Failing Marks td-114

by Warren Murphy

  "Four," Remo said again.

  "Go to hell," Kempten snarled. He spit a bloody glob of phlegm at Remo. Remo sidestepped the expectorated ball.

  "Age before beauty," Remo said. Grabbing up a handful of the old Nazi's greasy, yellowed hair, he twisted.

  To Kempten, it felt as if his scalp had caught fire. He was acutely aware of each individual hair follicle as it burned a laser-precise hole through to his brain. Pain like nothing he had ever known made him scream in sheer agony.

  "Pain on," said Remo, giving the hair a final twist. "Pain off," he added. He loosened the pressure.

  The old man was surprised at himself. He had always thought he would be able to hold out under torture.

  The words came in a flood.

  "There is a village," Kempten breathed wetly. "It is a haven for those who are reviled by the world."

  "Why aren't you there?" Remo asked.

  Kempten missed the sarcasm completely. He puffed his chest out proudly. "This is my home," he said. "I will not be driven from it."

  "Spoken like a true fascist homesteader," Remo said. "Where is this village?"

  Kempten shrugged. "I do not know."

  "Not good enough," Remo said, grabbing at another clump of filthy hair. He lifted the old man off the ground.

  "South America!" Kempten shrieked. "Beyond that, I cannot say!"

  Remo knew the old Nazi was telling the truth. His pain level was far too high for him to be able to sustain a lie. Remo released Kempten's hair. Tangled bits dropped in filthy clumps to the grimy alley floor.

  "I do not know where the village is," the old man continued, panting heavily. "That is a privilege reserved only for those who choose to make it their home."

  "How do you contact them?" Remo demanded.

  "A telephone number. I can give it to you," he added helpfully. He began searching through his grubby pockets. After a moment, he produced a small scrap of paper. Like everything else about Kempten Olmutz-Hohenzollerkirchen, the paper was a sickly brownish yellow. He handed it to Remo.

  Remo scanned the numbers. They meant nothing to him. He tucked the paper in the pocket of his chinos.

  While searching for the paper, Kempten had removed a battered pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Hands shaking, he tapped one from the rest, pasting it to the clotting blood on his lower lip. With a dirty silver lighter, he ignited the tip. The cigarette burned a bright orange.

  Kempten waggled the cigarette at Remo. He shrugged his wasted shoulders feebly.

  "It is customary, is it not?" he said, indicating the cigarette with a nod.

  Remo nodded. "Knock yourself out," he replied, folding his arms across his chest.

  Kempten took a long, thoughtful drag. He exhaled mightily into the foul air of the alley. Beyond the closed metal door, the endless party within the beer hall continued its muffled hum. Kempten knew that he would never see his favorite corner booth again.

  When his cigarette was nearly finished, the old Nazi took it from his mouth and stared at the glowing tip.

  "The village is well guarded," he said absently. "Even for someone of your abilities, it will be dangerous."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Remo grumbled, uncrossing his arms impatiently. "Will you hurry up with that thing?"

  Kempten replaced the cigarette. He took one final, great pull. The tip of the cigarette burned brightly, and his lungs filled with the soft, comforting smoke. Kempten blew the last puff of smoke into the air.

  "You will die there," he said smugly. He dropped the spent butt to a filthy puddle at his feet.

  Remo smiled grimly. "Maybe. But better there than here," he said as he reached out with a thickwristed hand for Kempten's throat.

  WHEN HE LEFT the alley a few moments later, all that could be seen of the late Kempten Olmutz-Hohenzollerkirchen was a pair of stained black shoes sticking out of an oversized plastic garbage bag.

  The old Nazi's body with its collapsed ribs and lungs would not be found for two weeks. By then the anonymous IV village would lie in ruins and an ancient myth would threaten to bring the economy of Germany to the very edge of bankruptcy.

  Remo Williams would take credit for the former, but he would swear until his dying day that the latter was not his fault.

  Chapter 5

  When Herman brought him the news of the disappearance of old Kempten, Adolf Kluge was in the process of packing up his office. There were cardboard boxes piled on the floor around his big desk. Kluge abandoned the box he had been filling and dropped woodenly into his chair, considering the import of the young man's words.

  "When?" the head of IV asked.

  "Around three o'clock, Berlin time," his aide replied. "It was him again."

  Kluge glanced up. "The Asian was not with him?" he asked.

  "The older one was not seen," Herman admitted. Kluge shook his head unhappily. "That does not mean that he was not there," he sighed.

  "So you have said."

  "How do we know all this?"

  "Our operatives are in place. Per your instructions, they went immediately to his most likely targets. Kempten was on the list."

  Kluge's mouth opened in shock. "If they were there, why did they not kill Kempten themselves?"

  "They arrived at the beer hall after the younger Master of Sinanju. They could only watch as he led the old one outside."

  "And they did not think to follow, obviously," Kluge said sarcastically. He threw up his hands in amazement.

  "Those were not your instructions," Herman explained.

  "Of course not," Kluge snapped. "If they had killed old Kempten, they might have ended this right then and there. But no. I did not fill out a form in triplicate instructing them to do so." He wheeled around, staring at the ancient mantelpiece stretching along the outer wall. Like many of the other fine antiques in the massive stone temple, the mantel had been imported from Germany. "Freakish dunderheads," Kluge muttered under his breath.

  "What are your instructions, Herr Kluge?" Herman asked after an uncomfortably long moment had passed by in silence.

  Kluge barely heard the words. He found himself staring at an object on the mantel.

  Getting slowly to his feet, Kluge walked over to the fireplace. He took down the item that had drawn his attention, feeling its weight in his hands.

  He stared at the heavy article as he spoke.

  "He has gotten to Kempten. He is therefore much closer to us," Kluge mused aloud. His eyes never strayed from the object in his hands. "It is only a matter of time before he reaches the village." He turned to his aide. "Tell the fools in Germany to regroup. If he has gotten the information we entrusted to old Kempten, then we know where he will have to go next."

  The aide frowned. "You wish for them to return to South America?"

  Kluge cast a withering eye on his aide. "No," he said with exaggerated patience. "My hope is that we may stop them before they leave Germany. Send them to the airport. The men from Sinanju will surely go there first before skipping off to South America, wouldn't you agree?"

  Herman took Kluge's sarcasm without reaction. "I will let them know," he acknowledged.

  "Please do," Kluge said. "For, God help us, our lives are in the hands of those bungling aberrations." Nodding his understanding, the aide stepped briskly from the cluttered room.

  Only after Herman had gone did Kluge realize that he was still holding the object he had taken down from the mantel. It was a two-inch-thick block of petrified wood with a face approximately one square foot around. Ancient characters had been chiseled in the solid surface of the wood.

  Although time had worn some of its carved features smooth, most were still plainly visible. Kluge stared at the wood for a long time.

  When he finally spoke, his words were barely audible.

  "There is a kernel of truth in all legends," he said.

  Frowning, Adolf Kluge tossed the wood carving into the nearest packing crate.

  Chapter 6

  The Hotel Ein Dunkles was a tidy l
ittle building on Meinekestrasse just off the Kurfurstendamm, which until very recent German history had been the main street in isolated West Berlin.

  Remo was whistling a cheery version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as he pushed into the tidy lobby and strolled across the plush carpeting toward the lone elevator.

  From behind his polished desk, the hotel's grayhaired proprietor-apparently still nursing festering wounds from the Second World War-shot him a foul look from over his gleaming bifocals. It had the practical effect of making Remo whistle all the louder.

  As the elevator doors were closing, Remo directed a final shrill burst toward the glowering desk clerk. He had calculated the pitch perfectly.

  Remo's final glimpse of the man before the elevator doors slid silently shut was that of the middle-aged German pulling off his pair of shattered glasses. If they hadn't been broken, the desk clerk would have been able to see that his watch crystal was cracked, as well.

  Happy, Remo rode the elevator up to the third floor. As the doors rolled quietly open, he paused to listen into his apartment, which was directly across from the lift.

  He heard nothing.

  Relieved, Remo crossed over to the door. He had just placed his hand on the polished brass knob when there came a sudden burst of wild electronic laughter from inside. This was followed by a merry cackle that was all too familiar.

  Sighing, Remo pushed the door open.

  The television was on-as he had expected it would be. The bulk of the laughter he had heard came from the small speaker on the side of the set. The balance came from the hotel room itself.

  Seated before the TV was a man so old he made Kempten Olmutz-Hohenzollerkirchen look like a toddler. Unlike the dead Nazi, however, this old man had a vibrancy of spirit that belied his many years.

  The wizened Asian's tan skin was the texture of dried rice paper. His bald head was framed with puffs of gossamer hair-a single tuft above each shell-like ear. Bright hazel eyes displayed a glint of fiery youth that old Kempten hadn't known since the days when brownshirts marched along the Rhine. Even now the aged Korean was laughing uproariously at the action on the TV screen.

  "I'm back," Remo called unhappily.

  Chiun, Reigning Master of the five-thousand-year-old House of Sinanju-the premier house of assassins on the face of the planet for as many millennia-turned to Remo. Tears streamed down his parchment cheeks.

  "You have missed the funniest program yet," Chiun breathed. He sniffled as he turned back to the TV.

  Remo frowned as he looked at the television. On it, a rather thin, gawky Englishman was stumbling around with a gigantic turkey over his head. Chiun shrieked in joy as the odd-looking man attempted to disguise the bird by throwing a blanket up over it.

  "I've seen this one before," Remo complained.

  "I have seen many sunsets, yet each is always more beautiful than the last."

  "In that case, try looking out the window," Remo suggested blandly. At that very moment, the sun was sinking low over the Berlin skyline.

  "Shh!" Chiun insisted with an angry flap of one kimono-clad arm. He stared in childlike joy as the strange-looking man on the TV attempted to remove the turkey from his head. The Master of Sinanju clapped his hands with glee.

  "I'm going to call Smith," Remo sighed wearily. Chiun made an effort not to listen.

  Remo turned his back on the familiar scene and walked over to his bedroom. He shut the door as Chiun's bald head bobbed in eager anticipation of the impending turkey removal.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Remo picked up the phone. He began depressing the 1 button repeatedly. It was rather simplistic, but it was the only phone code Rerno ever seemed able to remember. Smith picked up on the first ring.

  "I need you to trace a number for me, Smitty," Remo said by way of introduction.

  "Proceed," came the tart reply.

  Remo gave Smith the phone number from the scrap of paper he had gotten from the old Nazi at the beer hall.

  "The country code is for Uruguay," Smith noted.

  "What can I say?" Remo said. "Nazis have a love affair with South America."

  He could hear Smith's fingers as they drummed against the touch-sensitive keyboard buried beneath the edge of the CURE director's desk.

  "The number you have given me is to a hotel in Montevideo," Smith said after a brief pause.

  "Geography isn't my strong suit, Smitty," Remo cautioned.

  "That is the Uruguayan capital," Smith explained.

  "And also where the rest of South America goes to rent movies on Saturday night. What happened when they were naming the place-'Blockbuster' already taken?"

  "Actually the name stems from a story that is most likely apocryphal," Smith explained. "'Monte vide eu' is what Magellan's Spanish lookout allegedly shouted when he first spied the shore. It means 'I see a mountain.'" Smith returned to the subject at hand. "May I ask what purpose this number serves?"

  "That Kermit Ovitz guy bit the dust," Remo explained. "But he gave that up first. It's supposed to be a secret number to contact Four."

  "I do not believe so," Smith said. "It appears to be no more than an ordinary number. It is something called the Hotel Cabeza de Ternera."

  "That doesn't make sense." Remo shook his head. "I know he wasn't lying."

  "One moment," Smith said.

  Remo could hear Smith drumming his fingers against his keyboard. A moment later, he was back on the phone.

  "The proprietor is not Spanish," Smith stated. He tried to keep an excited edge from his voice. "His name is Dieter Groth." The typing resumed, more urgently now.

  "Let me guess," Remo said. "He's a German immigrant."

  "Groth emigrated to South America thirty years ago. One moment, please, Remo." He paused. "I've accessed the records of the Committee to Bring Nazi War Criminals to Justice. They do have a file on Groth, but are not actively pursuing him at the present time."

  "It's their lucky day. They're going to get a freebie," Remo said. "Book me a flight to Uruguay."

  While Remo remained on the line, Smith quickly made the necessary arrangements.

  "By the way, Smitty," Remo said after the flight was sorted out, "the old guy said something about a village down there that's supposed to be a refuge for Nazis."

  "I will borrow satellite time to search the Uruguayan countryside," Smith said. "In the meantime, you and Chiun follow up the Groth lead."

  "Can do," Remo said.

  He hung up the phone. As he did so, there was renewed laughter from the living room of the suite. The Master of Sinanju shrieked in joy as a new program began. It starred the same British comic and was one the old Korean had seen at least a dozen times.

  Remo wondered how he could pry Chiun away from the TV.

  "I wonder if the gift shop sells extension cords that'd reach all the way to South America?" Remo asked with a sigh.

  Already fatigued by the battle not yet fought, he got up from the bed.

  IT TURNED OUT rousting Chiun was not as difficult as Remo imagined it would be.

  The Master of Sinanju's umpteenth viewing of the same British sitcom episode ended an hour before their flight was scheduled to leave from Tegel Airport. Remo rounded up the seven steamer trunks Chiun had brought from the United States and herded them into two small European taxis. Remo and Chiun followed in a third cab.

  As they drove through Berlin's crowded post-twilight streets, the Master of Sinanju detailed all that had occurred on the television while Remo was talking to Smith.

  "When the ugly British woman removed the fowl from his head, he found to his delight that the item he sought was in his very mouth."

  "Uh-huh," Remo said. He stared out the cab window.

  "Did I mention that it was his wristwatch?"

  "Yes, you did," Remo sighed.

  "I ordinarily do not approve of the use of ornamental timepieces," Chiun cautioned. "They are for those too slothful to develop the inner clock in the minds of all men. However, for comic purposes
it was quite amusing."

  He looked over at his pupil. Remo remained silent. His sharp features were illuminated at regular intervals by Berlin's streetlights.

  "You do not appear to be amused," Chiun challenged.

  Remo shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's just that I saw that show before."

  Chiun raised an eyebrow. "So?"

  "So, I couldn't give a fat flying frig."

  Chiun's wrinkled face drew into a deep frown. "You do not have a sense of humor," he accused.

  "I do, too," Remo argued. "The first fifty times I saw those shows, I thought they were funny. But we've been in Europe now for over three months, and that's all every country seems to play, day in and day out. I can't take anything twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."

  The harsh frown lines were reshaped into a look of intense pity. "You are a humorless man, Remo Williams," Chiun pronounced sadly. "I knew it the day we met. Not that you made any effort to hide the fact."

  "I do, too, have a sense of humor," Remo said defensively.

  Chiun raised an instructive finger. His nail was long and fiercely sharp. "If one must say it, it is untrue," he declared. "For only the humorless man is ever accused of being so."

  Remo could not think of a clever retort. Unfortunately this didn't prevent him from trying. "Blow it out your ears," Remo said sullenly. Crossing his arms, he hunched down in the seat and stared at the back of their driver's head.

  Chiun clutched at his heart. "Oh, I am stung by your piercing wit," he moaned histrionically. "Forgive me, O King of Comedy, for ever doubting your jovial soul." The Master of Sinanju smiled happily, pleased at having made his point.

  Remo felt the blood rise in his cheeks.

  "Is it any wonder I'm annoyed right now?" he groused. "You ditched me weeks ago for that hotel idiot box. I've been clomping alone around this backward excuse for a country whacking every knockwurst-fueled spike-hat I find, while you've been having a hey-ho time watching Brit-coms and ordering room service. So forgive me, Chiun, if I've lost my goddamned sense of humor."

  "I did not accompany you because I lost interest," Chiun said simply. "We are assassins, not exterminators. Smith had you scouring the countryside for all manner of vermin. In Germany, that could be a lifetime's occupation. And as for your second point-" the impish smile returned, "-one cannot lose what one never had."