Warren Murphy - Failing Marks

The intruder had already disarmed him with ease. Heine thought it pointless to resist. Scowling, he stretched his hand out to Remo.

Remo took hold of the fleshy area between the colonel's thumb and forefinger. He squeezed.

The pain was so intense and came so quickly that it took the colonel's breath away. He could not even scream.

"Are you with Four?" Remo asked, easing back on the pressure.

"What?" Heine demanded. "No. No, of course not. My orders are to obliterate them."

Remo knew he was telling the truth. He released the colonel's hand. Heine immediately jammed the injured part of his hand into his mouth.

"Sorry, pal," Remo said. "Just had to make sure."

"Who are you?" Heine garbled past a mouthful of thumb.

"All you need to know is that I'm on your side." Colonel Heine examined Remo with the same suspicious eyes he had been using earlier on the trees of the Black Forest. He seemed to reach some internal conclusion.

"It is nice to know someone is," the colonel harrumphed, pulling his hand from his mouth. Heine rolled down the window of his jeep. "Get these men back in their trucks," he ordered his driver.

After a moment of convincing, the surprised driver did as he was told. Reluctantly the men began lowering their rifles. Heine got the distinct impression that some of them had hoped to catch him in the cross fire. Repayment for his failure to join the fascist cause of a few short months ago. Slowly the troops began trudging back down the road to their waiting vehicles.

"You realize a lot of those guys were ready to shoot you, too," Remo commented as he started the jeep.

"They are more loyal to the ghosts of the past," Colonel Heine said somberly.

Remo frowned deeply. "There's been a lot of that going around lately," he said. He stomped down on the accelerator.

With a lurch, the police convoy began to roll once more down the ancient, curving road.

Chapter 22

The ragtag convoy led by Adolf Kluge passed through the gentle lower slopes of the Black Forest, avoiding the high mountains of the Baden-Wurttemberg region. These large dark peaks loomed like giant sentinels along the distant horizon.

Above the frosted mountaintops, the heavy gray clouds of early morning had grown more swollen with every passing hour. However, they had failed as yet to produce a single flake of winter snow.

As the lead vehicle broke into a wide clear patch in the middle of the forest, the Master of Sinanju cast a glance at the distant mountains.

From the rear seat, his squeaky voice intoned: "'Twas as much as twelve huge wagons in four whole nights and days,

Could travel from the mountain down to the salt sea bay,

Though to and fro each wagon thrice journeyed every day."

"The Nibelungenlied," Heidi said, nodding. The look of flushed exuberance had not left her face since morning.

Beside her in the front seat, Adolf Kluge was silent. The farther into this primitive portion of Germany they had traveled, the more convinced he had become of the authenticity of the legends. As he watched the mountains rise up through the desolate clearing, he felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of his stomach.

"If that is so," Kluge said thoughtfully, "we do not have as many vehicles as we will need."

"The wagons used were as the poem describes," Chiun said knowingly. "I will be surprised if the conveyances with which this expedition is equipped are able to hold even a third of what Siegfried's carts transported."

Heidi was thinking aloud. "So it was three trips a day for twelve wagons?"

"That is correct," Chiun said.

"For four days," Kluge added. "That would be 144 wagonloads."

"And if Chiun is right, we will have three times as many loads as that."

Kluge nodded. "Which makes 432," he said. Heidi's cheeks grew more flushed as her mind attempted to encompass that much treasure. Try as she might, she couldn't begin to imagine so much wealth in a single place.

"That is a lot of gold," she said breathlessly. They continued on for a few miles more before the Master of Sinanju ordered Kluge to halt.

The lead car slowed to a stop. Behind it, the trucks of the expedition stopped, as well. Their engines idled briefly before growing silent.

Chiun, Kluge and Heidi climbed from the rental car. The surviving Numbers from the IV village along with the handful of skinheads got down from their trucks.

"Tell your pinhead army to remain where they are," the Master of Sinanju commanded.

Kluge did as he was told.

The skinheads and the rest stayed back by the trucks. They were stretching their arms high in the air and twisting their spines, trying to relieve some of the muscle strain the long ride had inflicted on them. Only the identical blond-haired men seemed interested in what was going on up by the lead car. They stayed back where they were told, sullenly staring at Kluge and Heidi.

"I find those genetic freaks unnerving," Kluge complained as he tore his eyes away from the unflinching gaze of the Numbers.

Heidi, who had been eyeing the Aryan men with a look bordering on sympathy, shot a nasty glare at Kluge. Whatever her dark thoughts, she kept them to herself.

"Why have we stopped?" she asked, turning to Chiun.

"It is no secret to any of us," he said. "We all know that we are close now to the Sinanju Hoard."

"The Nibelungen Hoard," Kluge corrected flatly.

"Do not quibble, thief," Chiun cautioned. He marched over to a nearby copse of trees.

The Master of Sinanju used the sharpened edge of one long fingernail to sheer a slender branch from a small tree. With a flurry of fingers, he stripped any small sticks or nubbins from the black bark. Coming back over to Heidi and Kluge, Chiun used the heel of his sandal to kick up a sandbox-size area of dirt in the frozen mud at the shoulder of the road. With the thin end of the three-foot-long stick, he drew out a perfect square, cutting it into four large sections. He began sketching in one of the quarters.

"I act now in good faith," Chiun said as he drew. "Behold, the segment of the map discovered by my ancestor Bal-Mung beneath the body of the slain Nibelung king."

Heidi was the only one there seeing the Sinanju section of the map for the first time. As Kluge looked on, bored, she appeared to be studying every detail of the map as Chiun formed it in the powdery earth.

"There!" Chiun said, finishing with a flourish. He had sketched in a portion of a long river. "I give you the Sinanju legacy of a long-dead king."

There was a pause from those assembled, as if they were uncertain how to respond to such histrionics. The mood was broken by a dull, lifeless clapping of hands. Heidi and Chiun looked at Kluge.

"I am sorry," he said, sarcastically. He stopped his flat applause. "Is not that what we were meant to do?" His smile was all condescension. "That is not as impressive as you would like it to seem," Kluge said, nodding to the etching in the dirt. "After all, I have already seen it."

Chiun was indignant. "Only due to your act of thievery, Hun," he sniffed.

Heidi didn't wish for this posturing to go any further. She injected herself between Chiun and Kluge. "I will go next," she offered.

Heidi took the stick from Chiun and quickly began filling in one of the three empty squares. Some of the lines met up with those of the Master of Sinanju. Chiun watched with interest while she worked. When she finished, she handed the stick over to Kluge.

"Here," she said.

Holding the stick lightly in his hand, Kluge looked down upon the half of the map that was sketched out in the cold dirt of the Black Forest.

"Very nice," he said, nodding. He indicated a corner of Heidi's section with the end of the stick. "That portion was not visible in my photograph."

"What do you mean?" Heidi asked blandly.