Firing Line td-41

by Warren Murphy

  Only one set. Remo waited and listened, but there was only one person inside the store. The other must be the lookout.

  It would make more sense for him to go upstairs. That-way, he could get the one in the store, and still have a chance to get outside and get the lookout before he escaped.

  He moved silently through the darkness toward the steps leading upstairs.

  The boy was laughably small. Remo watched as the youth pulled boxes off shelves and overturned display cases of baseball bats and sports equipment.

  "Sloppy," Remo said.

  Sparky spun around. He saw Remo in the dim light filtering into the store from outside. Across

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  the street, Remo saw a car parked, with a man inside. That must be Solly. It matched his photo. This was Sparky.

  "What do you want?" Sparky said.

  "Don't you know yet that the fire should be in the basement to cover the stolen merchandise?" Remo said.

  "Don't worry," the boy said. The fright was gone from his voice now. "My fire will get downstairs."

  "Not tonight, kid. I'm putting the damper on you," Remo said.

  He took a step forward, but then stopped. The boy had raised his arms out to his sides, as if he were doing a Dracula impersonation at a backyard carnival.

  Then, before Remo's eyes, the boy began to glow. A blue aura surrounded his frail body. As Remo watched, the colors began to change ... to purple, to red, to orange, to a brilliant sunny, fiery yellow, and then as Remo moved across the floor toward him, Sparky pointed his hands at Remo, and splashes of flame flew across the room. Remo slid sideways, but he felt the flame brush his clothing. It was burning. He was burning. He dropped to the floor and rolled, trying to put out the fire. He stopped rolling just short of another dart of fire aimed at him by the boy. The clothing fire was out. Remo moved to his feet. But again, there was fire flashing at him. It hit the wooden floor before his feet, and suddenly the floor was ablaze. Flames spat upwards at Remo. He could feel his trousers begin to ignite. The heat seared his face. And there were more fires—he was surrounded by the darts of flame from the boy. He heard Sparky laugh. Remo was surrounded by a circular wall of flame, and it

  if

  was burning in toward him. He dove though the wall of fire, hit the floor on a roll, and moved behind a counter, where he beat out the flames on his clothing.

  He heard the soft thudding around him as flames shot out by the boy hit the walls and the display cases. Everywhere fires flared. Above his head, boxes began to flame, then fell off the shelves onto Remo. His hair was singed. His shirt again caught

  fire.

  He rolled along the floor to put the fire out Images flashed into his mind. The boy glowing, shooting out flames. How was he doing it? What kind of power was that?

  He stood up behind the counter. Sparky was already at the door. Remo saw that he had paled in color from a fiery white-yellow back to a red. Did it mean that he had no more power to throw flame? Before he could move from the counter, Sparky wheeled toward him. He aimed his arms at the ceiling above Remo's head, and then two twin splashes of fire lined their way through the air to the ceiling. As Remo watched, the boy's flame color vanished. Then Remo looked up, just as large chunks of burning ceiling fell toward him. He rolled away. Chunks of burning wood spattered around him. The store sizzled now with the crackle

  of fire.

  There was a smell, too. A bittersweet smell of roast pork, and then Remo realized it was the smell of his flesh where he had been burned.

  Had it been this way for Ruby Gonzalez? He heard Sparky laughing as he ran out into the street. Had the last thing she heard been the laughter of that insidious little bastard? Remo, with a growl,

  jumped over the counter and ran to the open door. Sparky was getting into the car across the street. The man behind the wheel saw Remo coming and quickly threw the car in gear. He drove off down the block. Remo changed his running angle. He knew he could reach the car before it got away.

  And then behind him, he heard it.

  A scream.

  He groaned, stopped, and turned. The flames were pouring through the windows of the Barlin Sports Emporium, licking their way upstairs into the apartments. He knew now what he had been unable to remember in the cellar—something he knew was important. Before Sparky and Solly arrived, he should have cleared the bunding so no one would be injured in the fire.

  He ran back toward the building. The entrance-way to the apartments was alongside the store. As he ran up the inside stairs, he could feel his breath coming heavier. He knew that the fire had done damage to his body, but his adrenalin was pumping so hard, he had no chance to find out where. As he ran along the hallways, he kicked open door after door, and shouted "Fire" inside. By the time he reached the top floor, the families were all up. One by one, he made sure that each of them was headed toward the stairway. He checked all the apartments to be sure they had been emptied. Downstairs he heard the klaxon whooping of fire engines. Flames surrounded the building now, burning through the floor from the sporting goods store below.

  Remo wanted to answer no questions. He got back down to the second floor, just as firemen were coming in the entranceway. Remo saw them,

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  turned, and ran back down the hall to a rear hallway window. With his fading energy, he kicked out the window and then dove through it, out into the yard two floors below.

  He bit the soft grass, rolled over, and then lay still. He was not just angry anymore. He was frightened also.

  Up above his head, he heard voices. "Hey! There's somebody in the yard."

  "Check it out."

  Remo got slowly to bis feet and limped off into the darkness.

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  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Remo stopped outside the door of his room. For a fleeting instant, he had felt that there was someone inside, but now as he listened, there was no sound. He heard no breathing, nor the rustle of garments as someone's chest rose and fell from breathing. He put his hands gently on the door, touching the wood with his fingertips, trying to pick up vibrations from inside. There were none.

  Reassured, he opened the door and stepped inside the room. He was a wreck and he knew it. The cab driver had not wanted to pick him up. Usually, Remo could convince cab drivers by breaking their door locks and twisting their ears. He was too weak for that tonight. He had paid two hundred dollars cash for the cabbie to bring him to his hotel.

  Instinctively, he knew that he must shower and then stop to think this out. He had seen something tonight that he had not known existed, and if he was going to survive it, he had to understand it.

  He pushed the door shut behind him and walked across the soft carpet toward the bathroom. He stopped as he heard a voice behind him.

  "A disgrace."

  Remo wheeled. Chiun sat in the center of the

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  floor, atop a couch cushion, looking at Remo, shaking his head and clucking.

  "Look at you," Chiun said. "Looking like dog doo-doo, acting like a rabbit. Is this what all my training has come to?"

  Remo hesitated. Had Chiun been sent by Smith? Was this to be the end of poor Remo? He stayed in position, watching, and then he saw that there was in Chiun none of the intensity Remo had so often seen when Chiun was involved in a mission. The old Oriental sat, fingertips touching across his lap, shaking his head in dismay at Remo's appearance.

  "I had some trouble tonight," Remo said.

  "Oh. You had some trouble," Chiun said. "I was sure that everything was going wonderfully for you. You look so good."

  "Knock it off, Chiun. This hasn't been an easy night."

  "And they will get no easier. A fish out of water might not like the first few minutes, but he can be sure that the next minutes will be even worse."

  "Please," said Remo. His body, which had withstood the burn of heat and flame, was now paying the price the tension had demanded. Remo felt weak. He could feel his tissues dehydrated and drying. All the fl
uids he had pushed to the surface of his body to guard against being badly burned were now dissipating throughout his body, and his skin felt parched. His mouth needed water. He could feel a lightness in his head and for a moment, he felt himself swaying to the right. He almost fell, but held himself up by catching onto a dresser with his right hand.

  Chiun was at his side. "Fool," he hissed. "Foolish, foolish child."

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  Remo tried to say something flip, but no words parted his dry lips. He felt himself being steered, almost lifted, because he had no sense of moving his muscles as he was pushed into the bathroom and Chiun was at his side. He left Remo leaning against the sink, turned on the tub water, then helped Remo out of his charred clothing and lifted him, like a baby, into the tub.

  "Stay here," he snarled and ran into the room.

  "I wasn't going anywhere," Remo mumbled.

  Chiun was back in a few seconds with a small stone vial. He took out the curved stone stopper and upended the bottle over the bath water. A thick blue liquid dripped from the bottle into the bath. Chiun stirred it around with his hand, and as Remo felt the liquid touching his body, he felt his skin tingle with a delicate throbbing, almost as if Chiun had introduced the faint electric current of a flashlight batteiy to the water.

  "Not bad," Remo said.

  "Fool, fool, fool, fool," said Chiun.

  "Not now," Remo said. "I've got a headache."

  "You will have more than a headache if this continues," Chiun said and, just as Remo feared, Chiun did not leave the bathroom, but stood over the tub looking down at Remo.

  "Don't you know you have obligations?" Chiun said. "You just can't stop killing people because you don't want to kill them anymore. An assassin has responsibilities."

  "Let somebody else have them," Remo said. He felt a tiredness coming over him, a wave of sleepi-

  ness.

  "What would happen if everybody decided he 105

  didn't want to do his job anymore?" Chiun demanded.

  "In this country, not much," Remo said softly.

  "No?" Chiun said. "Who would roast chestnuts in the streets? Who would fail to teach American children to read or to write to or have good manners if your teachers all walked out of their classrooms tomorrow? If you leave, who will do Emperor Smith's assassinations? Are you going to leave it all to amateurs? Is that what you're telling me?"

  "Yes," said Remo.

  "That is what's wrong with America today," Chiun said. "No one takes pride in his work. Excuses for assassins wander around blowing up people everywhere, and we all get a bad name. Have you no sense of responsibility at all?"

  "Yes, I have," Remo said. "I feel responsible for getting the guys who are behind these fires."

  "At least, that is a beginning," Chiun said.

  "Because I owe it to Ruby. She was our friend."

  Chiun sighed, surrendering momentarily in the face of an intellect that would not respond.

  "Doing good is still good," Chiun said, "even if it is done for the wrong reasons."

  Remo nodded, although he did not understand what Chiun meant. He was too tired, and then he slipped down into the tub so that the water covered his body up to the neck, and he closed his eyes to sleep. Before he dozed off, the last thing he remembered was a damp face cloth being placed gently on his face, and he sensed the tingle of his skin as it responded to the lotion in the cloth. He thought fleetingly how easy it would be for Chiun just to press his hand down over the washcloth and slide Remo's head under the water and hold him

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  there until he breathed no more, but he put that thought out of his mind as sleep came over him.

  Chiun looked at his sleeping student and said softly, "Sleep, my son, because there is much yet to be learned." And then, to watch Remo, to make sure he was well, Chiun sat down carefully on the tiled bathroom floor, folded his arms, and waited.

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  CHAPTER NINE

  Remo did not know how long he slept. When he opened his eyes, Chiun was sitting on the floor of the bathroom.

  "You been sitting there?" Remo asked.

  "No," said Chiun. "I came in to see if I had dropped something in here."

  Remo nodded. Suddenly he realized that the pain was gone from his skin. He lifted his right hand from the water and raised it in front of his face. The redness was gone; where his skin had been scored with thin lines, seemingly ready to crack, the flesh had reabsorbed moisture and filled out again.

  "Good stuff you put in the bath," Remo said. "What was it anyway?"

  "The eyes of toads," Chiun said. "Ground goat horn. Dried calves' gall bladders." Remo covered his eyes as Chiun went on. "Droppings of waterfowl. Pickled tongue of newt. Salamander organs."

  "Stop it, I'm going to heave," Remo said.

  "You asked," Chiun said.

  "If you were kind, you wouldn't have told me'," Remo said. As he started to rise from the tub, Chiun rose and turned his back and Remo was

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  amused at the aged Oriental's modesty. He wrapped a towel around himself. "Was it really all those things?" he asked.

  "Get burned again and I'll make you drink it," Chiun sniffed.

  He walked out of the bathroom, and when Remo had put of fresh clothes, he came out into the living room. He knew that Chiun was going to try to talk him into rejoining CURE, but he was willing to put up with that, just to be with Chiun again. He had not realized how much he could miss the old scolder.

  "I guess you're going to try to talk me into going back to work for Smitty," Remo said.

  Chiun was standing at the window, looking out over the St. Louis night sky. Behind him, in the distance, Remo could see the arches crossing the Mississippi River. Chiun waved his hand.

  "Do what you want," he said.

  'Then why are you here?" Remo asked. Again, for the briefest moment, came the fear that Chiun was here on Smith's orders to eliminate Remo. But that was foolish. Would Chiun have nursed Remo back to health just to kill him? Foolish? Perhaps but Remo knew it might be like Chiun to do that, probably to fulfill some ancient legend of Sinanju that was old before the Wall of China. One never knew.

  "Why, Chiun?" Remo asked again.

  "I want to know about these fires," Chiun said.

  "Somebody's setting fires around the country. They killed Ruby. I want to even the score."

  "I know that," Chiun said in disgust. "But tell me about these fires. Who is setting them?"

  "A man named Solly and a young kid. I met the

  HO

  kid tonight. Chiun, I've never seen anything like that."

  Chiun turned. His hazel eyes seemed to burn into Remo's. He said, 'Tell me what happened."

  "I found a place they were going to burn up," Remo said. "I went there and I caught the kid in the act. I was trying to get to him . . . Chiun, he started to glow . . . like electricity was passing through him. He was like a human flame thrower. He was across the room, tut he just pointed his hands and fires were starting up all around me. Everywhere I turned there was a fire. I couldn't get through to him. When I finally got out, he was gone. I missed him."

  "You are fortunate," Chiun said.

  Remo sat on the sofa. It was a good hotel, but the sofa slipcover was made of the spun iron that all hotel sofas were made of, impervious to everything but dirt.

  "How do you figure that?" he asked. "I've been chasing these guys all across the country and they get away."

  "That is why you are fortunate," Chiun said. His hands came out of the folds of his flowing sleeves and waved in the air. Remo had rarely seen him so agitated.

  "Are you paying attention?" Chiun demanded.

  "Of course I am, but this isn't going to run into one of those long stories, is it?"

  "I can tell this one in no more than an hour," Chiun said. "That should be short enough even for you and your limited attention span. Then we will go see the place where this fire was."

  "I've got a wonderful idea," Remo said.


  "Your having any idea is wonderful," said Chiun.

  Ill

  "Talk in the cab," Remo said.

  Chiun tried to. Unfortunately, so did the cab driver, who wanted to know why two nice gentlemen wanted to go to that neighborhood, even if one of them was, you know, not American.

  Chiun asked Remo, "Is this person in training to be a cutter of hair?"

  "I don't know," Remo said. "Why?"

  "Why then will he not be quiet?"

  "He will," Remo said. He leaned forward and whispered something to the driver, who stopped in mid-sentence.

  Remo sat back. Chiun asked, "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him you were a homicidal maniac who would visit revenge on seven generations of his family if he didn't shut up."

  Chiun nodded as if pleased. 'This is a terrible story I am about to tell you," he said.

  Remo looked out the window at St. Louis. "They all are," he grumbled.

  "This one is even more tragic than all the rest," Chiun said. "It is about Tung-Si, the Lesser."

  "Not to be confused with Tung-Si, the Greater, no doubt," Remo said.

  "Yes," said Chiun, "but I would appreciate your not interrupting this story with guesses, even if they are correct."

  "Yes, Little Father," Remo said.

  "Tung-Si the Lesser was the only Master of Sin-anju ever to fail," Chiun said.

  "He got stiffed on a bill?" Remo asked.

  "Excuse me?"

  "He didn't get paid? Somebody didn't pay him?"

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  t

  "You are really crass," Chiun said. "All you think about is money. Sit silently and listen."

  "Yes, Chiun."

  "Tung-Si the Lesser failed. He took upon himself, for the good of the village, a mission and he failed in it. It is for this reason that his name has been erased from the records of Sinanju. Oh, failure."

  "How'd you learn about it?" Remo asked.

  "Masters have access to other records," Chiun said. "Otherwise we would never learn anything. Anyway, this happened in a land far off from Korea, in what you would now call Mongolia."

  "Now we call it Russia," Remo said.

  "Yes. It was a very bad time for the village of Sinanju. For many months, the villagers had been sending the children home to the sea because there was no food for them to eat. Nor was there a mission for Tung-Si the Lesser, because the truth is that he was a lazy, slothful man who did not show initiative. Like an American."