Warren Murphy: The Empire Dreams

Much faster now, the strip of fire raced toward Civray.

Bracing for the flames, Civray didn't have time to be surprised that he felt nothing at all.

He didn't feel the fire because before the flames had reached him they had already found an opening in one of the stacks of shells.

As the first shell detonated, the rest in the stack of 75 mm shells exploded, as well. The ground rocked as the huge pallets with their tons of ordnance blew apart in a massive eruption of fire and twisted metal.

In less than a single heartbeat, Claude Civray was shredded into hamburger. Torn to pieces by bombs that had been dropped on his country at a time when his grandfather had been a young man.

OUTSIDE THE DEPOT, Nils Schatz watched the initial eruption with satisfaction.

The other trucks were gone. His was all that was left.

The first explosions set off a chain reaction around the base. The blasts spread in violent white pockets across the length of the depot. Finally, in a concussive burst heard for miles around, the entire base exploded. In the sleepy French countryside it was as if the end of the world had come.

Schatz's truck swayed ever so slightly on its shocks.

Unmindful of the bombs in the rear of his own vehicle and the danger they posed, Nils Schatz watched the entire depot erupt into a single ball of glorious fiery orange.

The brilliant light danced across his weary eyes, and for a blessed, happy instant the old Nazi was certain he could see an army of jackbooted soldiers marching from out the flames of history.

For the first time in more than fifty years, Nils Schatz smiled. Sitting back in his seat, he tapped his cane on the dashboard.

The truck drove off into the night.

THE SAME DRILL was completed simultaneously and without incident at three separate deminage facilities ranged around northeast France that night.

Of the many trucks laden with stolen ordnance, only one ran into trouble.

In the back of a truck parked the next day at an intersection in the busiest city in the country, a single bomb was accidentally dislodged from a stack. The resulting explosion took out half of the nearest building and most of the street.

Thirty-seven people were reported immediate casualties of the incident in Paris. Another seventy were severely wounded.

A sign had been blown from the column beside the gate of the building that had borne the brunt of the attack. It read simply United States Embassy.

Chapter 6

Smith arrived at Folcroft Sanitarium just before dawn and had been working at his computer for the better part of three hours. He wanted to get as much work done as possible before leaving for Europe. There would not be much of an opportunity to get anything accomplished with his wife around twenty-four hours a day.

Just the same, Smith planned to bring his laptop computer along on their trip.

His wife had told him the previous night that she would call him at noon to remind him of his flight. Mrs. Smith was well aware of her husband's ability to get lost for hours at a time in his work.

When the phone rang, he assumed it to be her. He glanced at the time display in the corner of the computer screen buried beneath the onyx surface of his high-tech desk. It was still midmorning. His wife wouldn't be calling for another three hours.

The call was on Remo's special line.

"Yes," Smith said, picking up the blue contact phone.

"Morning, Smitty," Remo's voice said. "Just thought I'd check in before you left."

"I take it by this morning's news reports that you had a busy night?" Smith asked dryly.

He had programmed his computers to pull up any suspicious deaths that might be attributable to Remo-who was CURE's special enforcement armor to Remo's mentor, Chiun, the Reigning Master of Sinanju. The body of Linus Pagget-with its knot of compressed skull-bore the unmistakable stamp of the ancient martial art of Sinanju.

"I told you I was antsy," Remo said.

"That was not a CURE assignment," Smith told him.

"It should have been."

"Nonetheless, I would appreciate it if you checked with me before engaging in these sorts of-" Smith searched for a word that would be appropriate when describing the gruesome condition in which the Nashua police had found Pagget's body "-activities," he finished.

"Next time. I promise. So, have you got anything else for me before you take off?"

"Nothing pressing," Smith admitted. "You and Master Chiun may enjoy the time off while I am away."

"You know I'd prefer to keep busy. C'mon, Smitty, there must be something."

Smith was surprised at Remo's eagerness to work.

It was not long before that he had been pushing for a vacation.

"Remo, if I had an assignment, I would use you. There is simply nothing large enough to warrant putting you into the field at the present time."

"I'm not a tractor, Smitty." His tone bordered on disgust.

Smith raised a thin eyebrow. "Is there something more to this than a simple desire to keep busy?"

Remo sighed. "You should be a shrink," he said glumly.

"I actually do hold a doctorate in clinical psychology," Smith noted.

"Yeah, right," Remo said absently. "It's just that there's always something more to do. One more creep determined to wreck the world for everybody else. Pagget left that nun barely breathing."

"She died this morning," Smith said tightly.

"I heard," Remo replied. His voice was laced with bitterness. "A fat lot of good I did her. I'm great at retribution, Smitty. What I stink at is getting there in the nick of time."

"Perhaps I am not the best person with whom to discuss this," Smith said, clearly uncomfortable. "Have you spoken to Chiun?"

"He thinks it's the same old story. Every year I get the blahs about the business. But it really isn't the same this time. I can't explain it. It's as if I know there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done, but I finally realize that I can't do it all. I mean really realize it." Remo exhaled loudly. "I don't know. Maybe it's time I finally packed it in."

Smith had only been half listening while Remo spoke. Like Chiun, the CURE director had grown used to Remo's frequent bouts of melancholia. But when he raised the desire to abandon the dangerous life he was in, Smith took notice.

The CURE director frowned. "Remo, someone told you something a long time ago. He used to say the same thing to me. 'One man can make a difference.'"

He heard a pensive intake of breath on the other end of the line as Remo considered the words.

"I don't think I believe that anymore," Remo said after a long, thoughtful pause.

Smith pressed ahead. "It was true enough for him. Conrad MacCleary believed that his entire life. That was why he recruited you. He knew that you could make a difference."

"MacCleary died more than twenty years ago," Remo countered. "He never lived in this America. He never saw anything as bad as what's going on out there today."

Smith paused. How could he tell Remo of the shared horrors Smith and MacCleary had witnessed as members of the OSS during World War II? It was a time when darkness threatened to engulf the entire planet. Subsequent generations had never known such a struggle. It was already history before Remo was even born.

In the end Smith decided not to even try.

"I will try to find something for you," the CURE director promised.

"Thanks, Smitty," Remo said. The news appeared to do nothing to lift his spirits.

Smith hung up the phone, turning his attention back to his computer.

While he had been talking to Remo, a news story had come in from one of the wire services. Smith had failed to notice the interruption on his computer screen. The electronically reproduced story had waited patiently for his perusal.

Smith's lemony features grew more pinched as he read the details, sparse for now.