The Empire Dreams

"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.

The leader of the SS was impressed by Schatz's unparalleled talent for brutally savage interrogation. Since the Gestapo had become part of the SS, no one protested when Himmler stole Schatz away to become his personal assistant.

Schatz was taken to the seat of Axis power. Eventually Himmler had grown to rely on his young colonel. So much so that he one day brought him along to an important meeting in the chancellery in Berlin.

Schatz had never expected the fuhrer to be at the gathering. He had thought it would be a collection of SS officials, as had been the case in many of the other meetings he had attended since joining the upper echelon of the secret state-police force.

His shock when Hitler entered the room was obvious-even humorous-to all gathered. Schatz was like a star-struck American teenager who had just run into Veronica Lake on a Hollywood sidewalk.

Hitler had laughed off the attention. The rest did, as well. The meeting was allowed to continue. Schatz made a good show of getting himself under control. But the truth was he never got over that first thrill of seeing Germany's supreme warlord face-to-face.

It was not only Hitler.

That the man was charismatic was an understatement. He held a fascination for the German people that was misunderstood and forever mischaracterized by the outside world. They were like helpless moths drawn to an open flame.

But the fuhrer was only part of the equation. It was what he represented that was even more important. Hitler had a vision for the future of Germany that had captured the hearts and the souls of millions of Germans.

The Third Reich. A thousand-year Teutonic empire.

Nils Schatz believed not only in Hitler-he believed passionately in the idea of the reich.

His wholehearted belief in the Third Reich remained strong up until one fateful morning only a few days before its spectacular collapse.

Things were already bleak when news was brought into the SS from a captain who was supposed to be stationed in Italy. For some reason the man had seen fit to abandon his post. He had traveled all the way back to Germany during some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

Schatz had intercepted the captain on his way to deliver a message to Heinrich Himmler. When pressed by Schatz, the man said simply that he brought word to those highest up in the modern Hun empire.

"Hun? That is insulting to your people," Schatz had sneered, his mien utterly disdainful.

"That is what the Master of Sinanju called us," the captain had responded.

"Who?" Nils Schatz had asked. With Berlin tumbling down around his ears, he had neither the time nor the inclination to deal with fools.

"The Master of Sinanju," the captain repeated, as if the name alone explained the man.

"Yes," said Schatz slowly. "And what is this message?"

"The Master wishes for me to tell the funny little man with the funny little mustache that death is on its way."

Nils Schatz grew pale. Not with fear-he had no idea at that time who this Master of Sinanju was and therefore had no reason to fear. No, the thing that drained the blood from the face of Nils Schatz was pure, unbridled rage.

While Allied bombs dropped on Berlin, Schatz had personally dragged the man down to an interrogation cell. For the captain's insolence in the manner in which he characterized the chancellor of Germany, Schatz delivered the beating of a lifetime. He asked repeatedly who this Master of Sinanju was and how he had managed to turn an officer of the SS so completely.

Schatz questioned the man for four hours. He used every method of torture he could think of yet the man stubbornly refused to break. It was as if he had already experienced a pain so great that nothing Schatz could do to him could even come close to matching whatever force had sent him fleeing back to Germany.

Finally Schatz had given up. He signed the execution order personally and had returned, sweating from his labors, to his office. It was only in a later meeting with Himmler that he mentioned the captain and his strange message.

He never forgot the look that crossed the SS head's taciturn face when he mentioned the Master of Sinanju.

"When did you receive this message?" Himmler demanded.

"I am not sure," Schatz admitted. "Perhaps, nine, perhaps ten o'clock this morning."

"And what time is it now? Quickly, quickly!"

"Six o'clock, sir," Schatz had answered. Himmler's normally bland face grew wild.

"We must see the chancellor," he hissed. He hurried from the conference room where they had been meeting. Confused, Schatz followed.

The streets were littered with debris. Bombs whistled endlessly around their speeding staff car as Schatz and Himmler raced to the fuhrer's bunker beneath the bombed-out chancellery building.

The word among the Nazi elite was that the fuhrer was even now planning his withdrawal from the city. It was well-known that he intended to flee to the south, where Field Marshal Schoerner's army group in Czechoslovakia and that of Field Marshal Kesselring were still intact. Hitler had every intention of joining them and using their collective forces to strike out anew against the accursed Allies.

Upon greeting Himmler and Schatz in the bunker, Hitler was vibrant and upbeat. Entirely unlike the accounts that would eventually surface detailing his last days.

The fuhrer noticed Himmler's sickly expression instantly. At the SS leader's urging, the two men went into a private conference room.

Schatz never knew precisely what was said in that meeting, but he had a strong suspicion.

The meeting with Himmler took all of ten minutes. When they again stepped out into the common room, Hitler was a drained man. His vitality was gone, his vision of a Nazi future all but destroyed.

Schatz and Himmler left the bunker together. When they parted company later that night, it was the last time Nils Schatz ever saw his mentor. A disguised Himmler was captured by Allied forces later that night while attempting to flee Germany.

Hitler lasted only another two days. A coward who was finally faced with a choice of death by his own hand or death at the hands of the Master of Sinanju, the fuhrer chose the former. He committed suicide rather than suffer the wrath of the mysterious stranger.

The vaunted Third Reich was over. And with it, a young SS officer's dreams of glory. While Russian troops swarmed through Berlin, Nils Schatz slipped into the night.

Others escaped, as well. With the gold and priceless art treasures they had looted from all over Europe while the war had raged, these former Nazis set up a system to see that they and their kind would be safe from persecution. This band of fugitives founded what would eventually become known as IV.

While Schatz hadn't come up with the name, he wholeheartedly supported its purpose. To establish a new, true thousand-year German reich. The Fourth Reich.

But IV had not lived up to its purpose. The founding members were now retired. Most had died off. There were few around who understood the importance of their work. And of those who did not understand, Adolf Kluge was the worst offender.

Kluge had taken over IV more than ten years before. He was a young man. Barely in his forties. He didn't understand what IV represented to the men of Schatz's generation. No one who didn't live through those terrible times could understand.

No, Kluge-while a capable man and a dedicated fascist was simply too young and inexperienced to appreciate that for which Schatz and his followers pined.

Nils Schatz understood.

And that was why Schatz had taken matters into his own hands. That was why he had stolen millions of dollars of IV money to finance this operation. And that was why he was sitting here now, in a Paris apartment, staring at a blank television screen.

He was an old man now. And for the first time in his life he finally understood the fear that had engulfed both Himmler and Hitler all those years ago. In another lifetime.

He heard the phone ring out in the living room of the apartment. Fritz answered it.

Schatz was too preoccupied to worry about who might be calling.

His thoughts were of the Master of Sinanju. The same man who had chased Himmler from Germany and frightened the fuhrer to death. He was here. In Europe. Alive. And his protege had just vowed to kill Schatz.

He was furious at himself for not having Michtler hook up a remote charge to the explosives. It would have been-what?-another fifty dollars in parts. Schatz had underestimated his opponent. He had assumed the mustard gas would be enough.

"Not again," he muttered to himself. Slowly he began tapping his cane against the floorboards. "Not again," he repeated, more firmly this time.

In the outer room Fritz hung up the phone. On reluctant feet he walked up to the small bedroom. He found Nils Schatz sitting in front of the television. "Nils?"

"Not again!" Schatz screamed, wheeling on Fritz. He stabbed his cane like a fencer's sword.

Fritz recoiled in shock, grabbing at the door frame. The look of terror on his subordinate's face seemed to have a calming effect on Schatz. He dropped his cane tip to the floor, bracing his hands atop the blunt handle.

"Who was that?" he demanded.

Fritz seemed hesitant to speak. He took a few deep breaths to compose himself.

"Kluge," Fritz said at last. He waited for another outburst from Schatz. None came.

"What did our friend, Herr Kluge, want?" Schatz asked. He tipped his head, turning a lazy eye on Fritz.

"He has learned of the missing funds."

"Who told him?" Schatz asked flatly.

Fritz shrugged his bony shoulders. "I do not know. I am not certain anyone told him. He periodically reviews all IV accounts."

"Ah, yes. Kluge the accountant. Very brave. Very noble." Schatz wore a displeased expression. "How did he find me here?"

"IV still has resources in Europe. Contacts," Fritz added with a feeble shrug.

Schatz nodded. "When I have the time, I will learn the names of these contacts."

"Herr Kluge wishes for us all to return."

"No time," Schatz said, shaking his head. As if this reminded him of something, he smacked himself on the forehead. "Time! The planes surely have arrived by now. We are sitting here like old washerwomen while London burns."

He got up, leaving the closed-circuit television behind him. All thoughts of the Master of Sinanju and his protege were banished from his mind.

It was fear that had done the others in. Even his own mentor, Himmler, had succumbed. Nils Schatz wouldn't allow mindless fear to rule his destiny. Leaving his fears behind him, he went out to the living room to watch the new blitzkrieg on the apartment's small black-and-white TV.

Chapter 17

The bombings had turned London into a sight-seeing mecca.

Eager tourists-their suitcases bulging with camera equipment and extra rolls of film-had been taking every available flight into the city over the past two days hoping to get a glimpse of yet another bombing attack by the as yet unexplained German surplus aircraft.

Germany itself had disavowed any knowledge of the planes' origin and emphatically denied that the government of unified Germany was involved in any way. To show their good faith the Germans had offered a team of special government agents to assist in the investigation.

England had resisted the notion of accepting outside aid. The official statement from the government was that there was no difficulty that could not be defeated with a little British pluck.

Remo nearly choked with laughter when Helene Marie-Simone informed him of this.

"They didn't even send up planes until the Germans were nearly out of bombs," he said with a derisive snort.

They were touring Trafalgar Square. The Nelson Monument with its huge pedestal loomed two hundred feet above them. The imposing statue of Lord Nelson high above stared out over the bustling city.

The German bombs had knocked out London's phone lines. Remo hadn't heard from Smith since the day before, and so they had traveled to England in hopes of locating the CURE director. It would have helped if he had some idea of the hotel at which the Smiths were staying.

"It was thought in the RAF that the planes had originated in Northern Ireland," Helene explained. "All available technology and manpower was directed there."

Remo rubbed tears of mirth from his eyes, still chuckling lightly.

"This country is amazing," he sniffled.

The Master of Sinanju, walking between Remo and Helene, shook his head. "Not any longer," he intoned sadly. "During the reign of Henry the Benign this land knew greatness. Now it is a pale imitation of its former self."

"The benign?" Helene asked Remo.

"Henry VIII," Remo replied. "Chopped off his wives' heads, but he always paid on time."

"Prompt payment for services rendered must not be treated lightly," Chiun said, raising an instructive talon. "England in good King Henry's day treated us well."

The crowd through which they passed had grown thicker. Remo could see the tail of a downed plane jutting up at a right angle from the street. Swarms of people were gathered around it, snapping pictures. A gaggle of milling bobbies in blue uniforms and high police hats didn't attempt to hold the crowd back. They stood at attention, arms behind their backs, faces glancing intently around the square. What they were looking for, Remo could not begin to fathom.

"I am sorry," Helene pressed Chiun, "but are you claiming to have been an assassin to Henry the Eighth?"

Chiun fixed her with a baleful glare.

"Do I look to you, madam, to be five centuries old?"

Helene hesitated. "Well-"

"Our family," Remo explained quickly, lest an insensitive answer from the French agent cause her head to suffer the same fate as that of Henry's wives. "An ancestor worked for Henry the Eighth."

With Remo in the lead, they had managed to push through the crowd. The aircraft around which the crush of people had assembled had been shot down by an RAF missile. Freed of its payload minutes before the final, fateful attack, the plane hadn't been destroyed wholly in midair. A piece of the tail section had been blown away, causing the plane to lurch forward and sail headlong into the hind end of a parked double-decker bus. Fortunately the bus had been unoccupied at the time.

The plane stood upright, enmeshed in the rear of the large red bus.

"Messerschmitt," Helene said with a knowing nod.

"It sure is," Remo agreed. "A big mess. What do you think, Little Father?" he said to Chiun. "I'll bet you thought you saw the last of these when you offed old Schicklgruber."

"Schicklgruber?" Helene asked, surprised. "Surely you do not mean Hitler?"

"You know any other Schicklgrubers?" Remo said blandly.

Helene looked at Chiun. He examined the downed plane, blithely indifferent to her gaze.

"Are you saying he killed Hitler?" she asked Remo.

Remo didn't want to get into an afternoon of Sinanju history lessons with the French spy. "Indirectly," he admitted vaguely.

"The coward took poison and shot himself before I was able to carry out the deed," Chiun interjected. "A double death for a white-livered lunatic."

"It was totally self-serving," Remo explained. "You see, with wars people go out and hire local help. Who needs a professional assassin when you can slap a uniform on the grocery boy and send him off to fight for you?"

"No one," Chiun lamented.

"Which is why Chiun offered the Allied powers Hitler's head on a post. He figured he'd take out the guy who was causing all the trouble in the world gratis. After that everyone would line up for our services."

"But the little fool robbed me of my prize," Chiun said bitterly.

"I assume the plan did not work out as he envisioned it would?" Helene asked blandly.

"Let's just say that after the little jerk shot himself, the House of Sinanju entered a bit of a dry spell."

Helene was losing interest in Chiun and Remo's fanciful take on history. It was not that she did not entirely disbelieve them-after all, she had seen what these two were capable of. But France and now England were faced with a very real crisis. The plane before them was a part of that threat.

"Why would someone use these out-of-date planes now?" she mused. The question was aimed at no one in particular.

"Because so far they're working," Remo suggested dryly.

"But not any longer, my dear boy," a cheery voice said from behind them.

Remo knew that voice. It was the same one that had spoken to Helene on her cellular phone in Paris. Remo closed his eyes patiently. He didn't think he had the will to deal with this right now.

When he looked back at the speaker, the first thing he saw was that Helene Marie-Simone had grown dreamy eyed. Chiun's face held a look of utter disdain.

Before the three of them stood a man so handsome he made the average male model look as though his gene pool had been set on Puree. Remo knew him as Sir Guy Philliston. Head of the British intelligence agency known simply as Source. Their paths had crossed several times over the years. Remo had never been particularly impressed. The same, apparently, couldn't be said for Helene.

"Sir Guy," the French agent said in breathily accented English. Her face was flushed.

Remo frowned as he glanced at her. "Guy?" he asked. "I thought that was 'Gay.'"

"Quite," said Philliston. A look of minor displeasure sent the tiniest wrinkles up around his perfect aquiline nose. "Good to see you all again. Jolly good. Perhaps at your age you don't remember me, my old friend." He extended a perfectly manicured hand to Chiun. "Sir Guy Philliston," he said with a smile that flashed a row of flawlessly capped white teeth that had never seen the interior of a British dentist's office. The Phillistons imported their own personal D.D.S. from America.

Chiun looked first at the hand, then at Sir Guy. Spurning both, he looked over at the crashed plane. "Yes, quite," droned Philliston, replacing his hand at his side with the gentlest of efforts. He had no desire to create a wrinkle in his impeccably tailored Savile Row suit. "Here to tour the scene of battle, eh?" he said to Remo and Helene. "Quite a matchup yesterday. Jolly good sport."

"Your team was a little late on the field," Remo said.

"Utter cock-up, that was," Philliston admitted. "It seems RAF and our boys were at cross-purposes. No bother. Everything is sorted out nicely now."

"Yes. Now that it's all over," said Remo.

"Rather," said Philliston affably. His expression as he sized up Remo bordered on a leer.

Remo glanced around. "Anyone know where there's a good bulletproof codpiece store around here?" he asked wearily.

SMTTH HAD BEEN UNABLE to find out anything about IV. And that lack of knowledge frustrated him deeply.

As the night had worn on, he had become more and more convinced that he was dealing with a sinister shadow organization whose vile tendrils had its origins in the darkest days of the Nazi influence in Europe.

The clues were there when CURE had first encountered representatives of the group. The truth was, he had spent much of the night cursing himself for not seeing it before.

As his wife slept beside him, he had worked tirelessly, uplinking his portable computer with the CURE database. All he had to show for a night's worth of work was a sore neck and blank computer screen.

Nothing.

There was nothing that suggested the existence of IV. If not for the physical evidence Remo had uncovered, he would have concluded precisely what he had concluded before: there was no larger menace.

It made him feel a little better to find out that he hadn't missed anything in his original search through neo-Nazi files. But not much.

Now Smith knew better.

When morning came, his wife had wanted to go out sight-seeing. Smith first made certain that the government of Great Britain was prepared to defend against a third attack. He learned through his computers that the British military was on high alert. Hoping that this meant a bit more than looking out an RAF window, Smith had sent her off on her own, promising to meet her at noon for lunch.

He continued working long after she had left. When the bombs had dropped the day before and his line to Remo was severed, Smith and his wife had been forced to spend much of their time in the basement of the hotel. They had come through the attack unscathed. However, the phones still didn't work. It didn't matter. He had learned nothing that would aid Remo and Chiun's investigation.

At eleven-thirty Smith logged off his computer, storing it in his special briefcase. He closed the lid and carefully set the locks, sliding the case back under his bed.

He would resume work after lunch.

Leaving his work behind him, Smith left the hotel in order to meet his wife in Trafalgar Square.

HELENE MARIE-SIMONE continued to give Sir Guy Philliston the precise sort of look Sir Guy was giving to Remo.

"Have you any leads on who might be behind this?" she asked, sighing heavily.

"Not a bally one, I'm afraid," Guy replied, ignoring the lust in her eyes. "Every last man jack of the blighters was killed in the new Battle of Britain. Shame, really. No idea who could have sent these Boche monkeys to the shores of old Albion."

Remo raised a hand. "Excuse me, but could you please speak English?" he asked.

"Hear! Hear!" Chiun cheered. He was still watching the tail of the crashed plane.

"These were obviously German made," Guy said, indicating the plane. "But a lot of them are now in the hands of museums, private collectors. That sort of thing. We're looking into that angle."

"I saw where one of your papers this morning said they were dropped off by Martians from a UFO and are still fighting the war," Remo said flatly. "Maybe you should look into that."

"There isn't any need to bring the popular press into this," Philliston said to Remo, as if mentioning the British tabloids were the height of rudeness. Helene sneered condescendingly at Remo. "He is like that," she confided in Sir Guy. "I have found him to be very American."

"Yes, very American," Philliston agreed. He licked his lips lightly as he eyed Remo's lean frame.

"Very, very American," Chiun piped in.

"Don't you start," Remo warned.

Sir Guy Philliston changed the direction of the conversation. "Has your government any idea where the balance of explosives has gone off to?" he asked Helene.

"They are investigating a minor explosion in a Paris Metro station," Helene replied. "My government believes the incident to be related to the thefts."

"Wait a damned minute," Remo interjected. "When did you get this piece of news?"

"Last night."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"Obviously not," she said in a superior tone. She turned and smiled warmly at Sir Guy Philliston, happy to be sharing this information with him first. He had to tear his gaze away from Remo when he realized she was talking to him.

Remo rolled his eyes. "He's gay as a parade, Helene," he sighed.

Helene became indignant. "You say that because you find your masculinity threatened in the presence of a true man." Her words were flung out as a challenge.

"Whatever," Remo replied indifferently. His tone made her even angrier.

"Well," Philliston said, clapping his hands together earnestly, "here we are. World War II renewed. The British and French along with their American cousins fighting the bally Jerry hordes."

"Yes, except if this was really a replay, you'd be begging for our help and she'd be surrendering to anything with a spike on its helmet."

As he spoke, Remo stared up at the pale blue London sky. Something wasn't right.

"I cannot imagine what it must be like to be American," Helene spit disdainfully.

"It's having drugstores with more than a hundred different kinds of deodorants," Remo said absently. "Do you hear that, Little Father?" he asked Chiun.

The Master of Sinanju had stopped watching the picture-taking crowds around the downed plane. He was staring up into the sky in the same direction as Remo.

"They are close," he said, nodding gravely. "This crowd should be dispersed at once."

Remo spun on Philliston. "You've got to clear this street," he said, voice suddenly taut with urgency.

"Clear it?" Sir Guy laughed. "Why, in heaven's name?"

"There's another German squadron heading this way. At least thirty planes."

"Thirty?" Philliston scoffed, stepping forward.

"Thirty-seven," the Master of Sinanju announced.

"I am sorry, my good boy, but nothing can get through the net we have established. The RAF has the shores of Old Blighty locked down tighter than the Queen Mum's bum."

"In that case I'd say it's about time to check the royal knickers," Remo suggested.

The first of the planes came into view, a mere speck against the distant clouds.

Helene stepped forward, mouth open in shock. The head of Source moved in beside her, eyes trained on the sky.

"Impossible," Philliston said, eyes wide.

"Get them out of here!" Remo snapped.

The tone jarred Philliston from his initial shock. He obediently charged over to a uniformed bobby who was posing for photographs beside the crippled plane.

"Have they gotten the phones working yet?" Remo asked, spinning to Helene. He was hoping that Smith might have some rapid way of contacting the RAF.

She fiddled with her cellular phone, stabbing out the number for London information. The line was dead.

"Not yet," she said, shaking her head.

By this time the planes were large enough to be seen for what they were. Some in the crowd began screaming and running for the Underground. Many more simply stood their ground, snapping endless pictures, as if they were participating in some sort of overblown amusement-park ride.

The air-raid sirens around London began sounding their relentless blare. The first dull thuds of distant impacting bombs reverberated through the pavement beneath their feet.

Sir Guy Philliston had convinced the bobbies that they should begin herding people to the Underground entrances. Those with cameras moved reluctantly.

"I vote we join them until this thing blows over, Little Father," Remo suggested.

"Agreed," said Chiun.

They had gone no more than a few paces toward the nearest Underground station when a familiar sound began emanating upward from the stairway. It was the pop-pop-pop of automatic-weapons fire.

There was a collective scream of panic from the mob. People began rolling back out of the staircase, stampeding directly toward Remo, Chiun and Helene.

Remo and Chiun easily avoided the crush of people. Helene wasn't so lucky. Though she tried to resist, she found herself helplessly swept along with the crowd as it surged back out into the blinding sunlight of Trafalgar Square.

By now the German warplanes were high above the square. They began dropping whistling bombs on the teeming throng in the square far below. Sections of pavement exploded upward, mixed with limp, bloodied bodies. A hail of shattered stones pebbled the ground for half a mile around.

At the Underground port, the sound of machinegun fire had grown louder.

On the sidewalk Remo glanced from the black rectangular opening of the Underground to the carnage in the square.

"I'll take the square," he announced grimly.

The Master of Sinanju nodded his agreement. "Have a care, my son."

As Remo ran into the thick of the bombing run, Chiun flew to the mouth of the subway station from which the gunfire had come.

FIVE MINUTES EARLIER Harold W. Smith was meeting his wife at a bus stop a few doors down from a small restaurant on Bond Street around the corner from Trafalgar Square.

"Oh, Harold," Maude Smith called. She smiled as he walked up the busy sidewalk toward her. Mrs. Smith actually seemed surprised to see her husband. "I wasn't sure you'd make it."

"Did we not agree we would meet at twelve?" Smith asked. He took the heavy paper bundles she held in her hands.

"Yes, but with your work and all..." She shrugged her round shoulders. It wasn't an admonishment. Maude Smith would never complain that his work kept him away from her. She was merely stating an obvious truth about their life together. Nonetheless, Smith felt a twinge of too familiar guilt.

"Shall we have some lunch?" he said quickly, indicating the restaurant door with a bony elbow. The straps of the bags weighed heavily against his hands.

"Of course," Maude chimed. She talked excitedly as they walked. "I got some souvenirs today not too expensive, I know. But since it's our last day in London I thought we should get something for Vickie. And Gert has been such a good friend."

Smith bit his tongue. He had no objection to buying a gift for their only daughter, but the prospect of wasting perfectly good money on a nosy neighbor was utterly distasteful to him.

Maude seemed to sense his mild displeasure. It was no secret to her that Harold didn't like Gert Higgins. But the fact that he didn't object to buying the woman a gift spoke volumes about her husband's patience. And-though he didn't like to show it-his love.

She was beaming when they reached the door to the restaurant. Maude opened it, Smith balanced the door with his elbow in order to allow her to pass.

He was about to step inside the hallway after her when he heard a familiar noise. Very distant. Smith paused, half in, half out of the restaurant. It could not be. Not a third time.

He cocked an ear.

"Harold?" His wife had come back out to him. Boom... boom ...boom...

It was like the footsteps of some remorseless movie monster, a celluloid beast come to devour them all.

"Maude, please step outside," Smith said calmly.

"What is it?"

"Please hurry," he pressed, a welling urgency in his tone.

Mrs. Smith obliged. At Smith's urging the two of them quickly made their way back up the sidewalk. There was shouting coming from Trafalgar Square by the time they reached the Piccadilly entrance to London's Underground. Air-raid sirens sounded. Fingers and cameras were aimed at the squadron of incoming fighters.

Smith didn't dawdle. In another minute the crowd would become a mob. As it was, the first clusters of spectators were just beginning to herd themselves toward the safety of the subway as Smith and his wife climbed hurriedly down the stairs.

The stairway ended at a concrete landing that banked right into another staircase. This one was an illuminated tube with a metal railing running up either side.

Smith hurried down through the second enclosed staircase to the train platform below the city. He steered his wife to a spot near one of the largest support columns.

Already behind them the throngs of panicked people from the street were flooding down the stairs. Subway passengers soon got the message. They stopped heading for the exits, staying instead on the platform with the recent street arrivals. Anxious chatter rippled through the crowd.

The station began to quickly fill up.

"They said in the paper that this was over." Maude Smith's voice trembled.

"It is a mistake to trust the London press," Smith replied thinly. He was thinking of how wrong he had been for trusting the RAF.

The bombs hadn't yet begun to strike the streets above them. However, the crowd sensed it was only a matter of time. The smell of fear and sweat from hundreds of anxious people filled the long platform area.

Smith heard a sudden sharp series of noises.

It wasn't the German bombs. The sound hadn't come from outside. It was far too close.

It almost sounded like...

Again. The noise was more insistent. Screams followed.

The rattle of machine-gun fire grew worse. The crowd began to swell toward them. Pressing. Frantic. Behind the pillar Smith and his wife were safe. For now.

"What's happening?" Mrs. Smith begged. Smith did not respond.

The sound of weapons fire ebbed momentarily. During the lull Smith took a chance to peer around the side of the column. He was just in time to see dozens of armed young men dressed in chillingly familiar uniforms. They were stomping up the staircase to the street.

He had to blink back his amazement. The men were dressed in the black-on-black uniforms of Germany's World War II SS. Their black boots clicked on the concrete stairs as they ran out of sight.

A moment later there was firing from the stairwell. Three bloodied bodies dropped into sight on the platform.

Smith wheeled on his wife.

"Stay here," he instructed, his face severe.

He started to go, but was stopped by a timid voice. "Harold, I'm scared."

Smith stopped dead.

He looked down at his wife. A plump woman on the far side of middle age. There was alarm on her gentle features.

Smith touched her softly on the cheek. "Everything will be fine, dear," he promised. Maude blinked back tears. She nodded once, bravely.

The crowd had massed on the far end of the platform. There was no one between him and the stairs. Leaving his wife huddled behind a pillar with her bags of souvenir statuettes of Big Ben and London, England T-shirts, Harold W. Smith ran to the bloodstained subway staircase after the fleeing band of neo-Nazis.

THE SMALL IV ARMY accomplished a feat that the Third Reich had never been able to achieve during the six long years of the war in Europe. They had placed an invasion force on the streets of London. Neo-Nazi ground troops swelled up from the Underground stations, firing as they ran. Others joined them on the street, exiting from buildings and cars. Bodies fell to the pavement as soldiers raced to find shelter in enclosures along the mob scene that was Trafalgar Square. A whistling bomb landed amid a group of three soldiers, tearing a mailbox-sized hole in the pavement and flinging the invaders through the smoke-clogged air.

The Master of Sinanju flew through the worst of the battle, a wraith in fiery red. Even as armed soldiers swarmed the square from hidden positions all around, Chiun ran into the mouth of the nearest subway station.

There was still shooting going on belowground. He would stop as many as he could before they were able to join their murderous fellows above.

The old Korean found himself in a steeply angled passageway. It veered off at a sharp bend far below. Footsteps clicked urgently against unseen concrete stairs.

Chiun raced down a half-dozen steps before flinging himself in the air toward the landing below. The instant he was airborne, a crowd of black-suited men ran into view from the lower staircase. The soldiers didn't have time to be shocked. Chiun sailed in at an angle parallel to the stairs.

The heels of his sandaled feet caught the pair of men in the lead squarely in their chests. They flew backward from the pressure, slamming solidly against the wall of the stairwell. Their spines cracked audibly, bodies folding in half.

Some of the other men began firing. Flying lead pinged loudly in the cramped space. Bullets chipped holes in the sealed concrete walls around them.

Chiun swirled through the volley of projectiles, arriving at the far end unharmed.

His fists shot out in rapid-fire lunges, slamming against gun muzzles in the impossibly brief fraction of time between rounds. The weapons rocketed back with a force far greater than that of any launched bullet. The brittle crack of a dozen sternums collided into one single, horrific symphony of sound.

The men in the first line of storm troopers suddenly found their machine guns protruding from their chests. Blood spurted from around gun stocks as the men dropped to the staircase. They rolled downward, upending the next batch of soldiers who were even now racing up for the confrontation above.

Chiun leaped over the bodies, dropping into the middle of the next advancing throng.

His hands flashed forward.

The foreheads of a dozen men shattered under the force of unseen fists.

Chiun's elbows lashed back.

And the throats of another ten imploded, fonts of blood erupting from shocked mouths.

The Master of Sinanju became a blur of arms and legs. A twisting, hellish dervish. Knees cracked beneath heels; bodies dropped and were finished by lightning-fast toe kicks to the temple.

Some at the back tried to get off a few feeble shots. The nightmare blur in the bloodred kimono had already sliced through their lines with the power of a buzz saw and the speed of a lashing cobra. They were dead before the sounds of their weapons echoed up the stairwell.

It was over before it began.

Leaving the bodies to breathe their last, Chiun raced into the Underground, searching for any other modern-day SS troops that might be in hiding.

There were many wounded English civilians, but no more soldiers. He was about to head back upstairs when he caught sight of a familiar figure crouching beside a nearby pillar.

His black sandals made a skittering beeline to the column.

Chiun bowed. "Empress Smith."

Maude Smith looked up, surprised that someone here had recognized her. She saw the somewhat familiar face of the Master of Sinanju. She believed at one time that he had been a patient at Folcroft. He had also lived near the Smiths in Rye for a period several years ago.

"Oh, hello." She appeared shell-shocked, her voice distant.

"Is your regal husband near?" Chiun demanded.

"Harold?" she asked. "Why, no. No, he's-" She pointed to the staircase up which Smith had vanished several moments before.

A red blur flashed across her field of vision. The next thing she knew, Chiun was flying up the distant staircase her Harold had taken.

Events had so rattled Maude Smith she didn't think to ask why the old man had called her "empress."

"CALL IN your frigging air force, for crying out loud!" Remo screamed. He was working through a group of neo-Nazi soldiers. As his palms drove like pile drivers into the faces of the swarming men, he twisted to face the head of Source.

Sir Guy Philliston was cowering behind the great pedestal that was the base of the statue of Lord Nelson. His handsome features had grown pale in the attack. He shook visibly.

"Can't do it, old chap," Philliston apologized. A glazed expression had taken hold of his aristocratic features. "Too frightened. Bad show, really."

The sky was thick with German bombers. Even though there were only about forty of them, they were flying so tightly together that the air appeared to be teeming with attacking aircraft.

One plane higher up than the rest dropped a payload to the square. The three dozen bombs screamed from the belly of the plane, sailing on ancient, rusted fins toward the mob of panicked people more than two hundred feet below.

The pilot was obviously inexperienced in bomb warfare. On their way down, a small pack of the shells impacted against the wing of a Messerschmitt flying at a lower level.

The struck plane exploded in a bright orange blast of flame and a horrifying tearing of metal. Shrapnel from the explosion tore into the fuselages of two nearby planes, causing an explosive chain reaction.

The trio of wrecked aircraft blasted toward the ground, striking the street in near unison, ripping up pavement and leaving a blazing gouge a hundred yards long.

Remo sent a foot into the groin of the last storm trooper nearby. The man's pelvis split in half from the force of the blow. He dropped, shrieking, to the ground. Remo finished him with a sharp toe to the temple.

Hopping over a carved lion at the slablike base of the Nelson statue, he grabbed Sir Guy by the lapels. He wrenched the Englishman to his feet, slamming him against the column.

Philliston was limp with fear. He put up no struggle against Remo. Indeed, he barely noticed the rough treatment. It was a shame, really, for it was what he generally enjoyed the most.

"Call them!" Remo snapped.

Guy Philliston merely looked at Remo with the dull gaze of lapsed reason.

"Oh, for pete's sake," Remo snarled.

He spun Sir Guy around like a top. Jamming his fingers against the base of the Source commander's spine, Remo kneaded a cluster of tangled muscles. There was a sudden intake of air from the Englishman. When he turned back around, it was as if Sir Guy had come out of a coma.

"You have exquisite hands," Sir Guy breathed dreamily.

"Tell me that when they're wrapped around your throat," Remo barked, reaching into Sir Guy's breast pocket. Pulling out a small cellular phone, he jammed it into Philliston's hand. "Call," he commanded.

Sir Guy took the phone obediently and began punching in the RAF number he had called the previous day. His attitude had changed completely from a moment before. He was now all business. As the line rang through, Philliston casually removed a Walther PPK from a shoulder holster and began firing at the nearest German soldiers.

Remo saw that there was nothing more he could do about getting air support.

There were still many people in the square. With the positions the troops had taken, there was no real place they could go. Until reinforcements arrived, they were sitting ducks to the German bombs and marksmen.

Remo was about to start working his way through the soldiers on the left of the huge open space when something enormous loomed into view over the southernmost buildings surrounding Trafalgar Square.

He looked up with a feeling of deep foreboding. Another, larger, engine rumble had joined the insistent whine of the Messerschmitt Me-110s and 109Es. As he watched, the huge shape of a Heinkel He-111 bomber soared into view. The Messerschmitts zoomed around the larger plane like fawning attendants in a royal court.

Though unfamiliar with the model, he knew that a plane that size would certainly house an enormous payload.

Remo looked around.

Guy Philliston was on the phone. Helene MarieSimone had vanished several minutes before. There was no sign of Chiun.

It was up to him. The only problem was, he had no idea what he could do to stop the enormous plane. Remo abandoned all hope of quickly devising a plan.

He hopped atop a carved lion's head.

Hoping to improvise something on the way, Remo began scaling the large granite column of the Nelson Monument.

Chapter 18

On the last day he would be serving in Her Majesty's Royal Air Force, Colonel E. C. T. Bexton received the urgent call from Sir Guy Philliston with intense skepticism.

"I am sorry, my dear boy, but that is utterly, utterly impossible. London cannot possibly be under attack."

"I am telling you, Colonel-despite RAF information-London is most definitely being bombed this very minute," Philliston shouted.

Why Sir Guy felt compelled to shout was beyond Colonel Bexton. There was a sudden, godawfully loud noise in the background.

"What is that?" Bexton asked, face pinched in displeasure.

"I believe it to be a Heinkel bombing the square," Philliston yelled.

"Heinkel? My good man, the Heinkel is an obsolete German number from the Second World War."

"Yes," Philliston said. "And at this precise moment it has begun a bombing run on the far side of Trafalgar Square." Sir Guy suddenly seemed to be talking to someone nearby. "I say, what are you doing? Get down from there this instant!"

"Is there something wrong, Sir Guy?"

"Yes, there is. Aside from the German warplanes swooping around blowing up everything and his uncle, there is a crazed Yank agent climbing the statue of Lord Nelson."

Colonel Bexton pursed his lips as he considered this latest news.

"Sir Guy," the RAF man asked slowly, "have you been enjoying a few sundowners at your club this a.m.?"

"Listen to me," Philliston snapped. "There is a bombing raid going on against London this very minute. Do you intend to send in RAF planes or not?"

Colonel Bexton bristled. "Not, I'm afraid," he said haughtily. "You see, Sir Guy, after the success of the first run and the, um, miscalculation on my part during the second, Her Majesty's Royal Air Force has beefed up alertness to a point greater than any other time since the Falkland crisis. We have a web along our shores that cannot possibly be penetrated. There is absolutely no conceivable way an enemy plane could enter sovereign British airspace without my knowing it. Therefore, no matter what you may personally believe to be happening in the greater London area at this particular time, I assure you that it is not another bombing attack. Now, if there is nothing else, I have many duties to attend to, so you will please forgive me if I ask you to take your fanciful notions elsewhere and kindly piss off. Good day, sir."

He hung up the phone, not realizing that his connection with Sir Guy had been severed midway through what he considered a well-deserved tirade.

Colonel Bexton did manage to do a little more light paperwork in the ensuing two minutes after Philliston's phone call. His peace was disrupted when an aide raced into the room with an urgent message from London. It had come not from RAF sources, but rather from the radio. The BBC World Service was reporting that London was, indeed, in the process of being heavily blitzed by hostile forces.

Colonel Bexton took the news with a choice of words that would be recalled for years to come among those aspiring to become officers of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force and who had no desire to follow the colonel's lead in reaction to a crisis.

"Oh, bloody hell," said the soon-to-be-retired Colonel E. C. T. Bexton.

Chapter 19

Smith caught up to the last SS-uniformed soldier on the top few steps of the lower staircase.

The rest of the band had just rounded the corner and was heading up into the daylight. They weren't paying attention to their rear.

Smith flung himself at the legs of the escaping soldier, wrapping his arms around the man's knees. The man let out a startled yelp as he toppled forward against the stairs.

The heel of the young soldier kicked up as he ran, catching Smith in the jaw. The impact cut a small gash in the CURE director's jaw and shifted his rimless glasses. Smith barely noticed.

The image was ridiculous. A man in his seventies tackling a fit twenty-five-year-old man.

But Smith had not only the element of surprise on his side. He had training. These so-called soldiers, no matter their pretension of identifying themselves with the formidable Nazis of ages past, were exceedingly sloppy.

The man fell and turned, kicking at his still unseen attacker as he tried to grab for his machine gun. His hat dropped off, revealing a pale, tattoo-painted scalp.

Smith had already rolled away from the flailing legs. Grabbing the soldier by the belt, Smith dragged him down the stairs with a mighty tug.

The skinhead bounced roughly down the wellworn steps, the back of his shaved head slamming against the concrete. He had just located his gun. It slipped from his fingers, rattling down the stairs beyond Smith.

When the young man was within reach, Smith lashed out with his free hand-fingers curled, palm extended. His hand smashed into the bridge of the skinhead's nose with a sickeningly loud crunch.

Blood gushed from the man's nostrils. He wriggled woozily, trying to pull himself back away on elbows and heels.

Smith repeated the blow, more vicious this time. The crunch was louder, the effect lethal. The young skinhead's eyes rolled back in their sockets. His head lolled to one side. He didn't stir again.

Kneeling next to the body, Smith didn't take time to catch his breath. He scrambled down the stairs, snatching up the skinhead's dropped machine gun in his gnarled hands.

It was set to fire.

His bones creaked as he climbed to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his jaw, Smith ran up to the landing.

The group of SS-clad skinheads had no idea what had just happened behind them. They were higher up the second landing, stuck in a bottleneck. The first men in line were waiting for a lull in the fighting at street level before racing into the smoke and flames in the road outside.

Not that there was much resistance from above. Even though some bobbies were allowed to carry guns in modern London, the police in the square were no match for the heavily armed IV troops. What the soldiers were avoiding were the bombs and occasional machine-gun bursts from their own attacking air force.

Smith braced his back against the wall as he stole a quick look up at the neo-Nazi troops.

Clustered together. An inviting target.

Smith twisted into the landing. His gray face a steel mask, he began firing carefully and methodically at the troops jammed tightly on the stairwell.

The gun rattled a relentless staccato in his steady hands. Bullet wounds erupted on the nearest startled troops. There were screams and shouts.

Caught off guard, the soldiers didn't know how to react. There were too many of them packed together to maneuver well. Those who did manage to wheel around succeeded only in firing on their own troops.

Bodies fell in crumpled masses, toppling atop one another in an avalanche of twisted limbs.

In a matter of seconds the subway staircase was transformed into a blood-drenched abattoir.

For several long moments Smith was forced to duck and hide behind the wall. For short stints he would pop out and fire on the dwindling German forces.

Eventually all that was left in the staircase was Smith. And the bodies of the men he had killed. He peeked around the corner.

The others had fled.

A rectangle of daylight that appeared to have been cut out of the concrete around him opened into the street. He could hear the angry pop-pop-pop of machine-gun fire echoing down the now silent stairwell.

Dropping the weapon in his hands, Smith scooped up two others from a pair of nearby corpses. Slinging one gun over his shoulder, he held the other firmly in his hands.

Ignoring the pains that screamed from every joint, Smith hurried up through the scattered dead to the street above.

THE CHAOS of Trafalgar Square was far below. Remo had just reached the top of the nearly two-hundred-foot-tall granite pedestal. He was standing next to the legs of the sixteen-foot-tall statue of Lord Nelson, and he still didn't know what to do about the huge German bomber.

The Heinkel moved with a plodding remorselessness across the smoke-choked sky.

Remo saw that its bay doors were open. Briefly a broad face came into view. It disappeared into the cavernous interior of the large aircraft.

What could Remo do?

Remo patted his pockets. He had nothing but his phony ID, a few credit cards and a roll of cash. Desperation.

There was nothing he could use. Nothing he-

The Heinkel was directly above him. It was like the Shadow of Death had passed over London.

All at once Remo became aware of something new in the air above him. Something small had fallen from the plane.

He looked up.

The bomb-the first of many, Remo was certain-was whistling angrily toward his head.

He glanced around frantically. He could rip one of the legs off Lord Nelson and use it to bat the bomb harmlessly away.

Bad plan. That wasn't how bombs worked. They waited until they hit something and then blew up. This wasn't a game of tag. He'd never win a contest with a bomb by striking it first.

It was closer now...twenty feet ...ten feet... There was not much choice. Remo steeled himself. Five feet...

It would have been easier if the bomb hadn't been sitting in a French farmer's field for thirty-seven years and then in a deminage depot for another eighteen.

Two feet...

No choice.

One foot...

Remo slapped his hand out.

The whistling bomb was at chest level now. He caught the nose of the 75 mm shell with carefully cupped fingers.

Slow the descent. Turn the bomb around.

Remo felt the rough, corroded surface of the unexploded shell through every nerve ending in his hand. Fingertips became suction cups. A variation of the technique that allowed him to climb sheer faces. Using the coarse bomb exterior for leverage, Remo whipped the explosive device back in the direction it had come.

The entire sequence took a split second to perform. The shell soared back up through the open bay doors of the Heinkel just as the aircraft began to drop another small handful of bombs.

There was a muffled explosion deep within the belly of the plane. Another distant sound of a single detonating shell was followed by an eerie second of silence.

All at once the huge aircraft erupted in a massive ball of flame. Smoking metal fragments exploded in every direction as fire tore down the length of the fatally wounded plane.

Lord Nelson became a shield. Remo ducked behind the statue as it was pelted with hundreds of chunks of jagged steel.

The Heinkel tore out of the sky with a pained scream, crashing solidly against the seventh floor of a ten-story building on the far side of the square. The nose buckled; the wings snapped forward into the brick walls and then sheared loose. Another explosion followed, after which the Heinkel's tail section ripped away and plummeted in a flaming mass to the street below.

What remained of the plane jutted out above the square. A burning hulk.

"Now, that was a plan," Remo announced to Lord Nelson.

Brushing the rusted metal fragments from his hand, he climbed swiftly back down to the ground.

RAF JETS INTERCEPTED the German warplanes above London at 12:25, Greenwich mean time. By most estimates, that was precisely twenty-five minutes after the attack had begun.

Rockets blazed into the sides of the woefully outmatched IV air force. Crippled and burning planes flew nose first from the hazy afternoon sky.

Most buildings and tourist attractions from Oxford Street to Constitution Hill and from Shaftesbury Avenue to Park Lane had sustained some kind of damage.

Some police were on the scene in riot gear. More were arriving every minute. Sirens sounded in every direction.

Fires raged in several ravaged buildings as Remo made his way around the periphery of the neo-Nazi defenses.

Many of the skinheads he dispatched were clearly in some altered state of mind. The bodies of their innocent victims lay everywhere around the smoke-filled square. For this reason alone, Remo continued to battle his way through the thinning troops.

A trio of men in an alley was firing against an unseen assailant near a burned-out car. Remo leaped into the middle of the dazed group of skinheads. His presence had barely registered to them before he was spinning on one heel.

With a triple crack, Remo brought both forearms and one knee against each man simultaneously. They were dead before they hit the ground. Remo slipped out of the alley.

Whoever had been firing on the three skinheads from behind the car had changed direction. The machine gun was now shooting at a group of men in SS uniforms fleeing for the nearest Tube entrance. Several of them dropped to the street, mortally wounded.

Remo assumed the shooter was with the police. He was trotting past the car when he was startled by something familiar about the figure crouching at its charred rear bumper. He stopped dead.

"Smitty?" Remo asked, shocked.

Harold Smith glanced once at Remo, his expression cross. Looking back to the fleeing German troops, Smith resumed firing.

At that moment the Master of Sinanju came racing into sight from the opposite direction. Seeing his pupil, he ran over to join him.

Chiun nodded. "You have found Emperor Smith."

"Sort of," Remo answered uncertainly. "Okay, Smitty, let me have it," he said gently.

Remo tugged the gun from Smith's hands, tossing it to the sidewalk. Smith immediately grabbed for the gun slung over his shoulder. Remo took that one, too.

"They're getting away!" Smith snapped. He started to give chase to the fleeing troops, but powerful hands restrained him. When he turned, he found the Master of Sinanju holding firmly on to his biceps.

"You are a valiant warrior, O Emperor. But the pinheads are undone."

"They're not getting away," Remo promised. "Not dressed like that. It's over."

Smith glanced from Remo to Chiun. All at once the fight seemed to drain out of him.

"Yes," he exhaled. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Remo looked around the area. The street was a littered mess. Several bodies-both skinhead and civilian-lay about the roadway. Bullet holes riddled the walls. Shattered glass lay everywhere. Nearby, the wreckage of an Me-109E burned freely. Plumes of black smoke rose into the gray sky.

"Is this what it was like before?" Remo wondered aloud.

"No." Smith was in the midst of adjusting his tie. "It was far worse," he said tartly, brushing dirt from his sleeve.

"We've got to get these guys, Smitty," Remo said softly.

No one seemed to hear him. A thought had suddenly occurred to Smith.

"Maude! I left her in the Underground." He started across the street.

"I will accompany you," Chiun announced. He trailed Smith back to the subway entrance.

Remo stood for a few moments longer, staring at the wreckage around him. Smoke and fire raged, sirens wailed.

Before leaving home a few short days before, he had been struggling internally with his life as CURE's enforcement arm. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Maybe he couldn't stamp out every last bit of evil in the world, but that didn't mean he should stop trying.

Smith was right. Conrad MacCleary had been right.

"One man can make a difference," Remo declared firmly. He resolved at that moment, looking at the grisly results of a reviled, decades-old evil, that-in this case-one man would do just that.

There was no way these people were going to get away with this. No way at all.

Face resolute, Remo walked back into the street. He headed back up the roadway in the direction of the battle-ravaged Nelson Monument.

Chapter 20

While bombs rained down over London and historic buildings erupted in flame and collapsed into rubble, a lone van made its way up the Boulevard Invalides on the famous Left Bank in Paris.

It moved slowly in the afternoon traffic, traveling north toward the Seine.

The driver didn't wish to attract undue attention. To anyone who saw it, this should have been merely another government van. One of many.

It was an excellent cover. For this was Paris, where it seemed everyone had either a government job or was rudely interrupted on the way to real work by government employees whose duty it was to scowl at and deride those on whom they depended most. Namely the French taxpayers, of whom there was a dwindling force.

The van drove past the Musee Rodin on the right and the Musee de l'Armee on the left. It stopped short of the Quai D' Orsay, which ran parallel for a time with the Seine.

The driver cut the engine.

Four men climbed from the van-two from the back, two from the front. The two in the rear carried with them a long, flat dolly, which they set on four well-oiled wheels. A retractable handle was drawn out from beneath the handcart and clicked into place at its side.

Three of the men went to work hauling heavy boxes out of the rear of the truck.

The fourth man looked on. Doubtless he was a supervisor of some sort. In a country with a per capita deficit greater than that of the United States, there were many government supervisors.

At the direction of the older man, the group pulled their handcart of boxes to the nearest Metro entrance. They used the wheelchair-access ramp to roll their supplies down into the Paris subway system.

A gendarme near the gate spied them immediately. Instead of fleeing like men with something to hide, the group of four crossed directly over to the guard. They brought their cart with them.

"What is all this?" the policeman asked, indicating the boxes stacked on the wheeled conveyance.

"Traps. For the rats," said the oldest of the four men, in perfect French. Eyes at half-mast, he spoke as if it was an effort to talk. An unlit cigarette was pasted to his lower lip.

The officer sighed. "Finally. One ran across my shoe the other day," he said. He waved at the pointed tip of one polished black dress shoe. "Across the toe. When are they going to find a way to rid us of them?"

The man shrugged. "These are new. The company has guaranteed them to work."

"Humph," the police officer scoffed. "Give me the order," he said. He held out his hand for the paperwork.

The man reached into the pocket of his white coveralls and produced a few yellow and pink carbon copies. He handed them to the gendarme.

"Are you not past retirement?" asked the policeman as he peered at the papers.

The old man coughed up a ball of thick phlegm, which he swallowed with an audible gulp. "What am I going to do?" he said with an indifferent shrug. "Sit at home until I die?" He waved a lazy hand. "Eh, when they put me in a box, my son will get whatever there is left."

The gendarme was taking a little too long scanning the work forms. The old man had been assured by Nils Schatz's personal assistant that there would be no difficulties.

Schatz had procured the services of the finest forgers in all of France. The paperwork should have been impeccably crafted.

The gendarme finished up at the bottom of the third sheet of paper. He flipped them back together. According to the work invoices, these men were indeed subway custodians.

"Good luck," the gendarme said, handing the orders back. "I have heard stories of some that are more than a meter long." Like a fisherman telling about the "one that got away," he held his hands about three feet apart to indicate the size of the rats in the Paris subways.

The old man again shrugged apathetically as he replaced the paperwork in his pocket. Without another word he waved his men past the officer and toward the cavernous black tunnel at the far end of the raised platform.

Just before they disappeared on the chipped concrete catwalk above the dirty train tracks, the gendarme shouted at the backs of the men.

"Be certain you set the traps correctly!"

"I get paid whether they work or not," said the old man who, fifty-five years before, had personally put to death seven French Resistance fighters and had ordered the deaths of many others. With his handcart laden with explosives, he and his trio of skinhead assistants vanished in the shadows of the long tunnel.

OVER THE COURSE of several days, while the eyes of the world were on England, the same drama played out in hundreds of locales around Paris.

At the Bibliotheque Nationale three deliverymen brought sealed crates of what were supposed to be books into a basement storage area. Instead of leaving them where they were instructed, they brought them to a dusty room where they wouldn't be discovered for days. By that time it would be too late.

Unexpected shipments of historical artifacts and artwork showed up at several museums around the city. The Musee des Arts Decoratifs, the Musee National d'Art Moderne and the Musee de l'Histoire de France all received truckloads of crates. The Palais du Louvre received the most. Invoices accompanying the shipments stressed that the artifacts had to be opened under precise conditions, but didn't specify what those conditions were. Fearful of damaging the precious contents, the staff left the boxes untouched.

Invoices stolen from various museums gained the skinheads access to government buildings. Shipments of "art" were delivered with the same precautions given at the museums. Bureaucrats and government workers at the Palais de l'Elysee and other such buildings were even less likely to toy with the crates than the museum curators. The boxes were stored quietly away.

The Aeroport Charles de Gaulle and the Forum des Halles were easier by far to deal with than anywhere else. At the bustling airport and the large underground shopping center, vans were strategically parked and then abandoned.

By the beginning of the third day, all of the careful planning had finally paid off. Everything was in place.

In the little living room of his dingy, out-of-the-way apartment building, Nils Schatz accepted the news of the deliveries with growing excitement.

A detailed map of Paris was spread out on the scratched coffee table before him. Each time a call came in to inform them of a successfully completed mission, a small red mark was made in ink at the spot where the bombs had been placed.

The map was covered with such marks.

Fritz was on the phone, receiving another update. "The Malesherbes bundle is in position," he said to Nils Schatz. Nodding, Schatz used his special red pen to make a mark on the map. "What about Avenue de Villiers?" Fritz said into the phone. As the party on the other end spoke, he glanced at a sheet of paper in his hand. "Oh, yes. Yes, I have it. Excellent, Klaus. Assemble your men. Call back when you are ready."

He hung up the phone, making a mark through "Avenue de Villiers" on the paper. He had missed it the first time, underlining the words instead of crossing them out.

"The last of the Metro packages are in place," Fritz announced, sitting down across from Schatz. He sighed heavily, as if he had personally hauled the hundreds of crates around Paris.

"I know," Schatz said. He didn't raise his eyes. He stared at the map reverently, like a nun entranced with the cross dangling from a set of rosary beads. "Have there been any reports of the Master of Sinanju?"

"None in France," Fritz hedged.

Schatz looked up. "Where?"

"London. As instructed, some of our ground troops stayed above the fray. They telephoned in as soon as the London phone system became operational. He and his protege were on the scene during the blitz."

"Why was I not informed?"

"I did not wish to upset you, Herr Schatz."

Schatz looked back down at the map, jaw clenched. "In future, Fritz, do not concern yourself with my state of mind," he said icily.

"Yes, Herr Schatz."

"Our men in Paris," Schatz continued. "Do they understand what they are to do next?"

Fritz nodded. "Klaus will lead them."

"Klaus is a good soldier." He looked up at Fritz. "There are few of us left." His upper lip drew tightly across his yellowed teeth. The unaccustomed smile dropped so quickly, Fritz was surprised there wasn't a thud.

It was a rare display of goodwill. Fritz decided not to squander it.

"I am concerned about Herr Kluge," Fritz ventured.

"Pah," Schatz spit, waving his hand. He was still staring at the map of Paris. His Paris.

"I share your disapproval of his leadership, Nils. But Kluge is strong. My contacts at the village tell me that he is livid at our offensive against the English."

Schatz looked up. His bleary old eyes gleamed with a distant brightness. They were embers stoked from the very heart of Hell.

His voice was disarmingly soft, frighteningly cheerful. "If that is the case, tonight he will be very, very upset."

His evil face serene, the old Nazi turned his attention back to the Paris map.

Chapter 21

In order to keep the enemy guessing, the secret headquarters of the British counterintelligence agency known as Source had been moved several times throughout its history. Somehow the enemy-for most of its history, the Soviet Union-had managed to find the new location every time. And each time that happened, Source moved.

With the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the takeover at Number 10 Downing Street by the antiintelligence Labour Party, Source was sent back to its roots. It now occupied the same modest digs it had at its inception. A few simple floors in a building above Trafalgar Square. An apothecary shop that faced out on the wrecked street marked the secret entrance to the spy organization.

For privacy, Remo Williams had come downstairs from the Source offices. He had left the false wall panel with its hidden staircase open wide behind him. At the moment he was talking to Smith on the phone in the back office of the dummy store.

"I was forced to cast out a rather wide web," Smith was saying. "But I think I may have a lead on IV. There is a man in Germany named Gus Holloway."

"That doesn't sound German," Remo commented.

"It is not. Holloway is American. The man is a neo-Nazi who has spoken a few times about a coming Fourth Reich."

"Him and about a billion other fascist wannabes," Remo said bitterly. As he talked, he waved his burned arm before his face. The reddish coloring the mustard gas had given it had faded to a light pink.

"Precisely why we need more information. Remember, Remo, with nothing more concrete to go on, this is all speculation at this time. I will continue to look into Holloway, as well as other potential sources of information."

"Speaking of Source," Remo said, "these guys haven't been much help. They got hold of some of the troops that were captured after yesterday's raid and came up dry."

"Perhaps you could persuade them," Smith suggested.

"No good," Remo said, shaking his head. "Chiun and I worked some of them over. They were just a bunch of stupid Nazi skinheads doing what they were told. No one who survived knows who's behind this. Somebody just aimed them at London and pushed them out of the nest."

"I am still puzzled as to how they were able to penetrate the air defenses around Great Britain," Smith said.

"You didn't hear?" Remo asked, surprised. "They didn't come from outside England. The planes were here the whole time."

"How is that possible?" Smith asked. "You were at the air base on Guernsey."

"I was at an air base on Guernsey. The last attack came from a hidden airfield on a sheep farm in Shropshire. They took off from the middle of merry old England. I guess it never occurred to these royal doofuses to look inside the yard once they built their fence."

"Hmm," Smith said thoughtfully.

"I need something a little more concrete than that to go on, Smitry," Remo countered dryly.

"I am afraid I have nothing to offer at present," Smith admitted.

"Whoever these people are, they're well financed," Remo suggested. "Maybe you can get to them that way."

"How?" Smith asked.

"I don't know," Remo said, exasperated. "You're the one who's supposed to be the brains of this outfit. See if anyone's been out there buying up a lot of antique planes lately. Maybe you can use their creditcard records or something to trace them." Remo snapped his fingers. "Hey, that's not a bad idea."

"Remo, it seems unlikely that a neo-Nazi group that has been careful enough to cover its tracks so effectively would purchase their air force with a credit card."

Remo had been very proud of his sudden burst of inspiration. His shoulders sunk visibly as the truth of Smith's words sunk in.

"I guess you're right," he grumbled. "Nonetheless, there might be other ways to track them using the planes. I have already initiated a computer search to that end. I must inform you, from what I have seen thus far, it is not encouraging." "Nothing has been lately," Remo groused. There was a brief pause over the line, as if Smith found his next words difficult to say.

"How are you feeling, Remo?" he asked.

"Since when are you concerned?" Remo asked.

"I am concerned with everything that might affect the efficiency of the organization."

"You're a real sweetheart, you know that, Smitty? I'm not quitting, if that's what you mean. Not until we get rid of these scumbags, anyway."

Smith seemed bolstered by this news. "I am glad to hear that," he said. "I might not have even sent you over here if you were not despondent at home. At least one small part of these events has been fortuitous."

"Yeah, good fortune smiles on us all," Remo said lightly. "And don't talk to me about being despondent. You're the one who should be getting counseling. What was that Rambo act you pulled yesterday afternoon?"

"Er, yes," Smith said uncomfortably. "There were no police present when the troops attacked. I merely saw an opening to assist. It was the proper thing to do, given the circumstances."

"Bullshit," Remo said. "I saw the look on your face. You were reliving your glory days. Smith versus the Axis powers. You could have gotten yourself killed."

Smith refused to be drawn in.

"I will be leaving England within the hour. I will try to find some information for you to go on before that, but it seems unlikely that any will be forthcoming. I suggest you stay close to Source headquarters. They will be the first to learn if there are any new attacks against England."

"I like to act," Remo muttered. "Not react."

"That is all we can do until we locate the shadow organization behind all this. By the way, is the French agent nearby?"

"Helene?" Remo asked. "She's upstairs. Why?"

"I will call you on her phone if I learn anything. If you need to make contact, you may page me." That said, Smith hung up the phone. It was always the same way with the CURE director. The simple courtesy of a goodbye was a waste of valuable time. Remo dropped the old phone in its cradle. Leaving the dusty apothecary shop behind him, he trudged up the stairs to Source headquarters.

REMO FOUND Helene Marie-Simone seated at a desk, talking in angry French into her cellular phone.

The Master of Sinanju stood near her. The old Korean had changed into a pale blue kimono. He was staring out one of the large tinted-glass windows that looked out over Trafalgar Square.

All of the fires had been extinguished. The crashed airplanes had been hauled away. Small remnants of shattered planes, piles of brick and gaping craters signaled some of the worst physical damage.

The bodies of those who perished in the attack were gone from the square. A total of 687 had died. The streets of London were empty. Martial law had been declared, and an eerie stillness had settled over all the British Isles.

The main office of Source looked like the sterile city room of a midsize newspaper. Neat desks were lined up in two rows. Except for the one Helene occupied, the desks were empty.

Sir Guy Philliston had left the building a few minutes before on an important mission. Source HQ was completely out of tea. He had vowed to remedy the problem or die in the attempt. Remo was hoping for the latter.

For now Remo sidled up to the Master of Sinanju. "Anything new?" he asked, nodding to Helene. Chiun shook his head.

"In the time you have been gone, she has placed seven telephone calls. Four were to her government, and three were of a disgusting personal nature."

"And?" Remo asked leadingly.

"And the French appetite for perversion and licentiousness is bottomless."

"And their beaches are topless," Remo said dismissively. "What about the calls to DGSE?"

"They know nothing," Chiun declared.

Remo exhaled loudly. "Great."

"Except..." Chiun began.

"Yeah?" Remo said, brightening.

"One of their politicians vanished during the night. Doubtless the victim of his own libido. Or of the lack of an alarm clock. The French do not know which."

"Oh," Remo said dejectedly.

"And," Chiun began again, raising an instructive finger.

"Yes?" Remo asked skeptically.

Chiun lowered his hand. "Nothing. That was all." He went back to staring out the window, a tiny smile playing at the corners of his thin lips.

Helene shouted a string of rapid-fire French before hanging up the phone. She growled in exasperation. When she glanced up, she saw Remo looking at her. "That man is-how do you say?-impossible."

"I've got a boss like that, too," Remo commiserated.

"What?" she snapped impatiently. She shook her head in sudden understanding. "No, that was not my boss. It was my lover. He is upset that I am not home."

Remo tried to be understanding. "Yeah, this job has rotten hours. Have you two lived together long?"

"What are you talking about?" Helene asked. "He lives with his wife. And what do you know of this job? Or have you abandoned posing as a State Department official?"

Remo decided that being understanding was for nitwits.

"I keep forgetting to ask you," he said, "where did you run off to when the fighting broke out yesterday?"

Helene waved to the statue of Nelson beyond the window. It was pitted with bullet holes.

"While you were scurrying up that statue like a monkey, I was on the phone."

Behind Remo, Chiun chortled loudly. "Like a monkey. Heh-heh-heh."

"Oh?" Remo asked, annoyed with both Helene and Chiun. "Make a date with an English soccer team? Better make sure they're all married first."

"There was another explosion in a Metro station in Paris yesterday afternoon," she snapped. "Since you listen in on all of my phone conversations, I am surprised you didn't hear that one."

"I was too busy not hiding," Remo said. "Hey, want to see the French army on maneuvers?" He threw both hands high into the air in the classic gesture of surrender.

"Arrgghh!" Helene snarled, pushing away from the desk in helpless exasperation. "I cannot take this!"

She stormed from the office.

"That went well." Remo smiled at Chiun. He felt cheerier than he had in several days.

"Like a monkey," Chiun said. "Heh-heh."

Remo felt his good mood fade as quickly as it had come.

"You're a real comfort, you know that, Chiun?"

"Ooo-ooo-ooo," said the Master of Sinanju with a distinctly simian sound.

HELENE BUMPED into Guy Philliston in the apothecary shop downstairs. He was hustling through the soot-smudged front door with a tin of East Indian tea he had liberated from the window display of a closed shop down the road.

"Ah," Philliston said, "leaving, are we?"

"I am going for a walk."

"Wouldn't go if I were you," Sir Guy warned. "Military rule and all that. They're supposed to shoot anyone on sight caught in the street. Questions later. Bad show all around."

"You seem fine."

Philliston straightened his spine proudly. "Yes, but I am British." This said, Sir Guy went into the back of the store, where the secret Source staircase was hidden.

Helene walked out into the empty square.

She hadn't gone more than a few yards before her cellular phone rang.

"Oui," Helene said, answering the powerful small phone.

Her face grew more and more shocked as the frantic voice on the other end of the line spit out a string of rapid-fire French.

"I will return immediately," she promised after the caller was finished. She pressed the button that disconnected the line and returned the device to the pocket of her leather jacket.

She glanced up once at the tinted Source windows two stories above. This was one phone call that the American agents didn't overhear.

Briefly Helene entertained the notion of going up and requesting Remo's help. After all, she had seen him do same amazing things over the past few days.

No, she finally decided. This was a French problem. It was best handled by Frenchmen.

She would deal with it herself.

A determined expression on her chiseled face, Helene hurried down the bombed-out street.

Chapter 22

The president of France arrived at the Palais de l'Elysee by limousine in the wee hours of the morning.

It was the day after the third aerial attack against London, and the president had political concerns that extended beyond the shores of his native land. France's neighbor across La Manche-the body of water the rest of the world stubbornly insisted on calling the English Channel-had been receiving a beating in her most famous city. Ordinarily this would have been a matter of indifference to France. Not this time.

There had been much bad blood between the two countries for many years. The president was acutely aware of the running feud between France and Great Britain, and he didn't wish to stir the embers by sleeping late after the worst of the three attacks against London. For this reason he came to the palace from the apartment of his mistress at a little after 6:30 a.m.

The limousine brought him through the high gates and around to his personal entrance. It stopped in the great shadow cast by the historic old building.

He was a man who liked to project a public image of independence. This streak of stubbornness was regularly demonstrated by his insistence that he open his own car door himself.

This morning, like every other morning since assuming office, his driver jumped out of the front seat and raced around the rear of the car to open the door. It was a daily race that the president invariably won. The president pulled at the door handle.

Odd...

In his eagerness to serve, after popping like a cork from the front seat, his driver generally pulled the door away from the president from the outside. Today there was no such pressure from the other side of the door. In fact, when the president looked more closely, he noticed through the window that there was no sign of his driver at all.

Not only that, when he tried to push the door open, he felt an opposite pressure. As if something was holding the door closed.

He pushed harder.

The obstruction moved. As it did so, an arm flopped into view beneath the half-open car door. The hand was covered in a sheen of bright red. Blood.

The president immediately yanked the door back. This was a security limousine. He would be safe inside.

The door was just inches from being shut when a black boot jammed into the opening between the door and the frame.

The president pulled harder, now with both hands. His knuckles grew white from the force he exerted. Shouts came from outside. He recognized the language immediately. German.

Scuffling. He could see them now. Their angry faces outside the window. He pulled more furiously. Hands curled in around the door frame, prying the door open. Though he struggled hard, there were too many of them. The president felt the handle being tugged away from him with a sudden wrench. The door sprang open wide.

His chauffeur was sprawled, dead, on the ground beside the car, still bleeding from the chest. His eyes were open wide, his face a macabre mask of shock.

The men outside the car reached in and grabbed the president of France roughly by the arms. They dragged him out into the cool morning air.

There were dozens of them. They wore the drab green German army uniforms of World War II. Each of them had a familiar old-fashioned curving helmet atop his bald head. Leather straps held the helmets in place.

On their arms were the chillingly familiar bands of Nazi soldiers. The black swastika--circled in white-on a red background.

There was no sign of the French troop on guard detail within the protected walls of the palace. These silent soldiers apparently had free rein.

The president was held fast beside his limousine. "I demand to know the meaning of this!" he sputtered indignantly.

The uniformed soldiers didn't react to his shouted words. They seemed unconcerned that his voice might bring assistance.

But his shout did have a reaction.

A lone man stepped from the doors that led into the interior of the palace-into the very heart of the French elected government.

Older than the rest, he wore a uniform slightly different than the others. He had the high-peaked cloth cap of a Nazi officer. A silver eagle perched atop the front of the mint-condition antique headgear. He came down the ornate outdoor staircase to the president's car.

"I apologize that we must meet under these conditions, Mr. President. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Field Marshal Fritz Dunlitz." He clicked his boots together in a gesture that rattled the black iron cross at his tightly buttoned uniform collar. "Please accompany me inside." He spread his hand toward the door to the palace.

"Unhand me!" the president insisted, twisting wildly.

Fritz nodded to the men. Obediently the soldiers released him.

"I demand that you-"

Fritz raised a black-gloved hand. He did it with such fury that the president halted his protestations. When the leader of France grew silent, a brittle smile broke across the face of the gaunt old German. Again he motioned to the door to the Palais de l'Elysee.

His next words gave the president of France an involuntary chill.

"The fuhrer wishes to meet you."

THEY HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED during the night and in the early hours of the morning. Each abduction was accomplished quietly, expertly. It was amazing even to Nils Schatz, considering the men with whom he had been forced to work.

But his army of skinheads with their aged Nazi leaders had proved their mettle in the most secret part of this shadow campaign.

On the floor of the small auditorium sat the mayors of the twenty arrondissements of Paris. With them was the prefect of the Seine and as many members of the senate and national assembly as could be found.

Those men in the room elected to national office were not as important to him as the others. They were, as the Americans said, gravy.

The mayors were the elected representatives of each division of France's most important city. They were the ones who separately controlled each small portion of Paris.

During the darkest hours of the morning, Schatz had persuaded all of them to sign an official document he had personally prepared. In order to do this, he had torn a page out of his own past history as Himmler's favorite torturer. Indeed, many of the men around him still tended the wounds he had inflicted upon them.

Schatz had enjoyed convincing them to see the wisdom of his position. The truth was, as he watched each man sign the important-looking scrap of paper, he had felt more alive than he had in years.

The document itself was only a few dozen lines, written both in German and in French. In effect it turned the city of Paris over to Nils Schatz. Now the fuhrer.

Schatz was sitting on a small dais at the front of the auditorium when the president of France and his Nazi entourage entered the room.

The new fuhrer placed onto the long table before him the document that relinquished control of the city to his army of skinheads. He rose politely as the French president was brought up onto the stage with him.

"Mr. President," Nils Schatz announced, clicking his heels formally.

"What is this outrage?" the president demanded. He noted the bruised and bloodied men and women seated near the far wall of the room. Guards sporting red-and-black-swastika armbands were posted all around them.

Schatz ignored the question. Instead, he continued speaking as if the French president were a silent guest.

"I thought that it would be more appropriate for us to meet in the railroad car of Marshal Foch," Schatz said. He shrugged helplessly. "However, there are still security issues for us."

"Foch?" the president echoed.

A national hero, Marshal Foch had received the surrender of the Germans in a railroad car at the end of World War I. Hitler had commandeered the car during World War II after the fall of Paris.

Schatz nodded. "Yes. His statue will, of course, be taken down at our earliest opportunity. For now I have a simple request. One your people have mastered over your long and-" distaste filled his face "-distinguished history. Please sign here."

Schatz drew the document toward the president. At the same time he offered the leader of France a gold pen.

The president quickly scanned the words on the large sheet of paper. He saw the signatories at the bottom. All of the highest authorities in the city. While Paris would certainly survive without them, their easy capitulation would be a major propaganda tool.

"Non," the president of France said, proud chin jutting forward. "I will not sign this."

Schatz nodded, as if his refusal wasn't unexpected.

"Technology is marvelous, would you not agree, Mr. President?" Schatz asked.

The president was baffled by this sudden change of topic. He remained silent.

Schatz continued. "I confess to being completely baffled by all of these new inventions. Satellites, cameras. Even television."

There was a large TV on a metal chassis at the end of the conference table. At a sign from Fritz, an armed skinhead switched the set on. The screen was filled with an image of the famous Paris Opera House. Still a relatively new addition to the city, it had been constructed during the tenure of the president's predecessor.

It was a huge, curving semicircle of glass and metal. The facade of the building arced up from its cold concrete foundation and swung high into the air, stabbing back down sharply on the far side.

To many the building was an ugly blot on the city landscape. The current president of France shared this view.

On the television screen, early-morning sunlight glinted off its many panes of glass. They were seeing the Paris Opera House as it looked right now. There were three trucks parked in close to the front of the building. They appeared to be unoccupied.

"We have taken control of your television stations," Schatz said, as if this were so obvious that the mere mention of the fact was superfluous.

Schatz nodded to the back of the room. In the rear yet another old Nazi bowed his understanding. He spoke furtively into a telephone in his gloved hand. Schatz turned his attention to the screen. Fritz and the other troops watched expectantly, sparks of eager anticipation in their eyes.

The president of France looked on with dread. For a long moment nothing happened.

Perhaps it will not happen, the president of France thought. Perhaps sheer will can keep this evil-There was a sudden flash, so huge, so shocking that all watching-with the exception of Nils Schatz-blinked their eyes in surprise.

The trucks with their stolen surplus ordnance exploded upward and backward. The face of the ugly glass building burst apart in a blinding, sparkling flash of fire and smoke.

In an instant the building seemed to hang in the air like a pointillist painting, then collapsed in on itself, filling the square before it with huge plumes of smoke and dust. Tiny sparkling glass crystals danced on the choking dust cloud as it raced forward like an angry gray fog. In seconds it had enveloped the stationary camera.

Schatz let the frozen French president dwell on the image for more than a minute. At last he switched the television off.

"You have seen the DGSE reports," Schatz said with a patient nod. "You know how much of our materials we have reclaimed. I need you to believe me when I say that I possess the capability to destroy major strategic and cultural portions of this city. You alone can stop me from doing this. You alone can save your people a great deal of pain and anguish." He again offered the gold pen to the president. "It will make my work so much easier," he added.

The president considered his options. He found he had none.

There was no telling where the bombs might be. And there were many. That the president knew beyond a doubt. They could be everywhere. Even in the palace.

Schatz had already demonstrated his might and his willingness to use it. His troops had commandeered French broadcasting. He had proved his seriousness in the destruction of the opera house. He had even taken over the palace of the president himself.

He was ruthless and efficient. With a small army at his disposal.

There was no other choice.

The president's hand shook with impotent rage. Without a word, he took the offered pen from the new fuhrer.

Chapter 23

Remo moped around the headquarters of Source until late in the afternoon.

Helene was gone. Apparently her fight with Remo had sent her back to France. Or perhaps she was elsewhere in England. For most of the day, he didn't care where.

He only became upset at around two o'clock when he realized that she had taken her phone with her. Without the phone Smith would have no way of contacting him.

Remo wished for a brief time that he had his own cellular phone. It seemed like everyone else had one. Helene. Guy Philliston. Even Smith had a pager.

However, he had never been very good at keeping track of gadgets. Smith had once given him an expensive two-way satellite communications device. Remo had broken it the first time he used it. After that Smith had relied on the telephone system.

It had always worked in the past. Until now. Remo paced back and forth before the windows along the Trafalgar Square side of the office. He rotated his thick wrists absently as he walked.

"You are making me dizzy," the Master of Sinanju complained. He was sitting cross-legged atop one of the empty desks. A bone-china cup filled with steaming tea sat in a gilded saucer. A delicate rose pattern adorned both cup and saucer.

"I can't just sit here," Remo grumbled.

"Why not?" Chiun asked, tipping his aged head. "Have you forgotten how?"

He picked up the teacup in his bony hand and brought it to his parchment lips. He sipped delicately. Remo stopped pacing.

He looked once more at the empty square and then back at the Master of Sinanju. After a moment's pause he walked over to the desk next to Chiun. Climbing atop it, he dropped into a lotus position on the desk's barren surface.

"You see," Chiun intoned sagely, "it is not as difficult as you might have remembered."

Once Remo was settled on the desk, Chiun clapped his hands two times, sharply.

Like a genie summoned from a lamp, Sir Guy Philliston appeared from a small office that was off to the side of the main Source information center. He carried with him a sterling-silver tea set.

Chiun had sent Sir Guy out for some proper herbal tea after the Englishman had returned that morning with the inferior, stimulant-laced East India blend. It took little effort for him to convince the Source commander to serve the tea when beckoned.

The objects on the tray rattled like a curio cabinet in an earthquake as Guy Philliston stepped nervously over to the Master of Sinanju.

"For my son," Chiun ordered.

Sir Guy gathered up the teapot and obediently filled a cup from the serving tray with the steaming greenish liquid. He handed it to Remo.

"The English make wonderful servants," Chiun commented. "I once had a British butler. He was a superb lickspittle."

"He tried to poison us," Remo reminded him, accepting the tea from Sir Guy.

"Yes, but he was polite about it," Chiun replied.

Sir Guy looked anxiously from one man to the other. "Does sir require anything further?" he asked.

Chiun waved a dismissive hand. "That is all, dogsbody."

Relieved, Sir Guy gathered up his serving set. He moved swiftly back inside the side office.

After he was gone, Remo sipped quietly at the tea. He stared out the window thoughtfully.

The Master of Sinanju watched his pupil looking vacantly off into space. A frown crossed his face. "You are troubled," Chiun said.

Remo glanced at him. "Shouldn't I be?"

"No. You should not."

Remo looked back out the window. "Sue me," he said softly.

"What is it that you find so distressing?"

Remo snorted, almost spilling his tea. "Haven't you been paying attention to what's going on?" He set the cup down at his knees. "We've got World War III threatening to erupt in Europe. Or at least a second installment of World War II. According to Philliston's latest intelligence reports out of Germany, every skinhead or skinhead buddy is lining up to march on England. We've got one of the sickest times in modern history resurfacing right before our eyes." Remo exhaled loudly. "That's what's bothering me."

"Ah, yes," Chiun observed, "but were you not also troubled before leaving America?"

"That was different. I was ticked at that incident in New Hampshire. I didn't think I was making a difference back home. I'm over that now. This is a big deal."

Chiun nodded. "If you had been able to save the life of that woman who summoned images of your troubled youth, would you have been pleased?"

Remo shrugged. "Yeah. I guess so."

"You will never change, Remo Williams." Chiun smiled sadly. "Though I have labored lo these many years to alter your narrow perception of the world, my efforts have come to naught. The image you have of yourself is that of a fat sowboy in a white hat riding your trusty steed hither and thither in the defense of justice. I tell you this now, Remo. You are not here to root out injustice. You are here at the request of your emperor. The job of an assassin is a simple one. It is you who make it complex."

"I don't know," Remo said sullenly. "Maybe."

"It is fact," Chiun stated simply. "You were angry before coming here. Now you are no longer angry about the thing you were fleeing-you are angry at something new. When our work here is finished, you will find something even newer to be angry about. You are like a child flitting from one shiny toy to the next, never satisfied with what he has."

Remo knew that there was a great deal of truth in what Chiun was saying. He nodded reluctantly. "So what should I do?" he asked.

"Learn from my example," Chiun said. "See what we do as the business it is. And never take your work home with you."

Remo wanted to laugh. Chiun was talking about assassination like a bookkeeper talked about the company's accounting ledger.

"I'll try," Remo promised, shaking his head.

"You will find that such an outlook lessens the complications in life greatly," Chiun offered. He lifted his teacup and took a thoughtful sip.

Remo glanced back to the office where Guy Philliston was hiding with his tea set.

"Tell me the truth," Remo asked, pitching his voice low. "Wasn't there a little part of you that wanted to zap Hitler all those years ago just for the satisfaction?"

"Absolutely," Chiun replied. "For the satisfaction of a job well done. The little Hun's head on a post outside my village would have brought much work to our House. Lamentably it was not so."

Remo shook his head. "You'll never convince me that you didn't want to bump him off for the sheer pleasure of it."

Chiun's sad smile deepened.

"That is where we will forever differ, my son," the old Korean said.

There was a sudden stomping on the staircase from the apothecary shop. Both Masters of Sinanju grew silent as a young Source agent came running into the main office area. Ignoring the men on the desks, he went racing into the side office of Sir Guy Philliston.

"Jilted boyfriend?" Remo asked, with a nod to the glass office door.

"I do not wish to think about it," Chiun sniffed. A moment later Sir Guy appeared from the room, the young man following obediently in his wake. He marched over to a large television set in the corner of the room.

"This had better be important," Philliston complained. He shot a nervous glance at Remo and Chiun. "The lad is worked up about something on the telly," he explained. He scanned the front of the set. "How does one activate this box thingie?" he asked his underling.

The young assistant turned the TV on. The audio came on before the picture. The stentorian voice of a Thames television announcer blared across the room.

"...the scene in Paris this afternoon is a page torn from the history books. A document of surrender that has been authentically verified as being signed by the president of France himself was released to the world press not half an hour ago. In it control of Paris is ceded to the invasion force you see behind me now...."

The picture slowly congealed into recognizable shapes.

Remo blinked in disbelief as the camera image settled on a column of marching soldiers led by a single man on horseback.

He had seen the footage before. But always in the grainy black-and-white of decades-old newsreels. This was in full, glorious color and surround sound.

The Arc de Triomphe stood in the background, surmounting the hill of Chaillot in Paris. Before it, the soldiers marched proudly through the street, black boots kicking high in the familiar Nazi goose step. Red-and-black armbands were the single spots of brightness on their drab uniforms.

It was an image of historical deja vu.

"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" Remo asked angrily.

"I'm sure I don't know," Philliston said nervously. He quickly turned to his underling. "Is this some sort of Gallic prank?" he demanded.

The young man shook his head. "No, Sir Guy. It's everywhere on the radio and telly. The World Service, ITN, BBC television, Thames. It became official at noon today. The French have surrendered Paris completely."

The column of men-Remo could see there were only about two hundred of them in all-turned in a wide arc as they passed by the camera. The long white tail of the lone horse in the lead waved merrily in the late-summer air.

"Thought they would have learned their lesson last time out," Sir Guy Philliston commented.

The television report next cut to a scene of raucous cheering near the Brandenburg Gate in Germany. The joy and optimism that had been displayed by the German people at the fall of communism on this very site was replaced by a dance of sheer blood lust by a huge crowd of skinheads.

The television announcer droned on. "This was the scene in Germany just minutes after the announcement of French surrender came. Obviously word of the impending bloodless coup had been deliberately leaked to fascist groups throughout the republic of Germany. Men who had until yesterday planned to join forces with the attack on London, have since switched their allegiance to the group that now controls Paris. The new regime has welcomed them with open arms. However, it remains to be seen whether they will encounter resistance upon reaching the French border."

Remo hopped down from the desk.

"I think we can guarantee them that," he said somberly.

Chiun had alighted to the floor also in a flutter of silk. Together they headed for the door.

"The two of you are going in alone?" Philliston's youthful aide asked, surprised. He turned to his commander. "Might that not be just a touch dangerous, sir?"

Remo and Chiun were just sliding out into the hallway. They vanished down the staircase.

As they were leaving, Sir Guy had taken a longstemmed meerschaum pipe from his pocket. It was carved in the shape of Anne Boleyn's head. Tiny fissures indicated where the pipe had once been cracked and glued back together. Guy stuck the pipe between his lips and lit the already stuffed bowl with a single wooden match. He blew a thoughtful puff of smoke at the ceiling as he shook the flame off the match with a gentle back-and-forth movement.

"Yes," Sir Guy said finally, nodding. "For the Nazis."

THE IMAGE of the marching neo-Nazi forces was beamed via satellite to a small television set in a neat little office in the ancient stone fortress that perched on a small South American mountain peak separate from the rest of the IV village.

The bright blue eyes of Adolf Kluge turned a flinty gray as the line of goose-stepping soldiers marched beyond the camera's range.

Hands clenched in bloodless white knuckles, Kluge rose slowly from behind his large desk. Wordlessly he stepped from the office into the huge stone corridor.

He did not turn the television off.

Chapter 24

Harold Smith pushed aside the heavy drapes in his hotel room, revealing an inch-wide strip of dirty glass.

His vantage point afforded him a fairly unobstructed view of the street three stories below. Occasionally a rental truck whose sides had been repainted red and emblazoned with an enormous black swastika would drive slowly down the road, turning off on a distant side street.

They were making their presence known. A lazy victory lap for the mighty conquerors.

At the moment two sets of armed guards had converged before the hotel. They stood on the quaint cobbled road, chatting and laughing. Three of them smoked cigarettes, casually flicking ash, like students sitting in some fashionable French sidewalk cafe.

Their Nazi uniforms propelled Smith backward in time. Unlike yesterday, he didn't feel an overwhelming compulsion to race out and fight the men. In fact, he admitted now that he had taken leave of his good senses in the London Underground the day before. No, what Smith was feeling now was the old sense of cold moral outrage he had experienced in his youth as a member of the OSS.

He hadn't realized that time had dulled his ability to be viscerally offended. He supposed his duties as CURE director were to blame. After seeing so much of the vile underbelly of American society, it was difficult to work up a stomachful of bile over anything. It had taken neo-Nazi storm troopers on the streets of Paris to rekindle the flames of revulsion that had burned away in youth.

"Is it safe, Harold?" his wife's timid voice asked from behind him. She sat in a chair next to the bed. Her face was filled with confusion and tension.

"No," Smith said simply.

The neo-Nazis on the street laughed once loudly and then parted company. A group of four walked down the street; the other three headed into the hotel. Smith watched them disappear beneath the windowsill.

He couldn't allow his emotions to dictate his next few steps. If they were to get out of this alive, he had to approach the situation rationally.

"Maude, please go in the bathroom," he instructed.

She didn't object. She didn't question why. Maude Smith merely stood dutifully and walked into the small room to one side of the bed. The door shut a moment later.

Smith looked at the night table. The cheap phone sat on the varnished wood surface. It was useless.

The invaders had disrupted Paris phone service during the night. He wouldn't be able to contact Remo. Smith crouched down beside the bed. His legs and back ached as he reached beneath the dangling edge of the dust ruffle. He slid his briefcase out onto the worn rug.

Standing, Smith placed the briefcase on the neatly made bed. This accomplished, he sat down in the overstuffed easy chair his wife had vacated moments before.

Smith patiently stared at the cracked painted surface of the old wooden door.

Alone in the room, he waited.

PIERRE LEPOTAGE'S grandfather had bought the small hotel for a modest sum in the early part of the twentieth century. Since that time it had been a tradition for all members of Pierre's family to work there.

Young Pierre had gotten his start in the kitchen during World War II. Back then, the LePotage family had been forced to make the best of a bad situation.

During the Occupation; his grandfather had retired to doing light duty around the hotel. Pierre's father had taken charge behind the desk. And in the kitchen young Pierre had the awesome duty of personally spitting in every meal prepared for the occupying German force. By the end of a busy day, his mouth would be as dry as the North African desert.

Both father and grandfather were long-since dead. Pierre had many years ago assumed the vaunted family position of desk clerk for Hotel de LePotage. So much time had passed since his youth that he had assumed his days of spitting into diners' meals were far behind him.

Pierre was surprised, therefore, when he felt a welling need to expectorate. It came to him the moment the three German soldiers came through the front door of his small family-owned hotel.

"We are under orders to search every building," the leader snarled in crude French as the trio approached the desk.

"Of course," Pierre said. He didn't smile.

"You will accompany us," the skinhead commanded.

Pierre nodded his understanding. He went to the door behind the desk. Reaching around the wall into the small office, he took the big ring with the master key from its special hook above the desk that had been his grandfather's.

Key in hand, he came out from behind the desk and joined the trio of neo-Nazi soldiers.

"Have you men eaten?" Pierre asked.

"No," admitted the German soldier.

The party entered the small elevator. Pierre reached up to grab the gate.

"In that case I invite you to dinner. I will prepare the meal myself."

He pulled the old-fashioned metal gate down with a resounding clank.

SMITH HEARD THEM coming down the hallway. They were stopping at each room in turn.

It had become obvious to the people staying there what was going on in the hotel. The objections tapered into a dull acceptance. Guests submitted their rooms and their personal belongings to the indignity of a search at the hands of the brutish skinhead soldiers.

When they at last came to his door, Smith had been sitting patiently for more than an hour.

He heard the footfalls on the old carpeted floor. There was not a rattle of keys as he expected. Just the sound of a single key sliding into the lock.

Smith got hastily up from the chair and reached for the briefcase on the bed.

The door sprang open into the room. Smith was caught like a deer in headlights. He was leaning over the bed, his frozen hand extended over the battered briefcase with its portable computer. He glanced at the door with a look of desperation.

Coming in from the dingy hallway, the neo-Nazis immediately sensed they had stumbled onto something valuable.

"Move away from there!" one of the soldiers ordered in French.

"Non!" Smith said. He lowered his hand farther. The briefcase was enticingly in reach.

Three machine guns raised threateningly.

"I will not tell you again," the skinhead in command said with sneering coldness.

Defeated, Smith withdrew his hand. Shoulders hunched, he stepped obediently over to the far side of the bed.

The three men hurried across the room. At the door Pierre LePotage looked mournfully at Harold Smith. This was terrible for business. He apologized to his guest with a wordless shrug.

Smith responded with an odd look. He was edging farther to the wall. He glanced down at the floor. It was the subtlest of gestures, but Pierre somehow caught the meaning in Smith's eyes at once. With a casualness that would have impressed the greatest living actor, the desk clerk eased himself back out into the hallway. He disappeared beyond the wall. "What do you suppose it is?" one of the skinheads said to his fellow soldiers, intrigue and greed in his voice.

"Probably more junk," said the lead soldier, studying the metal hasps. He glanced at Smith. "How do you open these?" he demanded.

"They are on a spring. You simply have to twist them," Smith explained.

The soldier placed his thumbs against the pair of locks. He pressed against them, hard. The split second he did so, Smith threw himself to the floor.

Only one of the men saw Smith go down. He watched the American drop from sight behind the bed the instant a wall of flame erupted around all three storm troopers.

The sound was no greater than that of a loud firecracker, but the result was far more violent. Behind the protective shield of the bed, Smith was safe from the brunt of the explosion.

He came up off his stomach a moment later, moving rapidly around the bed.

Pierre came in from the hallway. On the bed a small fire burned atop the charred comforter. The Frenchman expertly pulled the ends of the bedcovers up over the fire, extinguishing the flames.

Coldly rational now, Smith went over to the German soldiers. Only the one who had opened the briefcase was dead. His face and hands were reddish black masses of gore. The other two had been severely wounded. They lay dying on the old hotel rug.

Smith detested killing. But he also was a man who didn't shy away from doing what was necessary. Smith didn't know if he would have to ration bullets. He drew a knife from a scabbard at the waist of one soldier. With the dispassion of someone carving a Thanksgiving turkey, Smith plunged the knife into the hearts of the dying men.

Gathering up the soldiers' Walther MPL German submachine guns from the floor, he dropped them to the bed. Smith stripped the guns of their ammunition. He was about to damage them beyond use when Pierre stopped him.

"I believe I will have need for them," the Frenchman said levelly.

Smith glanced at the concierge. Quickly he handed over two of the guns. Dividing the ammunition into two equal amounts, he gave half to the desk clerk. "Merci," Pierre said. "Now we must get you to a safe place."

"I will be fine," Smith insisted.

Pierre glanced down at the three dead skinheads. When he looked back up, he wore a faint smile. "I have no doubt," said the desk clerk. Carrying his two submachine guns, the Frenchman left the room.

Smith hurried to the bathroom door.

"It is safe, Maude," Smith said. "Please close your eyes before you come out."

Mrs. Smith did as she was told. The door crept cautiously open, and Maude stepped back into the hotel room. She appeared shell-shocked.

"I heard an explosion, Harold." She trembled, eyes screwed tightly shut.

He knew that any lie he might come up with would be pointless. After all, his wife wasn't stupid. "We must hurry," he urged firmly.

Taking her by the arm, Smith led her hastily past the bodies and out into the hall. She didn't ask to bring her luggage.

Chapter 25

Remo hot-wired a Mercedes on Oxford Street and drove maniacally through the empty streets of London, finally flagging down the first British Army jeep he encountered.

After a brief discussion with the lieutenant in the army vehicle, during which the officer relinquished two front teeth and his sense of smell for the next six months, the soldier agreed to escort Remo and Chiun to the English end of the Channel Tunnel.

They flew at speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour down the M20, turning off in Folkestone five miles inland from the famed cliffs of Dover. Remo and Chiun left the stolen car and gap-toothed soldier behind, hurrying aboard the first Le Shuttle train.

Thirty-one miles and fifty-seven minutes later, the train emerged into the dwindling yellow sunlight in the French terminal at Coquelles near Calais, two miles inland.

Remo liberated a car from an English businessman who had brought the vehicle over on the train and tore out onto the A26 motorway. He pointed the car toward Paris.

A LONG SECTION of Boulevard Mortier had been closed down during the occupation. DGSE headquarters was in the hands of the enemy. Helene Marie-Simone skulked through the streets of Paris, alone.

A light drizzle had erupted shortly after nightfall. She held the collar of her leather jacket tight at her neck. Though it didn't provide much in the way of warmth, it kept out most of the rainwater.

Alone.

Helene hadn't set foot in her apartment since returning to France. If DGSE was in the hands of the neo-Nazi occupying army, there was no telling how much secure information they had gotten hold of. If her superiors had no time to destroy all that was sensitive before relinquishing command of France's premier espionage service, they would have an alphabetical listing of all DGSE agents.

She cursed herself for not informing Remo of the telephone call.

It had been from Director Remy Renard himself. He told her in hushed tones of what appeared to be a coup attempt at the Palais de l'Elysee. Agents who had been sent to liberate the palace had never returned. There was no word from the president, but he was believed to be inside.

Of course, all of this was hours before news broke of the fall of Paris. Helene had blundered back into the city at the worst moment of crisis. The capital had been locked down tightly before she had a chance to flee.

She was trapped. A prisoner in her own city. Helene had been wandering the streets for hours, waiting for nightfall. Now that it had finally come, her stride became more purposeful. Keeping to the shadows, she walked down the damp sidewalk along the Champs-Elysees toward the presidential palace. Barricades had been placed before the gates. Bags filled with sand were stacked atop one another. Before them, huge concrete slabs had been dumped in order to prevent suicide runs by explosives-laden trucks.

Armed guards knelt behind the barriers, chatting among themselves. From the shadows Helene scanned the fortifications.

There did not appear to be many guards. The force they had used to take the city was small. They must have expected reinforcements to come once the mission was under way.

Only two men were behind the sandbags. Occasionally a third man would stroll into view within the gates. A vicious-looking German shepherd walked at leash length before the final guard.

She watched the scene for half an hour. The rain grew heavier, pasting her brown hair to her face in thick sheets. She tugged it away from her eyes with impatient, shaking hands.

The guard with the dog completed his circuit every ten minutes or so. Within that interval the two guards were completely alone.

She waited until the dog guard returned one last time. As she watched his rain-slick back disappear beyond the high columns beside the gate, Helene moved out of the protective shadows. Her hand felt inside her coat, reaching for the butt of her gun.

She walked briskly across the wide street to the palace.

Her shivering now had nothing to do with the cold.

THERE WERE NO LIGHTS on inside the ground floor apartment. The windows were dark, the shades tightly drawn.

The figures approached from the east, up the dimly lit side street to the alley door. Rain dripped down from the roof three stories above, splattering in furious, uneven bursts against the pavement.

Somewhere distant two cats shrieked a sudden argument at one another. Afterward there were voices. A single loud laugh followed by a bawdy German shout. More laughter.

The dark, drenched shape in the lead came up to the old door, hugging the wall. A single knock, followed by three in rapid succession. Silence ensued. "Resistance," a voice called in a hoarse whisper. No response.

The rain continued to drain loudly into the alley. The German voices grew louder. They were coming closer.

Another knock.

"It is Smith," the dark shape hissed in English. Footfalls. Louder now. They were in the alley. But they were unhurried.

At the door a brief pause was followed by the sound of a dead bolt sliding back. The door opened an inch and a watery yellow eye peered out into the alley. All at once, the door swung open wide.

The Germans were nearly in view.

Without a glance down the alley, Smith hustled his wife inside the small apartment.

The door shut and locked once more.

Seconds later the German patrol strolled past the unlit apartment. They continued on without a glance at the silent alley door.

THE FRENCH ARMY HAD placed roadblocks around the city of Paris. The only people being allowed in so far were members of the press. By order of Fuhrer Schatz no one was being allowed to leave. Beyond their barricades, French authorities were helpless to do anything to liberate their capital city.

The president had been allowed to speak via direct satellite transmission to those members of the French senate and national assembly who hadn't been caught in the neo-Nazi web during the spate of kidnappings.

He informed them that he had indeed signed the document of surrender. He also told them that he was against their taking any action at this time to liberate the city. Of course, he was surrounded by eager young skinheads with plainly visible firearms, so the sincerity of France's chief elected official was suspect.

Of one thing, there was no doubt. France was facing a constitutional crisis.

The leaders of both houses of parliament were being held captive. The prime minister had been out of the city at the time of the takeover and had assumed control of what was left of the government. However, he was having difficulty rallying support among the remaining legislators.

In absence of a plan or a functioning government to support that plan, a vacuum had developed. And in that void nothing was getting accomplished, giving Nils Schatz and his tiny band of fascists more time to solidify their stranglehold on the famous city.

On one of the northwestern roads leading into Paris, a heavily armed convoy of French soldiers had stalled at the city's outskirts. Concrete barriers lined the road.

French army soldiers milled helplessly around trucks and jeeps on their side of the partition. On the other side a woefully outmatched force of neo-Nazi soldiers stood smugly at attention.

The French forces could easily have overrun the band of invaders, but hadn't yet been given instructions to do so. The Germans knew this. Like neighborhood milquetoasts given licence to taunt the local bully, the skinheads were milking their newfound power for all it was worth.

The Germans jeered and spit toward the French soldiers. The French could do nothing but stand back and stand down.

The standoff had gone on like this for several hours when Remo and Chiun finally drove up in their stolen Fiat.

They were waved to a stop by French guards. "We're in kind of a hurry," Remo pressed, leaning out the window as an armed French soldier approached.

"You are American?" the soldier said in English.

"Yep," Remo replied. "Hey, Frenchie, could you move that tank?" he called up ahead. He beeped the car's horn.

"I am Korean," Chiun said to no one in particular. Sensing he had a couple of potential lunatics on his hands, the French soldier took a step back from the car.

"Could you wait a moment, please?"

As Remo's car idled, the soldier walked briskly over to his commanding officer. The officer-a colonel-looked suspiciously at Remo and Chiun. He, in turn, went off to find his commander.

For a few long minutes, Remo tapped the dashboard anxiously. There seemed to be a dozen large vehicles in their way along with a dozen more huge concrete barriers.

He turned to Chiun.

"You want to walk?" he asked.

"It would be preferable to sitting here," Chiun admitted with a curt nod.

The two of them got out of the car and headed up the road alongside the stalled column of army vehicles.

By this point word of the car and its strange occupants had gotten up to the general in command of this particular detachment.

The general's name was Adrien Cresson. He was a wiry man with thick curly hair and a deep baritone that belied his size. He was also in a foul mood.

Suspecting they might have a pair of Nazi sympathizers on their hands, General Cresson had come personally down from his command post to Remo's parked car.

"Traffic into the city is restricted-" the general started to say as he approached the car, his hand perched on his side arm.

He stopped short. The vehicle was empty. General Cresson glanced angrily back at the colonel and private accompanying him.

"Where are they?" he demanded.

The men only shook their heads in confusion. Furious, he ordered the platoon to spread out along the road, searching under trucks and around the sides of tanks.

The scurrying French army soldiers located their prey in a matter of seconds. The two men from the car were seen strolling calmly through the barren stretch of road between the convoy and the first of the concrete barriers.

"No one stopped them?" General Cresson boomed, furious.

"No one saw them, sir," begged the colonel.

Cresson wheeled on his men. "Level weapons on those two!" he yelled.

The French soldiers obeyed.

On the other side of the line, the arrogance of the German soldiers melted into deep concern as the weapons of the French army detachment were pointed in their direction.

Remo and Chiun felt the pressure waves of rifles aimed at their backs.

"Beautiful country, isn't it?" Remo said.

"It reeks of fermented grapes," Chiun commented.

They strolled past the French barriers and over to the German end of the road.

"Halt!" an angry, French-accented voice shouted from behind them.

In front of them the Germans were at a loss what to do-with either the French army or the two men approaching.

Until now, the kidnapping of the French president had awarded them a sense of impunity. Now it seemed as if that air of privilege had evaporated.

Rather than flee, the half-dozen skinhead soldiers raised their own weapons at the approaching men.

BACK AT THE FRENCH lines, General Cresson had been ready to give the order to shoot. But when the occupying soldiers raised their machine guns at Remo and Chiun, he ordered his men to hold their fire.

Anxiously the French line watched the drama that was playing out before them.

"HALT!" the leader of the German troops called in English, echoing the command he had just heard the French general give. He was an unregenerate old Nazi. One of the men Schatz had brought with him from the IV village. He and his comrades were crouching alertly behind their protective wall of four-foot-high barriers.

"Wo ist die Toilette?" Remo asked, using a German phrase he had picked up from a guide book on Le Shuttle.

The neo-Nazi soldiers frowned. Was it possible this lunatic had broken through the French lines and was risking his life approaching occupied Paris simply to locate a bathroom?

The German in command decided that it made no difference.

"Turn around slowly and go back the way you came," he ordered, aiming his gun at Remo's chest.

"No can do," Remo said, shaking his head. "It's an emergency. I just had a big plate of snails at a little outdoor cafe that specializes in health-code violations." He continued toward the German defensive barriers.

"Stop!" the Nazi officer called one last time. His curled finger closed within a hair of his trigger. Remo and Chiun kept coming.

That was enough for the officer. Without further preamble the German opened fire. His men followed his lead an instant later.

German machine-gun fire erupted on the road into Paris for the first time in more than half a century. But unlike then, the bullets had no hope of finding their marks.

The instant the soldiers' fingers began caressing their triggers, Remo and Chiun split away from one another. Remo moved left, Chiun right.

They vaulted over the barriers in half a heartbeat, landing amid the startled squad of skinheads. Before the men were aware of what had happened, they felt their still-firing guns being wrenched from their hands. Fingers accompanied weapons-ripping free as if held in place by nothing stronger than air. Machine guns and detached digits soared high above them, landing with clattering finality on the vacant expanse of road between the two warring camps.

Spinning on the nearest disarmed soldiers, Chiun became a swirl of vengeful blue in his soft robin's egg kimono.

The Master of Sinanju launched back and forth, battering the foreheads of the stunned troops, crushing skulls and launching deadly fragments of bones into brains. Metal battle helmets rocketed backward off of the men, so great was the concussive force. The dead men crumpled to the road a split second after their useless headgear.

On his end of the line, Remo had taken out the first pair of skinhead soldiers with blows identical to the ones employed by the Master of Sinanju. Remo's third and final soldier bared his teeth as he grabbed for a side arm on his baggy uniform.

He was an older man. Obviously a product of World War II. Swearing in guttural German, the man pulled his gun free and wheeled on his attacker, only to find that his target had vanished. In fact, everything around him had vanished. The world had grown incredibly dark.

And then the pain began.

Outside the confines of the helmet, Remo had clapped his hand down atop the old soldier's headgear. He pushed.

There was a crunch of metal, like a beer can being crushed, followed by a snap-snap-snap of bone as the old Nazi's spinal column was compressed from above.

The man's startled eyes disappeared beneath the helmet. These were followed by his nose, his mouth and, finally, his chin. When Remo was finished, there was no sign of the thug's shaved and tattooed pate. He looked like a doughy mannequin's body with a greenish mushroomlike head.

Remo jammed two eye holes into the front of the helmet. With his blunt fingertip, he created a smiling crease in the thick metal beneath the two holes.

He held the soldier at arm's length, examining the makeshift smiley face.

"Have a bien day," Remo said with a smile of his own. He dropped the soldier to the road.

The Master of Sinanju came over to join him. He looked down at the helmet-head of the soldier. "The eyes are crooked," the old Korean said, tipping his head to one side thoughtfully.

Remo shrugged. "Spur of the moment," he said. "I'll do better next time."

Chiun nodded his approval.

They were about to leave the scene when something from the French lines distracted them.

It was soft. Barely audible at first. It was a single feeble clap. Remo turned.

General Cresson was standing alone just beyond the French barriers. He was at full attention; back erect, chest jutting forward proudly, staring directly at Remo and Chiun. His jaw quivered almost imperceptibly as he brought his hands together in a deliberate, repetitive motion. There was a faint hint of moisture in his flint black eyes.

All at once the entire platoon of French army soldiers on the other side of the road exploded in a spontaneous burst of cheers and applause. The sound thundered up the motorway.

Remo cast a wary eye toward the city. He looked back at the cheering French forces.

"Hey, you wanna keep it down?" Remo called. "Sheesh," he complained to Chiun as they began walking, "no wonder this city keeps getting invaded. No one knows when to shut up."

They continued up the road for Paris.

Chapter 26

Nils Schatz watched the reports out of Germany with something approaching pure, undiluted rapture. Everything was going exactly according to plan. Before the Berlin Wall came down, IV had worked for many years to establish a network of people sympathetic to the cause within the borders of both East and West Germany.

That fool Kluge had back-burnered the project, concentrating the organization's resources on technology and foreign investment. But the men were already there. Most of them would have worked for nothing, so great was their hatred. Indeed, many of them had been without funds since Adolf Kluge had assumed control of IV.

But Schatz had seen to it that they were paid. With the money he had been stealing all these months, he had gotten them supplies, weapons. And they were ready.

Neo-Nazi groups were already massing on the other side of the Rhine. They were ready to march through France and on to Paris.

The army of this new Germany had vowed to keep its people on the other side of the border, but Schatz knew that that would be impossible to do. Eventually there would be too many of them and they would come spilling over the border into France, sweeping across the country in a bloody wave so magnificent it would be impossible to stop.

The movement had its sympathizers within the regular army, as well. Schatz was certain that, before the week was out, the German army would be on his side, as well.

History was being made. Finally.

The shameful stain that was the Nazis' ignoble defeat in World War II was on the verge of being finally and completely erased.

The promise of IV would be realized in his lifetime. The Fourth Reich. The beginnings of a Teutonic empire that would span a thousand years.

And he-Nils Schatz-would be its fuhrer.

At the moment the leader of the reich was seated on the dais in the small auditorium of the Palais de l'Elysee.

Sitting on the floor against one wall were the city's elite, including the president of France himself. They were being guarded by a group of handpicked skinheads.

These were the ones with hope. He saw a piece of him in each of them. Every one of these young skinheads had the same love for blood that young Nils Schatz had had. He would train them to be his personal SS.

For now it wasn't yet safe for Schatz to tour the streets of this conquered city. He had spent much of the day and long hours into the night watching the televised reports of the fall of Paris, reveling in his bold accomplishment.

On the table before him was his walking stick. As he stared in wonder at the television screen, he rolled the cane back and forth absently between thumb and forefinger.

He was aware of sharp footfalls coming in from the hallway. They came to a scuffling stop on the auditorium floor beneath the stage.

"Fuhrer," Fritz called up to him.

The newly promoted field marshal had a disturbed edge to his voice. Schatz held up a staying hand, not turning away from the television.

Suddenly the CNN coverage he had been watching cut away for an interview with a former United States secretary of state. Schatz snarled, shutting off the television with the remote control. At last he turned his attention to Fritz.

His assistant was not alone. With him were two skinhead guards. Between the pair of men was a beautiful young woman. She wore a set of handcuffs and an expression of utter hatred.

"What have we here?" Schatz asked, amused.

"This traitor was apprehended within the palace walls, Fuhrer," Fritz said crisply. "She has murdered several soldiers of the reich."

Schatz gathered up his cane and stepped purposefully down from the stage. He walked over and stood toe-to-toe with Helene Marie-Simone.

"How many men?" Schatz asked, looking at the girl.

"Three guards," Fritz announced hotly.

Schatz stared deeply into Helene's eyes. He didn't tear his gaze away as he issued orders to Fritz. "Pull two more from duty on the street. Place them at the place our brave men were murdered."

"We have not many men to spare, Fuhrer," Fritz said nervously. "It is important that we have some presence on the streets. If the people were to realize how few men we actually have-"

"Would you perhaps prefer that a lone terrorist like our young lady friend here were to steal in here in the dead of night and assassinate your fuhrer?" Schatz asked. The words were said playfully, but there was a cold undertone.

Fritz snapped to attention. "Nein, mein Fuhrer!"

"Go," Schatz ordered.

Spinning on his heel, Fritz marched dutifully back out the auditorium door.

"You are the one from Guernsey," Schatz mused. "You were in the company of the Master of Sinanju. Tell me, my young assassin, is he with you now?"

Helene was not sure what a Master of Sinanju was. However, she had a sinking feeling that he was referring to either Remo or Chiun. She refused to play his game. Helene remained silent.

Schatz continued to stare into her eyes. As if he could see through to her brain and read her every flitting thought.

Helene's eyes strayed from his gaze only once. She shot a look to the president of France over against the wall. He seemed none the worse for wear.

"I will tell you what I think," Schatz said when it became clear she would not answer voluntarily. "I think you are alone. I think that if the Master of Sinanju were with you, he would have made it inside with far greater ease than you. He does not come now, nor will he in the future. For he sees his superior in me."

As he spoke, Schatz's eyes grew more and more wild. They held the look of a madman.

In that instant DGSE agent Helene Marie-Simone had an epiphany. She knew with a certainty beyond simple knowledge that the psychotic old man before her intended to kill her.

With great deliberateness Schatz ran the bronze end of his cane delicately beneath Helene's flawlessly shaped chin.

"Permit me, my dear, to show you how the Fourth Reich deals with murderers."

Chapter 27

The light drizzle had ended in a ten-minute-long downpour. Afterward many of the storm clouds scudded east, revealing a spotty tapestry of distant stars.

A few tenacious clouds remained above the city. Large, uncertain droplets of rain splattered to the wet ground as Remo and Chiun walked along the vacant sidewalks of Paris.

They had encountered few neo-Nazis since entering the besieged capital. A few foot patrols. Infrequently a truck with a painted swastika on its side would rumble past.

Obviously there were not many of them. The two hundred or so men Remo and Chiun had seen on television marching so proudly beneath the Arc de Triomphe must have been nearly the entire invading force.

"It doesn't make sense," Remo mused as they walked. "Let's say for the sake of argument there are double the number of soldiers here than were on TV. That still only gives them an army of four hundred. Even I can't believe the French would turn over their capital to four hundred men."

"There is more here than meets the nose," Chiun said.

"Nose?" Remo asked. He turned to the Master of Sinanju. Chiun remained silent.

Remo's eyes narrowed. As they continued down the street, he concentrated his olfactory senses on the minute particles suspended in the air around them.

It took him a moment to locate what Chiun was referring to. When he did, he was annoyed at himself for not noticing it, as well. The rain had cleaned much of the odor from the air, but some of it still remained.

"Mustard gas," Remo said with a somber nod. "I can smell the rotting canisters, too. They've got the gas and probably the bombs stored in the city somewhere."

"Of that there is no doubt," Chiun said.

"Which direction is it coming from?"

"Every direction," the Master of Sinanju answered seriously. "These villains have turned this entire city into one gigantic boom device. That is why the French conceded defeat so readily."

"This time," Remo clarified.

"True," Chiun admitted. "But whatever their past history, they have in this instance recognized a true threat. We must tread lightly."

"You don't have to tell me twice," said Remo.

"We must tread lightly," Chiun repeated.

"What was that for?" Remo asked.

"In case you blow me up before I have a chance to warn you yet again," the Master of Sinanju explained simply. They continued on through the dimly lit streets of the City of Lights.

FUHRER NILS SCHATZ of the German Fourth Reich watched over the shoulder of one of his young SS apprentices. The skinhead was trying to show the old Nazi how to navigate through the uncomplicated computer system that had come already installed on the machine.

"This is a mouse, mein Fuhrer," the lad was saying. He rested his hand atop a palm-sized piece of plastic to the side of the computer. "With it, you move the small arrow on the screen."

"The cursor," said Schatz.

"Yes, mein Fuhrer," the skinhead said brightly. Schatz detested technology. But although he was loath to admit it, it would be necessary in the new order. Others would have these devices. He could not allow the Fourth Reich to be outstripped by other nations in the infancy of its thousand-year life.

On the screen was a detailed map of Paris. Square red blocks indicated areas where explosives had been planted. Blue triangles showed the places that had been used for mustard-gas storage.

"One need only move the cursor to either a triangle or a square," the skinhead explained.

As he spoke he moved the cursor onto a red spot. Depressing the left mouse button with his index finger, the young man called up a computerized sheet that listed in detail the amount of ordnance that had been placed at that particular location.

"It is quite simple," the youth offered.

"Yes," Schatz said, lips pursed in a look of perpetual distaste. "Let me."

The youth obediently stood, allowing Schatz to assume the seat before the computer. Leaning his cane against the side of the desk, Schatz sat down.

He pressed the button on the mouse. Immediately the image on the screen changed to that of a gray background. Lines of text ran up the right side of the screen.

"What did I do?" he asked sternly.

"Nothing, mein Fuhrer," the skinhead explained. "That is the help function. You merely have to-" He reached over Schatz's shoulder in order to take control of the mouse.

"No," Schatz snapped. "Tell me."

Hurried footsteps racing into the room from the corridor interrupted the lesson. Schatz cast an angry eye over his shoulder.

It was Fritz. Panicked once again. Fritz always seemed panicked about something lately. He was standing between the two skinhead guards Schatz kept with him at all times.

"Mein fuhrer, Herr Kluge-" Fritz began. Schatz cut him off with a raised hand. He did not even look his way. As he spoke, he used the mouse to roll the cursor around the screen. The small arrow of light twirled drunkenly on the computer screen.

"Do not speak of Kluge. Not in this, our finest hour. Kluge is a nothing, an infant. A coward. He has squandered the invaluable resources of IV on what? On economic matters. We are an organization for conquest. That fool in diapers never understood our true purpose."

"I understand now that I should have put you in restraints."

The cursor stopped dead. Schatz's withered old hand had frozen upon the smooth plastic mouse. He turned slowly around in his seat.

"Kluge," he said with an almost imperceptible nod.

The leader of IV stood just inside the door to the small office next to Fritz. His blue gray eyes were more enraged than they had been in the small village in Argentina. He had just spent two hours traveling through the empty streets of Paris and had seen the lunacy of Nils Schatz firsthand.

"What were you thinking, you fool?" Kluge demanded.

"I was thinking of that which you never dared think," Schatz answered. He picked up his cane from its resting spot beside the desk. Still seated, he toyed with it, slowly twirling the walking stick on the carpeted floor.

"What? Of suicide?" Kluge snapped. "You pathetic old imbecile, you are out to ruin us."

Schatz slammed the blunt end of his cane down on the floor. As quickly as it struck, he was pulling it up in the air, aiming it at Adolf Kluge.

"Us?" Schatz snarled. His yellowed teeth ground viciously together. "I am not out to ruin us." The cane stabbed toward Kluge more violently. "However you, Herr Kluge, are an altogether other matter."

REMO AND CHIUN MET their first real resistance within the borders of Paris on their way into the part of the city that housed its most famous tourist attractions.

They were walking south on Rue de Clichy when they encountered a convoy of neo-Nazi vehicles. The entire column consisted of two stolen Hertz rental trucks that had been badly painted over in the colors of the Nazi flag.

Remo and the Master of Sinanju continued padding down the damp sidewalk as the trucks slowly approached.

"Shall I find out from these?" Chiun asked.

"I suppose we're going to have to ask sometime," Remo said glumly.

"It is preferable to wandering the streets aimlessly for the foreseeable future."

Remo nodded. "I don't smell any explosives in them."

"Nor do I," said Chiun.

Remo stopped on the sidewalk, crossing his arms. As he did so, the Master of Sinanju stepped out into the road. The old Asian walked over into the middle of the wet street and turned to face the oncoming truck.

DOWN THE ROAD the driver of the lead truck caught sight of the wizened figure in the amber glow of the truck's headlights.

The truck wasn't going fast-only about fifteen miles per hour. The old man had plenty of time to get out of the way. In point of fact, he shouldn't have even been outside. It would be good to give him a little scare.

The skinhead behind the wheel beeped the horn. The old man refused to budge.

The skinhead depressed the horn harder this time, holding his palm atop it for a solid ten-second burst. The old man picked a piece of lint off his kimono sleeve.

That was all the skinhead needed. There was a curfew in Paris. And he was under orders to enforce that curfew.

With more force than was necessary, he clomped his heavy black boot down onto the accelerator. The truck lurched obediently forward.

He watched the old man grow larger in the headlights as the truck bore down on him. The stranger still made no move to get out of the way.

The skinhead felt a swelling tingle of excitement as the truck ate up the last few feet between him and his target.

It was only at the last minute that he noticed another man standing on the sidewalk. No matter. He would attend to the second one later. Perhaps they would enlist him to scrape his old friend's remains from the front of the truck.

The driver had only gotten the big truck up to twenty-five miles per hour before overtaking the tiny Asian.

The wrinkled old face disappeared below the level of the dashboard. There was an instant where the skinhead behind the wheel swore he heard the crunch of brittle old bones.

Then suddenly there was a painful shriek of wheels and the windshield was coming up very fast to meet him. And he realized in a blinding flash that he had been flung from his seat and that the old man had somehow stopped the truck as solidly as if it had struck a concrete wall.

The glass shattered against his face-shredding his pasty skin. He was propelled forward out of the truck.

The skinhead soared over the head of the wrinkled old man, who held his hand against the front of the truck in a gesture so weak it looked like it would not have stopped a fistful of daisies.

He landed on the pavement, skidding several yards before coming to a stop against a pair of fine leather loafers. The young skinhead looked up, blood running into his eyes.

Looking down from above was the upside-down face of the man who had been standing on the sidewalk.

"OUCH," REMO SAID with a smile. "That looked really painful."

There was a screech of brakes, followed by a crash from the direction of the stalled truck.

Remo glanced up in time to see Chiun bounding over to the sidewalk, robes billowing around him like an insanely inflating parachute.

He had held the first truck just long enough for the second to plow into it, releasing his hold the instant the next driver slammed on his own brakes.

The driverless vehicle careered forward, flipping over onto its side. It crashed headlong into a darkened building, half on the street, half on the sidewalk. Its wheels spun crazily as its engine continued to race.

The next truck driver got control of his vehicle seconds after plowing into the rear of the first truck. He gripped the steering wheel for dear life as he slammed soundly on the brakes. Leaving a dozen yards' worth of black treads, the truck skidded across the wet street. It finally came to a gentle stop against a lamppost. High atop the pole, the faint yellow streetlight quivered ever so slightly from the truck's soft touch.

The skinhead on the road pushed blood from his eyes with shaking hands as he watched a pair of men spill from the cab of the less damaged truck.

As the men ran across the street, Chiun flounced up beside Remo.

"Nice work," Remo said.

"Of course," Chiun acknowledged, his tone indicating that he was surprised that Remo would have expected anything less. "Do you wish to save these pinheads for any reason?" he asked of the pair that were approaching.

"No, this one will do," Remo said, nodding to the man on the ground.

Wordlessly Chiun whirled forward to intercept the advancing skinheads.

They had their weapons drawn and aimed at the Master of Sinanju, ready to open fire. Chiun plowed straight into them faster than they could squeeze their triggers.

In a blur visible only to Remo, Chiun dropped his hands atop the helmets of the two men. A pair of simultaneous hollow plop-crunch noises followed. Their old-fashioned headgear collapsed like folding beach chairs around their ears. Quick as a flash, the Master of Sinanju carved a pair of smiley faces into the fronts of both helmets. Unlike Remo, he made certain his eyes were even.

He turned, holding the bodies by the necks for Remo's inspection. The helmet faces stared, unblinking, at Remo.

"Maybe you should try a nose," Remo suggested.

"You must develop an appreciation for minimalism," Chiun replied. He released the helmet-headed corpses. Leaving them in the street, he joined Remo and the injured skinhead.

The young man was suffering from only a few superficial wounds. He grew more frightened as the Master of Sinanju approached.

"Keep him away!" he begged fearfully.

"Not to worry," Remo said. "It's my turn." Grabbing a knotted fistful of neo-Nazi shoulder muscle, Remo squeezed tightly. The young man's eyes bulged so hard they looked as if they might pop from their sockets. The pain was too intense to even scream. Though his mouth was open wide, no sound emerged.

"That's level one," Remo said, easing back on the pressure. "Now tell me, who's behind this?"

"The fuhrer," the young man gasped.

Remo shot a look at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju stood more erect upon hearing the German title. "Do better than that, sausage breath," Remo said. He squeezed harder.

"Nils Schatz!" the man cried in pain. "He is an old leader! From the time of the first fuhrer!"

"Now we're getting somewhere," Remo said encouragingly. "Where can we find this Shits guy?"

"At the presidential palace," the skinhead answered.

Remo turned to Chiun. "You know where that is?"

"You refer to the Palais de l'Eysee?" Chiun asked the skinhead. The young man nodded. "I know the place," Chiun said to Remo.

Remo turned his attention back to the bloodied skinhead.

"When you meet the first fuhrer, tell him Sinanju says to keep a seat warm for his understudy."

He drove two hard fingers into the frontal lobe of the whimpering neo-Nazi.

"YOU ARE NOT in command," Kluge said. "I demand that you return with me to Argentina at once, before you further jeopardize our anonymity."

"We are no longer anonymous," Schatz sneered. "No thanks to you. Because of your cowardly leadership, we have squandered decades scurrying like frightened rats at the periphery of the world. I have accomplished that which you were afraid to do."

"I was not afraid, idiot!" Kluge screamed. "You've accomplished nothing. A stupid old man with a stupid old scheme of revenge against the world. 'Der Geist der stets verneint. '" Kluge spit the German words out like a curse. "'The The spirit that never dies.' Pah! You should have died. Along with these insane hopes of military domination."

Schatz had remained seated since Kluge had arrived in this small office in the Palais de L'Elysee. But at this last outburst from the IV leader, he pushed himself to his feet. Though it was unnecessary, he used his cane for support. He stared icily at Kluge.

"This insane hope is a reality," he said with cold simplicity.

"And what of Sinanju?" Kluge demanded. "Oh, yes, I know that both Masters of Sinanju have been here, on this very soil. And they were involved in your little-" he waved his hand impatiently "-foray into England."

Schatz shot a look at Fritz. The old man held his leader's glare for a few seconds before finally turning away. It was as good as an admission of guilt. Scowling, Schatz turned back to Kluge.

"They have yielded before the might of the reich."

"Hah," Kluge spit venomously. "They do not yield. They never yield. Do you have any idea the intricacies involved in our last encounter with those two? Whoever they work for in America tried to trace us through Platt-Deutsche. I managed to throw up a few computer roadblocks barely in time to keep them at bay. We lost that entire company. It was nearly a billion-dollar loss."

"Economics," Schatz snapped. "Technology. Your two mistresses. They have brought us to ruin."

"No, you have brought us to ruin. Face the truth, Schatz. I am the future of IV. You are its past."

"Do not be so certain of yourself, Adolf," Schatz said. He pointed to the pair of skinhead guards standing inside the door. "Take him," he ordered blandly.

Immediately the guards grabbed Adolf Kluge by the arms.

"Are you insane?" Kluge demanded, shocked.

"Have you not said so yourself?" Schatz asked with a simple shrug. He turned to his guards. "Put him in with the French prisoners. I will decide what to do with him later."

Kluge was too stunned to protest. The skinhead guards led him from the room and down the corridor. "Mein fuhrer, I am sorr-" Fritz began with a helpless shrug of his bony shoulders.

The cane was up in an instant, resting against Fritz's pointy chin. The old man was too afraid to push it away. The cold end sat there, held aloft by Nils Schatz's trembling hand. Fritz could see a faint film of dried blood and gore on its bronze tip. He swallowed in fear.

"Be relieved that you are not joining him," Schatz said menacingly. He lowered the cane to the floor. Fritz closed his eyes and heaved a sigh of relief. The second his eyes were shut Fritz felt a tremendous pressure against the side of his head. A blinding flash of light crashed in a furious wave from a point just behind his left ear.

Fritz reeled.

His eyes opened for a moment and he saw the room in a tilted haze. It took him a second to orient himself.

He realized that he had fallen to his knees. In the process he had somehow grabbed on to the chair that Nils Schatz had been sitting on in front of his computer.

His fuhrer and lifelong friend was before him, holding his favorite walking stick in a two-handed grip. To Fritz it seemed as if everything were moving in slow motion.

Schatz swung again. The metal end of the cane connected with a hollow crack.

Again the blinding pain.

Fritz lost his grip on the chair. He fell spreadeagled to the floor. With desperate hands he tried to push himself up to his creaking knees.

Above him Schatz swung a final time. The heavy tip of the cane landed square in the back of Fritz's head. At last the skull cracked obediently and the old Nazi fell once more to the floor. This time he didn't move.

Schatz withdrew a few steps from the corpse, panting excessively. He had to lean against the wall from his great exertion.

"In the future," Schatz said to the body, as if Fritz were still alive, "I would advise you, Fritz, to ask your fuhrer before giving out privileged information."

The young skinhead who had been aiding Schatz with the computer was still in the room. He stood at attention by the small terminal.

Schatz pointed at the body with his cane.

"See the field marshal to his quarters," he instructed. "I believe he is ill." He walked from the room and up the long corridor.

Schatz had spoken it with such seriousness that the neo-Nazi standing at the computer was uncertain whether or not his fuhrer was joking. However, not wishing to be on the receiving end of a punishment like the one Field Marshal Dunlitz had just gotten, the skinhead stooped dutifully to collect the body.

He carried the old dead Nazi to his room.

Chapter 28

He didn't enjoy the prospect of leaving his wife in such a dangerous climate, but Harold W. Smith had no other choice. For the moment he knew that she would be safe.

He stole quietly down the soggy streets of Paris in a borrowed black overcoat. Beneath it was hidden the gun he had taken from the dead skinhead back at his hotel. He held it awkwardly as he walked stiffly through the late-night air.

Aside from the dull glow from its many streetlights, Paris was dark. The lights in the public and private buildings had been doused in accordance with a decree issued by the city's new military ruler.

The inhabitants of Paris had been remarkably submissive over the past twelve hours since the occupation had been announced. Smith had learned that this was due in large part to the fact that the elected president had appeared on neo-Nazi controlled local television and instructed citizens to stay indoors during this early part of the occupation. He had informed the population of the bomb and mustard-gas threats and told them that the leader of the group responsible had vowed to kill one hundred randomly chosen French civilians for every single neo-Nazi soldier killed. It was too dangerous for them not to comply.

And so the population remained as they had been told to remain. In hiding in their darkened rooms. Of course, it wouldn't last. Smith had known many fine men on the streets of this very city who would die before shrinking away from doing that which was right. At this very moment, one of them watched over his wife.

France would fight back.

When the time for rebellion finally came, there was no telling what the madman in command of this insane scheme would do to stop it. With his finger on the trigger of so many explosives, the resulting deaths could quite easily be tallied in the hundreds of thousands.

That was why Smith was on the streets alone now. For he had learned something in his youth that had been a cornerstone of his belief system his entire life. It was what he had tried to tell Remo a few short days before.

One man could make a difference.

Smith's footfalls were tiny clacks against the damp sidewalk. He walked as quickly as possible toward the president's palace.

He knew that there were patrols out. He had avoided two since leaving his wife several streets back. Just a few more blocks to go, and he would be home free.

Smith stepped down from the sidewalk and was hurrying across 4 Septembre Reaumur when he heard the sudden rumble of an engine.

He hadn't heard it coming soon enough.

Heart quickening, Smith ran across the street, still trying to conceal the awkward shape of the machine gun beneath his coat.

Too late.

All at once a large truck rolled into view around the corner from Sebastopol.

Smith was trapped in the headlights like a fly in amber.

There was a shout in German as the truck picked up speed, barreling toward him.

All hope of avoiding confrontation before reaching the palace was gone. Ever rational, Smith realized he had only one option open to him.

As the truck ate up the space between them, Smith pulled the machine gun from beneath his long coat. Without hesitation he raised the weapon and fired.

A short controlled burst shattered the windshield on the driver's side. The truck immediately began decelerating.

At the same time Smith saw a dark shape hang out of the passenger's-side window. A series of fiery bursts exploded from the darkness behind the bright headlights.

The bullets fired from the truck missed their mark. As Smith had expected, it was difficult for the man in the passenger's seat to aim while the vehicle was moving.

Smith had no such problem. He redirected his fire, this time at the skinhead with the gun. Bullets pinged off the truck's metal body, sending small ricochet sparks into the night.

Unlike before, however, his target was no longer where it had been.

Just as Smith opened fire, the passenger ducked back inside the cab as the truck continued to slow. Blind luck kept him from being shredded by gunfire.

Through the shattered window, Smith could barely make out the slumped form of the driver. He was obviously dead. The second man pushed the body out of the way and climbed in behind the steering wheel.

Smith fired again, but he saw at once that it was futile. His target was staying hidden beneath the dashboard.

By this time the truck was nearly upon him. Jamming the gun close to his chest, Smith ran the rest of the way across the street. He ducked inside a protective alcove between two buildings just as the truck careered past.

It squealed to a stop a few dozen yards beyond the spot where Smith had taken refuge.

He heard a voice hissing a stream of furious German. Most likely into a radio.

It was over. There would be dozens of reinforcements here in no time. Smith had failed.

Distantly he heard the truck engine shut off.

The German was creeping toward him. Although the man was walking lightly, Smith heard the occasional scuff of a boot heel against the wet street.

He was a sitting duck. The alcove he was hiding in went back only a few feet. If he tried to run, he would be plainly visible to his stalker.

Smith felt his heart thudding beneath his rib cage. It ached. As if someone had kicked him in the chest. His breathing from his exertions was ragged. He was an old man. Not suited to this sort of activity.

It wouldn't matter much longer.

Smith didn't consider himself to be a heroic man. He only ever did that which he thought was necessary. To "go out fighting" was an axiom that he felt was intended for fools. It had always had very little meaning to him.

But for the first time in his life, Smith found that he was out of options. And for the first time Smith realized the truth behind the words.

Back braced against the wall, Smith raised his gun level with his chest. He prepared to fire on the skinhead the instant he came into view.

As he stared out into the street, gunfire suddenly erupted from beyond his field of vision. Bullets raged against the side of the old building, spitting out jagged red chunks of brick and small puffs of mortar. Smith ducked farther back, plastering himself against the wall. He blinked to clear the dust from his eyes. And in that instant, he saw a dark shape glide into the alley beside him.

Wheeling, Smith turned the gun on the shadow. Before he could fire, he felt the weapon being pulled gently from his hands. He grabbed for it with arthritic fingers.

"You could hurt someone with that," Remo's familiar voice said. Smith spun to the sound. The face of CURE's enforcement arm was serious. Remo handed the weapon back over his shoulder.

The Master of Sinanju stood beyond Remo. He took the gun by the barrel, holding it at arm's length between his thumb and index finger.

"All hail, Emperor Smith," Chiun intoned. "Shooter of Guns. Vanquisher of the Pinheads." Chiun twisted the gun into a U-shape before tossing the weapon out into the street. It clattered loudly against the damp pavement.

"There is a Nazi soldier out there," Smith stressed, nodding to the street.

"I kind of figured," Remo said, "seeing as how he just tried to kill me and all." He ambled out toward the sidewalk.

"I believe he may have used a radio to signal others," Smith called after him.

"There aren't that many to signal," Remo said as he slipped from the alcove.

Chiun appraised Smith. A tiny hint of approval played in the light that reflected dimly in his youthful hazel eyes.

"You are looking well, Emperor," Chiun said.

"Thank you, Master of Sinanju," Smith replied tensely.

"In future, however, I would beg that you refrain from the use of firearms. They reflect poorly on both you and your humble servants." He bowed slightly.

Smith returned the bow with a faint nod. "I will do my best," he said.

Smith was waiting to hear the inevitable gunfire that would sound when the German soldier at last spotted Remo. As he strained to hear, however, the only noise that drifted into the alcove was a groan of metal and a dull cracking sound. Afterward there was silence.

"Remo has cleared a path for your noble self," Chiun announced, motioning to the street.

Smith knew better than to doubt the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun trailed him out to the road. Remo was trotting back from the body of the fallen skinhead.

The young man's remains didn't look right. From the angle Smith was viewing it, it looked as if the skinhead's helmet had swallowed up his head. Obviously it was a trick of the light. He was distracted from his observations by Remo.

"What are you trying to prove, Smitty?" Remo demanded, coming up to meet them. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"That was not my intention," Smith said brusquely.

"I'll tell that to your widow," Remo replied. "Where is she, by the way?"

"She is in the care of an old friend."

"Since when do you have friends?"

Smith's lemony voice became more tart. "That is irrelevant," he said sharply. "We must hurry. The architect of this nightmare is at the Palais de L'Elysee."

"We were already on our way there when we heard this nonsense," Remo said, waving to the bullet-riddled truck.

"In that case, let us continue."

Smith started down the street. Remo stopped him with a firm hand on the shoulder.

"Look, Smitty. Your wife is probably scared out of her wits right about now. Go back with her and sit tight. We can handle things from here."

"Remo, this is too serious," Smith pressed. "We cannot leave things up to chance. Parisian television is broadcasting scenes from Germany. This new fascist takeover has spawned a blood lust in that country. Even if you stop this new fuhrer, if he manages to first detonate his hidden stores of explosives, he could inspire his followers to further acts of violent aggression."

"The emperor is correct," Chiun said, nodding his agreement. "The Hun have been kept at bay for many years, but that will not last forever. Their desire for conflict originates in the womb. However dormant it might have been, a victory here could inflame it anew."

Remo sighed. "So what are you saying?" he asked Smith.

"Get me inside the palace. If there is a computer system or some other technological means used for detonation, you and Chiun will be out of your element. Perhaps I can stop the bombs before they go off. Without an explosive finale, those negative elements within Germany's borders might not have inspiration enough to attack."

"Can't you access it from outside?" Remo asked.

Smith shook his head. "My laptop was destroyed."

"Figures," Remo said, shaking his head. "Okay, we'll get you inside. But promise me, Smitty. No more of this Schwarzenegger crap."

"I promise to do only that which is necessary," Smith said tightly.

"A typical nonanswer," Remo sighed. "Let's go."

The three of them headed for the parked German truck.

Chapter 29

The deaths of the three soldiers at the Hotel de LePotage were reported by radio to the Palais de l'Elysee.

After the treatment old Fritz had received, the aged Nazi who was manning the radio station would have been happier to keep this information from Nils Schatz. But since the fuhrer was standing directly behind him when the news came in, that proved impossible.

"Send in reinforcements," Schatz ordered.

"We haven't many men to spare, Fuhrer," the old man said. "Several patrols have failed to report in."

"How many are at the murder scene now?"

"Only two, mein Fuhrer."

"Give me that," Schatz said, grabbing the microphone from his henchman. The old man at the radio hurried to stab the Transmit button. "Listen to me," Schatz intoned. "This is your fuhrer speaking. I want everyone in that hotel shot as a traitor to the fatherland."

Four staticky words came back over the oldfashioned radio setup.

"The hotel is empty."

"What?" Schatz demanded.

"That is why it took so long to find them," the radio operator explained. "No one reported the crime."

Schatz's face twisted into an angry scowl. "Burn the hotel to the ground!" Schatz ordered.

"Yes, mein Fuhrer!" came the scratchy reply. Schatz threw down the mouthpiece.

In the instant before the portable transmitter that the skinheads at the hotel were using cut out, the radio operator swore he heard a surprised shout and a sudden burst of machine-gun fire. He glanced at Schatz.

Stomping down from the stage, the fuhrer hadn't heard. The radio operator decided to remain silent. Schatz marched back and forth in front of the dais, his cane tucked up beneath his armpit like a swagger stick. He finally stopped on the side of the room where the hostages had been forced to sit since they had been taken captive.

Some of the men were asleep. Many more sat on their haunches, hugging their knees to their chests. Adolf Kluge sat silently behind the president of France, trying to remain inconspicuous.

"See how the Fourth Reich deals with murderers and saboteurs?" Schatz said to the president.

The president said nothing.

"Soon a legion of brave Aryan soldiers will swarm across your borders," Schatz sneered. "Perhaps if you behave, I will reinstall you as puppet president."

The leader of France spoke softly.

"I assure you that sovereign France will never allow those men to cross into this country."

Schatz laughed. "We will see."

"Even if it were true, NATO will not stand idly by," the president added. "You would be wise to surrender now."

"NATO?" scoffed Schatz. "NATO is nothing without the United States and Great Britain," he said dismissively. "At the moment England has its own problems with which to contend. As for the United States, it would perhaps have been wise if your predecessor had allowed the Americans to fly over your country on their Libyan bombing raid. Since that time it has been difficult for the giant in North America to rouse itself to French causes."

The president agreed privately that the words had some validity. The current president's party had not been in power at the time. If it had been up to him, French planes would have joined their American allies in the bombing of the terrorist Arab state.

"We will see," the president said simply.

The radio on the stage suddenly crackled to life.

Schatz abandoned the president, marching back across the floor to the dais.

Behind him the president of France heard a soft voice.

"You would be advised not to incite him," Kluge whispered in English. His accent was distinctly British. "He is unstable."

The president was surprised. He had thought Kluge to be a subordinate who had lost favor with the Nazi leader.

"You do not work for him?" the president whispered.

Kluge managed a sour laugh. "Hardly," he said. "I was sent to help by your good friends across the channel. Have you heard of Source?"

The president didn't have time to admit that he had. All at once Nils Schatz thundered loudly from atop the dais.

"This is an outrage!" he screamed. The radio operator cowered beneath him. "How many are dead?"

"We do not know yet," the radio man said. "Two trucks have been located on Rue de Clichy. Their drivers are both dead. One gruesomely."

"How?" Schatz demanded.

"His head was crushed beneath his own helmet, Fuhrer." He hesitated a moment. "I received news of similar deaths at one of our checkpoints earlier in the evening. Forgive me, Fuhrer, but I assumed these men who are working for us were inebriated. After all, what force could collapse a skull this way?" Schatz's mouth had become an angry, bloodless line. He spun away from the radio operator, looking down on Kluge.

On the floor Adolf Kluge's expression remained bland. He knew what must be going through the old man's crazed mind.

Sinanju. They were on their way.

It was his folly that had brought him to this. Kluge wasn't about to risk exposure by telling the self-titled fuhrer this in front of half the French government. Sitting cross-legged behind the French president, Adolf Kluge remained mute.

Schatz turned his wild-eyed attention from Kluge to the French president. He was silent for a long moment, reeling in place. Pale blue veins throbbed frantically beneath the dry skin at his temples.

So agitated did he appear, Kluge actually thought he might drop dead on the spot. Sadly it was not to be.

Finally, Nils Schatz spoke.

"Your people will be taught a lesson for this-" from the stage he aimed his cane at the president "-for this ...this ...outrage!" He screamed himself hoarse, wheeling around to his skinhead attendants.

"Collect one hundred prisoners for every murdered soldier! I will give them a demonstration of our might at the primary target. When they see it destroyed, the world will know not to trifle with the Fourth Reich!"

He pushed away young hands that wished to help him down from the stage. Waving his cane like a bare flagpole, Nils Schatz stormed from the room.

His insane shouting echoed down the empty corridors of the Palais de l'Elysee.

Chapter 30

As they drove up in their borrowed truck, Remo was surprised to find that someone had moved the line of concrete barriers that had been placed before the gates of the presidential palace. They were resting now to one side of the road. The bulldozer that had pushed them there sat quietly beside them. Huge tears had been made in the road, scraped up by the heavy concrete slabs.

"Maybe someone already took care of things," Remo suggested from the driver's seat.

A hail of bullets against the front of the truck a second later told them otherwise.

Smith was crouched down in the rear of the truck. Chiun had been riding shotgun. When the men on the grounds of the palace opened fire, Chiun sprang from the truck and raced up the path that led inside the huge mansion. Remo paused only long enough to advise Smith to keep out of sight before he joined the Master of Sinanju outside the vehicle.

There were a few more bursts of automatic-weapons fire from inside the grounds. Soon these fell silent.

After a minute Remo returned to the side of the truck.

"Coast is clear, Smitty," he called.

Smith got up from the floor and climbed into the cab. Remo helped him down to the ground.

At the front of the truck they met up with Chiun. "How does the emperor wish to proceed?" he asked.

"The fastest route inside," Smith stressed.

"Of course," Chiun said. "But it is customary at this time to do either one of two things. You may wish to rule from this place-which, as palaces go, is not without its charm. Or you may opt to sack the priceless artifacts from within and burn the building to its foundation."

"Neither," Smith said urgently. "We are not here as conquerors."

"Be advised, Emperor," Chiun said slyly, "the French are known the world over for the courtesies they extend to those who plunder and enslave. It is the only time they shine as a people."

"No, Chiun," Smith said firmly. He sidestepped the Master of Sinanju and ducked through the gates. Remo shrugged and trailed Smith inside.

Chiun shook his head in disapproving bewilderment.

"Americans," he muttered to himself. He wandered inside the palace grounds after Remo and Smith.

THEY HAD COME a few dozen yards up the drive when Smith literally stumbled across the first body. Remo grabbed him before the CURE director toppled to the ground.

Smith looked down at the dead skinhead. Presumably he was one of those who had fired on them upon their arrival. The young man's head appeared to have shriveled up beneath his helmet. An indented smiley face had been pressed into the drab metal exterior.

There were two others lying nearby who had been similarly dispatched.

"That is unnecessary," Smith said, looking down at the helmet with a displeased expression.

"Hey, I don't tell you how to do your job," Remo remarked, defensively. He walked past Smith. They encountered no more resistance between the spot where the bodies lay and the palace.

"Hang back, Smitty."

Remo approached the door first. The Master of Sinanju came up from behind, standing protectively next to the CURE director.

They could see Remo pause on one side of the staircase that led into the palace. He tipped his head oddly, looking over the side railing into a small landscaped garden beyond.

Abandoning the stairs, Remo slipped over the railing and disappeared from sight.

"What butterfly does he chase now?"

Perturbed, Chiun led Smith to the base of the stairway. They skirted it, going around the far side. The smell of death hit them immediately.

Smith saw dozens of bodies lying in a tangled bunch amid the roses and rhododendrons. They were French soldiers. The men who until yesterday had successfully guarded the palace.

Remo crouched at the edge of the pile of corpses. He was looking down at a particularly mangled body. The face was unrecognizable. It had been smashed repeatedly with a fierce glee that was clearly unnecessary. The first few blows had done the job. Most of these wounds had been inflicted after death.

When he stepped around Remo, Smith was surprised to see that it was the body of a woman. Remo looked up, face hard.

"You knew her?" Smith asked.

"I borrowed her phone a couple of times," Remo said tightly.

Smith understood immediately. "We must stop him before he kills again," he said softly.

Remo glanced back at the corpse. Nodding, he got to his feet. They left the body of Helene Marie-Simone in the small garden and continued inside.

ADOLF KLUGE SPOKE in German. Lest any of the French officials present understood the language, he pitched his voice low.

"You realize now that this operation is doomed to failure," he whispered.

The old radio operator glanced at the pair of skinhead guards near the door. Swallowing, he looked back at Kluge.

"We did not know it would come to this, Herr Kluge," he admitted sadly. "He promised glory."

"The time for glory has passed, old friend," Kluge said. "The best we can hope for now is simply to survive."

He could see that he almost had the man on his side. Schatz had left ten minutes before. Kluge had been working hard to get the old Nazi radio operator to see the futility of this insane campaign.

"I did it all for the fatherland," the old man said. His bloodshot eyes were moist.

"I'm sure you think that," Kluge replied. "But I assure you that you have done more harm here than good. Please help me to undo some of that damage. While there is still time."

The old man cast a glance at the pair of skinhead guards who were standing over near the dais. Each of them held a Gewehr assault rifle. Proud of their rather limited role in the neo-Nazi occupation, they stood at attention. They stared blankly ahead. Kluge suspected they were on some sort of drug.

The old radioman had made up his mind. Turning away from the soldiers, he unclipped the single silver snapper on his hip holster. He was about to reach for the gun in order to turn it over to Adolf Kluge when he was distracted by the sound of gunfire down the corridor.

The soldiers at the stage immediately grew alert, spinning toward the open door.

Kluge would never have a better chance.

He ripped the gun from the old Nazi's holster, twisting the man around and using him as a human shield. To the French it looked as if his long secret conversation with the radioman had caused the old soldier to drop his guard.

"Get down!" Kluge yelled in French to the diplomats seated on the floor.

As the men and women flung themselves to the carpeted aisle, fingers interlocked above their heads, Adolf Kluge opened fire on the pair of Nazis at the front of the stage.