Warren Murphy - Total Recall

When they reached the main level, they found that it was empty except for the smoke which had already begun to fill the place.

They left the church by the main exit. Remo left Moorcock there, where the police would be sure to find him.

There was a good chance that Lorenzo Moorcock would be dead by the time the police got there, but it could go either way.

"Next stop," Remo said, "National Motors."

Chiun looked at Moorcock, then nodded to Remo, and they went.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jack Boffa and the man called Samuel, unaware of what was happening at the church, were busily tending to business at the National Motors plant.

First, Samuel turned the heroin over to Jack Boffa, all nicely cut and packed in plastic bags. Boffa had rounded up some of the kids to help him load the stuff in the fender wells of the cars that were being shipped that very day to New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. With both Louis Sterling and Allan Martin out of action, he needed the help.

Boffa, supervising the loading operation, was counting dollar signs in his head. He was to meet with Moorcock later that day— although he didn't know that the "big boss" was Moorcock— to collect his payment, unaware of the fact that Moorcock had intended to be gone long before their prearranged meeting. Even Samuel was to be left out in the cold— the cold ground, to be precise.

Both men worked diligently, unaware that they were working for no reason, unaware that they had dues to pay and that two men were on their way to collect.

In a big way.

When Remo and Chiun arrived at the plant, they presented themselves to the same receptionist Remo had dealt with earlier.

"Sweetheart, my father and I are going inside to conduct some business," Remo told her.

"Your… father?" she asked, staring at Chiun.

"Well, actually he's adopted," Remo said.

"He's adopted?"

"Yeah, you know. Send sixty-nine cents to support a child in an underprivileged country. Be a father and all that? Well, I chose to support an underprivileged adult and be a son. He came in the mail yesterday."

"In the mail?"

"Yeah. He would have been here sooner, but they sent him bulk rate."

"Oh—"

"Listen," Remo said, leaning across the desk and touching the girl behind the neck. She leaned into his touch with her eyes closed. "Would you do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Why don't you take a coffee break. Go out, get yourself a cup of coffee and a doughnut—"

"I'm on a diet."

Damn nobody stuck to a diet like a skinny woman, he thought.

"Have two cups of coffee, then," he said, "Black with no sugar. Drink them slowly, then find a pay phone and call the police. Tell them there's trouble at the plant and to come right away. And then you can take the rest of the day off and go home. Understand?"

"Yes," she said. "Whatever you say, but please…"

"What?"

She opened her eyes and said, "Would you come home with me?"

He smiled, removed his hand, and said, "Maybe later."

She sighed, collected her purse and jacket, waved at him, and left.

"Your father!" Chiun said in disgust.

"I was working on her resistance," Remo argued. "You know, lowering her defenses by making her feel sentimental."

"Wasting time," Chiun said.

"Come on, Chiun," Remo said. "You got your child killer. Lighten up."

"You are a constant source of embarrassment to me."

"You old sweet-talker, you. Come on, this way."

Remo led Chiun through the plant to the assembly line, where he was sure that the drug packing was well under way. As they reached that section, they opened the door a crack and peered in.

Remo saw Jack Boffa, still holding his clipboard, coordinating the operation, and saw that he had imported some of the kids to help out. He hoped Chiun wouldn't start in again, but that hope came too late.

"It continues," Chiun said when he saw what was going on.

"Chiun—"

"We must finish it."

"We will," Remo said. "That's what we're here for."

As they watched, a few cars came off the assembly line and were driven through a large garage-type door. Remo figured that the cars were being loaded onto one of those massive car-carrier trucks, to be transported to the three cities involved.

"Might as well get it done, Chiun," he said. He pushed the door open wide and walked in, with Chiun on his heels.

"Keep it moving there, boys," Jack Boffa was shouting. "We're almost through."

"Wrong, Boffa!" Remo shouted.

"Wha—" Boffa said, turning to face Remo. "Oh, you. Who's this, your houseboy?"

"Your operation is shut down, Boffa."

"What are you talking about?" the foreman demanded, trying to bluff it out. Remo was sure that the man did not have a gun on him, but he was aware that Louis Sterling had been killed with a knife.

"I mean the whole party is over. Your 'big boss' is in the hands of the police, and they're on their way here."

"I don't know what—"

"Hey, Mr. Boffa," a kid shouted. "A bag of shit opened. What should we—"

"Shut up!" Boffa shouted.

"You've got to learn to give up, Boffa," Remo advised him. "This is the end."

"No it ain't, dammit—" Boffa said, and out came the blade from behind the clipboard.

"Nasty," Remo said.

As Boffa slashed at him with the knife, Remo put out his bare hand. The blade collided with his flesh and snapped in two. The little demonstration shocked Boffa into silence.

"Bad steel," Remo said.

Boffa was staring at the broken blade when Remo took his clipboard away from him, which seemed to bother the man even more than having his knife broken.

"Hey, give me back my clipboard."

"You won't be needing it," Remo told him. "You're out of business— permanently."

Remo lashed out with the edge of the clipboard, catching Boffa on the side of the neck, and the man slumped to the floor in a lifeless heap.

"He who lives by the clipboard shall die by the clipboard," Remo said, dropping the clipboard on top of the body. He turned to Chiun and said, "The children are your responsibility, Chiun. Get them out of the way because I'm getting rid of that whole assembly line."

While Chiun herded the kids together like a bunch of lambs, Remo went to the head of the assembly line, where a gas pump stood. The cars were given just enough gas to be driven out to the car-carriers, but he took the hose and began to spray the passenger compartments of the vehicles.

Remo turned to make sure that Chiun had managed to get everybody outside before lighting a match and tossing it into the passenger compartment of the first car. The car ignited not with a bang but with a whoosh, and it occurred to Remo very briefly that perhaps he should have told the pretty young receptionist to call the fire department as well as the police department. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it arose, however. National Motors should have been more careful about who they hired and more observant about how their assembly line was being used— or misused.

Before long the second car ignited, and after a few moments the third, fourth, and fifth, in a domino effect.

Soon the entire assembly line was a mass of flames, and it was only because the gas tanks of the autos had not been filled that there were no explosions. Remo watched for a few minutes, and the air quickly filled with that odor again as the heroin went up in smoke.

Remo picked up the dead body of Jack Boffa, threw it over his shoulder and carried it out the way Chiun had taken the children. He hoped Chiun wouldn't come out of this whole thing with some kind of a Moses syndrome.

"Is that him?" Walter Sterling asked as Remo dropped the body to the ground.

He turned to face Walter, looking mildly surprised at the boy's arrival.

"Persistent, aren't you?"