"It has been used with great success in sports," she agreed. "The technique used here was essentially the same."
Sighing, Remo looked around the small office. "I guess you thought of everything," he said. "This is some setup. Although I noticed on the way in here that you cut corners on furniture. The place seemed pretty empty."
"I had it emptied out after the men escaped," Anna said. "The barracks and the training facilities have been dismantled. The technicians used to operate the equipment were rotated in and out frequently and never knew what exactly was going on here. All computer data on you and Chiun has been purged. My government has no record of your existence other than the knowledge possessed by the past three presidents of the federation. I destroyed the films made from the tapes. All that remains are the originals." She nodded to the open safe in the corner of the room. Inside, a dozen plastic tape cases were lined up on a shelf. "Looks like you've erased all traces," Remo said.
"All but one," she admitted quietly.
Slender fingers tightened once more around the object on her desk.
Remo had noted the gun lying under her hand as soon as he'd entered the office. He had assumed she planned to use it against him. But when she lifted it from the desk blotter, Anna didn't aim the gun at him. Jaw firmly set, she brought the barrel to her own temple.
He was across the room in a heartbeat. She was starting to pull the trigger even as he ripped the gun from her hand.
"Are you nuts!" he snapped angrily.
Her calm blue eyes never wavered. "It is the only way," she insisted calmly. "I am to blame for these events. And Sinanju precepts certainly must demand -retribution. I know you too well, Remo. Were you to do this thing, you would be haunted by it. We both know that there is only one way out for me, and it would be unfair to have you do the deed."
Despite the forced strength in her voice, hot tears burned the corners of her eyes.
Beside the desk, Remo clenched the gun. He didn't even look at her. He was staring at the wall, lost in thought.
At her desk Anna sniffled.
"It is ironic, Remo," she said softly. "Years ago you refused Smith's order to kill me in the name of America's security. Now when you finally come to carry out his order, you do it for the security of Sinanju."
Remo scowled at her. "No one's killing anyone, okay?" he snapped. He had reached a decision. Anna shook her head. "There is no other way, Remo," she insisted logically.
Remo reached for her. With the edge of his thumb he brushed away a single tear.
"That's the problem with people in your business, Anna," he replied. His voice was soft in a way she had not heard in years. "All logic, no imagination."
The thrill of his touch and the warmth in his tone lasted only as long as it took Remo to stab his finger into a knot of nerves at her jawline just behind her ear. But for Anna Chutesov, it was enough to feed an eternity of longing for something neither of them could ever have.
And then the lights went out, and she collapsed into the arms of the only man she'd ever loved.
Chapter 38
The president of the Commonwealth of Independent States felt the wet spot on his pillow when he rolled over in his sleep. When he opened his tired eyes, he found that he was face-to-face with one of his Institute bodyguards.
Although the man's head shared the Russian president's pillow, the rest of his body was nowhere to be seen.
Screaming, the president threw himself out of bed. The jostled head of the Institute man rolled out behind him, thudding to the bare wood floor.
"Murderers!" the Russian president yelled. "Pavel, I need help! Anyone!"
"You are beyond help," said a squeaky singsong voice.
Still seated on the floor, the president wheeled around.
A tiny figure in a brocade kimono stood near the door of the small Kremlin apartment.
"Russia has been beyond help ever since it abandoned its czar and entrusted its future to a gaggle of troublemakers with pitchforks," the old Korean concluded.
The two previous presidents of Russia stood with Chiun, one on either side. The more recent one seemed oblivious to what was going on. Dazed from drink, he stood reeling in his nightshirt. The other former president no longer wore his hat. For the first time, the present president of Russia saw the hateful expression that had been tattooed over the bald man's birthmark and around his head.
In the Master of Sinanju's slender fingers were five lumpy bundles.
Somehow in death the eyes of his Institute protectors seemed to stare disapprovingly at the president of Russia. Their condemnation was reflected in the hazel eyes of the wizened Asian.
Chiun dropped the heads.
"How fitting that you should hide here," the Master of Sinanju sniffed as he looked unhappily around the drab room. "The cheapskate who once lived here tried to hire my father. It does not look like they have painted it since then."
"These are Lenin's quarters," the president insisted, still trying to come to grips with what was happening.
"That was his name," Chiun nodded. "Another Russian who didn't want to pay the House."
The old man took a step toward the president. Pushing up, the president fell back from the terrible apparition. His hand dropped into the blood puddle on his pillow.
"What do you want?" he asked, his voice quavering.
Chiun's eyes became penetrating hazel lasers.
"I am going to make you an offer you cannot refuse," the Master of Sinanju said coldly.
Chapter 39
Remo caught up to Chiun at the boarding gate of the Moscow airport.
"If this is the last time I have to smell Russia for ten years, I'll die a happy man," Remo said, falling in beside the wizened Asian. "So how'd it go with their president?"
"He has listened to reason," Chiun said simply.
"How costly is reason, dead-body-wise these days?"
"The last six Sinanju thieves are no more," Chiun replied. "There were also a few Kremlin guards along the way. Not very many-I know you and Smith do not like that. Oh, and one of their presidents. Retribution demanded it."
"Current one or stain-head?"
"Neither. It was the rum-soaked one in between." Remo tipped his head, considering.
"That's probably okay," he said. "Smitty wouldn't want us to ice the one they've got now, and I invested too much time in tattooing chrome dome's head."
Chiun fussed with the hem of his sleeve. "Not that I will receive any credit," he sniffed. "Knowing the Russians, they will say he died of a cold or heart failure. I suppose I will have to take comfort in the tribute they agreed to pay for their stolen lessons."
Remo was hardly listening. "What are they paying you in, rubles or turnips? 'Cause if it was up to me, I'd take the turnips."
The old Korean noted his pupil's distracted tone. He raised a thin eyebrow as he looked up at Remo. "What about the woman?" he asked. There was a hint of paternal concern in his hazel eyes.
Even though Remo knew the question would come, he still dreaded having to answer.
"I didn't kill her, Little Father," he admitted. "By the sounds of it, Anna was bamboozled into all this by the pinheads who run this dump of a country. And, I don't know, this could have been partly my fault for the way I left it with her at the end years ago. So I just gave her the Sinanju amnesia thing. I ditched the bodies of the guys I killed at the place she works, and I trashed the tapes of us and threw them in the river. When she wakes up, she goes back to being an adviser to the president with no memory of us. And who knows, maybe someday she'll come in handy for us in a pinch.
"And before you carp at me for defying a billion years of Sinanju tradition, don't forget I'm gonna be Master someday, and I've got this big prophesied future as the herald of some new golden age for the House, so maybe this is part of it. Maybe I'm supposed to be the guy who starts a kinder, gentler House of Sinanju. So there, that's it. You can start yelling at me now."