Warren Murphy: Failing Marks

"What is it with all these E-mails?" Remo asked no one in particular.

"Oh, my precious, precious gold," Chiun moaned pitifully.

Remo was still thinking aloud. "The chancellor gets one, telling him about Four's plan to wreck the economy. The top money guys get them, as well. Now you're telling me your men got them, too. It's like someone wanted to make sure this expedition was followed."

"Why would that be?" Heine asked.

Remo shrugged. "I don't know. But throw out enough bait, and you're bound to catch a fish."

"Is the answer not obvious?" Chiun lamented. "They wished to prevent me from claiming that which is mine."

Remo nodded reluctantly. "I guess it looks that way."

Heine changed the subject. "I have contacted the chancellor. On his order, reconnaissance planes are en route to the area. If they locate the missing trucks, they will inform us."

Remo frowned, pointing down the road. "Where does this lead?" he asked.

"The Danube, eventually," Heine said. "There are other roads that lead off of it along the way. They could have taken any one of them."

"Chiun, didn't you say the treasure was supposed to be buried under the Danube?"

"That was the legend," Chiun admitted. "So why were you digging here?"

"The map indicated that this was the proper location. I assumed the Nibelungenlied's mention of the Danube to be Siegfried's final mendacity. The river is, after all, not far from here." His face was clouded.

Remo crossed his arms. "So this Danube is pretty big, I take it?" he asked unhappily.

Heine nodded. "It is the second longest river in Europe," he said.

Remo sighed. "I suppose I should be happy it's not the longest," he said. He held out a hand to Heine. "Keys."

After a moment's hesitation, the colonel reluctantly pulled the keys to his jeep from his pocket. He had only had them back in his possession for under an hour. Heine dropped them into Remo's outstretched palm.

"Don't wait up," Remo said, trudging over to the jeep.

The Master of Sinanju walked behind him in his mud-splattered kimono. His cheerless expression never wavered.

HEIDI HAD SET UP her surveying equipment in the clearing a few dozen meters away from the raging Danube River.

She had gone through the same procedure only a few short hours before back at the false site. Here, however, she was not merely putting on an act to fool the others.

She was far more careful this time as she peered through the eyepiece of the theodolite. Her fingers delicately adjusted the leveling screws.

Heidi had been genuinely surprised when they had discovered the stone carving at the other site. She expected the excavation to be futile. Actually she had planned it that way. Heidi had assumed that they would dig and dig until they finally gave up.

The more she thought about it, however, the more she realized that it should not have been totally unexpected. Her deviation from the map had been the logical turn it should have taken. It was the guess that someone might have made had they not been in possession of the entire map.

That had been the devious charm of the quartered block carving. Without even one piece, it would be impossible to extrapolate the rest of the map.

The runic writing on the other stone was Siegfried's final joke from beyond the grave. There were probably many other mocking stone carvings buried all around the area.

But not here.

Heidi wasn't having an easy time surveying. The reference points that would have been used originally were long gone. Even the geography of the region had changed over the past fifteen hundred years.

It was painstaking work.

In the end, Heidi was forced to use a mishmash of mathematics and geography to determine where the excavation should be. Even with the passage of fifteen centuries, there were enough clues for her to make a reasonably educated guess.

The spot was a minor declivity in a field a stone's throw away from the cold, churning water of the river.

Leaving her equipment and notebook behind, Heidi stepped gingerly across the small windswept meadow. She felt as if she was disturbing an old grave.

Using four broken twigs, she staked out a square around the spot. It was the best she could do for now without any help. All she could do in the meantime was wait.

Heidi looked down at the area she had marked off. It was approximately six feet by eight feet. Mottled frozen grass lay damply away from the rivera weed army toppled by the relentless wind.

That it could be here! Just below her boots!

As she looked down on the spot, Heidi suddenly noticed something in the tall, knotted grass. It had escaped her detection during the hour she had been surveying. There appeared to be a single solid line almost completely buried beneath the clumpy soil.

She dropped to her knees in the grass, feeling along the edge of the long section of stone.

Her heart tingled excitedly as she realized it was not naturally occurring. It was man-made.

She used her fingers to rip up divots of grass, flinging them away. Clawing along the rough edge of the buried chiseled rock, she uncovered a fourinch-wide strip. Her hands were shaking as she tore away the years of earthen buildup atop the stone boundary.

It stopped at a right angle. Heidi followed this shorter section of stone to another angle.

She worked furiously. Her hands were caked with black grime by the time she completed the square. When she was finished, the outline of an ancient stone boundary was clearly visible.

Heidi knelt-filthy and panting-in the grass before the sealed opening beyond which lay the fabled Nibelungen Hoard. Unmindful of the ferocious wind that whistled down the neck of her heavy woolen coat, she stared in awe, sweating from both exertion and excitement.

Her feeling of exhilaration was short-lived. There was a sound behind her. A dull clap-clap-clap.

Unenthusiastic applause.

"Bravo," a voice shouted over the wind.

She recognized it instantly. She hadn't heard his approach over the fierce gusts of frigid air.

Heidi's shoulders sank in defeat. As she climbed to her feet, she began turning around, snaking a hand inside the unzipped front of her jacket.

"Uh-uh. Slowly," cautioned Adolf Kluge.

Heidi pulled her hand from her coat. Woodenly she did as she was told.

Kluge was there with a few of his skinhead henchmen. He had also brought with him a number of Federal Border Police. Out of respect for the service they had abandoned, the ex-police had taken the liberty of removing their official insignia. However, their guns were still plainly evident, and were aimed at Heidi.

One of the former police trotted over to her. He reached inside her coat, removing her handgun from her shoulder holster. He stuffed it into his belt.

"Did you intend to keep the treasure all to yourself?" Kluge asked with an evil smile.

"Didn't you?" she countered.

Kluge shrugged. "Of course," he said. "But at least I had sense enough to bring along a little help. I suppose you intended to dig it out all by yourself and then carry it away in your pockets?"

Heidi didn't respond.

Kluge appraised her for a long moment. Finally he pulled a shovel from the hands of one of his skinhead thugs. He threw it over to where Heidi stood. It fell near her feet, clanging on the stone lip that she had exposed.

"You have a few more hours to live," Kluge said magnanimously. "They may as well be productive. Dig."

Heidi considered refusing. However, that would surely encourage Adolf Kluge to shoot her that much sooner. She decided that if she stalled for time, she might yet be able to get out of this alive.

She picked up the shovel at her feet.

As a few skinheads came over to join her in the excavation, Heidi jammed the tip of the spade into the cold ground. She forced it in deep with the sole of her boot.