"It is about time, fool," said the high commander, and the tone in her voice told Seminov that Ivan would not be long for Moscow Center. There was a rumor that Ivan's ability to tend to the high commander's personal needs was no longer so great. In some circles, they now referred to him as Ivan the Terrible and said he suffered a prostate problem. He was as worthless, some said, as the mermaid tattoo on his powerful chest.
Ivan set the body face down on a sofa on the far side of the room. "This is Mr. Gordons," he said. "Professor fix him up, make him Russian robot, say all you got to do is turn him on."
"It's nice to know that one of you two can be turned on," the high commander said.
"I leave now," Ivan said.
"Please do," the high commander said.
When Ivan left, she led Seminov and Istoropo-vich to the sofa.
The two men turned over the body.
Ivan's unseeing face stared up at them.
The high commander took a step backward. Seminov moved to put his arm around her, but Isto-ropovich moved forward, grabbed the shirt of the man on the couch, and ripped it open.
There on his chest was the swimming mermaid.
The man on the couch was Ivan.
"And he is dead," Istoropovich said.
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"Then who was that who just left?" the high commander said.
"That was Mr. Gordons," Istoropovich said. "The LC-111."
Outside, in the long corridors that crisscrossed the building, Mr. Gordons stopped to think.
Creativity was wonderful. All kinds of ideas raced through his metal and plastic synapses.
Dr. Payton-Holmes—Mom—had told him that first he would take care of the Volga and then he could eliminate Remo. Wasn't that just like Mom, putting her country first? But Mr. Gordons's creative brain came up with a very creative alternative.
Yes. He would take care of the Volga mission.
After he killed Remo.
And back inside her office, the high commander barked an order.
"Destroy them all. Now. Including the robot. Nothing must stop the Volga."
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The cell was dark and damp, almost airless. Remo lay on the floor trying to breathe. Even that was difficult. His breath came in gulps, his body trembling spasmodically.
So this is the way it ends, he thought. Betrayed by his body, lying in some pesthole like a sideshow freak, all the years of training without meaning, without effect.
And for what? He heard the words in his head, and then he heard them in his ears. He realized that he had spoken out loud, and his voice was echoing off the cell's steel walls and ceiling. For what? For America, which didn't know he existed? For Smith, who didn't care he existed? For Chiun, who always would have been happier with an Oriental student?
For what? the voice asked.
And another voice answered.
For life. We struggle for life. Because life is pre-
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cious. And knowing that it is precious gives meaning to the work that we do, to the taking of life. Because we bring death only in the service of the
living. Live, Remo. It was Chain's voice. "Chiun," he whispered into the blackness. "Is
that you? Are you there?"
But there was no answer. He heard only the sound of his labored breathing.
But they had been Chain's words. Just as there had been other words at other times. He had lain in the dust once, his body broken, death only moments away, and he had heard Chiun's voice through the mist, saying, "Live, Remo, live. That is all I teach you, to live. You cannot die, you cannot grow weak, you cannot grow old, unless your mind lets you do it. Your mind is greater than all your strength, more powerful than all your muscles. Listen to your mind, Remo. It is saying
to you, 'Live.' "
"Yes," Remo whispered in the dungeon. "Yes." His voice grew stronger. "Yes." Stronger still.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." Until it was a shout. "Yes! I willlive!"
Chiun sat in the corner of his cell, his legs curled before him in a full lotus position, when the panel built into the steel and concrete wall swung away, and a guard deposited Dr. Payton-
Holmes in the cell.
Chiun looked up and said in Russian, "She is in the wrong place. This cell awaits the return of my
son.
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"Is this cell. With you. Orders," the guard said, quickly backing away as the concrete panel closed again on Chiun and the professor.
"Want a drink?" she asked him.
"The air in here is poison enough for my body without my adding to it fermented wastes of flowers."
"Never too late to start," she said. "We'll all be dead in an hour anyway." She took a hefty drink from her vodka bottle.
"That does not concern me," Chiun said. "Have you seen my son?"