In Enemy Hands td-26

by Warren Murphy

  Ludmilla snatched the magazine from Chiun and slammed it to the floor then threw her arms up over her head in desperation. The diamond ring on the index finger of her right hand glistened an eight carat glisten.

  "How much of this abuse must I tolerate?" she said.

  "Abuse?" Chiun said. "Abuse? What abuse? Now a friendly gesture and warm conversation is abuse?" He talked to Remo as if Ludmilla was not there. "Really, Remo, I cannot see what you like about this one."

  Remo growled. Ludmilla turned her face stonily toward the window. Chiun looked back at another news magazine. He recognized a picture and pushed the magazine into Remo's lap.

  "Look, Remo. The woman. Isn't she beautiful?"

  "Yeah," Remo said without spirit. "Beautiful."

  "I knew you would like her," Chiun said. He sat back in his seat and stared at the magazine. The woman was the kind Remo liked. Long in the leg and big in the chest. The man was hopeless. If a racehorse could fit into a dress, Remo would fall in love with it.

  Chiun read the caption under the picture of the half-clad Hollywood star who was making her nightclub debut with a new act that featured partial nudity and total witlessness.

  "Remo. Where did you say we were going?" Chiun asked.

  "Ludmilla and I are going to Las Vegas. I don't know where you're going."

  Chiun nodded and said softly, "I might just go to Las Vegas too." He read the caption again. The Hollywood star was opening her new night club act at the Crystal Hotel in Las Vegas. Chiun nodded. There was only one thing to do: fight ugly with ugly.

  How simple it all would have been though if Remo had been taken with one of the lovely maidens of Sinanju. How simple.

  Chiun mused as Remo got up and went to the men's room in the front of the first class section.

  Ludmilla waited until he disappeared into the small room, then moved over into his seat. She looked at Chiun.

  Eyes like a cow, he thought.

  "Why do you hate me?" she said.

  "I do not hate you. I do not understand what he," Chiun nodded toward the bathroom, "sees in you."

  "Perhaps love."

  "He has all the love he needs."

  "From whom?"

  "From me," Chiun said.

  "You are jealous of me, aren't you?"

  "Jealous? The Master jealous? Do you think I care what that pale piece of pig's ear does? No? Except for this. I have invested years of my life in this one, and I cannot sit by and watch him turn into mud in the hands of one whose only wish is to kill him."

  "You think that's all I want?" she said.

  "I know that is all you want. It is written on your face in foot-high letters. Only a fool could fail to see it."

  "A fool. Or a man in love." Ludmilla laughed. She was still laughing when Remo returned to his seat.

  "I'm glad to see you two are hitting it off better," Remo said.

  Ludmilla laughed again. Chiun grunted and turned away, across the aisle, to look out the windows on the other side of the plane.

  Two important meetings were held later that day.

  In Washington, the Secretary of State stood before the President's desk, waiting for the Commander in Chief to finish stapling together a small pile of papers. The President carefully positioned the stapler at the upper left hand corner of the sheets. He held it accurately in place with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. He raised his right fist up in front of his forehead and slammed it downward at the stapler.

  And missed.

  His right fist slammed into his unprepared left hand. The stapler slid away. Papers bounced into the air. The President jerked his left hand to his mouth and began sucking on the injured fingers.

  He sighed, looked up, and remembered the Secretary of State. Odd that the man should be standing in the center of the room. Why hadn't he come closer to the desk?

  He beckoned the Secretary to come nearer. With a cautionary look at the stapler, the Secretary waddled slowly forward.

  "What is it?" the President asked.

  "I have just returned from a closed door meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee," the man said. His voice was a slow professional chant that sounded as if he were going to begin a disquisition on mathematical theory in the Golden Age of Greece.

  "Yeah?" mumbled the President around the fingers that were still stuck in his mouth. The hurt was starting to leave them now. If he was lucky, he wouldn't get blood blisters under the nails.

  "They had heard that somehow we have scored a major intelligence victory in Europe and of course they wish to investigate this."

  "Ummmmmm," the President sucked.

  "I told them that I had no knowledge of such a victory and certainly we did not have anything to do with securing it, if victory it was."

  "Ummmmmm," the President said.

  "They did not believe me. They think this administration has defied their Congressional prerogatives and gone off on some kind of intelligence adventure."

  "Ummmmm."

  "They will call me and the CIA Director to testify, probably in the next few days."

  "Ummmmm. Seems logical."

  "So don't you think, Mr. President, that it is now time to tell me just what has occurred in Europe?"

  The President took his fingers from his mouth. "No," he said. "What you know is accurate. The United States took no action with any of its agencies to bring about whatever Congress thinks may have happened in Europe. Stick with that. It's true."

  The Secretary of State looked unhappy, but he nodded.

  "Tell me," the President said. "Do you think the Congress really wants the Russians to beat us?"

  "No, Mr. President," the Secretary said. "But they are pandering to those who do."

  "Who are?"

  "The press. The young. The radicals. Everyone who hates America because they have been rewarded, by life here, in a manner that far exceeds their worth."

  The President nodded. He liked it when the Secretary was philosophical. The Secretary waited, then turned again to the door.

  His hand was on the knob when the President spoke.

  "Mr. Secretary," he said.

  "Yes sir?"

  "I've just about had it with these people. I want you to know. If Congress puts any heat on you over this European business…"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm going to hang them up by their balls."

  When the Secretary of State met his eyes, the President of the United States winked.

  The other important meeting was held later that day, backstage at the Crystal Hotel in Las Vegas where Miss Jacquanne Juiceshe was always billed as "Miss Jacquanne Juice," although there had not been, since she was eleven years old, any danger of anyone's mistaking her for Mr. Jacquanne Juice was trying to explain to a costume designer what was wrong with the bra she was wearing.

  "Look, I'm going to flash my galonkers at them for the finale. But it would help if I could get them out of the bra. The goddamn thing doesn't open up."

  The designer was a small man with long whiteblond hair. His wrists were thinner than the woman's. His fingers were inoffensive as he touched the front clip on the bra the young woman wore and showed her how a simple squeeze on both sides of the strap would pop it open.

  "See?" he said, as the bra exploded open and Miss Jacquanne Juice was left standing barebreasted in the middle of the rehearsal stage. Around them, throats cleared and movement ceased. Men who a second before had been busy doing things, professional things on which their livelihoods depended, stopped, no longer caring about anything except Miss Jacquanne Juice's mammary glands.

  "It's easy," the costume designer said.

  "It's frigging impossible," the woman answered. "It's easy for you, you're fooling around with somebody else's tits all day. For me, it's hard. I keep clawing at this thing and clawing at it. If I ever get the thing open, I'll be standing there, my jugs covered with blood. Is that what you want for a finale? Is it? A frigging horror show? You going to bring bats down out of the b
alcony? Hah? Oh, crap. Doesn't anyone around here care about me? Am I always going to be just a piece of meat?"

  She looked around the stage and found that every pair of male eyes within sighting distance was fixed upon her breasts. Some of them were nodding answers to her question.

  Except one.

  A small, aged Oriental wearing a white robe looked at her with hazel eyes that were wise beyond wisdom, and he smiled at her slightly and nodded, a nod of sympathy and understanding. The small movement of his head seemed to send waves across the room to where Miss Jacquanne Juice stood, waves that enveloped her with knowledge of her own womanhood and personhood. She suddenly felt barebreasted, and she pulled the bra's cups closed around her front and fumbled with the clip.

  "We'll work on it later," she told the clothing designer, then brushed past him to speak with the old Oriental.

  She stood in front of the old man, staring down at the white brocade robe, and then, because she could think of nothing to say but had to say something, she said: "Did you know I have an IQ of 138?"

  "I can see that," Chiun said. He had never heard anyone describe her bust size with the letters IQ before, but if she claimed to be a 138, he believed it, because she was cow-like like most American women were or aspired to be.

  "And yet," he added, "they treat you badly. They all want something from you, but in turn they give nothing."

  He patted a spot next to him on the top of the wardrobe trunk, indicating that she should sit down.

  "How did you know that?" she said.

  "They all want and take but never give. There is none you can trust, none who cares about you as much as he cares about himself."

  Miss Jacquanne Juice nodded.

  "But how did you know? You're some kind of a guru, aren't you? How did you know?"

  "It is ever thus with leaders. With stars as well as with emperors. The most difficult thing is to find one you can trust, someone without motives of his own, someone who cares for you as you and does not wish something from you."

  "Oh. All my life. Looking and looking," Miss Jacquanne Juice said. She put her head on Chiun's shoulder. He patted her bare back gently, to console her for a world so cruel that it paid her only a quarter-million dollars for two weeks of breast-baring in the middle of the Nevada desert.

  "You can stop searching," Chiun said. "There is one who cares about you." He turned his face to look into her eyes.

  "I believe. I believe," she said. She pushed her face closer to his shoulder. "Oh, what a feeling to know there is someone who cares."

  Chiun patted her back again, this time searching out a precise spot for tapping with his long fingernails.

  "And you must let me…" She sighed as she felt the currents from Chiun's fingers pass through her body. "You must let me do something for you."

  She looked up at Chiun hopefully. He shook his head. "There is nothing I need, my child."

  "There must be something, something I can do for you."

  "Nothing," Chiun said.

  "Something. Anything. A gesture."

  Chiun paused, long enough to appear thoughtful. Then he said:

  "Well, there is just one little thing."

  That afternoon, after a platoon of hotel personnel had made her comfortable in her room, Ludmilla pressed Remo for the exact location of the secret spring that gave him his powers.

  Remo sighed. "Look, we're in America. You promised to give this a try, and maybe to stay. Now can't you stop being a government honcho for a while?"

  "This has nothing to do with government. This has to do with honor. And trust. And love. You promised me and you should live up to your promise."

  "It's not far from here," Remo said. "Ten, twenty miles."

  "When will we go there?"

  "Now if you want."

  "Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better. And we will have a picnic. And we will make love out in the sand."

  Remo, who knew more about sand and desert heat than Ludmilla, nodded, but the more he nodded, the more appealing the idea sounded.

  "And now you must leave," Ludmilla said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I need my rest. Go. Go. I will see you later and be beautiful for you."

  Remo nodded again and left, and walked whistling down the hallway toward the steps to his own room. He did not hear the silent movements behind him as Chiun came from behind a potted palm and walked to Ludmilla's door.

  Inside the telephone rang. Ludmilla said "hello" and waited while the operator opened the line on her call to Moscow. Chiun could only hear her half of the conversation with Marshal Denia.

  "Yes. Probably tomorrow we will go there. Oh, good. You are coming? When will you get here? Wonderful. I long to see you again. I will not go there until you arrive."

  Chiun rapped on the door, and heard the telephone quickly hung up. When Ludmilla opened the door, her face was first surprised, then annoyed.

  "Oh. You."

  "Yes. I hope I did not disturb anything important." He smiled at her and Ludmilla knew that Chiun had heard the call. What she did not know was that Chiun, at that moment, was only a hair away from killing her to protect Remo. But he did not strike, because Remo would never have believed in the necessity of the act.

  "Nothing important," she said. "What do you want?"

  "I am inviting you and Remo to dinner tonight. As my guests."

  "Oh, well…"

  "You must," Chiun said. "You and I must be friends."

  She paused, then acceded. "If you insist."

  "I do. I insist. Remo will call for you. I will see to it."

  Ludmilla laughed. "I have already seen to it, old man. He will call for me whenever I wish."

  "As you would have it," Chiun said and walked away, angered because the woman was right. Remo was her slave.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "I don't know why you keep that old man hanging around anyway," Ludmilla said.

  "I've grown accustomed to his face," Remo said, and sipped his mineral water to turn off the conversation.

  They sat at a front table in the Crystal Hotel supper club. Chiun had insisted that all the arrangements be left to him, and when Remo and Ludmilla arrived, the headwaiter smiled at them, showed them to a front row table, was polite, and set the indoor record for Las Vegas, a mark that would live forever, Remo decided by refusing a tip.

  Ludmilla persisted. "It would be different if that old goblin gave something to you. But nothing except complaints. This is how you spend your life? Listening to him complain? Why is he here? Why is he with us?"

  "He's really a nice old geezer," Remo said. "Besides, he has his strong points."

  "Yes?"

  "Yes," said Remo.

  "Tell me one of his strong points."

  Remo thought a moment. How to tell her that Chiun was more deadly than a whole military division, more powerful than plutonium, more accurate than calculus. How to tell her?

  "He's all right," Remo said. "He knows a lot of things."

  "He knows how to get old and sponge off his betters and his youngers," Ludmilla said. "Too bad for you that you do not send him away."

  "Well…" Remo was noncomittal. "That's the way it goes."

  He was spared further conversation by the crowd. Instead of a roar, there was a hush and then every voice in the room was silent, and Remo turned toward the entrance to the supper club.

  Walking down the aisle through the tables was Chiun, wearing a black robe, and on his arm, towering a head over him, was Miss Jacquanne Juice, headliner of the show at the Crystal Hotel. She wore a scanty white gown and nothing else.

  Remo looked at them, as did every other pair of eyes in the room.

  "Stop looking at her," Ludmilla said.

  "I'm not," Remo said. "I'm looking at Chiun. The old fox is enjoying this."

  There was a spattering of applause. Like a heavyweight fighter, Chiun waved, a king's gesture to quiet the unruly mob.

  Then Chiun and Jacquanne were at the table and the headw
aiter helped seat them, and slowly the room returned to its steady buzzing as customers went back to their drinks.

  Chiun smiled. "Remo, this is Miss Jacquanne Juice. Or something like that. This is Remo, who is better than he looks."

  Chiun stopped and Remo cleared his throat.

  "Oh," Chiun said. "This…" He waved toward Ludmilla. "This is a Russian woman. This is Miss Jacquanne Juice."

  Ludmilla nodded. Jacquanne looked at her, then said, "You're beautiful."

  Chiun nudged her under the table, but Remo said, "Yes, isn't she?"

  "So are you," Chiun said to Jacquanne. "You are most beautiful. The most beautiful woman Remo has ever seen. Isn't that right, Remo?"

  Remo shrugged and looked at Ludmilla.

  "Isn't that right, Remo?" Chiun persisted.

  "What is your name?" Jacquanne asked Ludmilla.

  "Ludmilla."

  "You are beautiful. Truly beautiful."

  "Thank you." It did not occur to Ludmilla to return the compliment; it did not occur to Jacquanne to hint at it.

  Chiun said, "You are truly beautiful," to Jacquanne. "Don't you think so, Remo?"

  Remo nodded, reluctantly.

  "And she makes a very good living, Remo. She has her own band, and people who walk around fastening her brassieres and everything," Chiun explained.

  Remo nodded again.

  Ludmilla said, "Remo, I have a headache. I think I'd like to go back to my room."

  "All right." Remo stood.

  "You are coming back, though, Remo, right?" said Chiun.

  "I doubt it." Ludmilla answered for Remo.

  Chiun looked dejected. Jacquanne could not take her eyes off the Russian woman. Remo shrugged.

  "Good night, Chiun. Good night, Miss…'' Remo said.

  "Juice," said Chiun. "Jacquanne Juice."

  "Good night, Miss Juice," Remo said.

  "Good night," said Ludmilla. "Miss Juice. Old man." And when Chiun met her eyes, she winked-the wink of a winner to a loser, and then she turned and led Remo from the supper club.

  They had gone only two steps toward the exit when Remo was stopped by an order, barked by Chiun in Korean.

  Remo turned. He felt Ludmilla stop and look back also. Chiun, speaking a fast flow of Korean words, picked up the dinner knife at the table. He held it in his left hand, handle between his fingertips, then with the tip of his right index finger struck the knife three times, with no more apparent force than if he were poking someone in the chest to make a point. The first two pokes broke off pieces of the steel knifeblade; the third poke split the silver alloy handle into two pieces which fell on the table in front of Chiun.