"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.
"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."
"Do you wish to invent one this afternoon, darling? Or did you bring one with you from America?"
"Let the people vote for the kind of government they want."
"They have. It's communist."
"Those elections are rigged."
"No, darling, it's that there is no other party running against them. The communists are the only people they can vote for or against. That's the only structure in this country. There is the Communist party or war."
"It just makes my bones rattle to give an army to communists. Communists are the biggest troublemakers in the world. In fact, and I don't care whether you like to hear this or not, Anna, they are the main troublemakers in the world."
"You're thinking of the countries which don't have power, darling. In Russia, we are just like any other corrupt political machine. The last revolutionary was shot by Stalin. The Politburo is the safest group to run any army. They don't want to lose what they have."
"I still don't like it," said Remo.
Anna crossed her legs and gave Remo a friendly pat on the wrist, careful not to let his divine hands get her going again.
At Anna's special apartment, one with the best perks in Moscow, roughly equal to an upper-middle-class condominium in America, Remo told Anna everything he knew about Mr. Arieson.
Why, she wanted to know, did Mr. Arieson have some form of antagonism against Sinanju?
"I don't know, but Chiun seems to know. He made a deal with Arieson."
Anna nodded for Remo to go on. She poured herself a brandy in a Waterford crystal snifter and sat down on her imported French couch a cushion away from him. The night lights of Moscow glittered through her window. She had once had a fireplace but it was so badly constructed, like most buildings in Russia, that every time she tried to use it she would set fire to the building.
And only in Russia would the concrete catch fire. She knew her country better perhaps than any of the older men and women in high positions. But none loved it better. She loved it more than she loved this marvelous man Remo, so she forced herself on this warm evening to keep her hands off him and get on with business.
Remo did not know precisely what the feud was between Sinanju and Arieson. But it went back a long way.
"How long? Ten years? Twenty years? Seventy years? I am a communist, Remo, and I think in long periods of time," said Anna.
"Three, four thousand years, I don't know." Anna dropped the brandy snifter. It fell to the deep pile rug. Since the rug was manufactured in Russia, the crystal cracked.
"I don't understand. How can a feud go on for thousands of years?"
"The House of Sinanju has been going on since before any modern country existed, except maybe Egypt, and I do believe we've got them by a few centuries, but I don't know. Chiun knows him or knows of him, or something. He told me from the beginning that I wouldn't be able to handle him."
"You did, but that's something else."
"I didn't destroy him, though."
"No. You didn't. But you didn't join some army either."
Remo shrugged. How could he join an army knowing what he knew, being Sinanju? He could no more join an army than he could stop Sinanju working within him. He was once a marine. He understood marines. He could never be a marine again. Anna seemed interested in this. He told her about the tributes to Sinanju and the scrolls and the indentation made by a large marble thing in the mahogany floor of the treasure house of Sinanju.
He told her of his sense of connection with the frescoes in the old tunnels under Rome to that one room of the treasure house. He told her about the trip through Rome with Chiun and the pausing at the old temples.
Anna dismissed that point.
"New gods or old gods are just a waste of time. What is this thing between Sinanju and Mr. Arieson?"