Warren Murphy: Balance of Power

He shook his head in annoyance. For the second straight month, the bill for bread had gone up and he was getting pretty sure that one of the kitchen workers was stealing some of those food supplies. Something would have to be done.

The big mosque on 114th Street was closed. Two black-suited guards watched the entrance, which was chained and padlocked.

Whistling, Remo strolled over to the chain and snapped it as though it were a peppermint stick.

"Wuffo you doing that shit," one of the Peaches of Mecca said as Remo walked through the gates toward the mosque. "I mean halt, man. Halt in the name of the Afro-Muslim Brotherhood."

"No time, boys," Remo called over his shoulder. "Catch you later."

"You gonna catch us right now," the other Peach said, and the two of them executed a flying tackle at Remo's knees.

He caught them in midair. Using one of them as a club, he twirled the man high overhead and smacked him into his companion's midsection with a thud. Two pairs of dazed brown eyes shone, unfocused, beneath their sweat-glistening shaved heads.

"You one mean mother," one of them said.

The other shook the fuzz out of his brain and staggered to his feet.

"In the name of Allah," he said as he pulled a blue-tinged knife out of his inside coat pocket, his eyes locked into Remo's.

Remo kicked. With one stroke the knife was lodged into the guard's throat, a stream of red trickling onto his white shirt collar and spreading. The man stiffened and trembled. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no sound came out.

He wobbled a few paces in a zigzag line toward Remo, then reeled and stumbled. His mouth formed half a word: "Mother ..."

Remo blew, and the small gust of air sent the man careening downward with a crash. "That's the biz, sweetheart," he said.

"Holy shit," the other Peach gasped as Remo turned to face him. "Look, man, I ain't got no knife, see?" Shaking, he opened his jacket. "No knives, no zip guns, not even a pea shooter. Just a country boy up here visiting my aunt Minnie, yes suh." He backed away. "Me, I'm strictly for nonviolence. Amen. Free at last." He took off at a brisk trot, peering behind him to see if Remo was following.

He wasn't. He didn't have any time to lose. He paused at the heavy double doors leading to the interior of the mosque just long enough to be impressed with the precision of their construction. It was airtight in there, and the doors must have weighed a half ton apiece. Whoever designed these doors was building a fortress, and preparing for siege.

Using a thrust from the elbow, he wedged his hand into the hairline crack between the two doors. It was solid steel, more than two inches thick. Feeling with his fingertips, he located the locking mechanism and jammed three fingers into it, releasing the lock with a deep pop, like a small explosion occurring far underground. Then he pushed with his shoulder to dislodge the interior bolt.

Inside, the mosque was as cold and silent as a cave. He passed room after empty room as he strode silently down the vast network of hallways and stairways, his feet barely touching the gleaming polished floors. He tapped on one of the walls. Steel. In a corner of the building, he felt with the balls of his feet for the underlying structure beneath the tile flooring. Again steel.

At the base of a small white metal stairwell, he saw the only other people in the mosque: two black-suited young men, their faces expressionless, their heads shaved and gleaming blue-black under the dun lighting. They appraised Remo coolly, acknowledging his presence by no more than a cold glance from heavy-lidded eyes.

They moved toward him like two panthers, silent, deadly. They were the best of the lot, thought Remo as he watched them move. Obviously trained to stay with Gloria as her personal guard.

Without a word, one of them snaked toward Remo in a flying arc, legs tucked tightly to his chest. Remo stood still, waiting for the inevitable foot to come jutting out at his solar plexis. When it did, Remo caught the heel of the man's foot and swept it upward to lock the knee. Then, with the leg straight and locked, he pressed the foot with his palm in a small, potent move that dislocated the man's hip and sent him howling down the length of the corridor as fast as a bowling ball, until he came to rest with a splat on the far wall.

The other man moved, never taking his eyes from Remo, his face registering nothing.

He was fast. As he prepared his blow — a shoulder spin designed for use with a weapon — Remo noticed the man had good balance. "Not bad," Remo said. "Shame to have to kill you just to get to that white kitty in there."

The man began the spin, as evenly weighted as a cat.

"Beautiful," Remo said, as he pulled a packet of matches from his pants pocket and tossed them to the floor. They slid precisely between the tiles on the floor and the man's shoe. It threw his balance totally, so that when he came out of the spin all his energy had spun into his feet to stay upright. The man twirled to a stop, momentarily drained. Remo stepped in close to the man.

"Hold it, sweetheart," Gloria called from the landing. She was dressed in a diaphanous white sari that only partly concealed her body, and she carried a revolver.

Remo stopped. "At your service," he said with a bow.

"That's better," she said, and squeezed the trigger.

As Remo saw the tension in her hand, the small muscles of her index finger beginning to contract over the trigger, he collared the remaining guard. In a motion too swift for the guard to resist or Gloria to see, he put the man's body between himself and the bullet, and before the guard could register surprise, he was dead and Remo was up the stairs, the gun crumbling to pieces in his hands.

"Get in," he said to Gloria, shoving her inside her apartment.

"What for? There's nobody else around," she said disgustedly. "You knew that."

"I want to see the map... Miss Sweeney."

"Map?" She laughed. "Sure. Help yourself." She threw out her arm in a Bette Davis gesture to indicate the map on the wall. "Have an eyeful, sugar."

It was an ordinary world map. A little old, maybe, Remo thought as he scanned its worn folds, but nothing special.

"Barney Daniels is alive and talking, I suppose," Gloria said, a look of resignation settling over her features and rendering them haggard as she slumped into an overstuffed white chair.

"That's right. His memory's back."

She lifted a weary eyebrow. "It was bound to happen. Care for a drink?" She cocked a frosty glass in his direction.

"No thanks."

"It's only mineral water. Here. Try some." She eased herself out of the chair and poured a tall tumbler for Remo at the bar.

The glass felt cold in his hand. The moisture on the outside of the glass wet his skin. "I guess water wouldn't hurt," he said.

Then he smelled it. It was faint, almost nonexistent, just a tinge. "Ethyl chloride," he said, bewildered. "And something else. Something common."

"Don't be silly. That's just plain old H2O, straight from the hidden springs of New Yrok City. Now bottoms up." She drained her own glass in one nervous gulp.

"And what was that?" Remo asked.

"Gin. I'm tapering off water," she said with a smile.

Remo smiled, too. He held his glass toward her. "Go on. Have a taste."

"No, thanks."

"Come on," Remo said. "You only live once." He squeezed her jaw open and poured the liquid down her throat. "Ethyl chloride and mesquite," Remo said. "Mesquite like in tequila. That's what you hooked Daniels on, wasn't it? The mesquite. First, you fudged up his brain with ethyl chloride, then hooked him on the mesquite. And he kept getting enough of it in his tequila to keep the chloride pumping in his tissues, keeping him under. Until he dried out in the clinic."