Warren Murphy - Total Recall

They both turned to face the door as Lorenzo Moorcock entered the room, holding a terrified woman in front of him and pressing a gun to her right temple.

"Gentleman," Moorcock said, allowing the door to close behind them. "Welcome to my little factory."

"I guess we were pretty noisy, huh?" Remo said. "You came to complain?"

"On the contrary," Moorcock said. "I'm here to compliment you. You've done my work for me." Moorcock looked at the bodies of his dead employees. "Yes," he said, "and very nicely too. You saved me the trouble of killing them myself."

"Planning on pulling out?" Remo asked.

"Oh, yes, I believe the time has come for me to take my profits and move on," the minister said.

"Taking the lady with you?"

"Mrs. Sterling?" Moorcock said, tightening his arm around the woman's waist. "Oh, she insisted on coming down with me. The poor woman couldn't bear the thought of something happening to me."

"Please," the woman said at that point, her eyes pleading, "I don't understand."

"Be quiet," Moorcock said sharply. Looking at Remo and Chiun, Moorcock said, "We have a small emergency device set up down here that alerted me to your presence. I turned my congregation over to a guest speaker— a common practice— and asked Mrs. Sterling to accompany me. As you can see, she insisted on doing so."

Remo was feeling frustrated. He knew he could take Moorcock on without fear of his gun, but the gun wasn't pointing at him, it was pointing at Walter Sterling's mother.

Chiun was standing quietly, calmly staring at the minister. Remo knew that this was what Chiun had been waiting for, the opportunity to kill the man who had been responsible for the deaths of the children, and he knew that the Master of Sinanju must have been feeling some frustration of his own.

"What now, Moorcock?" Remo asked.

"Well, now you and your friend will join my people on the floor. Once I've gotten rid of you, I can return to my flock, wrap up my services, and be on my way."

"Where?"

Moorcock smiled and shook his head. "This is not the movies, sir, where the bad guy tells the good guys his entire plan because their death is imminent. If you're going to die, it would serve no purpose to tell you, save to postpone your deaths."

Still smiling, Moorcock aimed the gun at Remo and fired. When he saw that the bullet had missed, he acted quickly and snapped his arm back so that the gun was pressed against Mrs. Sterling's temple again.

"What trickery is this?" he demanded.

"Bad marksmanship?" Remo suggested.

"I am an excellent marksman," the minister said. "I couldn't have missed."

Remo shrugged and said, "You have to believe your own eyes, don't you?"

"There has to be another explanation," Moorcock said. "I can adapt to any situation." He was talking to himself as much as to Remo and Chiun.

"So I understand," Remo said. "You've adjusted to your failure in politics very nicely."

"You cannot anger me," Moorcock said. He stared at them for a few moments, then said, "I have it."

"Don't breathe this way; I haven't had my shots," Remo said.

"You," Moorcock said to Remo, ignoring the remark, "will kill him," pointing at Chiun, "or I shall kill her."

"That's a good plan," Remo said, "except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"If I try to kill him," Remo said, "I'm afraid that he'll kill me."

"That will serve my purpose just as well."

"Yeah, but if he kills me, who's going to kill him for you?" Remo asked.

"You are trying to confuse me in order to prolong your own life," Moorcock said. "You will kill the old man. That shouldn't be too much of a problem for you."

Remo could feel the scorn that remark brought out in his teacher.

"Please," he said to Moorcock, "don't get him mad."

"I think perhaps you are mad," Moorcock said. "This old man can hardly be a danger to anyone."

"If that's the way you feel," Remo said, "then you kill him."

All Remo or Chiun needed was for Moorcock to take the gun away from the woman's head once more, even for a few seconds. If the minister would fire at Chiun, then one of them would surely reach him before he could turn the gun back on Mrs. Sterling.

Moorcock was pondering the problem when something happened that resolved the situation. The basement door opened violently, striking Moorcock in the back. He staggered under the blow, releasing Mrs. Sterling so that she fell to the floor.

Moorcock himself retained his footing and turned to face the door. To everyone's surprise, Walter Sterling entered the room. When the boy saw the gun, he threw himself in front of his mother. Moorcock aimed the gun at him.

Chiun took full advantage of the situation, and Remo stood back and watched because this was what the Master of Sinanju had been waiting for. Remo had done the legwork. but this part belonged to Chiun.

The old Korean moved across the floor in a blur and kicked the gun from Moorcock's hand. The minister shouted and turned to find himself face-to-face with the old man he'd been ridiculing only moments ago.

"I'll kill you," he said to Chiun.

"You have killed children," Chiun explained to Moorcock, "and for that you must die a violent and painful death."

Moorcock laughed and launched a punch at Chiun. Chiun moved forward, easily avoiding the blow, and landed a blow of his own. Remo was the only other person in the room who heard the ribs on the man's left side crack. Moorcock gasped but had no time to slump to the floor before Chiun landed a second blow, shattering the ribs on the right side. Remo realized that Moorcock was about to suffer the Death of a Thousand Breaks, which was usually reserved for the very worst enemies of the House of Sinanju.

The sound of snapping bones filled the room, and before long Moorcock was lying on the floor, barely alive but still able to feel the pain from the damage that had been inflicted on him by the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun stepped back, surveyed his handiwork, and nodded. Remo knew that there wasn't a whole bone left in Moorcock's body.

"That was horrible," Mrs. Sterling said, sobbing. Her son had helped her to her feet, and she was leaning on him for support.

Chiun turned to the woman and said, "It was meant to be, madam."

Remo moved to Walter Sterling and put his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"What did he do to me?" Walter asked. "I woke up in an alley and—"

"Never mind," Remo said. "Walter, it's up to you and your mother to get all those people out of the building, and then you must call the police and tell them to come here."

"Should we wait—"

"After you've done that, take your mother home," Remo said. "We'll make sure that the police find evidence of what was going on here."

"All right," Walter said. He turned to his mother and told her they had to do what Remo said. Then he turned back to Remo and said, "The man who killed my father?"

"I'll take care of him, Walter," Remo said.

Walter Sterling accepted Remo's word and guided his mother up the steps.

Remo looked at Chiun, who was calmly studying the man on the floor. Moorcock was making all kinds of sounds, none of which sounded human.

Chiun looked at Remo then and said, "The lamps."

"Yes."

They waited several minutes for Walter to clean out the parishioners, then Remo took a few of the lamps from the walls and threw them onto the large wooden tables where the cutting had been done. The kerosene ignited the wood very quickly, and soon the acrid odor of burning heroin filled the air. Before long, everything that was wooden in the basement was burning, and Remo knew that it wouldn't be long before the flames found the steps and burned their way up to the main floor. The building was old, and it would go up quickly.

"Let's take him up," Remo said. He bent over and filled Moorcock's pockets with heroin, then threw the body over his shoulder and started up the steps.