Destroyer - The Empire Dreams Part 28

That certainty vanished a few seconds later when it occurred to Schatz that the scenery before him wasn't getting any larger. Was that not what generally happened as one approached something?

Another moment and he realized why.

He looked down at his feet. They were several inches off the ground. Though his legs pumped madly, they pushed against empty air.

Schatz looked back over his shoulder. He saw a hand that extended into an abnormally thick wrist. Beyond them both was a familiar cruel face. It was the same face that had mouthed the words "I am going to kill you" on the camera at the Guernsey air base.

"We had a date. Remember?" Remo said coldly. Holding the old German by the scruff of the neck, he carried Nils Schatz back to the Eiffel Tower.

"DO YOU NOT KNOW how to disarm it?"

"Do I look like I know how?" Remo asked.

"You are American," Chiun insisted.

"So?"

"So true Americans know such things."

"Look, they don't teach bomb disarmament in Catholic school," Remo said.

"They do in Ireland," Chiun suggested.

Remo ignored him. He studied the wires running from the bottom of the detonator. They were multicolored and ran into one of the largest of the rusted sh.e.l.l casings. The timer was ticking down to the oneminute mark.

Behind them, virtually ignored, stood Nils Schatz. Remo had deposited the old n.a.z.i near the front of the broad iron support column before he and Chiun turned their attention to the bombs.

Schatz glanced over at one of the crashed trucks. It was still in good shape. Its engine hummed softly.

"I think I should cut the red one," Remo decided, reaching for a wire.

"Why?" Chiun asked, stopping him with a longnailed ?nger."I saw in a movie where they cut the red wire to stop a bomb," Remo explained.

"I once saw a movie in which a man ?ew. I do not believe, Remo, that men can ?y."

"Hmm," Remo said, sitting back on his haunches. As Remo studied the bomb, Nils Schatz began inching toward the parked truck.

Along the way, he collected his treasured walking stick.

"Sever the blue one," Chiun said authoritatively.

"Why?" Remo asked.

"Blue is my favorite color."

"So what?" Remo asked. "Red is my favorite color."

"That is because you lack taste."

They heard the sound of the truck engine revving desperately. Both men looked over in time to see the big rented vehicle back away from the second damaged truck.

Nils Schatz sat in the driver's seat, eyes wild. He spun the wheel furiously, turning the truck away from the tower. Stomping on the gas, he began speeding away.

Remo looked at Chiun. He shrugged helplessly. "s.h.i.+ts is right, Chiun," he said. "I'm stumped." The Master of Sinanju frowned.

The timer continued ticking down. As they watched, it slipped below the thirty-second mark. Chiun shook his head. "Let us make haste," the Master of Sinanju said. Swirling, he and Remo raced from the base of the tower.

SCHATZ WAS GOING to survive!

He would live, and along with him the dream of a thousand-year Teutonic dynasty.

His foot pressed heavily on the accelerator as he raced away from the tower. His heart thudded loudly in his narrow chest. He could see the Eiffel Tower's ma.s.sive shape illuminated in his side-view mirrors by ?oodlights.

The fools from Sinanju would perish after all. The old one would ?nally pay the ultimate price for the shameful death he had forced on the ?rst fuhrer.

His heart and lungs ached from his exertions. Any second now. And afterward the world would never again question the power of the Fourth Reich. Schatz glanced in the side-view mirror once more. He saw something that made his desperately beating heart stand still.

The young Master of Sinanju was running down the road after him.

He glanced in the mirror on the far side of the cab. The old one was re?ected there. And he was coming closer.

Impossible!

Schatz pushed harder against the accelerator. It was already to the ?oor.

He glanced in the side-view mirror once more. Remo was almost upon him.

Schatz glanced frantically around the cab for a weapon to use against them. All he saw was his beloved walking stick.

The driver's-side door suddenly popped open. Schatz noted it dully.

A second later, the pa.s.senger's-side door opened. The Master of Sinanju slid into the front seat. He didn't even look in Schatz's direction.

Schatz felt Remo's strong hand on his shoulder. They pa.s.sed one another at the door frame. Somehow, in the wink of an eye, Remo was seated behind the steering wheel and Nils Schatz was hanging by Remo's left hand out over the ?as.h.i.+ng roadway. "Thanks for keeping my seat warm."

With a ?ick of his wrist, Remo ?ung the new fuhrer backward.

Schatz sailed through the air, landing on the seat of his pants in the middle of the road. Remarkably he was not killed. Friction burned the ?esh of his backside painfully away as he slid in a seated position all the way back to the stack of ancient ordnance.

Smoke poured from his trousers as he landed with the gentlest of touches against the explosives.

Schatz looked up at the digital counter. Ten seconds left.

As he reached for the timer, he glanced back in the direction from which he had just come. The truck continued speeding away.

He saw a hand appear from the driver's-side window, throwing something back in his direction. Whatever the object was, it was long and dark. It ?ew at him slowly, end over end. Moving almost hypnotically.

Five seconds.

His hand froze over the timer as he realized what it was Remo had thrown. In the cheerful glow of the ?oodlights, he could see the bronze tip of his cane.

Two seconds. Still time to stop the countdown. The slowness was an optical illusion. The cane ?ew in at supersonic speed. The metal end of the walking stick impacted with the sh.e.l.l casing of an old artillery sh.e.l.l.

The collision sparked the combustible material within.

Fire swelled from a single spot, bursting out around the screaming, bitter old n.a.z.i.

"Noooo... !" Nils Schatz shrieked as the pile of old ordnance erupted in a ma.s.sive con?agration that shook the ground for miles around.

And as the ?re consumed him, another, greater ?re welled up around the self-proclaimed fuhrer. To Schatz, it felt as if the very earth had opened up and the ?ames into which he slipped and which took ?rm hold of him burned unquenchably for a thousand years. And beyond.

REMO SLOWED the truck to a stop. He and Chiun looked back on the ?ames burning at the base of the Eiffel Tower. A gift shop had caught ?re, as well as several trees. However, the tower itself had weathered the blast remarkably. It remained fully intact.

"They just don't build eyesores like that anymore, Little Father," Remo commented.

Putting the battered truck in gear, they drove back through the silent streets to the presidential palace.

Chapter 32.

For several blocks before the Palais de l'Elysee they had begun encountering French troops. At more than one stop along the Metro line, demineurs in protective gear were hauling ancient ordnance up from the subway system.

"I smell Smitty's hand in this," Remo said.

At the palace itself they encountered little resistance. Remo and Chiun made their way into the small auditorium where they had left Smith. Everyone but Smith was gone.

The CURE director lay unconscious on the ?oor. Remo and Chiun hurried over to him. After a moment of Chiun's ministrations, Smith came around. "Stop him, Remo," Smith said weakly.

"Stop who, Smitty?" Remo asked gently.

"That man who claimed to be a British agent. After I faxed the pertinent details of the planted bombs to the French authorities, he knocked me out." With Remo's help, Smith climbed uncertainly to his feet. "It is as I feared," he said, inspecting the computer.The monitor had been pushed to the ?oor and was smashed. The cha.s.sis of the drive system had been pried open. Parts had been wrenched from inside.

"He has taken the hard drive," Smith said, looking into the guts of the system. "Anything we might have recovered from it is lost."

"Did I not mention that he was a Hun?" Chiun sniffed in an I-told-you-so tone.

"That information would have been invaluable to us," Smith said. "With it, I would have been able to track down this elusive IV organization."

Remo shook his head. "Whoever he was, he's long gone now," he said. "We'll have to get them another way. I think your big concern right now is your wife."

"Maude," Smith gasped. He had forgotten all about her.

"That was her name, last I heard," Remo said. Smith glanced around, suddenly realizing the signi?cance of where they were.

"Remo, you must get me out of here. I cannot be discovered in the presidential palace of France. There would be too many questions to answer."

"Okay, Smitty, on one condition."

"What?" Smith asked warily.

"Before you ?nish your vacation, could you pick me and Chiun up a snow globe of the Eiffel Tower?"

"One each," Chiun said quickly.

"One each," Remo agreed with a nod.

"I will see what I can do," Smith said. Smiling, Remo escorted Smith from the palace. For the ?rst time in days, he felt good.

EPILOGUE.

Adolf Kluge glanced furtively around the airport terminal in Antwerp, Belgium.

He didn't think he had been followed. Although, he realized bitterly, the men who would be following him would be invisible to him until it was too late.

He had destroyed the hard drive with its crucial IV ?nancial information before leaving France. That would buy him some time. If not for the arrival of French of?cials on the scene, he would have ?nished off the man known as Smith.

As it was, Smith was old. It was possible that he would die as a result of the vicious blow Kluge had given him.

He hoped this was so.

Kluge was traveling now under an a.s.sumed name. His ?ight would take him to Spain and then on to Venezuela in South America.

From there he would take a short ?ight to Argentina.

He hoped the men from Sinanju weren't waiting for him when he arrived. Thanks to Schatz, he had much to do in preparation for their inevitable visit.

A voice in French called out his ?ight on the public-address system.

He still saw no sign of either Remo or Chiun. They were not following him. Now.

Hurrying, Adolf Kluge made his way to the departure gate.