With what he had learned from the piece of the carving in his family's safe-deposit box, he had all the bargaining chips he would ever need.
Tomorrow they would find Siegfried's gold. And then Chiun, Remo and Heidi would die.
Chapter 19
The shabby convoy was lined along the ancient road that snaked through the thickest forests of Schwarzwald, eventually leading to the shores of the famous Danube River.
The sallow sky held the promise of snow, though no meteorologist had forecast it. The swollen white clouds vied with gray, pressing down like a gloomy canopy to the gnarled treetops.
It was 6:00 a.m. The Master of Sinanju went from truck to truck, inspecting tires and checking equipment. He found Remo leaning against one of the rear trucks.
"I would have thought this sort of thing would be beneath you," Remo commented as Chiun tugged at one of the bungee cords on the supply truck.
Chiun regarded him with flinty eyes. "I do what I must," he said.
"I've noticed that about you," Remo said, nodding. There was no malice in his tone.
At that moment, Heidi walked into view around the truck, nearly plowing into Remo.
"Oh-" she seemed surprised to see him "-good morning, Remo. Are you going with us?"
Remo shook his head. "Naw. I'm sitting this one out."
Heidi nodded her understanding. Her face was flushed as it had been the previous day at her family's castle. This time, however, it was not from embarrassment, but excitement.
She and Chiun began the long trek up to the lead car. It was the one Remo had rented on their return to Germany the previous day. Since he didn't intend to leave the inn until they returned, he would have no use for it.
As Chiun and Heidi walked beside the trucks full of skinheads, Remo trailed distantly behind them. He noted that there were a few of the blond-haired mutes from the IV village mixed in with the rest. Remo couldn't help but think of the vast number of them that had been mowed down by Kluge's machine guns beneath the shadow of the old stone fortress.
There were fifteen trucks lined up behind Remo's rental car. Chiun commented to Heidi that they would likely not be enough.
Kluge was seated behind the wheel of the rental car. Chiun climbed into the back. Heidi debated for a moment whether she should join the Master of Sinanju but finally decided against it. She sat in the front beside Kluge.
The head of IV started the car's engine. Behind him, the other fifteen vehicles rumbled to life. Before the car could drive off, Remo tapped on the rear window. Kluge powered it down from the front.
"Little Father?" Remo called in softly.
Chiun's hazel eyes were focussed on the road ahead.
"Yes."
Remo smiled tightly. "Good luck."
The Master of Sinanju nodded crisply. The window rolled back up with a smooth hum.
Kluge waved his arm out his own window in a circular fashion. With a crunch of gravel, the convoy began moving forward down the long road. The last of the trucks pulled away a minute later.
Standing alone on the desolate country road, Remo could only watch them go.
NEWS OF THE EXPEDITION to find the lost treasure of the Nibelungs reached the hands of the German chancellor by fax at nine o'clock that morning.
It was the sort of crank note that would have been filed and forgotten under ordinary circumstances. The thing that made this fax different from the rest was the signature. At the bottom of the page where there would ordinarily have been a name, a Roman numeral had been sketched in large, careful letters. It was the number IV.
His assistant had brought it to him at once.
The chancellor's pudgy fingers shook as he scanned the few short lines of text. Swirls of sweat had dampened the curled fax paper by the time he placed it on his desk.
This was a crisis far greater than that of a few short months before. The neo-Nazi takeover of Paris had been an embarrassing reminder of Germany's unsavory past.
But this...
This could spell financial ruin for one of the greatest economies in the West. Perhaps, if the legends were true, it could even send the world into a spiraling depression, the likes of which had not been seen since 1929.
And the Great Depression was what had given rise to Adolf Hitler. After the turmoil of the German national elections less than two short months before, anything was possible. The chancellor shuddered at the thought.
The rough details were all there in the letter. Siegfried and Hagan. Something about a long-lost map to the Hoard, alleged to have belonged to the two players in the Nibelungenlied.
All backed up by the mark of IV.
That was what confirmed it to the chancellor.
He had been aware of IV for years as it hovered at the edge of legitimate society. But until now, the actions of the secret organization had always benefitted the economy of Germany.
But this came too close on the heels of the Paris incident. If IV had finally decided to make its move to destabilize the German mark, what better way to do it than by flooding the gold market? That much of the priceless metal dumped at once would surely devalue gold prices to the point of worthlessness.
IV's holdings were already on shaky ground as it was. Vast sums of cash had been exchanged over the past few weeks. Companies thought strong were collapsing before their stockholders' eyes. Others were being sold off for bargain-basement prices. The result was a growing uncertainty in the stock market in Frankfurt.
As those reports had come in, the chancellor had thought that IV was dying. Either internally, or due to some unseen external force. He now realized he had been mistaken.
He now saw that it was most certainly part of some grand strategy by the shadowy neo-Nazi organization to make one last grab at power.
And it would destroy Germany to do it.
The chancellor pressed the button on his desk intercom.
"Yes, Chancellor?" asked his concerned assistant. It was the same nervous man who had brought the fax to the German leader.
"Get me the head of the Federal Border Police," the chancellor intoned. His voice was grave.
Chapter 20
Within the confines of his modest Folcroft office, Smith watched the uncertainty unfolding in the German market with a look of pinched displeasure.
Always an erratic business, it was difficult now to gauge precisely why the market was slipping. But there was no doubt that it was.
It was very slight at the moment. The overall market had lost only five percent of its value since trading had begun that morning. The London market had reacted to the trend, dropping by a few points, as well.
It was a ripple effect that was barely registering. Trading on Wall Street had begun only an hour before, and the European markets had yet to have anything more than a minor influence on the Dow Jones. It appeared that it did not yet matter to anyone of consequence.
Except Harold W. Smith.
Smith had been watching the markets carefully ever since he had begun dumping shares of IV companies onto the German trading floors. There had been a gradual downward trend in Frankfurt about two weeks before. This had brought a minor adjustment all around the world. Wall Street had caught on to the trend. As a result, the Dow had dipped by about thirty points before adjusting to the hit caused by the liquidation of the secret organization's vast holdings. Barely a hiccup. Afterward the markets had rebounded and had pressed bullishly upward. It had been smooth sailing ever since.
Until now.
Something was causing a downswing in European trading. And it was originating in Germany. Utilizing a program he had created during the stock-market upheavals of the late eighties, Smith accessed the private computer lines of one of Germany's largest brokerage firms. Not wasting time with the transactions themselves, Smith went immediately to the top. Typing rapidly, he accessed the company president's morning E-mail.
He found that it was all pretty dry stuff.
There were concise digests of the previous night's activi
ties on Japan's Hang Seng Stock Exchange. A note had been sent from the lawyer of the company president's soon-to-be ex-wife. As Smith watched his screen another electronic letter materializedthis one from the man's mistress.
He chose not to be voyeuristic.
Abandoning the personal note, Smith scanned quickly through the rest of the mail. He was about to deem his search a failure and move on when he found something startling nestled comfortably between a pair of interoffice memos. Smith blinked in surprise, for a moment forgetting the dull, constant ache in his head.
IV.
The Roman numeral leaped out at him, mocking him from beneath the neat rows of letters lined up on his high-tech computer screen.
Smith scanned the electronic note. With each line, his eyes grew wider behind his rimless glasses. After he was finished reading, he backed out of the system and dived quickly into the E-mail of some of the other large Frankfurt brokerage firms. The same note had been sent to each. At the bottom of every letter was the same legend: "IV." Smith was acutely aware of his headache now. It pounded in sharp, furious bursts at the back of his skull as he exited the last of the German stockmarket computers.
He had thought he had finished them. They had no funds. Smith had been so very careful in his market manipulations. Certainly some unlucky investors had experienced losses, but he had averted a major downward turn with his deft handling of the IV accounts.
Now it might all have been for naught.
On another level, it concerned Smith that so many powerful men in Germany had been aware of IV for years and kept silent. It didn't reflect well on a nation trying to crawl out from under its fifty-year-old past.
Obviously the news contained in the E-mail had not yet exploded on the European trading floors. But it had leaked out. And the hesitation in the day's market was the result.
The reluctance to accept the fanciful tale at face value was probably the only thing that had saved the world market from collapse. But if the rumors contained in the memo proved true, the panic would be worldwide. For in the end, the stock market would react however the stock market chose to react. Smith would be helpless to avert a total meltdown.
But for now, there was still cause for hope. By the sound of his last phone conversation with the CURE director, Remo was already in the thick of things.
The future of the world's economic stability-and, by extension, civilization itself-was in the hands of CURE's enforcement arm. Harold Smith only hoped that Remo was up to the challenge.
Chapter 21
Remo sat on his private, second-story balcony at the vine-covered side of the Pension Kirchmann. The empty road leading into the Black Forest snaked off around a tree-shrouded bend far away. There had been no traffic on the desolate path since Chiun's caravan had left eight hours ago.
All Remo could do was wait.
On the floor of the balcony before his chair were several handfuls of small stones. Until an hour before, they had rested in a large decorative clay pot near the black-painted wrought-iron railing.
Remo had dumped the stones out where they could be easily reached. Bored, he would occasionally flick one with the toe of his loafer. The trunk of a tree at the side of the yard had borne the brunt of the deadly missiles.
The resulting clap as each stone hit and burrowed inside the tree was enough to draw a few increasingly curious guests from the warmth of the lodge. Two swore they had heard gunshots. Suspicious eyes strayed in Remo's direction.
Whenever they looked up from the lawn, Remo would shrug his confusion and pretend to search the treetops. Each time they would eventually give up and return to the inn. The last time they had gone inside was barely two minutes before.
Remo was pulling another rock into firing position when the room phone squawked at his elbow. Not wanting to get up from his chair, he had placed it on the cheap metal table next to him. Remo hefted the phone to his ear, at the same time snapping his toe into the next stone in line.
The rock took off like a shot. It moved in a blur, cracking audibly into the thick black tree trunk. There was a shouted voice from below. "Remo?" asked the puzzled voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith. Since lifting the receiver, Remo had failed to speak.
"Just a minute, Smitty," Remo whispered, leaning forward.
A group of lumpy Germans and Continental tourists came bustling into view below him. They were pointing at the woods and chattering excitedly to one another.
Two of them were dressed in khaki clothing. These took off through the underbrush. There was crashing and shouting as they stumbled and panted out of sight.
Their labors had a comforting effect on Remo. "Yeah, Smitty," he said. "How'd you track me down?"
In the distance, the hunters still labored through the woods.
"Your credit card," Smith explained quickly. "Are you and Chiun still searching for the Nibelungen Hoard?"
"It's always right to the chase with you, isn't it?" Remo said. He toed another rock into place. With a sharp kick, he launched it into the forest. There was renewed shouting as the stone struck a tree much farther in.
"Remo, I need to know," Smith demanded urgently.
"I'm not," Remo replied. "Chiun is."
"He is not with you?"
"Nope."
"Have you any idea where he has gone?"
"Into the Black Forest," Remo said. "Which isn't really all forest. Did you know that?"
"Yes," Smith said tersely.
"Really? 'Cause I didn't."
"Remo, I have come across information that indicates that Four is also in search of the Hoard. They plan to disrupt the economy of Germany by dumping the treasure onto the market all at once."
"So what?" Remo said. "I thought America was supposed to be all worried about Germany's big-shot new economy. I say let 'em wreck it."
"It is not that simple," Smith said. "There is an interconnectedness among economies in the modern age. And Germany's is one of the most complex of the Western world. If it topples, it could bring the rest down with it."
"Again," Remo said, "so what?"
"It could be the dawn of a new Dark Ages."
"Sinanju survived the first Dark Ages," Remo countered. "In fact, Chiun would probably be happy if the world economy collapsed. There'd be a whole slew of regional despots vying for our attention. It'd be an assassin's feeding frenzy."
Remo could hear Smith taking patient, calming breaths. He heard the rattle of one of Smith's pill bottles. The CURE director had just downed a few more baby aspirins.
"Remo," he said levelly, after the pills had gone down, "please be serious. Things could very well be as you say. If the world economy collapses, the type of people who would stand to benefit the most are those least suited to lead. We have encountered men from Four twice before. I cannot believe that you would want the likes of them leading the world. And I find it less likely that you would want to work for them."
Remo frowned. "You got that right."
Smith persisted. "Chiun, on the other hand, would have no such reservations. If he chose to throw in with Four, there would be an inevitable rift between the two of you."
"Where were you yesterday?" Remo muttered.
"What do you mean?" Smith asked.
"I mean it's already too late. Chiun took off this morning into the Black Forest with Adolf Kluge's band of merry Nazis to find the lost pile of gold." "You actually met Kluge?" Smith asked, shocked.
"So did you, Smitty," Remo said. "He's the guy who cracked you over the noggin in Paris. He's teamed up with Chiun and that girl we met in South America. They're going to divvy up the prize when they find it."
Smith was attempting to absorb this information. "You cannot allow that to happen," Smith urged. His lemony voice was tight with concern.
"Too late," Remo said. "The ink's already dry."
"You have to stop them, Remo," Smith insisted. "Chiun wouldn't listen," Remo explained, sighing. "He'd just be ticked at me for keeping him from his precious gold."
; "Remo, I am ordering you to find Adolf Kluge and kill him." The serious treatment Smith was giving this was evident by his choice of words. Ordinarily he would substitute a euphemism for the distasteful kill.
"Hold that thought," Remo said all at once.
He heard a rumble of engines in the distance. For an instant, he thought Chiun was returning. He soon realized, however, that the sound was coming from the wrong direction. As he spoke to Smith, a line of drab blue official-looking trucks pulled slowly into view on the road in front of the inn. They headed off in the direction Chiun had taken.
"Hey, Smitty," Remo asked, "are they sending the army into the forest?"
"One moment," Smith said. Remo heard the drumming of Smith's fingers against his desktop. A moment later, he returned. "That would be the Federal Border Police," he said. "A letter was sent to the chancellor of Germany this morning identical to the ones E-mailed to the major brokerage houses in Frankfurt."
"Whoa," Remo said. "What letters?"
"I did not mention them?" Smith said. He sounded annoyed at his own forgetfulness. He went on to tell Remo about the notes that told of IV's plan to dump the Nibelung gold onto the German market.
"That doesn't make much sense," Remo said afterward. "Wouldn't they want the element of surprise?"
"Perhaps their arrogance is such that they don't feel concerned," Smith suggested.
"Maybe," Remo hedged. He didn't sound convinced. Brow furrowed, he watched the large column of trucks continue to roll forward into the forest. "Do you know what time those E-mails came in?" he asked.
"The first went to the chancellor at 9:00 a.m. The others were sent out shortly thereafter."
"That isn't right," Remo said, confused. "They left hours before that."
"Perhaps Kluge left a representative behind," Smith suggested. There was uncertainty in his voice.
"To rat him out?" Remo said skeptically.
"I will not pretend to understand the thoughts of a madman, Remo," Smith said. "I only know that if there is any truth to the legends surrounding the Nibelungen Hoard, Kluge would have enough raw capital to reestablish Four, as well as to ruin Germany's-and possibly the world's-economy. It is imperative that you stop him. Whatever the cost to your relationship with the Master of Sinanju."
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