"Let's say tomorrow morning?"
"All we need is a little warm-up," said the colonel.
"What's this warm-up business?" asked Vassily. "You're getting paid to be ready. You have a big budget, Colonel. What is this warm-up business?"
"You're never ready for a big war unless you have a little one first. Better than maneuvers. Gets the kinks out. "
"I always thought you had to be ready for war to have peace, not make war in order to make war," said Vassily.
"Both," said the colonel. He wore a field helmet and had a pistol strapped to his side. "If you weren't my commanding officer in Nam I wouldn't even be talking to you about these things."
"I just want to show the Russians we have an army willing to fight. I don't want to have a major war with them. I have no desire to kill them."
"Can't have a war without killing, sir."
"A few battles. That's all I want. Maybe only one battle."
"Wouldn't we all want that, sir. But you can't have your battle without a war coming with it."
"I was afraid of that," said Vassily. "By the way, don't you think those tanks should be firing while moving instead of standing still? I mean, if you needed guns to be still, then you could use howitzers."
"Our mode of training doesn't call for that, sir," said the colonel.
"Do it," said Vassily.
"But, sir-"
"Do it," said Vassily. Something inside him told him that if these men were to get ready even for a preparatory war they had better be prepared right, because the worst thing that could happen was to fight and lose a small war. Then he could never impress the Russians. America had to win its next war.
Vassily wrote down in his notebook: "One regiment, with armor."
He needed more. He needed divisions. And he needed divisions that could fight. He would not have been here himself checking things out, making sure the guns fired and the soldiers were there to fire them, but for his second encounter with the American military establishment.
Having failed with the firing of one missile, which he could use as a warning to the Russians to leave him alone, he had decided to go to the top. And this, as everyone knew, was the Pentagon, a five-sided building of immense proportions. Here the general staffs of America plotted production of war goods, battle strategies, and the maintenance of the most sophisticated and complex wartime equipment in the world.
It was also the place Vassily had soon wanted to flee, knowing he had better get his own tanks and guns and men to use them or he would never be able to defend himself against the Russians. The people at the Pentagon certainly weren't.
Vassily had easily gotten through every pass clearance system by simply looking in the eyes of every guard and protecting himself as someone with a pass and a lot of stars on his shoulders.
He found himself an important-looking man with real stars on his shoulders and immediately became that man's closest scientific adviser.
"I'm looking for someone who can get an army together. Nothing special. An army that if it had to, could win a battle or so. To be brief, I'm looking for someone who knows how to fight a war."
The man thought about that a moment. "Could you be more specific?"
"Soldiers. Guns. Tanks. Planes. Fighting a war."
"Whew, that's a tough one," said the man with stars. "I would say your best bet would be the Military Concepts Formulation Bureau. I think they're the ones who might be able to help you. I'm sort of lost when it comes to guns and soldiers and things. I've been at a desk in the Pentagon for the last ten years."
"You look like a military man. What can you do?"
"I'm very military. I'm a cost analyst overview establisher. I cost-rate concepts."
Vassily's face showed enough confusion for the general to answer on his own.
"I'm the one who estimates if we can afford a situation. Cost in lives, weapons, national productivity, et cetera. You must remember. You helped me. We were up at MIT when we came to the conclusion that America couldn't afford to survive. We should stop paying so much to exist anymore because it was just too damned costly. You helped me get my first star. We shattered the concept of survival. Absolutely mathematically reduced it to absurdity."
Military Concepts was a small office with computer terminals at five desks. No one under the rank of full colonel worked in this office. It provided the crucial thinking for how and when and under what circumstances America would fight its wars.
Vassily thought this had to be the one place where he could get all his information.
He left it an hour later understanding less than fifteen of the English words, despite having gone to the best Russian schools for English, despite having gotten along very well in America with his English, even becoming skilled enough in the language to be named a "cunning criminal mastermind" by the New York newspapers, perhaps the finest connoisseurs of the underworld.
In the concepts room, Vassily heard such words as "finalize," "syllogize," "conceptualize refractions," "coordination of synergistics," "coordination response modes," and "insurgent manifestation devices."
In all his time there, he never heard the word "kill." Or "attack." Or "retreat," or any of the words he recognized as war words.
He even had these officers believing he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at one point. That proved to be absolutely useless because one of the officers said:
"We don't have to tell you these things. You know them. And most of all, sir, you understand that the last place you would ever come looking for anyone to know how to fight a war is here in the Pentagon."
Vassily tried two more offices and then just asked for directions to where the tanks and guns were kept. He knew he was going to have to do it himself.
But what he didn't know, and what was evident to most of the higher officers at Camp Pickens, Arkansas, was that this man they all knew intimately as different people was showing a surprising ability to move tanks and men around the fields in maneuvers.
"Reminds me of General Patton," said one officer, who had been a second lieutenant in World War II and had signed up in time to join Patton's Third Army.
"Yeah, Old Blood 'n' Guts," said another.
"Seems to want to get into a war, just like old Patton. Hell, good to have someone like that back in the Army." - Yet this man was even better than General Patton in one crucial way. Old Blood 'n' Guts could inspire most American soldiers to fight. This one could make even the cooks want to kill.
Chapter 9
It was a thing of such splendor it deserved an immediate place in the histories of the House of Sinanju. Harold W. Smith, exhausted and worried perhaps more now than at any time in the history of the organization, was stunned to see Chiun leave the living room of the Vistana Views condo as soon as the price was settled, not even waiting to hear what the assignment would be.
"Unpack the histories," cried Chiun, pointing to the lime-green steamer trunk.
Remo did not look away from the window of the bedroom, which also faced the fountain. He had been looking at water for the last twenty minutes, thinking that maybe in a while he would look at the sky. That was what he was going to do for the day.
"Unpack the histories. This day is momentous in the histories of the House of Sinanju. And you, my son, are a part of it."
"Trunk's on the bed," said Remo.
"Come, you must affix your name too. This is not mine alone. I would not dare encompass such glory all by myself. If it had not been for you and your brilliant understanding that when your job is done, it is done, then I never would have achieved these heights. I am sure you will look on me as the Great Chiun. The followers of the Great Wang so did."
Seeing Remo continue to stare at the water, Chiun opened the trunk himself. He whisked out a scroll and a bottle of dark black ink, made from the shellfish found in the West Korea Bay. The scroll was special parchment used by a dynasty of China so old even the Ming and Tang had no record of it.