Failing Marks td-114

by Warren Murphy

  "In that case, you're both going to walk away with diddly. Just like your ancestors."

  "That treasure is Sinanju property," Chiun fumed.

  "You forfeited it when Siegfried was murdered," Heidi countered stubbornly.

  "Are you deranged, woman? That is when it became Sinanju property."

  "Siegfried only hid the Hoard because he did not trust your ancestor Bal-Mung," Heidi snarled hotly.

  "Lies!" Chiun shrieked. Hands knotted in fists of furious bone. "Stop the car, Remo. I will not travel another inch with one who dares sully the name of my beloved ancestor."

  "First off, I am not stopping. Secondly you weren't too charitable to him back at your house," Remo reminded him.

  In Korean, Chiun snapped, "I may say what I want about my family. She may not."

  "All right, all right!" Heidi snapped, angry that she couldn't understand what Chiun was saying. "I will agree to a fifty/fifty split."

  "Sixty/forty," Chiun said quickly.

  "Fifty/fifty," Heidi repeated firmly.

  In the back seat, Chiun huffed as he considered the offer. At long last he broke his silence. "Though my heart breaks to cast away that which is so obviously mine, I fear I am at your mercy, devil woman. Fifty/fifty. And may you choke on your ill-gotten prize."

  The Master of Sinanju settled back into the rear seat.

  "Then we have a deal," Heidi said, exhaling in relief. "Where is your quarter of the map?"

  "Here's where it gets tricky," Remo said, smiling.

  "Why?" Heidi asked suspiciously. It was as if a light suddenly snapped on in her head. She spun around in her seat. "You do have it, do you not?" she asked Chiun.

  "That would be not," Remo said.

  "You are joking," she accused.

  "Nope," said Remo happily. "That's why we're here. Somebody stole our section."

  "I cannot believe this," she said, twisting back around. "Stop the car."

  "Lady, I didn't do it for him-I'm sure as hell not doing it for you," Remo promised evenly.

  "This is beyond duplicity," she said, astonished.

  "It is no wonder Siegfried did not trust Bal-Mung. You are a family of liars. Stop this car!"

  "I have memorized the map," Chiun said softly. Though she had been growing more enraged with each passing second until this point, Heidi instantly became calm. She peered cautiously at the Master of Sinanju.

  "Is this true?" she questioned suspiciously. Chiun gently tapped the parchment skin of his temple with the tip of a tapered fingernail.

  "Every detail of our map section is forever burned into my memory," he said pleasantly.

  Heidi looked at Remo questioningly. Remo paid her no attention as he looked out over the hood of the speeding car. Finally she turned back to the Master of Sinanju.

  "How good is your memory?" she asked. Chiun didn't respond to the insulting question. He merely stared out at the frozen paddies as the car soared down the empty highway.

  Chapter 15

  Keijo Suk could not believe how quickly he had been apprehended. He had always trusted in the basic dishonesty of every Western store owner. Unfortunately he had found the last honest merchant in the hemisphere.

  The coin dealer had called Suk back to his shop twice before turning him over to the authorities. Suk had thought the man was working up the courage to purchase the coins he had stolen from the Master of Sinanju's house. In retrospect, he realized that the man was checking on their authenticity. Without proof of ownership of the heretofore unknown variety of coin, it was determined that Suk was quite obviously a thief. The only question was how he had managed to sneak into and out of Egypt with his stolen prize. Never mind the fact that while there he had discovered and looted an unknown yet apparently flawlessly preserved tomb.

  Suk realized how useless it would be to explain where he had gotten the coins. He had decided to merely sit quietly and take whatever punishment was given, hoping that he would not encounter the Master of Sinanju.

  In truth, Suk doubted the Master of Sinanju would ever find out about the theft. There was so much treasure in that rambling house that the infamous assassin could not possibly miss a few coins and a simple chunk of wood. Also it was known in his native land that the Sinanju Master spent much of his time in the decadent West where he had been commissioned to train a white in the ancient arts of his village. It was likely that he would not return for months. Perhaps years.

  Reasoning thusly, Keijo Suk had managed to calm himself somewhat as the German authorities turned him over to the North Korean consulate in Berlin. Even the torn cartilage and fractured bone in his shoulder had begun to feel better.

  His embassy had shipped him off to North Korea, where he would be placed under arrest the moment his plane landed.

  The official government aircraft had just touched down at the airport in Pyongyang. As it taxied slowly to a stop, Suk made a final appeal to whatever gods might still listen to a thieving Communist that the Master of Sinanju would never learn of what he had done.

  REMO PARKED THE CAR in the same spot from which he had stolen it that morning.

  The Korean soldiers who patrolled the airport gave them a wide berth. Although it would have been more than reasonable to question an odd group like theirs, the reputations of both Masters of Sinanju preceded them. They were allowed to move across the parking lot with impunity, just as they had been after landing earlier that day.

  But this time Heidi was with them. A thought suddenly occurred to Remo.

  "How did you get in here, by the way?" Remo asked. He was looking at her very pale skin and obviously non-Korean features.

  "Anything is possible with the proper bribes," Heidi said. She clearly didn't wish to discuss it further.

  "Whatever." Remo shrugged.

  Remo left the others and went inside the terminal to ask about the flight from Germany. He learned that it had landed only a few minutes before.

  Coming back outside, Remo led their party out through the restricted chain-link fence onto the tarmac. The soldiers on duty made an effort to look wherever Remo and Chiun were not.

  A boarding ramp had just been secured at the side of the government aircraft, and the first of the passengers was beginning to deplane. Keijo Suk was led out in manacles in the company of a pair of North Korean police officials.

  The Korean cultural officer needed only one glance at the pale purple kimono on the old man who waited for him at the bottom of the ramp. His eyes grew wide in fright.

  "Ahhhhh!" screamed Keijo Suk. He turned around and, shoving his captors roughly aside, raced back up the stairs, disappearing inside the plane.

  Recognizing the flight instinct of a guilty man, Remo and Chiun each hopped up onto a railing of the ramp. They ran up, jumping onto the platform at the top. They followed Suk inside. Heidi was forced to push her way past the irate passengers. The men who had been escorting Suk stayed far behind in the doorway, fearful of the Master of Sinanju and his protege.

  Inside, Chiun found Suk cowering on the floor behind the last three coach seats. He cradled his injured shoulder with his shackled hands.

  "Thief!" the Master of Sinanju charged, eyes furious.

  Chiun grabbed Suk by the front of his jacket and dragged the terrified man to his feet. Suk was sweating profusely.

  "Don't kill him yet, Little Father," Remo warned, running up behind Chiun.

  "Yes!" screamed Suk. "Please! Do not kill me yet!"

  "Tell what you know, thief!" Chiun ordered. As incentive, he slapped Keijo Suk back and forth across his tear-soaked face.

  "I know that I have stolen from the Glorious House of Sinanju and that I must be made to pay for my actions," Suk blubbered. He held his hurt shoulder away from Chiun.

  "And so you will," Chiun hissed.

  "But must that payment be in blood?" Suk pleaded.

  "Of course," Chiun replied, as if Suk were an imbecile.

  "Everything is negotiable," Heidi Stolpe volunteered in German. She was standin
g behind Remo.

  "Silence, wench," Chiun menaced.

  Suk looked up at her, a spark of hope in his eyes. "Yes," he said, also in German. "She is correct, Master."

  "She is a woman and is therefore incapable of correctness. You are dealing with me," Chiun warned. "Where is my property?"

  "The men who escorted me here have the coins," Suk answered.

  "Remo," Chiun snapped. He jerked his head toward the men who still stood back near the door. Remo went dutifully, if somewhat reluctantly, over to the door. One of the men held a small package-about the size of a cigar box. He willingly handed it over to Remo.

  "Wait here," Remo ordered. He jogged back to Chiun. "Here it is," he said. His tone was painfully uninterested.

  Chiun ripped the box from his hands. Tearing it open, he fussed over the coins inside. They were wrapped in two long tubes of cellophane.

  "Is this all?" he asked, knowing full well that it was.

  "Oh, yes," Suk said pleadingly. "They are all there."

  "Very well," Chiun said. Snapping the box shut, he handed it to Remo. "Where is the other item?"

  "Other item?" Suk said. He was frightened beyond reason.

  "The wood carving," Remo interjected.

  "Oh, that. I no longer have it."

  "What!" Chiun bellowed.

  The old man picked up Suk as if he weighed no more than a packet of complimentary cashews. Kimono sleeves snapping, he hurled Suk against the bulkhead of the plane. Suk slammed full force against the wall. He slid painfully into a window seat.

  Chiun was on him again. Yanking the whimpering man to his feet once more, the Master of Sinanju flung Suk to the other side of the plane. As he slammed against the far wall, the nearest Plexiglas window cracked beneath Suk's elbow. His bone fared no better.

  Suk shrieked in pain. He scampered back against the wall as Chiun again approached him.

  "I know who has it," Suk begged, cradling his arm.

  "Who?" Chiun demanded.

  "A man. A German," Suk panted. "Adolf Kluge."

  "Kluge?" Remo asked, coming up behind Chiun. For the first time, this wasted trip began to interest him.

  "Kluge?" Chiun demanded of the air. "Who is this fiend who springs up at my every turn?" As he asked the question, he shook Keijo Suk so violently the thief's molars rattled.

  "I do not know," Suk whined. "He approached me a year ago for business reasons. He wished for me to broker a deal between our government and one of his companies. Only last week did he ask me to steal the piece of wood."

  "Where can we find him?" Remo asked.

  "I do not know," Suk breathed. "He always called me. He was going to contact me once more when he-" he looked down, ashamed "-when he collected the balance owed me for taking the carving."

  "So, Kluge expected to come into some cash," Remo said.

  "What?" Heidi asked. She hadn't understood a word of what had just been said until Remo's last comment in English. "What has Kluge to do with this?"

  "He's the one who has our quarter," Remo explained.

  "Not for long," Chiun said. He spun back to Suk.

  "Mercy," the thief begged. He was on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Chiun's lip curled as he regarded the pathetic figure before him. "You will have it though you did not earn it," he intoned.

  A tight hand drew back and fired forward, slamming against Suk's chest. The thief's eyes sprang wide as his fragile heart exploded inside his chest cavity. Suk dropped forward onto the carpeted aisle of the plane, his mouth leaking a puddle of deep red.

  Chiun pulled the box of taped coins from Remo. Wheeling, he marched up to Suk's waiting Korean entourage.

  "You," Chiun said, pointing to one man. "Take these to my village. My caretaker will be there to collect these." A cautionary nail found a spot on the man's throat. "And be warned, I know precisely how many are there."

  The official cast an eye to the body of Suk. He was unaware that he had begun nodding enthusiastically.

  "Yes, Master of Sinanju. At once, Master of Sinanju."

  He took the box in quivering hands, racing out the door and down the stairs. A moment later, Remo spied him out the window, running for all he was worth across the cold tarmac.

  "And you," Chiun said to the other. "Remove this carrion from the Master of Sinanju's plane." He indicated the body of Keijo Suk.

  "At once, Master of Sinanju," the government agent said.

  As the agent hustled down the aisle and hefted the corpse awkwardly to his shoulders, Remo sidled up to Chiun.

  "Your plane?" he asked.

  "It is the least they can do, considering my ordeal," Chiun said. "After all, it was a representative of this despicable regime who violated the sanctity of the Master's House." Thus justified, he marched past Remo and took his usual seat over the left wing of the plane.

  "I hope the despicable regime agrees with you," Remo muttered, shaking his head.

  He ushered a confused Heidi Stolpe back down the aisle. The guard came past in the other direction carrying the body of the late Keijo Suk.

  Chapter 16

  Adolf Kluge hated living hand to mouth. As head of IV, he was accustomed to an opulent life-style. Now he was reduced to begging for every meal.

  When he had taken over the stewardship of IV, one of his first acts had been to sever the organization's ties with Germany's neo-Nazi underground. He considered the years of money that had been lavished on these groups by his predecessors to be money completely wasted.

  But Kluge was not without some vision. He had somehow planned for a day where he might be in the situation he found himself in now. It must have been on some instinctive level, for he certainly never truly expected it to happen. Lucky for him, his instincts had been correct.

  Kluge had wisely not cut IV's ties with every neoNazi group. The ones that remained-while not eager to part with their money-were loyal to the cause and, therefore, loyal to Adolf Kluge. They shared what little they had with him.

  It was only right. After all, at one time it had been Kluge's money.

  Feeling the lightness of his wallet every step of the way, Adolf Kluge stepped into the lobby of Berlin's Unser Fanatischer Bank. Trying to preserve the sense of arrogance he had displayed his entire life, Kluge marched boldly over to the receptionist's desk.

  "Please inform Mr. Riefenstahl that I wish to see him," he said officiously.

  The woman was aware that Kluge was a large depositor at Unser Fanatischer. She immediately dialed the interoffice number of the bank manager, unaware of the hard times that had recently befallen Herr Kluge.

  She found out soon enough.

  When Riefenstahl answered the phone, the receptionist informed him of Kluge's request. There was a great deal of talking from the other end of the line-much more than there would have been a few short weeks before.

  The receptionist grew nervous. Embarrassed, she tried to avoid eye contact with Kluge who stood-growing ever angrier-before her highly polished half-shell desk.

  The bank manager was actually trying to avoid him! A far cry from the way the man had always fawned over Kluge when the IV leader controlled accounts in the millions.

  It was more than Adolf Kluge could bear. Lunging across the desk, he ripped the phone from the startled receptionist's hand.

  "Listen to me, you fat Prussian pig," Kluge hissed. He was so angry, his words launched spittle into the receiver. "I need access to my safe-deposit box. And unless you want me to turn you over to the national banking commission, I would suggest you drag your greasy carcass down here now!" He slammed the phone into the cradle.

  Huffing and puffing and running as if the building were on fire, Otto Riefenstahl appeared down the lobby staircase twelve seconds later.

  "Herr Kluge," he begged obsequiously. "Forgive the error. I was led to understand that you were someone else." As he mopped his forehead with a sopping handkerchief, he shot an appropriately dissatisfied look at the receptionist.

  "My s
afe-deposit box," Kluge said, jaw clenched tightly. His eyes shot fiery daggers at the portly bank manager.

  "Of course." The man smiled nervously. Riefenstahl waddled rapidly away from the desk. Kluge followed, hands clasped behind his back, fingers clenching and unclenching anxiously.

  They detoured around the teller windows, heading through a doorway at the end of the long row of glass-enclosed booths. A long hallway lined with several offices led to yet another door-this one polished steel. Riefenstahl used a special key from a chain hooked to his ample midsection to gain admittance into the room.

  A short hallway led to a bare archway. This opened into a large inner room. The bank's safe-deposit boxes were lined up along three of the four walls. There were hundreds of simple metal doors, each with two slots designed for two separate keys.

  It was always cool in here, even in the summer. In winter, it was worse. Kluge shivered as they passed the rows of identical boxes and walked over to the larger cabinets that lined the narrowest wall. These were as big and plain as high-school lockers.

  "Which was it, Herr Kluge?" Riefenstahl asked nervously.

  "Achtzig," Kluge said.

  Riefenstahl went to the eightieth locker and inserted his master key into the right slot. Kluge inserted his own key from the chain he had taken from his pocket.

  They turned the keys simultaneously. The locks popped obediently. Kluge pulled down on the handle, and the door sprang open, revealing a large metal box.

  "Let me know when you are finished," Riefenstahl said.

  When Kluge said nothing more to him, the grateful bank manager hurried from the chilly room. Once Riefenstahl was gone, Kluge hefted the large box from the bottom of the locker. Bearing it ahead of him like a sacred relic, he placed it on one of several tables that were arranged around the center of the floor. Inserting the same key he had used on the safe deposit box door, Kluge opened the lock on the top of the large box.

  There was not much inside. Just a dusty collection of useless things his father had been proud of. Things that Kluge had never really bothered with since assuming his position as head of IV.

  His family's lineage had been lovingly recorded and preserved. Not that Kluge had ever believed that he was a direct descendant of the Nibelungenlied protagonist Siegfried. The entire history had been recopied sometime at the end of the last century. The pages of the book in which the Kluge family tree had been written were yellowed with age.