludmilla reached out a long index finger and trailed it gently down Remo's chest from his throat to his navel. She smiled at him.
After Remo had disposed of the body under a pile of trash behind the hotel, he went back to Ludmilla's bed.
He did not sleep.
"Smitty, I need some cash." Remo drummed his fingers on the coffee table in the living room of his own hotel suite while the transatlantic phone call clicked and sputtered.
It took him a few seconds to realize the clicking and sputtering wasn't the phone system. It was Smith.
"Cash?" Smith was saying. "I just got a bill of yours for a thousand dollars."
"So? Is that so much?"
"From a shoe store?" Smith asked.
"Come on, Smitty, you know how it is when you find a pair of shoes you like. You buy a couple of pairs."
"One thousand dollars?"
"Well, I bought twenty-two pairs. It was important that my feet be clad just so."
"I see," Smith said drily. "And you have these twenty-two pairs of shoes with you, I presume."
"Of course not. Could I travel overseas with twenty-two pairs of shoes?"
"What'd you do with them?"
Remo sighed. "I gave them away. Smitty, don't you ever do anything but bicker, bicker, bicker about money? Here I've just saved the free world from disaster and you're complaining about my buying a measly couple of shoes. I need some cash."
"How much?"
"Fifty thousand dollars."
"You can't have it. That's too much for shoes."
"I'm not buying any more shoes. I need it for something else. Something real important."
"What?"
"I'm not telling."
"You can't have it."
"Okay. I'll raise it. I'll hire myself out to the highest bidder."
From the corner of the room, Chiun squeaked, "I bid twenty cents." Remo fixed him with an evil stare.
"All right," Smith said after a pause. "It'll be at the American Express office. Your passport in the name of Lindsay?"
"Wait a minute. Let me look." Remo looked through the top drawer of the chest and found the passport under a thing in waxed paper that seemed suspiciously like a dead fish.
"Yeah. Remo Lindsay."
"The money will be there in an hour."
"Good going, Smitty. You'll never regret this."
"Fine. What are you going to buy with it?"
"I can't tell you. But we'll name our first child after you."
"Oh?" said Smith, with more than his usual show of interest.
"Yes. Skinflint Tightwad Williams. That's if it's a boy."
"Goodbye, Remo."
Remo hung up and saw Chiun staring at him.
"It is about time that you and I had a talk," Chiun said.
"About what?"
"It is customary for a father to tell his son of certain things when the son is old enough to under stand them. In your case, I'll do it now rather than wait another ten years."
"You mean sex and like that?" asked Remo.
"Partially. And about women, good and bad."
"I don't want to hear about it."
Chiun bridged his fingers before him as if he had not heard Remo. "Now if you were able to select any woman in the world to be with, who would you choose?"
"Ludmilla," said Remo.
Chiun shook his head. "Be
serious. I mean any woman in the world, not just a woman who is so desperate that she is willing to be seen with you. Let your imagination run amok. Any woman. Name her."
"Ludmilla."
"Remo. There are beautiful women in the world, even some with straight eyes. There are intelligent women and loving women. There are even some quiet women. Why would you pick this Russian tank truck driver?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
Remo hesitated for only a split second. "Because I love her," he said.
Chiun lifted his eyes upward as if requesting God to pay close attention to the problems Chiun had to deal with in this life.
"Does she love you?"
"I think so," said Remo.
"Has she stopped trying to kill you yet?"
"Pretty soon now."
"Pretty soon now," Chiun mimicked. His voice grew sincere and concerned. "Remo. Do you know who really loves you?"
"No. Who?" asked Remo, wondering if Chiun were going to let down his defenses. For once.
"Smith," said Chiun, after a pause.
"Bullshit," said Remo.
"The president of the United States. The automaker."
"Horse dung," said Remo. "He doesn't even know my name. He calls me 'those two.' "
Chiun yelled, "The people of Sinanju."
"Hogwash," Remo yelled back. "They don't even know I'm alive. If they can tolerate me, it's because I have something to do with those lazy slugs getting their gold shipment every November."
Chiun paused. He looked ceilingward as if gathering the courage to give Remo the name of one more person who really loved him. He looked back. "There is no point in discussing something with someone who can talk only in barnyard terms."
"Okay. Does that mean our discussion of the birds and the bees is over?"
"We did not once mention birds and bees, just other barnyard animals," Chiun said.
Remo rose. "I've got something to do."
"What is that?"
"I've got to buy a present."
"It is not my birthday," Chiun said.
"It is not for you," Remo said, walking to the door.
"See if I care," Chiun called. "See if the one who really…"
Remo paused. "Yes?"
"Never mind," Chiun said. "Go."
After picking up a bank draft for fifty thousand dollars at the American Express office, Remo went to a small jewelry shop on the Rue de la Paix.
The asking price for the diamond ring was forty thousand dollars, but by shrewd maneuvering, hard bargaining, and his incredible knowledge of the French language in which the negotiations were carried out, Remo managed to get the price up to fifty thousand. He pushed the bank draft over the counter to the French proprietor who had eyes that looked as if two hardboiled eggs, had perforated his face, and a mustache that seemed to have been drawn on with one stroke of a woman's eyebrow pencil. The jeweler put the draft into the cash register quickly.
"Do you want it gift wrapped?" he said, in the first English he had spoken since Remo entered the shop.
"No. I'll eat it here. Of course I want it gift wrapped."
"There is a two dollar charge for gift wrapping."
"Throw it in for free," Remo suggested.
"I would like to, but…" The man shrugged a Gallic shrug. "You know how it is."
"You know how this is too," said Remo. He punched the no-sale button on the register and plucked out the fiftythousand dollar bank draft. "Goodbye."
"Wait, sir. In your case we make an exception."
"I thought you might. Wrap it," Remo said.
When he presented the eight-carat stone to Ludmilla, she tore the paper, opened the box, looked at the ring, and threw it across the room.
"I already have diamonds," she said. "Do you think I would take a gift from a man who lies to me?"
"Okay, now I'll tell you the truth. I love you. I want you to come to America to live with me."
Ludmilla hissed at him. "Soooo, you think I give up my homeland that easily. Never. I am a Russian."
"Do you love me?"
"Maybe."
"Then come to America with me."
"No," Ludmilla said.
"My secret is in America," Remo said.
"Yes?" Ludmilla said.
"There is a spring there, a special water that makes any man invincible."
She came to his arms, and, without trying, he found himself flushing with warmth.
"Oh, Remo. I am glad you have at last told me the truth. Where is it, this spring?"
"In Las Vegas. That is a city," Remo said.
"I have never heard of it," Ludmilla said.
"It has much water," Remo said.
"And when do you want to go there?" she said.
"Tomorrow."
"Tonight," she said.
Remo kissed her lips. "Tomorrow," he said. "I have plans for tonight."
She looked at him with velvet eyes. "All right, tomorrow."
After Remo left, Ludmilla recovered the diamond ring from the floor. From a mother-of-pearl jewelry box in her top dresser drawer, she took a jeweler's loupe. She held the lens up to her eye and examined the ring carefully.
Only a VVF, she thought, a Very Very Fine. She noted a small carbon dot in the back of the stone. Worth no more than thirty thousand retail. But the American had probably paid forty thousand for it. Americans were such fools.
She put the ring in her jewelry box and then went to the phone to make a long distance call.
CHAPTER TEN
He was not going to the building at Dzerzhinsky Square. This time he was going to the Kremlin itself, and Marshal Denia decided not to wear his ribbons. He decided he was right when he saw the four men facing him. They wore dress uniforms with rows of ribbons on their chests. Each of them owned more ribbons than Denia had, and if he had worn his, it would have been a small admission that he was somehow less than them. By wearing none, he admitted only that he was different from them.
He looked at the clumps of ribbons on the four chests, each looking like an ear of Indian corn worn over the heart. Military decorations, he thought, were a tribute not to bravery or competence but to longevity. The best and bravest soldiers he had ever seen had often not lived long enough to earn even one ribbon. In their youthful pride, they would have laughed at these four cadavers who stared now at Denia and demanded explanations of his "curious performance."
"Curious, comrade?" Denia asked the chairman of the board of inquiry. "The Treska has demolished America's most secret and powerful spy organization in Western Europe. In the process, true, we have lost some men. But we are continuously training new men to replace them. In months… weeks, we will be back at full strength, while the Americans will never again put such a force in the field."
He said it and did not believe a word of it. Neither apparently did the chairman, a wizened old man with a face like cracked desert mud.
"And what guarantee do we have," the old man said, "that our new force will not be obliterated just as our last force was? What have you done about this?"
"I have isolated the special American agent who worked such damage on our men. I have infiltrated the entire apparatus. Soon we will have the answer to this riddle."
"Soon is not good enough."
"Soon is as good as it can be," Denia said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the edge from his voice. He looked to the other men sitting behind the stark wooden table in the small basement room. "In operations like ours, one occasionally encounters the unusual. You must study it before you can destroy it." One of the men on the panel had been a leader in Russia's scorched-earth policy when the Nazis invaded during World War II. Denia spoke in his direction. "It must be like the first foot soldiers ever to encounter a tank in battle. It would have been easy to run away. Or to panic and throw stones at the tank. But it was wise to watch and learn the monster's weaknesses. As our glorious people did against the Hitler hordes."
The old resistance leader nodded. Denia though
t he had convinced one, before he realized, with disgust, that the old man was nodding himself to sleep. The man at the far right of the table had the look of a retired ribbon clerk and the manner of a lifelong cuckold. The look and manner disguised the fact that he was the premier's closest military advisor, a man whose bark could send even the secret police jumping. He had peopled one entire prison camp with his personal enemies.
"Your analogy is interesting, Gregory, but insufficient. We do not need descriptions of tactics that were successful thirty years ago in different situations. We need an up-to-the-minute report on what you are doing to eliminate this existing problem."
"One of our agents is with the American right now. She…"
"She?" Denia was interrupted by the aged chairman.
"Yes. Ludmilla Tchernova." Denia look at the man on the far right and smiled slightly. The man had been sleeping with Ludmilla for two years.
"Some of you know her," Denia said. "Ludmilla is one of our best agents. She is now on her way to America with this man. He thinks she has defected with him in the service of love. Her assignment is to find out what unusual weapons or techniques or powers this man uses, and then to report back to us so we can destroy him."
"When do you expect this will be accomplished?" asked the confidante of the premier.
Denia shrugged. "It is hard to say." From their faces, he could see that this did not go down well. "Within a week."
The premier's aide nodded. He looked at the other men at the table, then said, "All right. A week. And if that does not produce results, we shall have to try other measures."
Denia nodded in a military fashion. He tried not to show that he understood that those "other measures" would specifically exclude him, and that one week and a sexy Russian courtesan were all that stood between him and exile.
Or worse.
On the Air France plane to New York, Remo sat between Ludmilla and Chiun, who kept asking the stewardesses to bring him more magazines. He would scan each magazine quickly, then lean across Remo to point out to the young Russian woman stories about the latest atrocities behind the Iron Curtain.
Ludmilla kept her face fixed grimly on the window.
"All right, Chiun, knock it off," Remo said.
"I am just being friendly," Chiun said. He flipped the pages of the magazine in his lap, then excitedly pushed it across Remo into Ludmilla's hands. "See. The advertisement for a new tractor. You will love America. They have many tractors for you to drive."
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