Balance of Power

Chapter Six

The Grand Vizier of the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood held open the door for Barney as he tiptoed out of Gloria X's house at five in the morning.

"Thanks, Malcolm," he said, trying not to slur his words too much.

"Once you out on the street, you ain't my problem," Malcolm answered. "Plenty of bloods be happy to see your white face this time of day. Ain't no way Allah be looking out for you, white scum."

"Hare Krishna," Barney said with a bow.

Barney wasn't afraid of muggers. He could still fight when he had to. He wasn't afraid of killers. He had killed too many times himself not to know that killers were generally more frightened than their victims unless the killers were very well trained, and if the Peaches of Mecca were the best fighting men in the neighborhood, he was in no danger. And, with nothing in his pocket but the five-dollar bill Gloria X had given him to insure his return, he wasn't particularly afraid of getting robbed.

What Barney Daniels was afraid of was that crazy old Oriental guy who seemed to materialize magically on the dim street corner ahead. He prepared to run in the opposite direction, but the old man was standing beside him before Barney could execute the about-face.

"You sure are fast, Pops," Barney said.

"Thank you. Greetings. I am Chiun."

"Barney Daniels."

"Yes, I know."

"Where's your friend?"

"He is nearby."

Barney looked around him, but saw no one. "I don't mean to be nosy, Chiun, but are you planning to kill me?"

"No."

Barney breathed easier. "That's good. You know, Chiun, for some reason you don't look like you live in the neighborhood."

"I do not. My home is the village of Sinanju, in Korea."

"I see," Barney said, as though that explained everything. "Going my way?"

"Yes," They walked silently for another half block.

Barney tried again. "Listen, I know this sounds weird, but..."

"Yes?"

"No, it's too weird."

"Go ahead. You may ask."

"Okay." He felt foolish even thinking it. "It's just that I saw you fight. You were pretty good, know what I mean?"

Chiun smiled. "It was nothing."

"So I was wondering, if you can fight like that, and if you're not going to kill me, well..."

"Yes?"

"Are you my fairy godfather or something?"

A voice behind him snickered. Barney jumped into the air, his heart thudding. "Good reflexes," Remo remarked.

"How long have you been back there?"

"Since you left the house."

Barney shook his head. "You two are really something," he said, extending his hand to Remo. "Barney Daniels."

"Idi Amin," Remo said, declining the hand.

"One of us is the Master of Sinanju," Chiun elaborated. "The other is a rude pervert who is barely useful for household tasks."

"And the third is a drunk we've had to stay up all night watching while he humped his way to heaven," Remo growled.

"How could you watch?"

Remo shrugged. "No scruples, I guess."

"I mean, the sides of the building were sheer faces of poured concrete. You couldn't have looked in the window."

"Suit yourself."

"What did you hear?" Barney asked, testing.

"Nothing special. Grunts, groans, a couple of giggles from Blondie, a belch or two from you... the usual."

"Hmmm."

"And your promise to knock off Colder Raisin for her."

Barney winced. "You from the CIA?" he asked.

"That does it," Remo said. "He's going back unconscious, like I said." There was a flurry of discussion in Korean between the old man named Chiun and the young wise guy.

"No!" Chiun said finally in English. "He is a man. He will walk."

"Walk where?" Barney asked belligerently.

"Tenth Avenue in midtown."

"What for?"

"We're supposed to keep you alive."

"On Tenth Avenue? I'd have a better chance of staying alive in the Klondike wearing a jockstrap."

"Breathe in the other direction," Remo said.

"Who sent you here?"

"Your fairy godfather. Get moving."

Barney bristled. "Look, you guys, I appreciate what you did for me back there, but I want to know where I'm going and why."

Remo sighed. "Let me knock him out," he said to Chiun.

"You are in no danger with us," Chiun explained. "However, our employer feels that others will attempt to do you harm. We are to protect you."

"So why do you have to protect me on Tenth Avenue? Why not just follow me home to Weehawken?"

"Because you've decided to murder somebody," Remo said, disgusted. "And I've got to ask Upstairs if you're allowed to. Complications. Always complications."

Chiun smiled proudly. "I knew he was an assassin."

"A fellow's got to earn a living," Barney said.

They turned left on 81st Street, where muffled music leaked from a cellar door. "Oh," Barney said excitedly. "I almost forgot about this place. A terrific after-hours club. Care to join me for a cocktail?"

He veered off. Remo collared him.

This upset Barney. Did they know that he might not make the trip back to Tenth Avenue alive without some liquid refreshment to quench his thirst? Did they know they might well be delivering a corpse to their employer? Did they want that?

"Walk," Remo said.

"If I fought you, you'd win, right?"

"Wouldn't be surprised," Remo said.

"If you knocked me out, would you carry me?"

"I suppose I'd have to," Remo said.

"Where on Tenth Avenue are we going?"

"Forty-fourth Street."

"That's too far. A cocktail, or I go unconscious." He offered his neck to Remo.

Just then, a gang of eight Puerto Rican street toughs approached them. One of them was picking his teeth with a stiletto. They circled the three strangers in the neighborhood.

"Hey, man, you got any change?" the one with the stiletto asked Chiun, teasing the knife around his wrinkled throat.

"You are annoying me with that toy," Chiun said.

The eight of them laughed.

"Tell them to go suck a mango," Remo suggested to Chiun.

"How about this toy?" another asked, nicking out his stiletto with a pop. Six more pops punctuated the night. Eight blades flashed. The circle closed more tightly.

Barney moved into position, but Remo pulled him away. "He can take care of himself," he said.

"What do you say, old man?" the leader sneered. "Got any last words?"

"Yes," Chiun said. "Twice this night I have been inconvenienced by groups of hooligans with knives. It is getting to be impossible to walk these streets, and I plan to complain about it. I suggest you stop bothering innocent pedestrians and go home. Also, it is disrespectful to call me old."

The leader poised his stiletto at Chiun's throat. On the other side, another gang member crept up behind Chiun, prepared to slash at his back. "Those your last words, man?"

"Yes," Chiun said. And then he kicked behind him to relocate the manhood of the approaching man into the man's kidneys and the gang leader was thrusting his stiletto into thin air as he hurtled above the heads of his associates and came to rest around a telephone pole, which he encircled like a wreath halfway up the pole.

Two gang members fled immediately. The remaining four bashed their heads together with the perfect synchronization of a Busby Berkeley chorus line as Chiun whirled around them. Their skulls cracked and flattened on impact.

The man with relocated testicles rolled over once with a groan and then was silent. The man hugging the telephone pole slid bonelessly to the ground.

"Irritating," Chiun muttered, turning back to Remo and Daniels. "Egg juice. Knives. Name-calling. It is enough to cause indigestion. And you," he said, pointing menacingly toward Barney. "You will walk."

"Yes, sir. Nothing like a good walk to perk up the old circulation. That's what I always say. A good walk stills the nerves."

"And be silent."

Barney walked to Tenth Avenue as the dawn rose. In utter quiet.

Barney stuck a cigarette in his mouth as he entered the motel room. Remo crushed it into powder, so that Barney stood in the doorway holding a match to a one-inch filter. Then Remo reached into Barney's coat pocket and pulverized the rest of the pack.

"You could have just said you preferred I didn't smoke," Barney said. He looked around the room. "Real cozy. Where's my room?"

Remo pointed.

Barney looked inside. "That's the bathroom."

"That's right. Go take a shower. You smell like a brewery."

"Okay, okay," Barney said. "You don't have to be rude about it."

"Be sure to lock the door," Chiun said. "One never knows what a pervert might try."

"Got a drink?"

"No," Remo said, glowering.

"Just asked, that's all. No reason to get touchy." Barney headed off toward the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Remo called Smith. "We've got Daniels here," he said.

"Whatever for?"

He told Smith about Gloria X and the Peaches of Mecca and Barney's assignment to kill Calder Raisin.

"It doesn't make any sense," Smith said.

"Glad you agree."

"What does any of this have to do with Hispania?" Smith wondered aloud.

"Probably nothing. He's probably just trying to pick up a few bucks. The question is, what do we do with this rum pot?"

"Hang on to him until I can put everything into the computer. Don't let him kill Raisin. What's Gloria X's address?"

Remo gave it to him as Smith punched the information into the computer console.

"And what's her real last name?"

"Raisin."

"What?"

"She's Raisin's wife. That's what she said."

Smith was silent for a long moment before he said, "She can't be."

"Why not? Interracial marriages and murder between spouses has never been big news."

"Because Calder Raisin's wife lives in Westchester with their two kids under another name, and they're all as black as Raisin is. He keeps their profile low for security reasons, but he spends the weekends there. That information is in every personal biographical printout on every computer in the country."

"Maybe he's got two wives," Remo offered.

''I'll check it out. How old is Gloria?"

"Mid-twenties. Southern accent. Fanatic about the upcoming black revolution."

"Good," Smith said, keying in the material. "I'll go through the SDS and black organizations lists. Anything else?"

Remo thought for a moment. "She talks a lot while screwing."

Smith's keyboard fell silent. "Is that everything?" he asked drily.

"I guess so." Remo heard the phone click off.

It just didn't make sense.

Smith read the printout on the video screen for the third time:

RAISIN, CALDER B.

B. 1925, BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

ATTENDANCE, MERIWETHER COLLEGE, 1 YR.

PRESENT OCC: DIRECTOR, UNION RACIAL JUSTICE (URGE)

FORMER OCC: ASST. DIR., RAY THE JUNKMAN, INC., NEW YORK CITY.

FORMER OCC (2): SANITATION PERSONNEL, CITY OF NEW YORK

MARRIED 1968, LORRAINE RAISIN, FORM. DALWELL

CHILDREN (2) LAMONTE, B. 1969, MARTIN LUTHER, B. 1974.

NO PREV. MARRIAGE OR OFFSPRING

INCOME: $126,000

HEALTH: POOR

SUB (1) HEALTH

CANCER, COLON. TERMINAL HOSP: ROOSEVELT, 8/79

ROOSEVELT, 5/79

ROOSEVELT, 3/79

LENOX HILL, 12/78

A.B. LOGAN, 9/78

N.Y. UNIV. HOSP, 2/78

"Cancer," Smith said out loud. What reason would anyone have for assassinating a terminal cancer patient?

The obvious answer, that Gloria X and her Peaches of Mecca didn't know about Raisin's illness, was too remote for Smith to consider. Any organization, particularly a black organization, willing to hire an assassin would know enough about Raisin to know he wasn't going to live long. But then the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood wasn't an official organization. In fact, the first traces of the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood that the computer was able to pick up had appeared less than a year before. During the same month that Barney Daniels had been returned from Hispania to the United States.

Blaming the assassination of a civil rights leader on an ex-CIA agent might make some sense as part of some larger scheme. It could make the agency look even worse to the public than it already did.

But as part of what larger scheme? What could Hispania, a banana republic no larger than Rhode Island, with a gross national product so small that most of its inhabitants lived in jungle huts — what could Hispania do to America?

America could wipe it out with a sneeze.

And even if Hispania were connected to the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood in some way, how could Smith explain the Hispania envelope filled with plastic explosive — the envelope that was delivered to Barney? And the name on the envelope, Denise Daniels. Who was she? There had been 122 Denise Danielses on Smith's printout, and none of them were related ha any way to Bernard C. Daniels with the exception of a third cousin of Barney's uncle who lived in Toronto. Smith would have to create a new code to tap into international personal biographical data banks. He would begin with Hispania. But it could take years to sift through the names of every person, living or dead, in the entire world.

None of it made sense. But the weirdest piece of the puzzle was right in New York City.

Gloria X.

Who was Gloria X?

"A political genius with the body of a goddess, that's who you are," rumbled General Robar Estomago as Gloria rose from between his legs. "Also you give the best head in Puerta del Rey," he added with a chuckle.

"The best in the world, Robar honey," she said, rubbing her jaw. "Taking me out of that whorehouse and setting me loose back in America were the smartest things you ever did. Now I'm all yours." She rearranged herself on the bed in Estomago's office at the end of the Hispanian Embassy building.

"No, my hot puff pastry, not all mine. You are Hispania's. When you complete this mission, El Presidente De Culo will erect a statue of you."

"Hope it's more erect than El Presidente," she giggled.

"Your plan is going well, I take it?"

"Perfectly. I told you the bomb in the envelope wouldn't work. Daniels is too smart to be bumped off so easily. This way, we get rid of him nice and legal, and crack this two-bit country apart while we're at it. This place'll be so torn up with riots and demonstrations that nobody will even see us coming."

"Boom," Estomago said, gesturing wildly. "El Presidente will love that. And so will our Russian sponsors."

"That's right, sweetie. And you're going to love this."

At that, Gloria X nestled her head against the belly of the Hispanian ambassador and began to prove herself again.

General Robar Salvatore Estomago, chief emeritus of the National Security Council of the Republic of Hispania, current ambassador to the United States, and recipient of the considerable personal favors of Gloria X, had come a long way from flipping Big Macs at the local McDonald's franchise in Puerta del Rey.

The short-order stint was a post he had held immediately prior to his appointment as head honcho of Hispania's secret police under El Presidente Cara De Culo.

He shifted his rotund lower belly to grant Gloria better access to his legendary tool which, were it not for its exemplary size, would be all but hidden from view by the porcine proportions of his torso.

Her head bobbed enthusiastically, her blonde hair spilling out over his swarthy skin like a golden cloud. All his life he had fancied gringo women, white as diamonds. And Gloria was white to the core. She embodied everything he had ever dreamed or feared about white women. Gloria was beautiful, cruel, deceitful, duplicitous, selfish, spoiled, and unaccustomed to any sort of work. She was also utterly contemptuous of her homeland, and sought to destroy America with more zeal than El Presidente and the Russian premier combined.

Estomago knew he'd found a treasure in Gloria the minute she walked down the ramp of the American ship onto the docks at Puerta del Rey, whistling as she stripped to the skin and started soliciting the dock workers.

She had come with a shipload of women, volunteers anxious to get out of American prisons, even if it meant a long rehabilitation work program in Hispania. But the work was top-secret and all the workers were fated for disposal and since Gloria was blonde and Estomago lusted for her, he saved her from the normal work details, and put her in an occupation more suited to her talents. He set her up in the biggest whorehouse in town, with instructions to report on every important American who visited the place.

It was a good move. Because of one American, a CIA agent who knew more than agents in Hispania were supposed to know, Estomago was now ambassador to the United States. Also because of that one American — Bernard C. Daniels — a grand scheme was now coming into play, a scheme devised by Gloria to disrupt the United States, upset the balance of power in the world, and to thrust Hispania to world power, just as surely as Estomago was thrusting now under the expert guidance of Gloria's tongue and lips.

"Ah yes," Estomago sighed, fanning himself with a framed photograph of El Presidente, which he kept by the bed. "You sure know your business."

"Destroying America is my business," she said curtly, wiping her mouth. "In spite of these black fools you have saddled me with."

"The Afro-Muslim Brotherhood is a good cover for us," Estomago said. "Besides, you were the one who thought of creating it in the first place."

"It'll serve its purpose," she said. "I'm sending Daniels out to bump off Calder Raisin. That ought to work the niggies into a rampage."

"And Daniels? Did he object?"

"That poor drunken thing? I told him I was Raisin's wife and that I was after the insurance money."

"An American will always believe in greed," Estomago said loftily.