The Empire Dreams td-113 Read online

  "Fine with me. As long as we've got the blame thing settled."

  Chiun frowned with his entire face. "Get out of the way, General Patton."

  As Remo ducked back, Chiun bounded up onto the roof next to him. Red kimono skirts settled around pipe-stem legs.

  "How many did you get?" Remo said as they slid stealthily away from the edge of the roof.

  "Two."

  "Three for me. I took out a couple more from up here. Aside from Conrad Siegfried downstairs, that should be it."

  Chiun stopped dead. "Siegfried? Who told you that was his name?" he demanded. The look in his hazel eyes was furiously intent.

  Remo was taken aback by Chiun's jarring attitude change.

  "No one," he said. "It was just a joke."

  The old man eyed his pupil with suspicion. Detecting no visible deceit on Remo's part, he at last nodded.

  "Very well."

  Chiun began moving away across the roof. Remo hurried to keep up.

  "What was that all about?"

  "There is no time for idle conversation, O Plan King. In case you have forgotten, we are standing atop a giant boom device. We must find a way inside that does not result in our untimely arrival in the Void."

  As they slid along the steel roof, Remo spied what looked like a square hatch near the rear of the building. He touched Chiun on the sleeve.

  "I have a plan," he said with a smile.

  MICHTLER DIDN'T WANT to think about what was going on outside. He'd heard the gunfire to his right a few minutes before.

  He immediately dropped to the wooden floor, covering his head in his meaty hands.

  He didn't care how foolish he looked, nor did he consider the utter pointlessness of this gesture of selfpreservation, given the amount of explosives that were stored around him.

  The gunfire ended abruptly. It was proceeded by an even more frightening calm.

  No one came to tell him that the two men were dead.

  Michtler climbed unsteadily to his feet. He glanced up at the far rear wall of the hangar. A single red light shone down out of the darkness. Beyond it was the trapdoor to the roof.

  Turning away from the light, he looked back toward the entrance.

  Until the actual moment his Luger was ripped painfully from his huge hand, Michtler had no way of knowing that Remo and Chiun had slipped into the hangar through the office door during the split second he had turned away.

  "I still say we should have used the roof door," Remo complained.

  "Need I remind you that, had this pastry-fed Hun managed to fire a single shot, we would be having this argument in the company of my ancestors?" the Master of Sinanju declaimed, as if affronted by the mere idea.

  It took the big German a moment to realize what was going on. Like a great lumbering dinosaur, Michtler turned on the intruders. He sent a huge fist toward Remo's head. There was a horrid sound of crunching bone. Again it was another moment before Michtler realized that the noise hadn't come from the skull of the man he thought he had just punched but rather from his own hand.

  The German howled in pain as he stuffed the fist with its four shattered fingers into the safe haven beneath his left armpit. He dropped to his knees on the wooden floor. The boards creaked beneath him.

  Hands tied tightly behind her, Helene watched the drama playing out before her in amazement. "How-?" she gasped once Michtler was subdued.

  "Clean living, baby. By the by, do you actually get paid for this spy stuff?" he asked as he tossed the German's gun out the hangar door. "You're really bad at it." He wrenched apart the ropes that bound her to the chair.

  It was as if she hadn't heard him.

  "There are not enough bombs here," Helene announced, standing. Her face was urgent.

  "There's plenty for me," Remo replied.

  "No. There was much more than this stolen from the bases," she insisted. "This is only a fraction of what is missing."

  "You're admitting they were stolen now, hmm?" Remo said with a superior smile.

  "We must get back to France at once," Helene insisted. She glanced from Remo to Chiun, hoping the men shared her sense of urgency.

  When she looked at Chiun, she saw that the Master of Sinanju was peering up into the distant corner of the large room where the single red light glowed from the shadows:

  "We are being observed," the old man said. Remo glanced up at the stationary camera on the wall. He had felt the hum of electronic equipment upon entering the building but had been too preoccupied with Helene and Michtler to locate the source. The single red eye peered angrily at them.

  Remo turned his attention back to Hans. "Okay, Colonel Klink, who's running-?"

  He never had a chance to complete the thought. There was another hum of electronic equipment from somewhere beneath their feet. All four of them heard a single metallic click, followed by a steady hiss.

  An oily yellow mist began seeping up through dozens of knotholes in the pitted wooden floorboards. The short hairs on Remo's exposed forearms telegraphed the danger before the mist reached their small group.

  "Mustard gas!" Remo snapped. Chiun had sensed the hazard, as well.

  "If you wish to save that one, you must hurry," he said sharply. With that the Master of Sinanju hauled Helene up off the floor. Dodging bursts of the deadly chemical agent, he raced toward the open hangar door.

  The largest cloud had poured up through a hole near the kneeling Hans. His eyes bulged as he clawed at his constricting throat.

  Remo was forced to reach in through the cloud to grab the big German. He immediately felt an intense burning sensation on the flesh of his bare forearm.

  Pulling Hans free of the mist, Remo held him at arm's length as he raced out the door.

  CHIUN WAS a hundred yards away from the hangar before he even began to slow down. When he sensed that they were free of the danger zone, he turned, depositing Helene on the grassy field. Remo ran across the tarmac to meet him.

  As he ran, Remo's body worked double-time to slough the deadly toxin from his skin. By the time he reached the others, he was in no danger. Even so, the area where the chemical had touched flesh was a bright cherry color.

  "You are well?" Chiun asked, concerned.

  "I'll be okay," Remo said. "Which is more than I can say for him."

  Hans Michtler was dead, his fat tongue jutting from between thick lips. Remo dropped the German's body to the grass.

  "That is an unspeakable evil," Chiun intoned, nodding to the open door of the hangar. The mustard gas was seeping out in small dribbles, catching pockets of wind before swirling away across the grassy plains. "It interferes with breathing."

  "That's putting it mildly, Little Father."

  "My phone!" Helene said suddenly. "It is inside!"

  She made a move back toward the hangar. Remo restrained her. "Are you insane?" he asked. "You'll have to wait for the gas to clear."

  "But I must warn France," she insisted. "There are many more bombs still unaccounted for."

  "Use the radio on the boat."

  By the look on her face it was obvious that Helene had forgotten about the boat. Wordlessly she spun around and began racing back toward the cliff and its long, zigzagging staircase.

  "And maybe you should call England while you're at it!" he shouted after her. To the Master of Sinanju he muttered, "They might want to know they're about to get bombed for tea."

  Chapter 14

  Colonel E. C. T. Bexton was impressed at the civil tone the gentleman was taking-very proper, very British. Not like that frantic, shrieking scientist-type from Jodrell Bank. Probably a poofter, that one was.

  But the colonel couldn't order the deployment of British planes over British soil on the say-so of one lone special agent. No matter how refined that one agent sounded.

  "I am terribly sorry," Colonel Bexton drawled, "but the RAF cannot get involved in the matter at this time."

  "I understand your situation," the gentleman argued.

  "I am sorry, but I
don't think you do. Did you see the morning tabs?" Bexton pulled one of London's tabloid newspapers from beneath a stack on his desk. He read the banner headline. "London Blitzed Whilst RAF Sits. We're getting positively murdered in the press."

  "Perhaps you'll get a bit more ink on the positive side if you headed this squadron off before they actually reach the city."

  "There is no other squadron," Bexton said patiently.

  "Ah, there's where you're off, Bexton. I am assured by a very reliable source in the French intelligence community that a small attack force is winging its way Londonward even as we speak."

  Bexton wanted to laugh in the man's ear. Somehow he restrained himself.

  "There is no way a snail could fly out of Ireland, let alone a vintage Messerschmitt."

  "Ireland?"

  "Northern Ireland, to be specific," Bexton said smugly. "I gather you intelligence chappies don't know everything."

  "You are monitoring Northern Ireland?"

  "With everything we've got. The attack came in from over the Irish Sea. Makes sense, with all that's been going on there."

  "But surely the planes flew north, then south."

  "A ruse," Bexton said absently. He had pulled out another paper from the pile. The headline on this one read RAF-fing Stock! "Shameless. Honestly, these things sound more American every day." At that moment his private line lit up. That would be the wife to see if he was going out to his club later that evening. "Sorry, old man. Got to go. National emergency and all that. Wouldn't fret if I were you. Tah." He hung up on the caller before the polite gentleman had a chance to inform him that snails do not fly.

  Chapter 15

  The gas had cleared by the time Helene returned from the boat. Chiun opted to stay out in the fields beyond the small airstrip. Remo was inside the hangar.

  He had already done a quick search outside of the camera's range before concluding that there was no triggering device connected to the bombs like the one that had been rigged up to the canisters of mustard gas in the floor. He was staring up at the remorseless red eye of the camera when Helene entered the building.

  "I cannot get through to my government," Helene announced as she came through the door. "The boat radio is no good for direct communication."

  She looked around the hangar for her phone. She found it in Remo's hand. When she tried to retrieve it, he twisted away from her.

  "Business," he explained, cupping his reddish, burned hand over the receiver. "Hello, Smitty?" he said into the phone. "You've got a situation going on over there."

  "Explain," Smith said.

  Remo told him about the island airfield and the eight planes that had escaped.

  "You need to let the English know what's coming," Remo said in conclusion.

  "They already know," Helene volunteered.

  "What?" Remo asked.

  "Who was that?" Smith said at the same time. "I don't know, Smitty," Remo muttered into the phone. "Some French spy we picked up. What do you mean they already know?" he asked Helene. "I thought the radio didn't work."

  "I said I could not contact France. My source in England was easier to contact from here."

  "You can relax on that end," Remo said to Smith. "Source knows what's coming."

  "You know of Source?" Helene Marie-Simone asked, surprised.

  "Helene, everyone knows about Source. It's England's funniest worst-kept secret next to Prince Philip."

  The fact was, Remo had had several brushes with Britain's top spy organization in the past. Each time he found himself less impressed than the last.

  "She was talking to Sir Guy Philliston earlier," Remo said to Smith. "He's the one that told her to come here to Guernsey. She also says that a lot more bombs were stolen than what's here. Maybe you ought to get through to DGSE and let them know they've still got a hot potato on their hands."

  "He can do that?" Helene asked.

  Remo nodded. "I'd keep on his good side. He can really screw with your credit rating."

  He heard Smith begin typing on his portable computer. While he waited, Remo glanced around the interior of the hangar.

  He was still out of camera range. As it was, he wasn't entirely certain that it was not an automated system. The camera hadn't made a move to pan over to him since he reentered the hanger. If someone was watching, he would take care of them after he was through on the phone.

  The skinhead Helene had shot still lay inside the door. If he hadn't died from the gunshot wound, the mustard gas had finished him off. The body had toppled over and was lying in a pool of damp oil.

  There was tattooing all around the top of the man's head. Most of the ink marks were small, but two were larger than the rest. One of the large tattoos was a swastika. Remo couldn't help but show a look of disgust when he scanned the symbol. Leaving the twisted symbol of hate, his eyes alighted on the second large image.

  Remo tipped his head to read the numbers. "Four," he mused aloud. Something about the number was strangely familiar.

  "What?" Smith asked, still typing at his keyboard.

  "Oh, nothing, Smitty," Remo replied. "It's just that some of these guys we've come up against have the Roman numeral IV tattooed on their scalps."

  "On their scalps?"

  "Yeah," Remo said. "They're skinheads or something. Didn't I mention that?"

  Smith had stopped typing. "No, you didn't." There was a pregnant pause on the line, broken only when Smith muttered a single word.

  "Four," he said, softly. He was deep in thought.

  "Is that an unlucky number for you or something?" Remo asked with a puzzled expression.

  Smith's voice had grown troubled. "Remo, you no doubt remember the incident this past spring concerning PlattDeutsche America and that company's mind-controlling product, the Dynamic Interface System?"

  "Remember it," Remo scoffed. "I'll never forget it. They had Chiun and me wired up like a couple of robots."

  "You remember at the time the individuals involved in that scheme referred to something called IV."

  "Yeah," Remo said. It was coming back to him. "That old Nazi scientist boxed up duplicates of mine and Chiun's brain patterns and was going to ship them off somewhere. We never found out where."

  "Precisely," Smith said. "I assumed when I could not find a reference to a IV group in any of the neoNazi literature that it was a minor splinter group. Perhaps I was in error. It is possible that we are dealing with a much larger organization than I had anticipated."

  "You mean there's more of those skunks around?"

  "Look at the evidence thus far," Smith said excitedly. "German warplanes armed with stolen German bombs. A new blitz on London. And skinheads sporting a particular and otherwise unexplainable tattoo. I think it is more than possible. I think it is a high probability that IV is an organization of either former Nazis or like-minded individuals."

  "The guy that was in charge here looked old enough to be from the World War II generation," Remo offered.

  "He most likely was," Smith answered. "I will do further research into IV. With any luck we will be able to work our way down from the top."

  "Well, whatever you do, do it quick, because going from the bottom up has gotten us squat so far." There was a sudden familiar whine in the background. At first Remo thought the planes were returning to Guernsey. It took him a moment to realize the noise was coming from the other end of the line. "Smitty, am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"

  Remo heard a rustling sound. Smith had gone to the window of the hotel, drawing back the drapes. "It is starting again," the CURE director said flatly.

  The first dull explosions from the aerial bombs began filtering over the line.

  "Find cover," Remo said quickly.

  Whatever Smith might have said next was lost forever. The connection to England was abruptly severed. Remo stared at the dead phone in his hand for a few long seconds.

  "London is under attack," Remo said, turning to Helene.

  "What?" she asked, shocked.


  "I thought you told them they were coming," he pressed.

  "I did," she insisted.

  Remo glanced up at the camera. It was still directed to the spot on the floor from which the mustard gas had emanated.

  "I guess we made the same mistake England always makes. We put faith in British Intelligence." Without turning in her direction, he handed the phone out to her. She accepted it. As a precaution, in case Remo's contact hadn't reached DGSE, she began punching in her direct line back to her Paris headquarters.

  As Helene dialed, Remo walked over to the corner of the hangar. Avoiding a stack of shells, he drew an empty crate to a spot directly beneath the camera. He climbed atop the crate. For the first time since reentering the hangar he put his face in the camera's purview.

  He stared coldly into the lens.

  "I am going to kill you," Remo said. He exaggerated each word so that whoever might be on the other end would have no difficulty understanding him.

  This accomplished, he held his hands out on either side of the camera. He brought them together with a sharp clap. The camera sprang apart in a million shards of plastic and metal.

  Chapter 16

  I am going to kill you.

  The camera had no audio capability, but that didn't matter. The words were plain enough.

  Nils Schatz didn't even think to rap his cane on the floor as he watched Remo lift his hands up out of view of the camera. A moment later the extreme close-up of the young Sinanju master exploded in a spray of white-and-gray static.

  As the snow-filled screen hissed mockingly at him, Schatz woodenly switched off the television monitor. He stared at it for what seemed like hours.

  A feeling of unease that he had not felt in many years had crept from the murkiest depths of his black soul.

  It was Germany. April 1945.

  Schatz was a young man then. He had been a colonel in the Geheime Staatspolizei, the Gestapo, under the notorious Adolf Eichmann. It was while he was working for the Gestapo's subsection four of the second section-which dealt with religion, and in particular the perceived Jewish threat to the glorious reich-that he had caught the attention of none other than Schutzstaffeln head Heinrich Himmler.