"They tried to. They were too late. I beat them to the punch."
"I do not understand what happen to my magnificent building. My pride and joy?"
"It suffered a business reversal," said Randal Rumpp unconcernedly. He reached down to test the crotch of his discarded pants. Definitely drying. He wiped his fingers on his tie.
"You are talking riddles. Speak plain English."
"Look, I'm in the middle of three different deals here," Randal Rumpp said, checking an imitation Rolex watch he had purchased off a street vendor when he'd had to pawn his original. "Instead of me explaining it to you, why don't you turn on the TV? The news boys can fill you in."
"But-"
When Randal Rumpp disconnected, he was grinning from ear to ear.
"Now," he proclaimed happily, "all I have to do is convince the city to fund the project, and I'm back on top!"
Chapter 11
The human eye contains a chemical substance commonly known as "visual purple." It increases nightvision capabilities whenever the retina is exposed to dark conditions. Normally, it takes a few minutes for the night vision to reach optimum sensitivity.
Remo Williams willed his visual purple to compensate for the complete lack of light that surrounded him, and got almost instant results.
It helped. Enough to see shadows and outlines.
He was, Remo was surprised to discover, in a garage of some kind. There were cars set in rows. Most very expensive. Mercedes. Bentleys. Rolls. Even a Porsche.
Okay, Remo thought. I'm not in Hell or China. That's a start.
He began to move about in a circle. It was actually a widening spiral-an old trick. The quickest and most efficient method of reconnoitering an unknown area is to move in a widening spiral, taking in as much territory as possible without losing one's starting point.
Remo found himself confronting a solid wall. At least, it looked solid. He went through it without resistance or tactile sensation.
He was forced to close his eyes, even in the dark. The optic nerve screamed back at him when it connected with the wall.
Remo realized he was in the basement garage of the Rumpp Tower. He had fallen two floors, so this must be the subbasement. It was too high to jump back, even if there had been anything to jump back to. The lobby floor wouldn't exactly catch him.
He cupped his hands over his mouth. "Chiun!"
No answer.
Remo continued his circuit. He noticed that, while there was a concrete flooring beneath him, his feet sank into it like a deep-pile rug. He was actually walking on a surface immediately under the floor. Probably the hard-packed dirt foundation, he figured.
It was eerily still in the subbasement. Ordinarily, there would be air flow from ventilation ducts. Not here. Just an uncanny stillness and absolutely no sound.
Remo kept moving. Soon, his sensitive nostrils picked up a faint scent. Human. Smelling faintly of chrysanthemums. A personal scent he knew only too well.
"Chiun," Remo whispered. He lined up with the odor trail, and moved along it.
It brought him, with almost no deviation, to a blank wall, from which spilled fresh earth that might have been excavated by a very tidy steam shovel. The earth seemed to be spilling from the solid wall. Not a crack showed. Yet a fetid breath of air seemed to be coming out of the wall at the precise point where the dirt lay in piles.
Remo ignored the evidence of his eyes and moved into the wall. He discovered himself, after a moment of darkness even his visual purple couldn't dispel, in a tunnel. It sloped up, and Remo saw daylight.
Before Remo could move toward the light, he heard a sound behind him.
It was a low moaning, a kind of mew mixed with a barely human sobbing. It made Remo, in spite of himself, think of a sound that might have filtered out of a primordial forest.
Hesitating, he muttered, "What the heck," and moved back toward the sound.
The subbasement was as large as the foundation, so there was quite a bit of area to search. The walls were a problem. Remo could pass through them, but not see through them. Once, he lost his orientation and started into a wall, only to encounter a stubborn solidness. Remo literally bounced off the wall, and almost lost his balance.
Remo realized then that he had tried to go through an outside wall. The wall itself was no problem, but the earth beyond was as solid as earth should be.
The sound came again. This time, it blubbered.
Remo got a fix and swept toward it. This time, he simply closed his eyes and moved in a direct line. It was easier that way. The seemingly solid walls and cars only confused his eyes. But his hearing could not be fooled.
When Remo picked up human lung action and an accelerated heartbeat, he opened his eyes.
The gloom quickly lifted as his visual purple kicked in.
There was a man almost at his feet. He was on his hands and knees-actually, on his knees only. He was using his hands to try to climb the set of concrete steps that led to the upper basement. His hands were going through the hard-looking steps. As if he refused to accept his inability to make contact, he kept trying.
A sob broke from his lips.
Gently, Remo said, "Hey, buddy. Let me give you a hand."
"Help me. Help me. The steps won't let me touch them. I don't know where I am. I don't know what's going on."
The man sounded as if on the verge of nervous collapse. Remo decided to deal with him in the most expedient way. He reached down, got the back of the man's neck vertebrae, and found a responsive nerve. The man simply fell into the steps, as all volition left him.
Remo gathered him up, realizing only then that he had a fireman. The black-and-yellow slicker told him that.
Once more closing his eyes, Remo retraced his steps. This time, he zeroed in on the breath of cool night air that was coming from the earthen tunnel.
When he saw pink light through his lids, he opened his eyes.
Remo, the limp fireman in hand, emerged onto deserted Fifth Avenue. He laid the fireman out on the sidewalk. The man kissed the solid pavement and began to crawl toward the distant police lines, as if fearing that to stand up would cause him to lose all support.
"Remo! Come quickly!" Chiun's excited voice squeaked.
It was coming from around the corner. Remo moved in the direction of the summons, thinking, "What now?"
He came around the corner to find the Master of Sinanju, Delpha Rohmer, Cheeta Ching, and the man who could only be Cheeta's missing cameraman, staring at an antique store's display. The cameraman was capturing it on film. He looked as steady as a threelegged chair.
As Remo came up, Chiun said, "We have found the zone of disturbance."
"We have?" Remo asked, looking over their shoulders.
"Lo!" announced Delpha Rohmer, pointing to the display. Around her, the faces of the others were grim and drawn.
It was a Halloween display. Centered around a black velvet surface were assorted ikons, chief among them a goat's head set in the middle of a silver pentagram.
"I see the head of a goat and the Star of David," Remo said tightly. "So what?"
"It is the symbol of Baphomet, the Horned One," Delpha intoned in a chilly, distant voice. "Some ignorant window decorator, unaware of the forces he was unleashing, made this display and brought ruin down on his head."
" 'He'? What makes you say 'he'?"
"No woman would do this," Delpha snapped. "Women are naturally intuitive. A woman would know better than to create such a potent configuration. Besides, those horns are so phallic."
"I give up," Remo said.
"No. We must not surrender to the dark forces. There are countermagics we can summon up."
"That's not what I-"
Delpha cried, "Back! I must unleash my full charms!"
"Everybody step back thirty or forty miles," Remo growled. "This could be serious."
"What did I ever see in you?" Cheeta sniffed, pulling her cameraman back and pointing first him, and then his lens, in the direction of Delpha Rohmer.