Failing Marks td-114 Read online

  Remo frowned, confused. "Yeah, I think that might be his alias or something. Is there a Gustav here?"

  "Yes!" the man cried. "That vas him." Still halfblinded, he pointed at the hole in the roof.

  "The fat guy that looked up here?"

  "Yes!" the neo-Nazi howled in frustration. Remo shook his head angrily. "Why didn't you say so?" Cupping his hand on the back of the neoNazi's head, he drew the man toward the last upright section of side wall.

  "Vait! No vack! No vack!"

  "That's 'whack,'" Remo instructed even as he slammed the man's head into the remaining portion of wall. It collapsed against the pressure.

  Unlike the first three times, the man's injuries did not end with a simple whack. As he passed through the wall, Remo released his grip on the young man's hair. The neo-Nazi continued his forward momentum, sailing out over the alley amid a pile of concrete fragments and a cloud of mortar dust. Bleeding and filthy, he dropped from sight. He landed with a squishy thud in the alley a few seconds later. Remo did not stay on the roof long enough to see him splatter. As the young neo-Nazi was free-falling to his death, Remo had gone over to the hole in the roof. He hopped down into the apartment below, landing atop the pile of collapsed ceiling.

  The apartment was empty. Scowling at himself for allowing his target to escape so easily, he moved stealthily through the small flat and out into the dank hallway.

  FOR THE PAST SEVERAL months, Gustav Reichschtadt had been hearing about the pair of terrifying men supposedly slaughtering neo-Nazis throughout Germany. He had disregarded the stories.

  Certainly Gustav didn't deny that people were being killed. However, he was convinced that it was the work of the German government out to punish pro-Nazi groups for the embarrassment they had caused a few months before.

  Modern Germany prided itself on its intolerance of the underground fascist organizations that seemed to spring up cyclically-like spring daisies in a Bavarian meadow. It was therefore humiliating to the national government when hundreds upon hundreds of its citizens began clamoring to the French border after the covert neo-Nazi takeover of Paris that had occurred the previous summer. Much to the German government's embarrassment, these young fascists made it clear to the world that they wished to join the leaders of that great campaign as soldiers under a unified Nazi flag.

  The crisis in Paris had been defused by means that were still uncertain-at least as far as the press was concerned. The men who had eagerly swarmed to join the neo-Nazi forces had returned to their homes, never having set foot on French soil. And Germany was left to squirm in embarrassment as the world looked on in veiled distaste at the country that had failed to anticipate or control its most vile element.

  It was at the beginning of this silent condemnation that the first bodies began to show up.

  Gustav was certain that German authorities were doing the killing. The government in Berlin was attempting to prove its worthiness to a scornful world by murdering its most favored sons.

  This was what he had been telling the members of the Goring Brotherhood for the past several months. He had told them this in English, for-though he dressed as a Nazi, lived in Germany and vociferously condemned the current weak German government--Gustav spoke not one word of German.

  Gustav Reichschtadt had been born Gus Holloway, son of "Cap" and Dottie Holloway of the Pittsburgh Holloways. He had lived at home, jobless, bitter and without any life prospects, until his thirty-fifth birthday, at which point his more than tolerant father had thrown him out on his hairy ear.

  With so much time on his pudgy hands, Gus had whiled away his youthful days at home as an active member of several American fascist groups. He had even achieved some notoriety for once throwing a chair at the host of the Horrendo show on national TV. When his parents finally disowned him, his friends in the skinhead movement took him in.

  In a movement that was notoriously undercharged in the sparking-synapse department, Gus Holloway-with his high-school GED and unerring ability to accurately spell Mein Kampf-became a shining star.

  Eventually Gus renounced his American citizenship and followed the movement to its birthplace. The home of the fuhrer himself. Germany.

  He was promptly thrown in jail for distributing illegal Nazi literature. Gus learned the hard way that the current German government wasn't like the one to which he had pledged his undying fascist allegiance.

  While in prison, Gus met up with many individuals like himself. After his release, he joined his newfound friends in the underground skinhead movement. He was reborn as the leader of the neoNazi Goring Brotherhood. Changing his name was part of that rebirth.

  He was working in his capacity as leader of this secret group when the whole world came crashing in. When the dust cleared, Gustav realized that it wasn't the world after all just most of the ceiling of his apartment.

  Fortunately for Gustav, he had been standing on the other side of the room at the time.

  The neo-Nazi leader had been running off his latest propaganda leaflets from an old-fashioned printing press that his mother had given to him for his eighth birthday. His fat fingers were smeared with blue ink as he crept over to the pile of collapsed building material.

  When he looked up through the hole in the ceiling, he found himself staring into the coldest eyes he had ever seen.

  It was him! One of the two men who had been spotted slaughtering members of neo-Nazi groups all around Germany. The German government's politically correct hit squad had finally come to claim the great Gustav Reichschtadt!

  The fascist leader had immediately lumbered from the room.

  The tenement in which the brotherhood conducted its holy work was overrun by neo-Nazis. Gustav waddled frantically down the urine-soaked flight of stairs to the fourth floor. He pounded a desperate fat fist against the door across from the bottom of the landing. The ink on his hands left marks like toeless baby footprints across the thick metal door.

  "Help me!" Gustav screamed in English. He was hyperventilating. "They're here! Good God, they're coming to kill me! Hurry!" He pounded harder.

  Finally the door opened a crack. A suspicious eye peered out at him from within the apartment. Somewhere unseen, an aged scratchy recording of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" was building to a warped crescendo.

  "What is it?" a voice asked in thickly accented German.

  "The killers!" Gustav hissed. "The government hit squad that's out to destroy all our work. They're here."

  The eye peered first left, then right. It finally looked back at Gustav.

  "I do not see anyone."

  Gustav flapped a large mitt toward the ceiling. "They're on the roof. Let me in!"

  He forced his meaty palms against the door. Although the old man within the apartment was far from strong, he didn't need to be; there was precious little strength behind the push. Gustav only succeeded in spreading more ink across the face of the door. He pulled away, panting at his exertions.

  "I need help," Gustav begged. He was on the verge of tears.

  There wasn't a hint of sympathy in the eye. Obviously its owner had had a run-in or two with Gustav Reichschtadt before. But that was not to say that there was no sign of emotion in the orb. It suddenly blinked once, as if in great surprise. All at once, the door slammed shut.

  Gustav wheeled around, ready to run panting for the next door. He didn't get an inch down the hallway before he saw what had made his fellow neoNazi slam the door.

  The government killer with the dark, dead eyes was coming down the stairs from the fifth floor. He steered a path to Gustav.

  Gustav broke into a dead run down the corridor. To his horror, his pursuer trotted easily up beside him.

  "Are you Gus?" Remo asked as they both ran.

  "Nein, nein!" Gus insisted, wheezing heavily. It was the only German word he had mastered in his nine years in that country. "Me no Gus. Me German."

  They had come to the end of the corridor. Gus's face was coated with a sheen of sweat. His few remain
ing strands of hair were plastered to his pasty scalp. He looked desperately for a place to run, but there was nowhere to go.

  Remo stopped before him.

  "The guy on the roof said you were Gus Holloway."

  "Me Gustav," Gus panted.

  "Yeah, and me Jane," Remo said. "Tell you what. I think you are Gus. What do you think about that?"

  The chubby neo-Nazi's eyes darted first left, then right. Blank walls stared back at him. There was not even a window behind him. He spun back to Remo, his ample belly jiggling like a sackful of kittens. Desperate, he opted for a different approach.

  "I am an American citizen," Gustav Reichschtadt insisted. "I demand to see the United States ambassador." He tried to stick his chest out proudly, but even at its farthest point it remained a full foot behind his enormous stomach.

  "That and bus fare will get you to Oktoberfest," Remo said flatly.

  "I'm serious," Gus said arrogantly. "I want my lawyer. I know my rights as an American."

  "Okay, let me explain your rights," Remo offered.

  Reaching over, he grabbed a slick, glutinous mass of puffy flesh at the side of Holloway's neck. To Remo, it felt as if he had just grabbed a handful of shortening.

  Remo squeezed.

  A piercing feminine scream stabbed up through the mountain of semidigested pastries that filled Gus Holloway's ample pot. His eyes grew wide in pain and shock.

  Remo eased off on the pressure. "Your rights at the moment are simple. You have the right to feel pain. You have the right not to feel pain. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?"

  Remo squeezed again for emphasis. Gus shrieked, nodding his understanding. Three chins waggled helplessly.

  "Good," Remo declared. "I need some information on a neo-Nazi organization called Four. What do you know about it?"

  Gus licked his thick lips as he tried frantically to think of a clever lie. None came. He decided to bluff his way through.

  "Never heard of them," he insisted.

  The pain again. Far worse this time-it felt as if every nerve ending in his neck were being buffed with acid-dipped sandpaper. He howled in agony.

  "I don't know!" Gus screamed. "They're a shadow group. In deep cover. I've only ever heard rumors." He was panting, swallowing thick, mucous-filled saliva.

  "Tell me what you've heard," Remo pressed.

  "They were responsible for the Paris takeover."

  "I know that." Remo's expression was dark.

  "And the London bombings."

  "Ditto."

  Gus's head was clearing now. Remo had eased the neck pressure. The pain wasn't as severe. "That's everything I know," Gus said feebly. The pain came in a white-hot burst. It shot up his spine, exploding in his brain. Gus sucked in his breath as his body contorted. He slapped his ink-smeared palms against the wall behind him, leaving streaks of sweat-soaked blue.

  "There's a man," Gus hissed, "in Juterbog. He knows." He was breathing heavily now against the pain. "He's Four. He can get you to them."

  "What's his name?" Remo asked.

  "I don't know," Gus replied. The pain came again, as he knew it would. "I really don't!" Gus cried. Tears streamed down his swollen red cheeks. "It's Kempten Olmu-something. It's a really long old German name. I can't pronounce it. I've never been very good with German."

  All at once, the pain stopped. Gus sucked in a tentative breath. It was truly gone. He had never before realized how good a feeling it was not to be experiencing agony.

  His torturer was still standing before him. His brow was furrowed, casting an annoyed shadow over his dark eyes.

  "Do you have a phone?" Remo asked.

  Gus nodded fervently, anxious to remain on Remo's good side. "Yes, yes. Absolutely. It's upstairs." He waddled past Remo deliberately-Gus was now a man with a mission.

  "Good," Remo said, following him. "Because we have to call someone who's good with German."

  Chapter 3

  Harold W. Smith was submitting to the latest in the interminably long line of physical examinations he had been subjected to over the past three months.

  He sat in his spotless white T-shirt on an examining table in one of the doctor's offices of Folcroft Sanitarium, a Rye, New York, mental-health facility of which he was director. Smith breathed calmly as the physician inflated the blood-pressure cuff around his left biceps.

  The doctor watched the indicator needle on the gauge in his hand as he gently released the air from the bag. He nodded his approval.

  "Your blood pressure is good," he said.

  "I assumed it would be, Dr. Drew," Smith responded crisply. There was an icy edge in his voice. The doctor looked up over his glasses as he slipped the cuff from Smith's arm.

  "Forgive me, Dr. Smith, but you were the one who insisted on these examinations."

  "Yes," Smith replied. "However, they appear to be no longer necessary."

  "You were in rough shape a few months ago," Dr. Drew cautioned, as if Smith had forgotten. Smith hadn't. There was no way he would ever forget his recent trip to London.

  "It was a very stressful time," Smith admitted.

  "Yes," Dr. Drew agreed, dragging his stethoscope from his ears. "I imagine it would be. It's a shame that on the first vacation you took since I came to work here at Folcroft, you wound up in the middle of a war zone. Do you and your wife plan to take another?"

  Smith pursed his bloodless lips. He didn't appreciate the informal tone Drew had taken with him over the past few months. After all, the Folcroft doctor was Smith's employee.

  "I fail to see how my private life is your concern," Smith said, getting down from the table.

  Drew stiffened. "I didn't mean to pry, Dr. Smith," he said tightly.

  Smith didn't even seem aware that he had insulted the physician. The older man had already found his shirt on a brass hook near the door. He had pulled it over his creaking shoulders and was in the process of buttoning it.

  "If that is all, I will return to work," Smith said absently as he fastened the top two buttons. He drew his green-striped Dartmouth tie from the same hook and began knotting it around his thin neck.

  "Of course," Dr. Drew replied without inflection. "Same time next week?"

  "That will not be necessary," Smith declared officiously.

  Drew raised an eyebrow. "If you wish to postpone, it's obviously at your discretion. Remember, my day off is-"

  "Thursday," Smith supplied. "And that does not matter. Our appointments are no longer necessary." He finished with his tie, checking the perfectly formed four-in-hand knot with his aged fingertips. Satisfied, Smith took his gray vest and suit jacket from another hook.

  "Are you sure?" Dr. Drew asked.

  "Of course," Smith sniffed. "I will let you know if there are any changes in my physical condition. Please excuse me."

  Without so much as a thank-you, Smith left the office.

  Dr. Drew stared at the door for a few minutes. "You're welcome," he said with a sarcastic laugh.

  He didn't know why he was surprised by his treatment at the hands of the sanitarium director. The real surprise was that Smith came to him for help in the first place. But the old man had been in pretty rough shape back then. Now that he was better, Smith was back to being his old nasty self again.

  Dr. Drew realized that it was his own fault for expecting anything more than being treated as a servant. At this stage, there shouldn't be anything that Dr. Harold W. Smith could do to surprise him any longer.

  With a sigh, Dr. Lance Drew began labeling Smith's latest blood sample.

  HAROLD SMITH WALKED briskly to the administrative wing of Folcroft. He took the stairs up to his second-floor office.

  Mrs. Mikulka, his secretary of many years, smiled maternally as he entered the outer room of his small, two-office suite.

  "Dr. Smith," she said with a concerned nod. Smith didn't appreciate the familiarity her smile represented. Some in the staff had been treating him differently since he had returned from hi
s week-long European vacation three months before. Dr. Drew and Mrs. Mikulka were the two worst offenders. Smith found it easier to remonstrate Drew than Mrs. Mikulka. After all, doctors were a dime a dozen, but good secretaries were impossible to find in this day and age.

  "I will be in my office for the duration of the morning," he noted crisply as he passed her tidy desk.

  There was no need to ask her if there had been any calls while he was downstairs. Eileen Mikulka was efficient enough to let him know immediately if there was anything that required his attention. When he pushed the door closed on the world a moment later, Smith felt a tide of relief wash over his thin frame.

  This was Smith's sanctum sanctorum, his haven from the foolishness and trivialities of the outside world. In this sparsely furnished room, Harold Smith had created for himself a perfect, orderly environment.

  He crossed over to his desk, taking his seat behind the smooth onyx slab. The desk was the only hint of intrusion by the modern world into the decidedly low-tech room.

  Smith's arthritic fingers located a rounded button beneath the lip of the desk. When he depressed it, the dull glow of a computer screen winked on beneath the polished surface of the large desk. The monitor was angled in such a way to make it invisible to anyone on the other side of the desk.

  Smith raised his fingers above the edge of the desk's surface. Immediately the orderly rows of a computer keyboard appeared as if summoned by magic. In actuality, the capacitor keyboard needed only to sense the presence of his hands above it in order to activate.

  Smith began typing rapid commands into the computer. His fingers drummed softly against the flat surface of the desk. Each key shone obediently in amber in the wake of Smith's expert touch.

  To the uninitiated, everything within this office was gauged to appear precisely as it should for the rather bland director of an anonymous private health facility. However, the work that consumed Dr. Harold W. Smith was decidedly atypical for the humorless head of a medical facility. Smith was using his computer to search out neo-Nazi activity.

  There was a vast store of data through which to sort. Too much for Smith's liking.