"What was your question?"
"It is very personal. I don't wish to say," said Chiun. "What was yours?"
"Nothing much," said Remo.
Anna, hearing the two babble in Korean, asked what they were talking about.
"Nothing," they both said in unison.
"We should find this wonderful Mr. Rabinowitz," said Anna. "But look, Mr. Chiun. You obviously feel I am a sort of danger to him."
"How can you be a danger? Both I and the Great Wang protect him."
"Then let's find him. And I will make you this promise. We won't come within five hundred yards of him. We just want to ask a few questions. And perhaps you can take those questions to him, and bring back the answers."
"I'm not a messenger," said Chiun. "Remo can ask the questions of him."
"No," said Anna. "Definitely not. Tell Mr. Rabinowitz we have a message for him from his mother in Dulsk. Tell him I bring peace from the Soviet Union. Tell him he has won, and that we respect his strength and his power, and now we wish to sign a treaty with him personally. To assure him of his safety. Russia will assure him of his safety."
"I assure him of his safety. Who are you to assure him of his safety? You can't keep your hands off innocent young men."
Remo looked around. He hadn't seen Anna touch anyone else. She had her hand on his arm. Chiun stared at it with hostility. Remo knew that, for Chiun, this was too much affection for a woman to show in public.
A simple bow from ten feet away was considered proper by Chiun. Touching was obscene. America had once been described in his histories as a land so degenerate that people kissed strangers to say hello. Italy was beyond the pale. Saudi Arabia was all right, except they were a little lax in enforcement.
They only cut off hands. Why cut off hands, reasoned Chiun, when it was the mind, not the hand, that committed the crime? Chiun had hands and never once had they committed a crime on their own. Nor, did he think, did anyone else's.
And so Chiun not only saw this blond woman with the beautiful, high cheekbones and devastating smile touching Remo, but Remo allowing it. Standing there, allowing, as though nothing was wrong. Degenerate whiteness coming through again, and just before he was to meet the Great Wang again.
"You are not going to walk like that toward the Great Wang," said Chiun.
"Tell me," said Remo, keeping Anna's hand just where it had been placed, "did you ever learn, little father, how to be in two places at once?"
Chiun did not answer, but stared at the hands. Finally he said:
"You're keeping that obscene slut's touch on you just to bother me."
Anna removed her hand.
"Let's hope he doesn't get pregnant by this," she said, with a sharp smile.
"I never learned to be in two places at once. One place at a time is enough," said Chiun. "More than enough. In fact, essentially wonderful."
"I wonder why the Great Wang wouldn't have taught us that trick, because while he was with you, he was with me also. "
"You didn't see the Great Wang, then," said Chiun. "How disappointing."
"He has a belly like the cold center of the universe, like all that is not of this earth. Perhaps you might want to test this Great Wang."
"He's not 'this' Great Wang. He's the Great Wang," said Chiun.
"Right," said Remo. But he knew Chiun was bothered. Chiun agreed to take them near Wang's friend Rabinowitz if the white slut could control herself.
"You're such a man, Chiun," said Anna. "You're the quintessential man, Chiun."
"Thank you," said Chiun.
"I thought you'd respond like that," said Anna.
Near the headquarters, several Russian prisoners were being herded into trucks. They looked frightened, and Anna assured them they would not be shot. She was angry that any fool would send them in here so close to America for no purpose whatsoever.
Well, she could make them have a purpose. She could quiet down this man. She might just be able to stop him from going further.
It was a tremendous defeat to Russia that he had won. "Remo, I've changed my mind," said Anna.
"Just like a woman," said Chiun. "Changing your mind. Watch out for this one, Remo. She's no good."
"And would it be just like a man not to change even if new facts came in?" asked Anna. She gave him one of her smiles again. He was the sort of man who would be tolerant of amusement, she felt.
"A proper man would know all the facts beforehand," said Chiun. "Where did you fall into this thing, Remo?"
"We met on a plane. She's all right."
"I am going to speak to Rabinowitz. I am going to assure him he is safe, and he can believe it now. If I come back in any strange way, try to get me out of it. If you can't, please kill me quickly," she said.
"Just like that?" asked Chiun. "You want an assassination, for nothing? Free? Remo, don't you see what she's doing now? She's getting away with being murdered."
"If he gets you, what am I going to do?" asked Remo.
"Try to figure out what hasn't been tried yet and try it. But one thing you can't do is go directly in. Stay back and think. I don't know what the hell they're going to do back in Moscow. This is too much of a defeat. I only wanted a little one to make Rabinowitz comfortable."
"Good luck," said Remo, and gave her a light kiss on the lips.
"You're doing that because it bothers me," said Chiun.
"I'm doing that because she's beautiful and courageous."
"I'm supposed to believe that?" said Chiun.
"I don't know what you believe. I never know what you believe. "
"For two decades I have given the best of my life to you, and you remember nothing. I have given you my thinking, and this thinking you now throw away to indulge in public obscenities."
Anna laughed.
"You two sound so much alike," she said.