"I am just an ordinary soldier. I was assigned to capture him."
The molten metal was burning Matesev's chest, and this time he was sure he could smell the burning, that it was not a manipulation, that somehow this man of great powers had actually melted the metal to wound Matesev. Only when it stopped did the general realize that if it really were molten metal it would have burned right through and it would have killed him. The pain was so intense his mind had snapped into thinking the flesh was actually burning.
"I am Matesev. I am in charge of the special force. Rabinowitz is the greatest hypnotist in the world."
"So?" said Remo.
"Don't you understand what that means? He can hypnotize anyone instantly. Instantly. Anyone."
"Yeah?" said Remo.
"Well, if he can hypnotize anyone instantly, what happens when he tells one general to do this and another to do that?"
"He joins the Defense Department. I don't know," said Remo. "Lots of people tell generals to do this and that. That's what you have generals for."
"You don't understand," said Matesev. "How could a man with such powers be so dense?"
"Right," said Remo.
"He could take over any government in the world."
"So?" said Remo.
"We couldn't allow that to happen."
"Why?"
"Don't you understand the international implications?"
"Better than you, Russky. There's always going to be another country every few hundred years. Five hundred years from now you'll probably have the czar again. I don't know what we'll be. Whole thing doesn't matter, jerk," said Remo.
Matesev had always been taught that Americans never really planned ahead. That if you were to ask them where they would be in fifty years they would say that was the business of some astrologer instead of a government planner. American foreign policy ran from one four-year election to another. That was its trouble.
But here was a man, obviously American, obviously thinking in terms not of fifty years or even a century, but in millennia.
And it all didn't matter. Matesev saw the units come down the street, almost like a mob, not marching of course, but walking in a pack.
They had a trussed bundle with them, its eyes and mouth taped. Rabinowitz.
"We've got company," said Matesev, nodding to his own men. The man turned.
"What's in the bundle?" he asked.
He kept looking at the unit advancing on the truck. The back of his head was within reach. It was too good a target for General Matesev to pass up. The small handgun was within an instant's grasp.
Matesev took it smoothly, put it to the dark hairs in the back of the man's head, and fired.
The bullet hit the roof of the truck. And the head was still there. He fired again, this time aiming at a specific hair. The bullet hit the roof again.
"Don't do that," said the man softly.
Matesev emptied the chamber, and missed with all the rest of the slugs, but in so doing, in firing rapidly, he was able to get a glimpse of the head moving back and forth as it dodged the shells.
"All right. You happy? You had your thrill?" asked Remo.
"I'll call my men off," gasped the stunned Matesev.
"Who cares?" said Remo. "You are General Matesev, though. I mean, is that determined? There is no question about that?"
"Yes."
"Thanks," said Remo, who rattled the man's brains into jelly by shaking the skull like a soda jerk mixing a milk shake.
Then he was out of the truck and amidst the startled Russians, bouncing many, killing some, and getting the trussed bundle out of their hands. He took it behind a house, over a fence, and to a road about a mile away, where he untaped the eyes and mouth and hands of Vassily Rabinowitz.
"You okay?" asked Remo.
Rabinowitz blinked in the harsh sunlight. He was still trembling. He didn't know where he was. He had released his bladder in panic. The man could barely stand. Remo got to the spinal column, and with the pads of his fingers set the rhythms of peace into Rabinowitz's body structure. With a little cry, Rabinowitz recovered, brushed himself off, and noticed the wetness in his pants.
"The bastards," he said.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Remo. Rabinowitz looked shaky.
"No. I'll be all right."
"Your countrymen say you're the world's greatest hypnotist. Is that true?"
"To them anything is true. I can do things," said Rabinowitz. "How did Russian soldiers get into the country?"
"I don't know. Maybe they posed as Mexicans," said Remo. "You sure you're going to be all right?"
"Yes. I think so. Do you know what happened to Johnny Bangossa, Guido, Rocco, Vito, and Carlo?"
"I think they ran."
"Some crime family," said Rabinowitz. They could see the beginning of the main street of the town down the road and walked to it. Back near the truck there was gunfire. Apparently the Russian soldiers, without the genius of General Matesev to plan their escape, resorted to what soldiers naturally did. They dug in and shot at everyone who wasn't their kind. Now they were zeroing light mortars on the Long Island Expressway and planning to fight to the death.
Remo found a coffee shop.
"You are the first person who has been kind to me since I have come here to America. You are my first friend," said Vassily.
"If I'm your friend, buddy, you're in trouble."
"Is what I am saying. I am in trouble," said Vassily. "I don't have a friend. I don't have my crime family. I had one of the best crime families in America. See? I'll show you."
As the large sugary Danish pastry arrived with the heavily creamed coffee, Vassily came back to the table with a handful of New York City newspapers. He went right to the stories. Apparently he had read them before.