Warren Murphy: Firing Line

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.