Rabinowitz understood that if he could demolish the best troops Russia sent abroad, they would respect him. It made no difference if he killed them or treated them as prisoners. What the Russians understood was power. If he could show he was powerful they would leave him alone. It was not by accident that the only treaty the Russian communists ever kept with scrupulous precision was that with Nazi Germany. It only ended when the Nazis invaded them first instead of Great Britain, which the Russians were hoping for.
Hearing the guns fire, feeling the power of his tanks churn through the mud that was called a road in Sornica, Rabinowitz felt a strange sensation. While he desperately minded being killed by people personally putting their hands on him, and despised being chased, gunfire set off a special thrill within him. He dashed to the front of his columns. He cheered on his best commanders. He stood in open fields with shells falling around him to curse those who did not keep up with the rest of the column.
By midday the best Russian armor lay smoldering in the plains and jungles of Sornica. The ever-deadly Russian helicopter gunship, the Hinds, had been lured into attacking what appeared like light armor vehicles and infantry, only to be demolished by the hand-held rocket launchers he had refused to let his troops use on the first gunships in the area. When the Hinds saw no rockets beneath them, Generalissimo Omerta threw in his entire fleet to enjoy the carnage. And at that time, and only at that time, were Rabinowitz' troops allowed to use their rockets, a perfect defense against the gunships. The Hinds were caught strafing en masse and went up like firecrackers above the battlefields of Sornica.
"I fear only one thing, Chiun, and that's to be killed by hand. I never want someone's hands on me again," said Rabinowitz, turning to his bodyguard, who was dressed in the black battle kimono used by the Masters of Sinanju when standing near an emperor who had taken the field.
"But how, Great Wang, could you be killed by anyone's hand?" asked Chiun.
"You never know," Chiun heard the Great Wang say. "But it's your job to see that it doesn't happen."
"But have I not passed every earlier test to reach my highest level'?"
"This is another one."
"What kind?" asked Chiun.
"The most important one," said Vaasily.
"Why?" asked Chiun.
"Because I say so."
"But is it not the function of the Great Wang on his visit to a Master of Sinanju to answer the most important questions the other Master has? Is not your very name the answer to all?"
"Will you get off my back already with this answer mishigas?" Chiun heard the Great Wang say. And Wang would not even answer in Korean, but insisted on using English, a sign of disdain for Chiun, who could not figure out what he had done wrong, but was vowing to change it, whatever it was.
Following an army was not hard. No army ever moved without everyone around it knowing it moved, and Smith arrived in Sornica with credentials he had prepared for himself as a member of the Defense Department. He found the air oppressive and humid. His breathing was labored, and he could not stand for long periods of time. A sergeant got him a glass of water and helped him find what could pass for shade in Sornica: humid mass under a tree that attracted mosquitoes and large flying bugs as yet unidentified by science. Both of them bit, and Smith knew he was back in a war zone again. Except in the last war, he had been a young man who did not have to rest in the middle of the day.
His .45 felt heavier than he ever remembered it, and some of the soldiers who passed by him thought that because he wore it in a shoulder holster, he was some sort of secret agent. Smith didn't want to look this way when he approached Rabinowitz and Chiun. Chiun would not be all that surprised, but the great hypnotist, seeing a possible agent, might react immediately, and Smith's only chance was to surprise Rabinowitz about his intentions. And of course deceive Chiun.
No normal person could even see the Master's hands move, much less stop them.
"Sergeant," Smith asked, "do you think it would be possible to get me some fatigues? I feel awkward carrying this gun like some agent. I'm Defense Department and I don't think I should look like CIA, do you?"
"Yessir. Can do, sir," said the sergeant. He was an old top kick and Smith knew that if anyone in any army could get what he asked for, it was this sort of man. But the sergeant came back before nightfall, shrugging his shoulders, his palms open in helplessness.
"No extra anything, sir. Bottleneck back there."
"You mean to tell me there are no extra uniforms in the supply columns?"
"Not a one, sir. This is a tightly planned operation. Old Blood 'n' Guts has counted every bullet."
"What?" asked Smith. He couldn't believe the good news. Rabinowitz was nearby.
"Old Blood 'n' Guts counted every bullet. He knows just what and when and where. We'd better get moving now, sir, if we want to get up to the front to see him. We've already wasted a lot of time looking for a uniform for you."
"I don't think there's any worry about catching up to Rabinowitz. I'll just wait for him here."
"But he says he won't stop until he takes the capital of Sornica."
"I doubt that's a possibility at this point."
"But, sir, he's outfought everything the commies threw at him, even their gunships. Good Old Blood 'n' Guts has defeated the Hinds gunship."
"Could you possibly pitch some sort of tent for me here to spend the night?" asked Smith. "That is, if you can find one."
"I don't know, sir. Supplies are pretty tightly accounted for. "
"Good," said Smith. "I guess I'll just have to freeze in one of the cold nights of Sornica. Wake me if Rabinowitz should be back by morning, or Old Blood 'n' Guts-whatever you call him."
* * *
Wang was laughing.
"I'm not serious," said Remo. "I joke around a hell of a lot. I think the world is peculiar and I'm not afraid to say so."
"You never stop saying so. You take yourself so seriously, Remo."
"Hah," said Remo. He knew his anger was rising because his breathing told him so. Anger was the worst emotion to have, next to fear. It took away the other senses. "You know, here it is. I wait two decades to meet the Great Wang, thinking I will never achieve it, and now I finally meet you and you bust my chops more than Chiun. Chiun is the one who's serious. He thinks if we don't do this or that, the whole history of Sinanju is going to go up. He's been trying to get me married off to a Korean girl just to make sure the line will continue. Yeah. He's become a friggin' dating service."
"Why are you angry?"
"Because I'm disappointed in you," said Remo. "Frankly, I expected more. And I got less than Chiun."
"The whole world is less than Chiun to you, Remo. You didn't learn his stroke style so perfectly without loving him. Nobody communicates that perfectly without love."
"I respect Chiun, and yeah, I love him. All right. Does that make you happy, you giggling bean pot?" said Remo to the round, smiling face of Wang. "But I don't think he's perfection. We have a term in this civilization called neurotic. I think it would eminently apply to our Master Chiun."
"Would it also apply to someone saving the world, Remo?"
"Not the world. I tried to save my country, if you don't mind. "
"How many is that? Two hundred and twenty million people?"
"About," said Remo. He was getting tired of this condominium, with its modern kitchen and living room and Jacuzzi and televisions in every room, and most of all the fat, happy Wang with a belly as cold as the center of the universe.
All Wang had wanted out of that was to see Remo's stroke. Any Master could tell from one stroke what sort of powers a man had. Remo walked outside, and Wang followed.
"You know, in our day the whole world had two hundred million people. America is your world."
"Not anymore," said Remo. He noticed groundskeepers look at Wang. So they could see him too, Remo realized.
"Then tell me. Who is the more neurotic, a man who tries to save a line of assassins or a man who tries to save a country? Who?"
"Look, you've had your visit. Thank you and good-bye."