"This Devil's Night is a big problem, Remo. It's been going on for years, but we've never had you and Chiun available on Halloween Eve before this. This is the perfect opportunity for us to nip this in the bud."
Remo looked out into the night. Fire engines screamed in the distance. They seemed to be everywhere-or trying to be everywhere in Detroit.
"I don't call trying to put out these fires after twenty years of mob rule 'nipping in the bud' exactly," Remo said acidly. "It's going in with defoliants after the forest has burned to the ground."
"Call it what you will. It's your job, Remo. But you may be getting your vacation very soon."
"Are you sure you don't want to send me and Chiun out to patrol the Mexican border for illegal grape pickers after this?"
"Remo," Smith said suddenly. "We may be winning."
"What do you mean 'we'? You're not 'we.' I'm on the front lines while you're sitting on your ass behind your computers pressing keys."
"Remo, the lack of big assignments these past few months may signal the beginning of the end of America's need for CURE. At least, on the domestic front. The Mafia is on the run. Most of the big bosses are behind bars or under indictment. Corporate crimes have been curtailed. Drug use is declining. Crime statistics are down all over. I think the word is finally out: crime doesn't pay."
"Really? You should visit Detroit. It's a city held hostage. And the guy responsible has been getting away with it for a long, long time. His name is Moe Joakley."
"Just a moment," Smith said absently. Remo could hear the busy sound of Smith's fingers at a keyboard. "Remo. Listen to this: Moe Joakley, thirty-eight years old, born in Detroit, unmarried, former state assemblyman."
"That sounds like the guy."
"If what you've learned is true, we can end Devil's Night tonight."
"Joakley's turned out his last kid firebug," Remo promised. "You can count on it."
"Good. Contact me when your assignment is fulfilled."
"That'll be within the hour. I can't wait to get out of Detroit. It's got some bad memories for me."
Smith, remembering that Remo's last major assignment was in Detroit, said, "I understand." Remo had been assigned to protect Detroit's auto executives from an assassin. For a while, Remo had believed that the assassin was his own lost father. Now Remo knew different, but the experience had reopened a wound that Smith had thought healed over long ago.
"Any luck on the search?" Remo asked.
"I am working on it. I promise you," Smith said. "But it's an immense task. We know nothing about your parents, Remo. Whether they were married. Whether they are dead or alive. There are no records. This is one reason we chose you as our enforcement arm."
" 'Every life casts a shadow,' as Chiun likes to say," Remo told Smith.
"But shadows don't leave tracks."
"That sounds familiar. Who said that?"
"Chiun. In another context."
"He's got an answer for everything," Remo growled, and hung up.
Chiun was still there when Remo left the phone booth. His head was cocked like an inquisitive swallow's, his eyes fixed on some indefinite point in the night sky.
"Little Father, answer me a question. If every life casts a shadow, but shadows don't leave tracks, what is the lesson?"
"The lesson is that words mean what you want them to mean. And do not disturb me, orphan. I am contemplating the rising of the sun."
"Huh?" said Remo. "It's not even midnight."
"Then what is that pink glow beyond yon building?" Remo looked up. There was a pink glow. As he watched, it grew redder, with flickers of orange and yellow shooting through. Smoke boiled up.
"Fire," Remo said. "Come on."
"Are we firemen now?" demanded Chiun. But when he saw that Remo was running without him, Chiun lifted the hem of his kimono and ran like an ostrich.
"You are running with a special grace tonight," Chiun said when he caught up.
"Thank you."
"A grace like a fat lady sitting on a cat," Chiun added. "Save the compliment. Your mind is not on your breathing. I am glad there is no one about to see how the next Master of Sinanju wheezes. Not that I care what whites think of you. It is important they do not judge Sinanju by your example, but by mine."
"Blow it out your backside."
And, their pleasantries exchanged, the Master of Sinanju and his pupil concentrated on their running. If there had been anyone with a stopwatch on hand, they would have been clocked at over ninety miles per hour.
It was a wood frame building. The first floor was almost completely involved. Fire shot out of every window. It roared.
On the upper floor, people hung out of the windows. A family. There were three children that Remo could see. Smoke was pouring out behind them, forcing them to hang their upper bodies out the windows just to gulp in breathable air.
"Help us! Help us!" they cried.
A crowd stood helpless on the sidewalk. Remo and Chiun shoved through them. The heat was intense. Remo felt the slight film of sweat from his run suddenly evaporate.
"I'm going in, Little Father."
"The smoke, Remo," Chiun warned.
"I can handle it," Remo said.
"I doubt that. I am coming with you."
"No. Stay here. We wouldn't be able to carry them back through that smoke. When I get to the second floor, I'll throw them down. You catch them."
"Be careful, my son."
Remo put a hand on Chiun's shoulder and looked down into the old man's young eyes. The bond between them had grown great and the warmth of it made Remo smile. "I'll see you later, Little Father." And Remo was gone.
Fire was a bad thing, Chiun knew. But Sinanju knew how to deal with fire. For what concerned Chiun was not flames, but the thick billows of smoke ascending into the sky. Smoke robbed the breath, and in Sinanju, the breath was all. It was the focusing point for the sun source that was Sinanju, first and greatest of the martial arts.
Remo ran with his eyes closed. His vision would be useless once he was inside, he knew. Instead he concentrated on charging his lungs with air. He took in the oxygen rhythmically, feeling for his center, attuning himself to the universal forces that enabled him to achieve total harmony within himself. This was Sinanju. That was what Remo had become under Chiun's tutelage.
As he raced for the open, smoke-gorged front door, Remo seemed to see it all unfold before his mind's eyes.