The old resistance leader nodded. Denia thought 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."
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."