The Empire Dreams td-113

by Warren Murphy

  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 r
ecognized 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.