Warren Murphy: Failing Marks

With no fanfare save the howling Danube wind, Heidi Stolpe turned over the first spadeful of earth that had entombed for centuries the fabled Nibelungen Hoard.

THE TALL PINES of the Black Forest roared past at breakneck speed. Though they were driving like a bat out of hell, Chiun recognized the blurry clutch of conifers that flew past the jeep for the third time.

They squealed around a corner on two wheels. Long black skid marks from their previous two journeys around the same corner marred the roadway.

"You are driving aimlessly," Chiun challenged Remo.

Remo was hunched behind the steering wheel. His hands gripped the pebbled surface of the wheel tightly.

"I can't pick up their damned trail. They could have gone anywhere," Remo said testily.

"They have not gone anywhere," Chiun snipped. "They have gone to steal my gold."

"I liked you a lot better when all you cared about was building statues of comedians."

"I am through with that," Chiun announced huffily. "Jesters come and go. Only gold lasts forever." The jeep radio suddenly squawked to life. The anxious, accented voice of Colonel Heine came on. He spoke in English.

"This is Colonel Heine of the German Federal Border Police to the driver of my jeep. Come in, please." He had never bothered to learn Remo's name. His voice was anxious.

"Answer it," Chiun demanded, pointing to the radio.

"Um..." Remo said.

"You do not know how," Chiun said accusingly.

"Do, too," Remo replied.

"Prove it."

Remo answered the radio. For some reason he couldn't fathom, the windshield wipers came on. "I told you," Chiun said.

"It is urgent," said Heine's voice. "Please respond."

"You do it." Remo aimed his chin defiantly at the radio.

"It is beneath me." Chiun crossed his arms.

"You don't know how, either," Remo challenged.

"Please respond," begged Heine.

"I'll admit I don't know how if you admit you don't know how," Remo offered cagily.

Chiun appraised the radio. "It is a model with which I am not entirely familiar," he admitted.

"Fine," said Remo. "Let's answer it together."

THEY DIDN'T HAVE to dig as long here.

The rim of stone Heidi had uncovered by hand turned out to be the topmost portion of four buried walls. The excavation went down only about six feet in this narrow enclosure before the first shovel clanked on solid rock.

As before, they used their hands to clear off a flat stone. It rested level in the buried square of rock. A horizontal door.

The edges of the stone were cleared away, revealing a stone casing. Again icy water was brought from the nearby river to wash off the ancient accumulation of dirt.

When they were finished, a narrow gap was visible between the large stone and the strips of interlocking rock that bordered it.

"We need to pry this up," Heidi called up to Kluge. She was squatting in the hole atop the stone. With her hand, she felt around the edge of the ancient slab of settled rock.

There were two skinheads still inside the pit. They were on their knees assisting Heidi.

"Get the crowbars," Kluge told a few of the border police who were standing with him at the edge of the hole. The men ran obediently off.

Inside the shallow pit, Heidi was trying desperately to contain her excitement. She had to keep reminding herself that under the circumstances it did not matter if this was the right spot. The discovery would do her no good if she was dead. Somehow she had to get out of this alive. And she could. If only the others showed up in time...

"It is a pity you didn't see me following you," Kluge called in mock sympathy from the edge of the pit. "From your perspective, of course," he quickly added. "After you turned onto the access road, it became a simple enough matter. There are no paths leading off it. Those twisted genetic bastards had the right idea for once, it seems. They had sense enough to steal my trucks and make a run for it. Not you. You led me directly here."

As Kluge thought of the missing blond-haired Numbers from the IV village, his face suddenly clouded over. He peered more closely at Heidi Stolpe. All at once, his eyes opened in delighted surprise. It was a spark of joyous realization.

"You are one of them, aren't you?" he asked happily. He beamed as the truth of his words sank in. "I knew you looked familiar when I first laid eyes on you. But I never knew our friend Dr. von Breslau created a female lab rat. Perhaps you were an accident? An improvement on the men, I must admit. You at least can talk. That is, until now." He smiled a wet, superior smile.

In the pit, covered with dirt, Heidi tried to hold his condescending gaze. She nearly succeeded. But as she stared into the fiery blue-gray eyes of Adolf Kluge, a sinking feeling of inferiority seemed to settle like a fog over her slender frame. Her shoulders sank. She averted her eyes, ashamed.

Kluge knew in that instant that he had guessed correctly. Somehow Heidi Stolpe was the freakish sister to the hundreds of Aryan males mass-produced by IV more than thirty years before.

He would have been fascinated to learn more about her life. About how she alone of all the embryos concocted in that Nazi lab in South America had been born female. About how she had come to be where she was today. About her apparent knowledge of IV. But it turned out that Heidi was not the only one surprised at that moment.

Kluge felt a rough shove between his shoulder blades. The air was knocked from his lungs from the severity of the blow. He toppled forward into the open hole.

Kluge thudded hollowly atop the huge stone slab beside Heidi, banging his knees painfully against the rock.

He rolled over onto his back on the cold chunk of stone. Kluge was shocked to see, framed in the square of light above him, a familiar mud-splattered yellow kimono. Above it was an enraged parchment face.

"Claim jumpers!" the Master of Sinanju announced.

The two skinheads who remained in the hole with Heidi helped Kluge to his feet.

The IV leader had to think quickly.

"Ah, you made it," Kluge called up to Chiun. "Excellent." He smiled weakly.

Remo Williams slipped into view beside the old Korean.

"Don't bullshit a bullshitter," he advised Kluge.

"No, really," Kluge insisted. "It was bedlam back there. I am genuinely pleased that all of the interested parties have found their way here."

"It wasn't luck," Remo said. "The German air force spotted your stupid convoy headed this way. They radioed your position to the border police, who put us on your tail."

"It is fortunate that I knew how to operate the radio device," Chiun announced. "Or we might still be driving aimlessly through this bleak forest."

"Hey, I thought we were going to share the credit for the radio," Remo complained.

"Oh, please, Remo," Chiun remarked testily. "While you occasionally display signs of almost being a good son, I live in constant fear that you will someday die in a bathroom after misremembering the operation of the doorknob."

"Man, you're nasty when you're greedy," Remo said. He left the edge of the hole to go off and sulk near the river.

Chiun was too busy to be concerned with Remo's fragile state of mind.

From beyond Kluge's and Heidi's limited field of vision, the Master of Sinanju produced two handfuls of long metal crowbars. Each weighed approximately fifteen pounds. Chiun held them in his hands as if they were plastic drinking straws. He flung the bars to the bottom of the pit where they clanged in an angry pile.

"Remove the stone," he commanded imperiously.

IT TOOK LONGER than either Kluge or Heidi had expected. Perhaps they had imagined it would not be so difficult after seeing Chiun fling the previous stone with such ease.

It would have taken Chiun no time at all to pull the ancient stone from its age-old resting place, but the Master of Sinanju was not about to dirty his hands this time. He let the others strain and tug along with the neo-Nazis and former border police.