Failing Marks td-114

by Warren Murphy

  "Letters?" Kluge asked. "What letters?"

  "The E-mail you sent to the bank people, the chancellor, even the freaking border police."

  Kluge was shaking his head in bewilderment. "I sent no letters."

  "Well, one of your lackeys did. They mentioned Four, the Hoard. Even the fact that you were searching in the Black Forest. You're like a guy who wants to be caught."

  Kluge was baffled. He kept trying to think of who would report on them or even know that they had set out to find the Hoard. And why E-mail? They might just as easily have used a phone.

  Then it struck him.

  "They would not be able to use a phone," he said numbly to himself. He remembered the trucks that had escaped during the firefight with the Border Police. The men in them were not skinheads. They were Numbers. It was her. She wanted a diversion so that she would be able to search on her own. Remo was nearly upon him.

  "Wait!" Kluge cried desperately. He was grasping at straws, desperate to avoid what he knew was coming. "That woman. The one you were with."

  "Heidi?" Remo asked, stopping.

  "Yes. She is not normal," Kluge insisted.

  "Given your friends, Cuddles, I don't think you're the best judge of that," said Remo. He strode toward Kluge.

  "You do not understand," Kluge begged. "She is a Number. They are the ones who E-mailed. They cannot use a telephone. They must be working with her."

  Remo stopped once more. "What are you talking about?"

  "The blond-haired men," Kluge explained hastily. "The identical mutes? They are called Numbers. They were part of a wrong-headed genetic experiment."

  "And Heidi is one of them?" Remo asked. He sounded doubtful.

  "Somehow," Kluge admitted. "The rest of them were freaks by design. They were created to be fiercely loyal to Four. I don't know if she has that as part of her genetic programming or not. But if she does, and it has somehow mutated, she could pose a far greater threat than my organization ever did."

  "What do you mean?" Remo asked.

  "It was a program designed to create the perfect Aryan man. There were not supposed to be any women. I don't know how she even came to be." He shook his head, as if he were speaking to a complete moron. "Do you not understand? She should not exist. And she should never have opposed me in my search for the Hoard."

  "Does this affect my treasure?" Chiun asked from across the room. He was clearly anxious to leave.

  "What?" Kluge said. "No. No, of course not." Chiun promptly walked out the door.

  Remo advanced on Kluge.

  "I can help you," the IV head offered desperately. "With her. With the Hoard. I have men coming."

  Remo shook his head. "I'd rather go this one alone," he replied. "Thanks just the same."

  And because Remo had seen so much killing in the past few weeks and was so bone-tired, he simply reached out and crushed Adolf Kluge's skull.

  Afterward, as he looked down on the crumpled body of the dead IV leader, Remo had no feeling of satisfaction.

  Hauling Kluge up off the floor, he carried the corpse over to the concrete wall of the warehouse where a series of pegs jutted from the wall. He hung Kluge from these, arms spread across the pegs, legs dangling.

  Finding a half-empty bucket of red paint in a store room, Remo painted a large swastika on the bare wall next to Kluge. He enclosed it in a circle, cutting a single red line across the symbol of hate it contained. It was the international sign for "No."

  Beside it, he painted a simple legend in English. A few brief words: IV Ends Here.

  Remo left the warehouse to find Chiun.

  THE MASTER OF SINANJU insisted that they first had to store the gold Kluge had stolen somewhere. Only when this was done were they allowed to return to the Danube. They weren't able to go back until early the next morning.

  When they came to the end of the access road, Remo felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Beside him in the jeep, Chiun let out a pained wail. He was out of the jeep before Remo had even slowed down.

  "No, no, no!" Chiun cried, running across the empty field.

  Heidi was nowhere to be seen.

  The only signs that anything heavy had been stored in the meadow were the large indentations in the earth and the huge patches of crushed grass. The treasure itself was gone.

  Remo checked down the dank staircase. The area down below had begun to fill with slowly seeping water, but the level was low enough for Remo to see that what little gold had remained down there was gone, as well.

  He came up and shrugged.

  "Sorry, Chiun," Remo said helplessly.

  The Master of Sinanju didn't appear to even hear him.

  He just kept repeating the same word over and over as he wandered aimlessly around the field. "No, no, no, no, no..."

  After a half hour of this, Chiun got hold of himself. Afterward Remo-feeling intensely guilty-helped Chiun search the clearing for hours for even a single ruby or diamond. They found nothing.

  Not a scrap of the Nibelungen Hoard remained.

  Chapter 28

  One week later, Remo was on the phone in the kitchen of his home back in the United States. "The fluid buildup was causing severe pressure on my brain," the lemony voice of Harold W. Smith said over the phone. "The doctors assure me that with it drained, my recovery will be complete."

  "That's great, Smitty," Remo said. "What about those headaches you were having?"

  "They were a symptom of the pressure that was building up. I have not had one since the operation." Remo heard a relentless tapping in the background.

  "What is that noise?" he asked, annoyed.

  "My laptop computer," Smith explained. "My ill health may require a certain amount of bed rest, but it does not mean I have to be completely indolent while I am here."

  Remo tried to picture Harold W. Smith-head swathed in bandages-banging away at a laptop computer in the bed of his hospital room. Oddly it was a mental image that didn't stretch Remo's imagination.

  "As long as you're working anyway," Remo said, "is there any sign of Chiun's money?"

  "No," Smith admitted. "And I find it more than a little alarming that one person could control that much raw wealth. You said her name was Heidi Stolpe?"

  "That's what she told me."

  "There is no one of that name anywhere in the world that fits the description you gave me," Smith said. "The castle in the Harz Mountains is virtually abandoned. The family who owned it died out in the 1960s. Nearby villagers will occasionally ferry tourists up there for sight-seeing expeditions, but it is otherwise empty. You are certain you found nothing on your subsequent search?"

  "Chiun and I went through the place with a fine tooth comb for days. Heidi wasn't there, and neither was the loot."

  "I don't know what to say," Smith told him. "I will do my best, but you must tell Chiun that I think it unlikely he will see the Nibelungen Hoard again."

  At that moment, Remo heard the front door open hastily and slam shut. The Master of Sinanju's ninety-pound body sounded like a herd of stampeding elephants coming down the hallway to the kitchen.

  "I've got to go, Smitty," Remo said hastily. He hung up the phone just as Chiun burst excitedly into the kitchen.

  "Oh, joy of joys! Oh, happy day!" Chiun announced. His face beamed pure bliss. It was a marked change from his sulking behavior of the past week.

  "What is it?" Remo asked, happy at anything that could change the Master of Sinanju's mood.

  "Only this," Chiun said, his voice elated. He raised high a piece of mail.

  Chiun had kept a mysterious mail drop for years. Today was the day of the month he had its contents transferred to their current residence. He received a bizarre assortment of mail there, which he generally shielded from Remo. This letter, however, he waved like a trophy above his bald head.

  Remo had to snatch the letter from Chiun's hand. As he scanned it, he saw that it was written in a language he didn't understand.

  "Care to fill me in?" he a
sked. Chiun snatched the note back.

  "It is from the enchanting Valkyrie," he said, "The delightful daughter of Gunther of the Nibelungenlied. "

  "Heidi?" Remo asked. He tried to grab the letter again, but Chiun spirited it out of his reach.

  "She tells how she has secreted half of the Hoard in something called a storage facility in Bonn." Chiun reached into the folds of his kimono. He held aloft a single shiny silver key. "Behold, the passkey to the wondrous unit number 18. Therein we will find both gold and keys to chambers 19 through 22. We need only find a way to transport the Hoard out of Germany."

  "If that doesn't cause Smith to throw an embolism, I don't know what will," Remo said dryly. Chiun didn't even hear Remo. He was practically singing. "Apparently my gold has taken up many spaces at this repository. The dear girl has even paid expenses on this place of storage from out of her own sweet pocket." Chiun sighed wistfully. "Do you think, Remo, that at my age it is possible to find true love?"

  Remo was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed in disgust. "Don't ask me," he said sourly. "Check your bank book."

  EPILOGUE

  Heidi waited three months before returning to the castle of her ancestors. She made certain first that Remo and Chiun had moved their half of the gold from Bonn.

  The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with either Master of Sinanju. Kluge had made that mistake. It was his mismanagement of IV that had brought the organization crashing down around his ears.

  Heidi had chosen a secret location beneath the ancient chapel to hide her half of the Hoard. Beneath the shifted stone altar, two huge oaken doors that otherwise meshed with the hardwood floor had been flung open.

  She watched as the few remaining Numbers carried her portion of the Hoard down into the treasure chamber hidden deep beneath the Harz Mountain castle. There were only thirty of the blond-haired men left. Thirty of her brothers.

  Numbers. The term was so dehumanizing. Not fitting for the men who were supposed to be the future masters of the world. She would have to come up with something else to call them.

  When they were finished hiding the treasure, one of the Numbers came over to her. It was the same man who had followed Remo from Berlin months ago. The one who had been on his way to report to Kluge when he was spotted by Heidi. He had instantly recognized her as the genetic superior to them all. He had been the one to tell her where the IV village was located. It wasn't a betrayal of Kluge. She was superior to the dead IV leader. The Number recognized that.

  Everything after their chance meeting had been easy. Including the massive undertaking of moving the entire Nibelungen Hoard.

  As the man stood, stone-faced, before her, Heidi smiled. She nodded her pleasure at his work. "Seal it off," she said, indicating the chamber. The men across the room flung down the massive wooden doors. They landed with a crash, upsetting a huge plume of dust. It rose up into the dim light that filtered in through the stained glass of the castle room.

  "From now on, Four will move cautiously," Heidi said with a smile. "And swiftly."

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