"Down," he said, pointing to the door.
They moved toward the door. Remo tried the knob, and it turned freely; he pushed the door open. The stairwell was dark, but at the bottom he could see a crack of light beneath another door. He led the way down, with Chiun right behind him. The stairs were wooden and rather flimsy, but he and Chiun barely touched them as they descended.
At the bottom Remo put his ear to the door and, listening intently, became aware of the sound of a man breathing on the other side. If he opened the door violently, the man was sure to turn and possibly sound an alarm. His best bet was to open the door normally and hope that the man simply thought it was Moorcock.
Remo opened the door and saw one man standing to his left. As he stepped through the door, the man began to turn slowly, opening his mouth to speak, but he never got the words out. Remo took him from behind, and with the touch of one hand, drove the life out of his body.
He lowered the man gently to the ground and looked around. There were about half a dozen other people in the basement, but none of them heard a thing, as they were busily performing their own tasks— mixing heroin with other white substances: salt, sugar, anything that closely resembled the drug. In its pure form, heroin was deadly to anyone who used it. The purer it was, however, the more times it could be "stepped on"— or "cut"— and the more times it was cut, the more it became worth on the street, because it could be stretched that much further. With the garbage junkies were used to shooting into their arms, this stuff would be like heaven.
It was interesting to Remo that the lighting in the basement was provided by kerosene lamps on the tables and the walls. Apparently Moorcock had seen no reason to fix the electricity in the basement. The basement was not finished, either. It was just concrete floors and bare walls, and Moorcock had moved wooden tables in where his people could do their jobs. If these people had had a union, they surely would have filed grievances about the working conditions.
Remo closed the door behind them and moved the body of the dead man aside.
"This is where they prepare the vile substance to be sold to children by children," Chiun said to Remo. "A doubly disgusting crime against the children of the world. These people must be punished in the severest manner."
"I agree, Chiun. Let's go."
They strode across the room to the half-dozen workers whose backs were to them. And they would have snuffed them out as effortlessly as so many candles, except that one of them chose to turn around at that moment. When he saw Remo and Chiun, he gaped and then shouted a warning to the others.
The others turned to face their imminent death, but one was quicker to think than the others. As he turned, he threw a handful of powder toward Remo. The grainy substance flew into Remo's eyes, burning and blinding him.
Remo backed up a step and gave full attention to his ears. He knew he would have to rely on his hearing to complete his task.
"They're both blind," someone yelled. "Get 'em."
Apparently Chiun was in a similar predicament, but Remo did not worry about the old man. Chiun could take care of himself. He closed his eyes tightly and listened intently.
The sound of three people rushing at him was deafening to his ultra-sensitive hearing, and the three were of such different sizes that he could easily discern one from the other.
The heaviest of the three reached him first. He allowed the man to put his hands on him, then he reached out with his own hands, found the man's throat, and crushed it like an eggshell. The man croaked and gurgled as he slid to the floor and choked to death.
The other two reached him at the same time, each taking hold of one of his arms. He did not throw them both off because he would have had to locate them again in order to finish them off. Instead, he brought both of his arms around in front of him. With the men still hanging on to him, he kicked first one in the groin and then the other. They both screamed, and as they released his arms and fell to their knees, his hands shot out and took hold of their throats, ending their lives as he had the first man's.
That done, Remo listened for the sounds of Chiun's combat. He heard nothing.
"Chiun!"
"Here," Chiun replied. Following the sound of his master's voice, Remo also became aware of the sound of water. Chiun was washing out his eyes, a prospect that greatly appealed to Remo as well.
As Remo approached, Chiun reached out to take his hands and guide them into the water. Remo bathed his face and eyes several times until the burning subsided and his vision returned.
"We underestimated—" he started to say, flushing his eyes again, but Chiun didn't give him a chance to finish.
"I did not underestimate anyone, except perhaps you," the old man said. "I allowed the powder to enter my eyes so that I could set an example for you. That is all."
Remo looked at Chiun, then nodded and said "Of course, Little Father. You were an inspiration to me."
"Of course," came the reply.
They both looked over at the dead men, and Remo saw that Chiun's three had met the same fate as his own.
"Well," he said, shaking the water from his hands, "I guess the next step is to get those people upstairs out of here, and then take care of this place. These lamps ought to serve us nicely."
"Yes," Chiun said, nodding, and then the old Oriental cocked his head as he heard something, "Someone is coming."
"I hear it," Remo said. Listening intently, he could hear noise in the stairwell, and he realized that there were two separate and distinct sets of footsteps.
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."