Firing Line

He came back and whooshed a large sigh. "That was your arsonist," he told the commissioner. "He said he knew I must have heard about it by now. Ten million dollars or the twin towers get melted."

The aide said, "Can he do it? I thought those buildings were fireproof."

"He said he can do it," the mayor said. "Get the police over to the Eastern Marine Terminal on FDR Drive," the mayor said.

"Why?"

"He said that's a fireproof building, too, and he's putting it up, just to show us he can do it."

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The aide raced to a telephone, picked it up, and began talking.

The commissioner shook his head. "You've got to settle this strike," he told the mayor.

"Sure. Give them off the first day of deer-hunting season?"

"Give them any goddamn thing they want," the commissioner said. "This is big."

"You going to give your cops deer season off?" the mayor asked.

"They haven't asked for it. But you've got to," the commissioner said. He wiped his brow with a wet handkerchief. 'This is important."

"Some things are more important," the mayor said. He looked toward his aide, who put the telephone down slowly as if not believing the message it had brought him.

He came back, his face drained of color.

"The worst?" the mayor said.

"Yeah," said the aide. "We were too late. The police said the Marine Terminal's rubble. It went up like a match, and the flames were so hot, it's like the stones almost melted. Five, maybe six, dead inside."

"Give in," said the commissioner. "Give in. Settle."

"Get out of here," the mayor said. "You make me

sick."

As the night wore on toward midnight, fires were blossoming all over the city, and as Remo and Chiun's plane angled in toward John F. Kennedy Au-port, they could seem the sky glowing over the city.

In a rented car, driving into Manhattan, Remo listened to the news bulletins on the radio:

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• The National Guard was moving in, the governor authorizing it after finally having been located at the opening of a new Beautiful People disco.

• The mayor was asking the public to mobilize and help fight the fires in the city. "I know they will respond," he said.

• The press did not know why, but the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been sealed off by agency police. All train service into the building had been stopped, and no one was being allowed into the area housing the mammoth structures.

"What do we do now?" Chiun asked.

"The mayors at City Hall," Remo said. "We're going there. It looks like the World Trade Center is on Sparky's hit list"

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The kid had flipped. Solly Martin knew it when he had to drag the young boy out of the blazing East Side Marine Terminal. The building was falling around him; there were the screams of the burning and dying, and Sparky McGurl had wanted to stay there and wait for the cops to arrive so he could incinerate them, too. When Solly had dragged him back to the car, the kid's eyes were flashing with excitement. The excitement of death. Martin drove instantly downtown, then through the Holland Tunnel from New York into Jersey City. They made a left hand turn near the Holiday Inn, then headed south toward the decaying heart of the old city.

At burned-out City Hall, they made another left-hand turn and drove back toward the water, toward the Hudson River and the New York skyline. Exchange Place, busy during the day with the work of responsible stock firms and a handful of boiler rooms that specialized in selling worthless stock over the telephone to people who shouldn't even have been allowed to have a telephone, was dark and empty. They parked their car against a wooden timber that acted as a retaining wall to

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prevent cars from rolling into the murky waters of the Hudson, here so decayed and volatile that they could have peeled off a car's paint before it touched the mud of the shallow bottom.

"What are we doing here?" Sparky asked. His voice was annoyed and demanding.

"Leave it to me," Solly said. He took a flashlight and a screwdriver from under the front seat, jammed them into his belt, then both left their car.

A wooden kiosk marked the entrance to the Port Authority Trans-Hudson subway, which went under the river from his spot in New Jersey to New York. The subway station, in keeping with the Port Authority's commitment to equality for New Jersey, was possibly the dirtiest and ugliest in the United States. Going down into it gave the impression of entering a coal mine.

The kiosk door was locked. A sign posted read:

ALL TRAIN SERVICE CANCELLED.

TRAINS TO NEWARK AT JOURNAL SQUARE.

Solly peered in through the dirt-crusted window. The building was dark. The old metal and wood door pulled open easily after Solly stuck the screwdriver into the lock. They both stepped into the darkness.

They stopped to listen, and when they heard no sound, Solly flipped on his flashlight for a brief instant. He saw the steps leading down at the end of the long entrance hallway.

"Follow me," he whispered. "And be quiet."

They walked down three flights of steps, pausing at every landing to listen, and then they were in another long hallway. At the end of it, Solly saw the turnstiles marking the entrance to the tubes. The Port Authority indicated its priorities by hav-

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ing kept the turnstiles still working, the faint red glow from their automatic coin-demanders creating an eerie halo around the entranceway. Solly and the boy slid under the turnstile, and Solly again flipped on his light. He saw a sign that read: wtc— world trade center—and they turned right, down another flight of stairs. They were on a subway platform. They paused, listening.

When he was sure the platform was empty, Solly led the youth to the edge of the platform. He flashed his light, as they jumped down onto the wooden timbers that transversed the tracks. They began to walk to the left.

Solly leaned over to the boy. "Next stop, World Trade Center," he said. The boy giggled as they walked off in the dark into the tunnel that led under the Hudson River to the twin towers in New York.

A New York City police squad of two captains, three lieutenants, and four sergeants, all supervising one patrolman, stood guard outside the crisis control center in the City Hall building.

The patrolman stood at the door. The nine superior officers sat in chairs, watching him carefully for even the smallest hint of inefficiency or insubordination.

The patrolman stopped Remo and Chiun when they appeared at the door. Remo showed his FBI identification.

The patrolman looked at it, then called toward the group of sergeants.

"Sir?"

The sergeant with the least seniority came over.

"Yes, patrolman?"

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"This man's from the FBI. Here's his identification."

The sergeant fondled it. He nodded several times, then took it back to the other sergeants. He showed it to the sergeant with the next most seniority, who fondled the ID, nodded, and passed it on to the senior sergeant. The three sergeants huddled. They took turns fondling the ID card. Finally, the lowest-seniority sergeant carried the card to the lieutenant with the least seniority.

"Hey," Remo called. "Is this almost a wrap?"

"Procedures," the ranking sergeant called. 'They have to be followed."

The lieutenants were now in heated discussion, apparently deciding who was going to take the FBI card to the two captains for evaluation.

Remo walked over to the three lieutenants and took the card back. He motioned for the four sergeants to join him. He motioned for the two captains to come over. When all nine had assembled, he held up the card.

'This is an FBI card. It belongs to me. The Oriental gentleman is with me. We are on government business. We are going inside."

"Do you have approval?" one of the captains said.

"I do now," Remo said. He put the card back into his shirt pocket. His hands flashed in the air. Later, the patrolman would say that he hadn't seen anything, but suddenly all nine officers were holding their faces. Their noses hurt.

'That's just a touch," Remo said. "You understand. Now I've got approval, right?"

"Right," said nine voices.

Thank you."

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Remo went back to Chiun. The patrolman moved aside.

"We've got approval," Remo said.

The patrolman winked.

Inside the room, the mayor sat with his head resting on his hands, as if trying to wring a headache out of it.

"Another string of fires, up along York Avenue," his aide called to him.

The mayor shook his head. "Call the firemen. Tell them to go back to work."

The aide said, "You can't do that. It'll kill you politically."

"And if I don't, there are going to be bodies stacked up all over this city," the mayor said. "Tell them they can have deer season off. They can have duck season. They can have frigging mongoose season. I'm gonna get their asses later, but they've got to go back."

The aide started to protest, but the mayor barked, "Do it." Then he looked up and saw Remo.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"What's the ransom demand on the World Trade Center?" Remo asked.

"Ten million dollars."

"You going to pay it?" Remo asked.

"No. I'm waiting for them to lower their demand to deer season off. That I can give them."

"Is the Trade Center agency going to give them the money?"

"No," the mayor said. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm from Washington," Remo said. "This is my assistant." He nodded toward Chiun. Chiun glared at him.

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"I am his teacher," Chiun corrected. "Everything he knows I taught him. Except how to be ugly. He came by that naturally."

"You sound like my mother," said the mayor.

"I bet you never write her," Chiun said.

"Will you two stop?" Remo said. "We've got business. The arsonists are going to call back?"

"Yes," the mayor said.

"When those firemen go back to work, you're still going to have a problem."

"What's that?"

"Those arsonists. They really can bum down the World Trade Center. They can burn down this whole city."

"What's left of it, you mean," said the mayor.

"Right. What's left of it. Anyway, if you don't stop them, this city is in bad trouble and going to stay in bad trouble."

"As opposed to?" the mayor asked.

"When are the arsonists calling back?"

The mayor looked at the wall clock. "Five minutes," he said.

The aide interrupted him. "Mayor, I just talked to the firemen."

'Tes?"

They want St. Swithin's Day off, too."

"What the hell is St. Swithin's Day?" the mayor asked.

"I don't know, something about a groundhog, I think," the aide said.

"No," the mayor said. "It's rain. Groundhog is winter or something." He groaned again. "Give it to them. Give them anything. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna have all those bastards thrown off the frig-

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T

ging department if it's the last thing I do."

The aide nodded and went back to the phone. Remo said, "All right, Mayor, when the arsonists call, here's what you do."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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The Trade Center police still ringed the block, but all of them had been pulled out from inside the twin tower complex when Remo and Chiun arrived. The lights had been turned out in the lobby, but as the two men walked down the store-lined corridor connecting the two towers, a flashlight beam shone from one end into their faces. "Who are you?" a voice called. "I can't hear you," Remo said. Tve got a flashlight in my face."

The light went out. "One man only," Chiun hissed to Remo. "Now who are you?"

Tve got your money," Remo said. He swung the attaché case he was carrying into the air above his head before realizing that his questioner couldn't see it in the dark. Remo made out the man. Early thirties, flashily dressed, wearing two gold rings. He had seen him before behind the wheel of a car in St. Louis. Solly Martin. Remo was disappointed. He had hoped that the kid Sparky would be here, too.

Remo and Chiun walked toward him. Solly's voice was crisp. "That's far enough," he said.

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"We're twenty feet apart," Remo said. "How do I get you your money unless we get closer than that? Mail it?"

"What's the money in?"

"A briefcase," Remo said.

"Okay. Put it down on the floor, then back up."

The light flashed on. Remo put down the attaché case and then motioned for Chiun to back away. So did Remo.

They saw the flashlight click on, zero in on the attaché case, and then come closer. It waved up to them.

"Back farther," Solly called. "No funny stuff. I've got a gun on you."

"No gun," Chiun whispered to Remo.

"How do you know?"

"His balance when he walks. He is just one flashlight off in balance. Not a flashlight and a gun," Chiun said.

Remo had made the same judgment. "Maybe he's dragging the gun on a rope behind him," he said sullenly.

"No," Chiun said thoughtfully. "I don't hear

that."

The flashlight was at the attaché case. Solly bent down to flip it open.

Remo said, "Where's Santa's little helper?" "Sparky? He's upstairs ready to put this building away if there's any funny stuff." Suddenly, he realized that no one should have known about his young accomplice. He looked up at Remo as he fumbled with the locks. "What do you know about . . ."

Remo interrupted. "You set many fires?" "Enough to know what we're doing," Solly said.

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"Who are you?"

"You set that one in Newark? At the tenement? For Reverend Witherspool?"

"Yeah. That was ours. Good fire."

In the dark, Remo nodded. "A friend of ours died in that fire."

"Sorry to hear it," Solly Martin said. 'That's life."

Tm glad you're taking that attitude," Remo said.

Solly had forgotten the question he asked Remo in his hurry to get the case of money open. He Lifted the top, glanced at the money, then raised his light toward Remo, catching him full in the eyes. Remo saw the swing of the light and contracted the pupils of his eyes before the light hit him, and when the light was on him, the pupils of his eyes were only little pinpricks of black.

"I know you from somewhere?" Solly asked. He rotated the light around Remo's face.

"We never met," Remo said. "But we almost did in St. Louis. At the sporting goods store."

"That was you?"

''Yeah."

"You spooked the kid."

"Nothing compared to what I'm going to do," said Remo.

"What do you mean?" ,

"I mean, you're first and then him. That's phoney money there. It's just cut-up newspaper, under a few bills. Phoney stacks."

The light swung down toward the attaché case, but before Solly Martin could even glance at the money, Remo was on him, his right hand like a claw around the back of Martin's neck.

"Where's the kid?" Remo asked.

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"I don't know. Owwwww. I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"He's upstairs somewhere. In this building."

"And how's he going to know you've got the money?" Remo asked.

"He's going to call me on that phone over there." Solly tried, ineffectively, to point to a pay phone on the wall.

"Is that the truth?" Remo asked, even though he knew it was. Pain in judicious doses, judiciously applied, always brought the truth, and Remo was a master at the measured dose of pain.

"Yeah, it's the truth," Solly said. "This is a shit deal."

"Maybe you're in the wrong business," Remo said.

"I was always in the wrong business. And here, finally, I thought I had it. And now . . . goddamn jail."

Remo shook his head. In the glow from the flashlight, forgotten on the floor, Solly could see Remo's face, the dark, deep-set eyes, the high cheekbones, and a shiver went through the man's body.

"What do you mean, no?" he asked. "You're a cop, ain't you?"

"Sorry, kid. Not me. I'm an assassin."

"Hear, hear," said Chiun. "And about time, too."

"What's next?" said Solly nervously. His voice trembled.

"You are. Good-bye, Solly," said Remo.

"You're going to kill me?"

"For a friend named Ruby," Remo said.

"You can't do that," said Solly.

"Watch," said Remo.

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As he finished Solly, the telephone on the wall rang. Before Remo could move toward it, Chiun had lifted the receiver.

"Chiun," hissed Remo. "Ill handle that."

"Just a minute," Chiun said into the phone. "Remo wants to talk to you." He handed the telephone to Remo. Remo glared at him.

"Kid?" said Remo.

"Yeah?"

"Solly's here. He's got the money."

"Good. Let me talk to him."

"He says hurry on down."

"If I don't talk to him, I go to work."

Remo moved close to the mouthpiece, as if whispering. "Kid, you better get down here. I think he's planning to take a walk with your money."

Sparky laughed, a chilling, hollow laugh that pierced Remo's hearing. "Who cares?" he said. "Let him keep the money. I just want to burn."

"You're not gonna burn, wiseass," said Remo. "You're gonna fry."

The kid paused, then said, "I know you."

"St. Louis," said Remo.

The young boy laughed again. "I knew you'd be along," he said. 'It makes it right sort of."

"You think so?" Remo asked.

"Yeah. It's like I been waiting my whole life for you. Like we got some kind of business, you know, like that."

"We've got business, kid," said Remo. "It's been hanging around for thirty centuries."

"Ninety-second floor," the kid said. 'Til be waiting for you."

"You got it," Remo said. He let the telephone go dead in his hand, then turned to Chiun with a

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quizzical look on his face. "He said he's waiting for me."

"I heard what he said," said Chiun, who was standing ten feet away. "Do you think I'm deaf?"

"He knows the legend, too," Remo said.

"Everyone knows it and believes it but you," said Chiun.

Remo put his hand on Chain's shoulder. "Little Father," he said. "Me, too."

He walked toward a bank of elevators with Chiun at his side. Remo studied the elevator signs in the lobby. There was no elevator to the 92nd floor. They only went as high as the 60th floor. They started to ride up in the silent building.

"I hate this," Remo said.

"What?"

"You can tell a country's gone to hell when they start messing around with elevators."

'This one seems to work fine," Chiun said.

"Naaah," said Remo. "You know, in the old days, elevators used to go from the bottom floor to the top floor. Whoosh. Straight up. Now, they got classes in engineering schools in creative elevator design. They go halfway up. Others go a quarter of the way up. When you get there, you have to get a schedule and switch elevators like switching trains. Trying to get to the top floor is like trying to get to Altoona to see Aunt Alice. Stupid."

"I didn't know you knew so much about elevators," Chiun said.

"Just the way I am," said Remo. "I know a lot about so many things."

"Then here is something you should know," Chuin said. He was interrupted by the elevator door opening. They stepped out and transferred to

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another elevator. It moved up toward the 92nd floor.

"What?" said Remo.

"You are not permitted to kill this child," Chiun said.

Remo spun toward him. "What?"

"He is a child. His life is sacrëd in Sinanju," Chiun said. "A master cannot willingly take a child's life."

"That's Sinanju," said Remo. "This is New York."

"But you are a master. You are bound by the tradition."

"Bulldookey," said Remo. 'Tou think I'm going to let this little sparkplug incinerate me, like Tungsten the Medium?"

"Tung-Si the Lesser," Chiun said. "Rules are rules."

"Good for you," Remo. "Don't go breaking any. And don't go giving any to me. This little swine killed Ruby, and I'm cancelling his library card."

The elevator door opened. Remo stepped out.

Chiun said "I'll stay here." He pressed the close door button.

In the corridor, Remo paused and then heard the sound. It was a fast, crackling noise. He breathed deep, and the acrid smell of burning wood bit into his sensitive nostrils.

Remo ran along the carpeted floor, lifting his head like a dog scenting air. At an intersection of corridors, he moved toward the sound and smell of fire at the southeast corner of the building. He found the offices of the Safety First Grandslam Insurance Company. Through the frosted glass of the door, he could see the tongues of flames. The

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Safety-First Grandslam Insurance Company. Where had he heard that name?

He pushed his way through the locked door. Sure. It was the company that had issued those life insurance policies that the Reverend Witherspool had hoped would make him rich.

The office was burning. Desks were afire, bookshelves were smoldering and, as Remo watched, smoke pouring from open file cabinets was turning red and then exploding into flame. A large computer ran the entire length of one wall. Smoke and flames shot from its opening like a slot machine paying off in fire.

Remo ignored the fires and pushed through the doors into all the connecting offices. Sparky was not there.

He came back out into the main office and looked at the burning computer. He remembered the policies written on those poor families in Newark. He looked at the fire extinguisher on the wall. He looked at the burning computer.

"Screw 'em," he said and walked out into the hall.

Where was the kid?

He ran along the corridors, pausing every so often to listen, but there were no more sounds—no crackle of flame, no whoosh of smoke, no breathing, no footsteps.

The kid had left the floor. Where had he gone?

Remo thought for a split second. He must have gone down. He might be trying to set fires all the way down to the bottom of the building. He would not have gone up because a fire on a lower floor might trap him up high. He must have gone down.

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When he reached the elevators, the walls and the paint on the metal doors were burning. The carpet was ablaze, too. The kid had waited, trying to trap Remo on the burning 92nd floor. Remo ran back along the corridor, found an exit door, and ran down to the 91st floor. He pushed open the hallway door and listened. All was silent. No sound of human; no sound of fire.

He began to work his way down through the building. Ninetieth floor. Eighty-ninth. Eighty-eighth. The kid could be anywhere. There were more fires burning on the 80th floor and again on the 74th. Remo let the fires sizzle. That was for the fire department, assuming they were not on vacation in any month with more than 27 days in it. But there was no sign of Sparky.

Every floor. Checking all the way down.

Remo opened the door to the 67th floor.

As he did, he heard a voice call out, "Took you long enough, sucker."

The sound came from a corridor to his left, and Remo ran along it. At the end of the corridor, he looked right, then left. A door was open at one far end of the hall. He walked slowly toward it.

This was it.

Remo stepped into the office through the open door and saw Kid Blaze standing across the room, near a window.

He looked at Remo.

"Is Solly dead?"

"Just like you're going to be," Remo said.

The boy laughed.

"Why'd you set those fires upstairs?"

The youth shook his head. "They're nothing. Just to keep you interested."

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"I knew they weren't big enough to mean anything."

"That's right. From here down, I take this building apart," Sparky said.

"To do that, you've got to get through this door behind me," Remo said.

"Then I'll just have to." The youth paused. He squinted across the room at Remo's face. "It seems hike we've done this before," he said.

"You wouldn't know about it, but our ancestors did. A long time ago."

"Yeah? Who won then?"

"Your team," Remo said.

'Til have to keep our record clean," the kid said. "First you. Then this building. Then who knows? I'm ready to move on to bigger things. Maybe the White House or Congress. The Pentagon. Who knows? All I know is I don't need Solly stopping me everytLme I'm trying to have some fun."

"That woman you killed in Newark. Was that fun?"

"You betcha. And you're going to be fun. People in the street. Cats, dogs, passing cars. It's all fun."

"You're a freaking looney," Remo said. "Say good night, looney."

He started across the room, just as Sparky McGurl raised his arms. As Remo reached the row of desks in front of the youth, they flashed into flame. Through the flames, he could see the boy sizzling blue, flames crackling like electricity from his fingertips. The desks were incinerating in front of Remo's eyes. Great gouges of wood exploded into flame, popping up into the air, flying past Remo's head, and he backed off.

He felt heat behind him, and as he wheeled, he

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saw the floor burning behind him. Flames were shooting up from the floor, straight up, like a wall, an upside-down waterfall of fire. And then the fire was on both sides of him, too. Floor, walls, desks, furniture—everything was ablaze.

Above the crackle of the flames came the high-pitched laugh of Sparky McGurl.

"You're done for. Say good night, sucker," he called out.

Remo felt the floor begin to weaken under his feet. The ring of fire around him grew in closer. Through the licking of the thick flames, he could see Sparky near the window, and with a sinking feeling, he saw that the boy was glowing even more intensely with the fire power. Remo's weight buckled slightly into the floor. It would be going soon. The flames were now spitting toward his skin; his bare arms felt the singe of heat from the awful ring of fire. He lowered his body temperature to withstand the blaze, but he knew it was drawing drastically down on his stores of energy. If he had a move to make, he'd have to make it now.

Remo coiled his legs into a crouch, then sprang upward, his pointed fingers thrust out in front of him like the business ends of tiny spears. He drove his fingers hard into the plasterboard of the ceiling. His fingers passed through the board and then grabbed onto the metal ceiling beam overhead. He gripped both hands around the metal beam, then swung himself out and through the ring of fire. He landed beyond the fire on the floor of the office.

Sparky growled his anger. He aimed his hands at Remo. Remo darted for the water cooler in the office, yanked off the giant bottle of water, and with

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the side of his hand slashed off the neck of the bottle. He tossed the water at Sparky, just as the boy was aiming twin bolts of fire at Remo. Remo ducked below the racing flames. The water, all ten gallons of it, splashed on the boy. He sizzled. For a moment he vanished behind a cloud of steam. Remo could see his fire aura change almost immediately from hot yellow-white down through red and blue to human skin.

He stood there like a dog that had prowled the streets through a rainstorm, bedraggled and sad looking. It was easy now. Remo picked up a stone pen holder from a. desk. Just toss it through the boy's skull, before he had a chance to recharge himself and start the blazes again.

He drew his arm back to throw the heavy weight at the boy, to deliver the killing blow. But he could not throw it. Slowly, he let his arm drop to his side. He shook his head. Chiun and his goddamn legends were going to get him killed one day. Throw the damn thing. But he couldn't.

If anyone ever needed killing, this vicious little animal, this twisted product of too many wrongs, this murderer of Ruby Gonzalez, deserved death— and Remo could not deliver it.

Sparky was screaming. "It won't save you," he yelled. "I'm not done yet." Remo could see the boy's face screwed up with the intensity of his effort to begin his eerie fire glow. Remo taunted him by beckoning to him with his hand.

"C'mon, twerp," Remo called. "Come and get me. Or is it only women and children you kill? Come on, nit."

Sparky was turning blue again. His internal fires

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were regenerating themselves. "I'm going to wrap my hands around your neck," he yelled, "and hold on until they burn right through."

"What are you waiting for?" Remo said. "Come on." He lifted his chin. "Here's my neck, punk, you sicky little bastard. Come get it."

With a growl, even as his aura was changing from blue to the hotter red, Sparky raced at Remo. Remo waited until the boy was almost on him, until he could feel the heat from the kid's fingers. And then Remo ducked out of the way. The momentum of Sparky's charge carried him past Remo, into the circle of fire from which Remo had escaped, and the heaviness of his steps caused him to burst through the flaming floor. Remo turned to see the boy crash through the weakened floor down into the rooms below. Remo expected to hear the thump of his body hitting the floor. But there was no thump. There was only a squishing sound and then a pitiful, heart-rending scream that ended abruptly, as if the screamer had run out of air and could take no more breaths.

Remo carefully picked his way past the fire and looked down through the hole in the floor. Sparky McGurl had fallen so that the flat part of his body was impaled on a long wooden coat rack shaped like a spear, which was standing in the middle of the floor, directly below the hole in the floor. Standing next to the coat rack was Chiun. He look at Remo and held his arms out to his sides, saying only, "A terrible accident."

Then he turned to look at the boy, whose body had now reverted to human color, but whose look as he hung, impaled, was a dead, inhuman mixture of pain and panic.

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"Some accident," Remo said. 'Teople have to be careful where they leave their clothes racks," Chiun said blandly.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The firemen's strike was settled by a compromise: those firemen who wanted to go deer hunting could have the first day of deer season as a vacation day; those who didn't could have St. Switbin's day off.

The fires were out around the city; the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been saved from serious damage except for the offices of the Safety First Grandslam Insurance Company, which were totally wrecked.

Remo and Chiun were back in their hotel room overlooking Central Park.

Remo was satisfied.

"We evened the score for Ruby," he said.

Chiun nodded. "Yes," he said. "You paid it back by death because this is your way, as it is my way. Have you finally realized you are an assassin, a dealer in death? When retribution is required, we do not write letters to the editor. We do not go on picket lines. We deal in a much more basic way with those who threaten the fabric of our civilized society. You must be an assassin because there is nothing else you can be. You cannot be a fisherman or a man who demonstrates on television machines

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that cut carrots. You have tried those things. You cannot do them. What you can do is what you have been trained to do. Be an assassin. Like me, you must kill to live."

Remo was lying on the couch. He looked out the window at the smokeless sky. "It's a shit deal, Chiun," he said.

"They are the cards that fate dealt you," Chiun said.

"I know," Remo said. "I know."

Later in the day, he asked Chiun for Ruby's medal.

"I threw it away," Chiun said. "It was cheap junk and it turns your neck green to wear it."

Remo looked at him in surprise. "You gave Ruby junk?" he asked.

"Would I do that?" asked Chiun.

Later that night, Smith came to their hotel room. He carried not only his gray briefcase, but a small box wrapped in manila paper.

Smith told Remo he had done good work with the two arsonists. "Even though it wasn't technically a CURE assignment," Smith said, "it was the proper thing to do."

"I'm glad you liked it," Remo said. "But I didn't do it for you or your dipshit organization."

"I know," Smith said. "For Ruby." He was silent a moment, then he added, "Remo, I regret what happened to her as much as you do. I really liked Ruby."

"But not enough that you wouldn't ask me to kill her," said Remo.

Smith nodded. 'That's correct. I did not like her so much that I was going to jeopardize our organization and our country. You know that we live on

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secrecy, and if we're exposed, our whole government could go under."

"Somehow, Smitty," said Remo, "I just don't give. a rat's ass."

Smith excused himself. He stopped at the door and, as an afterthought, tossed the manila-wrapped box to Remo. "The desk clerk asked me to give this to you." Then he left.

There was no return address on the package.

Remo opened it up. There was a metallic silver box inside. Printed in gold across the top of it was the legend: Ruby's Wig Empoeium, Norfolk, Va."

Remo looked at Chiun in confusion. Chiun's face was blank.

Remo opened the box. It contained a curly blond wig for a man, in a style made famous by professional wrestlers.

He lifted it out of the box as if it were a dead mouse, looked at it, and then looked back inside the box. There was a piece of paper under the wig.

He dropped the wig on the floor and opened the note.

It read, "This is for your pointy little head, turkey."

The note was unsigned, but in his mind, Remo could almost hear Ruby Gonzalez screaming at him across the distance.

He looked at Chiun and caught the old man in one of his rare smiles. Suddenly, he knew the truth. Ruby lived and Chiun knew that she lived.

Remo smiled.

"The medal?" he asked.

"A cheap copy she had made of the one I gave her. She was just waiting for a chance to drop it somewhere to prove her death." said Chiun. "When

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she found that body in the fire, that was her chance."

"She was the one who called you in St. Louis and told us to go to New York?" Remo said.

Chiun nodded. "Of course."

"And Smith?' Remo asked.

"He thinks that Ruby is dead," said Chiun.

"What should we do?" asked Remo.

"We should let sleeping lies lie," said Chiun. "What emperors don't know won't hurt their assassins."

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