"What sort of an answer is this 'yes'?"
"It's the one I got."
"It doesn't fit the question."
"I didn't even get a chance at my question," said Remo.
There was no radio in the car, but he was sure there was nothing worth listening to in Russia, anyway. Then again, maybe there was. What else did they have?
"The answer to our problem is that everyone in Dulsk has this ability. I am sure of it now. Everyone is born with it. "
"Great, out of the frying pan into the frying-pan factory," said Remo.
"Not necessarily," said Anna. "They would be just the ones to tell us how to stop their Vassily. That's why we are coming as his friends. Do you see?"
"I see we are going to a village where we are going to see a hundred Chiuns and a hundred of whoever is important to you. That's what I see."
"Hah," said Anna, slapping Remo on the shoulder. "We will see what we will see."
She ran a smooth hand over his leg. "Where is your erogenous zone, Remo?"
"In my mind."
"Can I get to it?"
"No. "
Slowly she unbuttoned her skirt. She couldn't catch his eye. She buttoned it back up.
"Perhaps I should go in first," she said.
"I don't speak Russian," said Remo. "What'll I do if they put you under?"
"You could come in after me."
"Let's go together."
"Why?"
"I want to be there. We win or we lose. I can't do much around here without you," he said. "Then again, I might not want to do much around here without you."
Dulsk itself looked like an awfully poor Midwest town. But Anna explained that for Russia it was unusually rich for a town that offered so little to the state. There was no iron foundry or electronics plant. No major defense establishment. Just a peaceful little village with churches, a synagogue, and a mosque. And there was no KGB office anywhere.
"I knew there wouldn't be. I knew it," said Anna. Across the street a man in a white blouse, high boots, and dark pants glanced at Remo.
"You, stranger, come here," he said.
"Yes, little father," said Remo. It was a good thing Chiun was here too, because Remo didn't really speak Russian. Of course he could get by if he had to. Chiun was always working on him to improve his language.
"Sir, sir," called out Anna in Russian to the man whom Remo was calling Chiun. "We're friends of Vassily Rabinowitz. Please. Please. We mean you no harm."
"That one is very dangerous," said the man.
"Can you release him?"
"I am afraid."
"You can always do that to him again, can't you?"
"Oh yes, whenever I am afraid again."
"You mean it works automatically when you are afraid."
"Yes, pretty miss. And I cannot turn it off."
"Chiun," said Remo to the man, "why the Master's death challenge?"
"What is he talking about?" asked the man. "I don't speak English."
"A Master never challenges his son," said Remo in English.
"He sounds dangerous. I know he is dangerous," said the villager.
"Do you know what he's talking about?" asked Anna. The man shrugged.
"I won't fight you. Of course I won't fight you," said Remo in English.
And then turning to Anna, he asked: "Where'd Chiun go?"
"He was never here, Remo. You have been talking to this man, and we've learned a lot. They transmit whatever they need to survive into your mind."
"Okay," said Remo. "But where's Chiun?"
"He was never here, Remo."
"I know he was here. He was more here than he's ever been. "
"No. This man needs you to believe that for his survival. It's automatic. It's the greatest survival mechanism I've ever seen in a human being."
"If you have come to help Vassily, let me take you to his mother. The poor woman has been grief-stricken since he left."
Mrs. Rabinowitz lived in a thatched cottage with a small garden in front. She was visiting with some other women. They sat around a pot of tea. Anna wiped her feet on a brush mat at the entrance. The door looked as though it had been hand-carved.
"I still feel it was Chiun," said Remo.
"That's what makes the whole situation so dangerous. And yet you might be the first who has come out of this. You understand it wasn't Chiun?"