Warren Murphy: Market Force

"For God's sake," Robbie MacGulry bellowed, "shut your stammering British hole and fiya!"

"Oh, yes," Adler said. "Yes, of course. Of course, fire. Yes. Oh. Where did I put that rifle?"

The Lee-Enfield was no longer in his hands. He was certain it was there a moment ago. For an instant he glimpsed something he thought could be the rifle. It was sailing out the dining-room window. He truly wished the gun was still in his hands, because a face suddenly appeared before him. It belonged to the American that Mr. MacGulry had wanted dead. The face was very nasty-looking. Much worse in person than the computerized version that Rodney Adler had been beaming via satellite all over the world.

Seeing that face up close, with a promise of doom in those deep-set eyes, Rodney Adler reacted as a true son of Britain born and bred at the twilight of the Empire.

With a fluttering moan of fear and a dainty hand pressed over his heart, Rodney Adler passed out cold. "Where's Lord Nelson when you need him," Remo droned. He stepped over the unconscious Englishman. Chiun followed.

"That way," the Master of Sinanju announced. A bony finger pointed to a nearby door.

Remo had traced the vibrations back to the same point. The heavy wooden door surrendered to a kick. It led into a short corridor. At the far end, another door opened into a massive chamber.

The room was as big as a theater, with a flat gymnasium floor that stretched out to black walls. There were no windows. All around the room, huge screens hung from the walls. Though turned off, the screens seemed alive with some sort of faint liquid energy.

Robbie MacGulry sat patiently on a chair in the middle of the room. A pedestal with a monitor was fastened to the floor before him.

"Welcome to the Big Room, gentlemen," the Vox CEO said. No longer amplified by speakers, his voice seemed small.

If MacGulry could see them, it was not in the conventional way. The media mogul wore a helmet that looked as if it had been swiped from the set of a scifi movie. The thick black visor was down, obscuring his face.

As soon as they were in the room, a steel door whooshed down from above, replacing the wooden one and sealing the two Sinanju Masters in the room.

"I don't like the looks of this," Remo said warily.

"You shouldn't, mate," Robbie MacGulry called from far across the room. "And you should have joined me when you had the chance. I've got Friend trapped. I cut the telephone lines after he came back here. He's not going anywhere. With you two gone, it's clear sailing for me and Vox. Maybe I'll make the offer again to whoever's left standing."

Remo saw the small black remote control in MacGulry's hand.

He was too far away. There was nothing to throw. The thick door would take a minute to break through. All this passed through the mind of Remo Williams in the moment it took Robbie MacGulry to press a single button on his remote control. All around the room, the liquid TV screens came to glowing life.

The subliminal strobe light flashed. There was no way to get away from it.

Remo saw his face and that of the Master of Sinanju. Huge on the thirty-foot-tall screens. Flashing alternately. Superimposed over both images, the same words repeating: Kill him... kill him... kill him...

Remo felt the displacement of air to his right.

He spun in time to see the Master of Sinanju-eyes blank-lashing out.

Chiun's face was a mass of wrinkles, illuminated in microsecond bursts by hypnotic light. A single bony hand flew at Remo's throat.

Luck and speed had been on Remo's side in New York. He hoped this would be the case now, for in that mortal moment before Chiun's blow registered, Remo realized that the death of one Master of Sinanju might be the only way the other could escape this place of horrors alive.

Chapter 31

Remo braced for the attack. His hands shot up instinctively to ward off the killing blows.

But in the instant before his hand reached Remo's throat, the Master of Sinanju's expression suddenly changed. The blank stare flashed to a look of deep annoyance. For that sliver in time he looked himself again.

Remo hesitated. And in that moment of uncertainty, Chiun's darting hand shot through his pupil's defenses.

Remo had but a split second to come to terms with his imminent death. But instead of a killing blow, a scolding hand smacked Remo hard on the side of the head. Afterward, Chiun's hands retreated inside the sleeves of his kimono.

"Let that be a lesson to all who would dismiss the abilities of the elderly," the old man sniffed haughtily.

Remo rubbed the side of his head. "That hurt," he groused.

"The best lessons come from pain."

Remo looked around the room, baffled. The cryptosubliminal signal was still pulsing from all around the huge liquid TV screens. There was his face, with an order to kill him. Yet the Master of Sinanju hadn't succumbed.

"Hey, Rolf Harris," Remo called over to Robbie MacGulry. "I think you better call a repairman. Your hypno-screens are on the fritz."

MacGulry had already realized something was wrong. With frantic fingers he was poking buttons on his remote control.

"There is nothing wrong with his devices," the Master of Sinanju explained impatiently.

"But it worked on you before. I don't get it."

"That is why I am Master and you are whatever it is you are. When you learn, please tell me."

As the screens continued to flash worthless commands, Chiun swept past his baffled pupil.

"This isn't right," MacGulry snapped as he worked his remote. "You two should be ripping each other to shreds like wild dingos right now."

And then his puzzlement no longer mattered. He punched a final button and the floor opened up and swallowed the media magnate whole. By the time Remo and Chiun reached the spot where MacGulry had been, a steel plate had already slid over the section of floor, sealing the Vox chairman below.

"You wanna tell me why you're not trying to kill me?" Remo asked.

"Years of practice," Chiun replied thinly. "Are you going to help, or are you just going to stand there asking insulting questions?"

Chiun dropped to his knees. Slender fingertips found the edge of the sliding metal door.

Remo joined his teacher at the trapdoor's edge. When they pushed, there came a distant groan of grinding gears. The panel inched back. All at once there came a snap-snap-snap and the door shot open. Remo and Chiun dropped through the opening.

The room below was a steel-lined box. Through the walls they could hear the sound of computer mainframes humming.

"Three guesses where Mr. Microchips ended up," Remo said.

Robbie MacGulry was a few feet away, a terrified look on his tanned face. He had flung his helmet to the floor and was banging madly on a sealed door. "Let me out!" the Vox chairman screamed.

"I think we're gonna have to slap a parents advisory on the next minute or two," Remo said. MacGulry wheeled. When he saw Remo and Chiun approaching, he banged harder on the door.

"Open up, please!"

"Probably TV-V-L should do it," Remo concluded. "Violence and language. We can avoid the usual Vox sex S Unless you take off your pants, in which case I can guarantee you the V is gonna get a lot more V-ish."

MacGulry spun. He waved a threatening finger. "You can't hurt me. I've got billions!"

Remo snapped the finger in two. MacGulry screamed, falling to his knees.

"First the Chevy Chase talk show, now this. You ever get tired of being wrong?" Remo asked.

"All my money!" the Vox chairman cried. "It's yours! All of it!"

"No," said Remo.

"Did you say billions?" Chiun asked.

"Stop doing that," Remo said. To MacGulry he said, "Friend blabbed about us to you. Who else knows about us?"

"No one," MacGulry insisted. He was cradling his injured hand. "My employees have only seen your pictures. Your first names for some of the signals. They don't know who you are."