The Empire Dreams

He took two shots at the nearest skinhead. The first bullet caught the man in the rear of his left shoulder. He tried to turn on his attacker, but only made it halfway around when the second bullet caught him with a violent thwack in the temple. He toppled over, bouncing first off the stage and then crumpling to the floor.

The second skinhead managed to get off a couple of shots from his rifle.

Kluge felt a few rounds pound against the body of the old man. The Nazi groaned no louder than if he had just awakened from a nightmare. He grew limp in Kluge's arm.

Another shot.

A single bullet ripped through Kluge's bicep. Lip curling in pain and anger, he flung the body of the dead Nazi to the floor, at the same time tossing the gun from his injured arm to his good left hand. He caught the weapon and squeezed the trigger once.

The bullet snapped into the chest of the skinhead. The force of impact was so great, the man swirled around toward the stage, flinging his gun to the floor. He sprawled across the stage, arms thrown wide. He didn't move again.

Ignoring his bleeding arm, Kluge turned on the gathered diplomats, including the president of France.

"Stay there," Kluge instructed.

The politicians weren't about to move. They looked on in fear as Kluge moved swiftly across the auditorium. On the way he gathered up one of the discarded rifles.

Kluge propped his back against the wall inside the open door. He took a deep breath. Thus steadied, he jerked his body around, sticking the muzzle of the gun experimentally into the hallway.

Instantly a hand that extended into a thick wrist reached into the room from the corridor.

"I'll take that," Remo said, coming into view.

He pulled the rifle from Kluge's hands, taking it in his own. Holding the barrel in one hand and the stock in the other, Remo brought the middle of the gun down across one knee. The rifle snapped obediently in two neat halves. Remo tossed them away. "All clear," Remo called behind him.

As Remo ambled into the room, Smith came in from the corridor in the company of Chiun. Smith immediately spied the computer that Schatz had had moved up on the stage after the death of Fritz. Leaving the others, he hurried up the steps, sliding in before the screen.

On the floor Kluge suppressed his surprise at seeing for the first time the man he knew to be the Master of Sinanju. When he saw Adolf Kluge, Chiun's eyes narrowed.

"You do this?" Remo asked, nodding to the bodies lying around the room.

"I did what was necessary," Kluge said. With difficulty he pulled his attention away from Chiun. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his bleeding arm.

"You're English," Remo said, noting Kluge's accent.

The head of IV nodded in response. "And you are American presumably," Kluge said.

"That's the first thing about me everyone seems to notice lately."

"I presume the palace is secure?"

"It looks that way," Remo told Kluge. "There were only a couple of guys outside and a couple more inside. It looks like everyone else bugged out before we got here."

"It is safe, Mr. President," Kluge called back to the assembled French officials. "They are Americans."

The crowd of people on the floor across the room became animated for the first time in almost a day. They pushed themselves up on cramped legs, rubbing aching backs as they tried to shake away the feeling of pins and needles in their lower extremities. Some left to find a bathroom. Not one of the lesser dignitaries expressed thanks for his release. Alone, the president came over to greet them.

"You have my gratitude," he said happily. Remo was about to say "you're welcome" when the Frenchman grabbed Adolf Kluge by the hand and began pumping madly. His face beamed appreciation.

"Hello," Remo said, perturbed. "Palace liberators this way." He waved his hand in front of the president's face.

"Ah, yes." The president reached for Remo's hand.

Chiun interjected. "This one is German," the Master of Sinanju said, his nose crinkling unhappily. He nodded to Kluge.

"Non," the French president said, his hand withdrawing. "He is with British Intelligence."

"That is an oxymoron," sniffed Chiun, "and beside the point. He has the stink of a Hun."

"Look, Chiun," Remo said, "he was helping out the good guys. Right now that makes him a good guy." He turned to Kluge. "So do you work for Source?" he asked.

"You've heard of it?" Kluge said, trying to sound surprised.

"Who hasn't?" Remo asked.

"Yes," Kluge said, uncertainly. "In point of fact, I cannot really say."

"Then it must be MIS. If you were Source, you'd say so."

Smith suddenly interrupted their conversation. "Remo, Chiun, come here," he called from the stage.

Remo immediately turned away from the others, hopping up atop the dais. He was followed by Kluge, the French president and a still suspicious Chiun.

"I have gotten into their system," Smith said excitedly as the others gathered around. "It is really quite simple." He punched a few keys. A screen of text was replaced by a map of Paris. "Everything is here. Locations, amounts stockpiled. Everything."

"Those blue and red dots are the bombs?" Remo asked.

Smith nodded. "They indicate both regular explosives and mustard-gas shells."

"It looks like a hell of a lot of bombs," Remo said worriedly.

Smith shook his head. "That is true," he admitted. "However, they have been placed in the subway, as well as government buildings and cultural centers. From what I have learned, all of these places are virtually if not completely abandoned at present."

"Can you tell from this what might be their primary target?" Kluge asked. "Schatz threatened to destroy it, as well as murder hundreds of civilians when he stormed away from here."

Smith looked back at the computer. "Possibly," he said. "I believe there is a numbering system." He used the cursor to initiate the proper commands. A ripple effect passed down the screen, leaving numerals in its wake. When it disappeared from the bottom of the computer, each dot was left with a small white number superimposed on it.

"Oh, my god," the French president said when he saw where number 1 was located.

Smith frowned. For confirmation he moved the cursor arrow up to the dot marked "1." When he depressed the plastic button, a fresh screen of text flooded the computer face. The text supported the conclusion of the president.

"I would guess that is the primary target," Smith said.

"So we know where he's headed," Remo said. He started for the stairs.

"Wait!" the French president called. He looked desperately down at Smith. "Is German occupation so bad?" he asked. "Can we not give him what he wants?"

Smith's face steeled. "Need I remind you, Mr President, that he wants to murder and enslave your countrymen?"

"Yes, but..." The president indicated the information on the computer screen with a helpless wave of his hand.

Disgusted, Smith turned his attention away from the Frenchman and back to Remo.

"The Metro is likely cleared of all civilians," he said. "As are the buildings on this list. The worst he can inflict on the city is a cultural black eye. Get him."

"Stop!" the president cried, flinging himself at Remo, blocking his exit. He turned his attention on Smith. "Who are you to issue orders in sovereign France?"

Remo looked at him distastefully. He took the president by the shoulders, lifting him off the floor. He placed him between Kluge and the still seated Smith.

"We're the good guys," Remo said. Without another word he and Chiun headed down the stairs and raced out the auditorium door.

The president tried to go after them once more, but Kluge interceded.

"It is necessary, Mr. President," he said with a somber nod. His voice was funereal.

The president's shoulders slumped in defeat. The fight drained out of him.

"Oui," he said sadly. He sat down at the long table atop the podium, eyes downcast. Kluge patted a supportive hand on his rounded shoulder.

After Remo and Chiun had left, Smith had turned back to the computer. His nimble fingers were typing madly away at the keyboard.

Once, unseen by anyone in the small auditorium, Adolf Kluge glanced up from consoling the president of France. He eyed Smith suspiciously.

Chapter 31

The fuhrer of the Fourth Reich marched back and forth in front of the wide iron support column. Above him, illuminated by powerful floodlights, the latticework structure of the Eiffel Tower jutted almost one thousand feet into the postmidnight Paris sky.

There were two dozen men around him. A mixture of both old-time Nazis and modern skinheads. They formed a protective phalanx around their leader.

As he paced between them, Nils Schatz banged his cane against the ground, creating angry dents in the dull bronze tip. He noted with displeasure that the walking stick had lost its luster. He would have to have someone polish it when he returned to the palace. Perhaps the president of France himself. He whirled.

"Where are they?" Schatz demanded hotly, pacing up to a nearby subordinate.

"They radioed half an hour ago, mein Fuhrer," the skinhead said helplessly.

"I know that," Schatz snapped. He walked a few steps in the opposite direction before twirling back around.

They were awaiting the arrival of the first hundred French victims. Chosen at random, the civilians would be shot in retaliation for the murder of only one skinhead. Afterward, Schatz intended to destroy the tower in order to demonstrate to the world the seriousness of his purpose.

He could see the pile of rusted old ordnance stacked beneath the nearby column. There were crates of shells as well as loose aerial bombs and mines, the latter being too large to box. Schatz had been assured that this one blast would take out the supporting leg above it, after which the tower would topple like a three-legged horse. A small digital detonator glowed red from a shadowy spot between the pile of explosives. It was the same kind of manually set device that was on all of his cases of stored ordnance.

He would not allow his dream to slip away from him. Not now. Not when it was so close to becoming a reality.

Paris was only the beginning. Soon the rest of France would fall. Germany would certainly join him then. After that it would take only a push to force the rest of Europe into line. And afterward. .. ?

Schatz knew. This modern world wasn't like the one that had given birth to him. These people were weak. They were crying out for a leader. For him.

He turned again on the skinhead.

"Raise them!" he commanded, pointing at the portable radio set with his cane.

"As I told you before, I have been unable to, mein Fuhrer," the skinhead said.

"Do not make me angry, boy," Schatz sneered, striding over to the young man. He pushed the skinhead viciously in the chest with the end of his cane.

Schatz was distracted by the sudden rumble of an engine. It came from the Seine side of the tower. He rose to his full height, glaring unhappily at the approaching two trucks.

"At last," he snorted. He marched over between the line of men to meet the vehicles.

Coming in one after the other, the trucks were approaching fast.

Schatz saw as they barreled toward him that the cab of the lead truck was empty. His face puckered unhappily as his twisted brain attempted to understand the significance of two empty trucks.

The vehicles didn't slow.

Teeth clenched in a rictus of fury, Schatz jumped from the path of the oncoming vehicles just in time, landing in a heap on the ground. The nearest skinheads pulled him to his feet, brushing the dirt from his clothing. He pushed their hands aside, spinning around in time to see the speeding trucks slam into the Eiffel Tower.

The first truck crashed into the base of the column beneath which the ordnance was stored. Even as the lead truck's nose crumpled painfully, the second truck was slamming it from behind, twisting the first truck to one side and toppling it over onto the base. The engines of both vehicles hummed softly.

Schatz stormed over to the trucks. He saw immediately that the undamaged second vehicle was empty. The Parisian men, women and children who were to be an example to their fellow citizens not to challenge the glorious Nazi Reich were nowhere to be seen.

"What is this?" Schatz demanded, whirling on his men.

"It's goodbye, schnitzel face," said an American voice.

The fiihrer's blood turned to ice.

As Schatz watched in horror, the two of them appeared out of the shadows. Like avenging angels. It was them. The ones from Sinanju.

The young one who had threatened Schatz over the Guernsey video camera grabbed a pair of skinhead soldiers by their necks and slammed their heads sharply toward one another. The resulting sound was like two pots being banged together. When he was finished, two helmets were fused together as if by a welder's torch. The skulls beneath were pulverized to mush.

At the same time the Reigning Master of Sinanju had leaped in front of four startled German soldiers.

His arms shot back and forth like pistons, piercing the foreheads of the men with deadly talons. The men dropped like wet bags of potting soil to the damp ground.

Schatz stumbled backward as the two Masters of Sinanju fell on his remaining skinhead and Nazi guards.

This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not when he was so close to success.

A single gunshot exploded behind him. There was a shriek of pain as the Nazi who had fired the weapon fell, his neck spurting blood from a wound inflicted by a sharpened fingernail.

The firing weapon sparked an idea in the back of Nils Schatz's perverted mind.

Exploded.

There was still a chance.

"Protect your fuhrer!" Schatz ordered the portable-radio operator. He hurried past the idling trucks toward the stack of explosives.

REMO JERKED the barrel of the gun around, forcing it back into the face of the attacking Nazi. The old man's teeth cracked to splinters as the muzzle tore through his mouth, continuing on into the back of his throat. It exited the rear of his neck.

"You'd have thought some of these guys would have called it quits after the last world war," Remo commented as he went to work on another old Nazi.

"Madness does not admit defeat," Chiun said. He cracked the kneecaps of two nearby skinheads. "Remind me to embroider that on a pillow," Remo said, finishing off Chiun's wounded with two precise toe kicks.

The area around them was littered with the dead of the Fourth Reich. There was only one man left alive. It was the skinhead radio operator.

Remo grabbed him by the throat. "Where's that old guy that was here a minute ago?" he demanded. "Shits."

"Fuhrer Schatz...is...there," said the man, his face turning deep red beneath Remo's squeezing hand. He pointed beyond the trucks to the base of the Eiffel Tower.

"Thanks," said Remo.

A final squeeze snapped the skinhead's spine. Remo dropped him to the ground. Running, he and Chiun headed for the tower.

SCHATZ HAD SET the digital timer on the stack of explosives to go off in four minutes.

Luckily for him, he had insisted that the detonators they had purchased with stolen IV funds be modeled after the small digital alarm clock that sat beside his bed in the sleepy IV village in Argentina. Schatz wasn't good with many of these new contrivances, but he certainly knew how to operate an alarm clock.

He was running now in the direction opposite the men from Sinanju.

Schatz had no idea how far he could get in four minutes. He hoped it would be far enough. One thing was certain, though. There was no way the two Masters of Sinanju would be able to escape the blast.

He ran for half a minute before realizing that he had left his treasured walking stick behind. It was too late to return for it.

He would get another. When the bomb exploded and the tower fell. Once the world recognized that the Fourth Reich would not be trifled with. The fuhrer would have his choice of the finest walking sticks in the world.

His aged lungs burned as he ran. His arms and legs moved in pained, jerky motions.

How much farther would be safe?

He fixed his gaze on a tree far ahead. That would be the point. Surely if he reached that, he would be free of the blast zone. And he would most certainly reach it.

That certainty vanished a few seconds later when it occurred to Schatz that the scenery before him wasn't getting any larger. Was that not what generally happened as one approached something?

Another moment and he realized why.

He looked down at his feet. They were several inches off the ground. Though his legs pumped madly, they pushed against empty air.

Schatz looked back over his shoulder. He saw a hand that extended into an abnormally thick wrist. Beyond them both was a familiar cruel face. It was the same face that had mouthed the words "I am going to kill you" on the camera at the Guernsey air base.

"We had a date. Remember?" Remo said coldly. Holding the old German by the scruff of the neck, he carried Nils Schatz back to the Eiffel Tower.

"DO YOU NOT KNOW how to disarm it?"

"Do I look like I know how?" Remo asked.

"You are American," Chiun insisted.

"So?"

"So true Americans know such things."

"Look, they don't teach bomb disarmament in Catholic school," Remo said.

"They do in Ireland," Chiun suggested.

Remo ignored him. He studied the wires running from the bottom of the detonator. They were multicolored and ran into one of the largest of the rusted shell casings. The timer was ticking down to the oneminute mark.

Behind them, virtually ignored, stood Nils Schatz. Remo had deposited the old Nazi near the front of the broad iron support column before he and Chiun turned their attention to the bombs.

Schatz glanced over at one of the crashed trucks. It was still in good shape. Its engine hummed softly.

"I think I should cut the red one," Remo decided, reaching for a wire.

"Why?" Chiun asked, stopping him with a longnailed finger.

"I saw in a movie where they cut the red wire to stop a bomb," Remo explained.

"I once saw a movie in which a man flew. I do not believe, Remo, that men can fly."

"Hmm," Remo said, sitting back on his haunches. As Remo studied the bomb, Nils Schatz began inching toward the parked truck. Along the way, he collected his treasured walking stick.

"Sever the blue one," Chiun said authoritatively.

"Why?" Remo asked.

"Blue is my favorite color."

"So what?" Remo asked. "Red is my favorite color."

"That is because you lack taste."

They heard the sound of the truck engine revving desperately. Both men looked over in time to see the big rented vehicle back away from the second damaged truck.

Nils Schatz sat in the driver's seat, eyes wild. He spun the wheel furiously, turning the truck away from the tower. Stomping on the gas, he began speeding away.

Remo looked at Chiun. He shrugged helplessly. "Shits is right, Chiun," he said. "I'm stumped." The Master of Sinanju frowned. The timer continued ticking down. As they watched, it slipped below the thirty-second mark. Chiun shook his head. "Let us make haste," the Master of Sinanju said. Swirling, he and Remo raced from the base of the tower.

SCHATZ WAS GOING to survive!

He would live, and along with him the dream of a thousand-year Teutonic dynasty.

His foot pressed heavily on the accelerator as he raced away from the tower. His heart thudded loudly in his narrow chest. He could see the Eiffel Tower's massive shape illuminated in his side-view mirrors by floodlights.

The fools from Sinanju would perish after all. The old one would finally pay the ultimate price for the shameful death he had forced on the first fuhrer.

His heart and lungs ached from his exertions. Any second now. And afterward the world would never again question the power of the Fourth Reich. Schatz glanced in the side-view mirror once more. He saw something that made his desperately beating heart stand still.

The young Master of Sinanju was running down the road after him.

He glanced in the mirror on the far side of the cab. The old one was reflected there. And he was coming closer.

Impossible!

Schatz pushed harder against the accelerator. It was already to the floor.

He glanced in the side-view mirror once more. Remo was almost upon him.

Schatz glanced frantically around the cab for a weapon to use against them. All he saw was his beloved walking stick.

The driver's-side door suddenly popped open. Schatz noted it dully.

A second later, the passenger's-side door opened. The Master of Sinanju slid into the front seat. He didn't even look in Schatz's direction.

Schatz felt Remo's strong hand on his shoulder. They passed one another at the door frame. Somehow, in the wink of an eye, Remo was seated behind the steering wheel and Nils Schatz was hanging by Remo's left hand out over the flashing roadway. "Thanks for keeping my seat warm."

With a flick of his wrist, Remo flung the new fuhrer backward.

Schatz sailed through the air, landing on the seat of his pants in the middle of the road. Remarkably he was not killed. Friction burned the flesh of his backside painfully away as he slid in a seated position all the way back to the stack of ancient ordnance.

Smoke poured from his trousers as he landed with the gentlest of touches against the explosives.

Schatz looked up at the digital counter. Ten seconds left.

As he reached for the timer, he glanced back in the direction from which he had just come. The truck continued speeding away.

He saw a hand appear from the driver's-side window, throwing something back in his direction. Whatever the object was, it was long and dark. It flew at him slowly, end over end. Moving almost hypnotically.

Five seconds.

His hand froze over the timer as he realized what it was Remo had thrown. In the cheerful glow of the floodlights, he could see the bronze tip of his cane.

Two seconds. Still time to stop the countdown. The slowness was an optical illusion. The cane flew in at supersonic speed. The metal end of the walking stick impacted with the shell casing of an old artillery shell.

The collision sparked the combustible material within.

Fire swelled from a single spot, bursting out around the screaming, bitter old Nazi.

"Noooo... !" Nils Schatz shrieked as the pile of old ordnance erupted in a massive conflagration that shook the ground for miles around.

And as the fire consumed him, another, greater fire welled up around the self-proclaimed fuhrer. To Schatz, it felt as if the very earth had opened up and the flames into which he slipped and which took firm hold of him burned unquenchably for a thousand years. And beyond.

REMO SLOWED the truck to a stop. He and Chiun looked back on the flames burning at the base of the Eiffel Tower. A gift shop had caught fire, as well as several trees. However, the tower itself had weathered the blast remarkably. It remained fully intact.

"They just don't build eyesores like that anymore, Little Father," Remo commented.

Putting the battered truck in gear, they drove back through the silent streets to the presidential palace.

Chapter 32

For several blocks before the Palais de l'Elysee they had begun encountering French troops. At more than one stop along the Metro line, demineurs in protective gear were hauling ancient ordnance up from the subway system.

"I smell Smitty's hand in this," Remo said.

At the palace itself they encountered little resistance. Remo and Chiun made their way into the small auditorium where they had left Smith. Everyone but Smith was gone.

The CURE director lay unconscious on the floor. Remo and Chiun hurried over to him. After a moment of Chiun's ministrations, Smith came around. "Stop him, Remo," Smith said weakly.

"Stop who, Smitty?" Remo asked gently.

"That man who claimed to be a British agent. After I faxed the pertinent details of the planted bombs to the French authorities, he knocked me out." With Remo's help, Smith climbed uncertainly to his feet. "It is as I feared," he said, inspecting the computer.

The monitor had been pushed to the floor and was smashed. The chassis of the drive system had been pried open. Parts had been wrenched from inside.

"He has taken the hard drive," Smith said, looking into the guts of the system. "Anything we might have recovered from it is lost."

"Did I not mention that he was a Hun?" Chiun sniffed in an I-told-you-so tone.

"That information would have been invaluable to us," Smith said. "With it, I would have been able to track down this elusive IV organization."

Remo shook his head. "Whoever he was, he's long gone now," he said. "We'll have to get them another way. I think your big concern right now is your wife."

"Maude," Smith gasped. He had forgotten all about her.

"That was her name, last I heard," Remo said. Smith glanced around, suddenly realizing the significance of where they were. "Remo, you must get me out of here. I cannot be discovered in the presidential palace of France. There would be too many questions to answer."

"Okay, Smitty, on one condition."

"What?" Smith asked warily.

"Before you finish your vacation, could you pick me and Chiun up a snow globe of the Eiffel Tower?"

"One each," Chiun said quickly.

"One each," Remo agreed with a nod.

"I will see what I can do," Smith said. Smiling, Remo escorted Smith from the palace. For the first time in days, he felt good.

EPILOGUE

Adolf Kluge glanced furtively around the airport terminal in Antwerp, Belgium.

He didn't think he had been followed. Although, he realized bitterly, the men who would be following him would be invisible to him until it was too late.

He had destroyed the hard drive with its crucial IV financial information before leaving France. That would buy him some time. If not for the arrival of French officials on the scene, he would have finished off the man known as Smith.

As it was, Smith was old. It was possible that he would die as a result of the vicious blow Kluge had given him.

He hoped this was so.

Kluge was traveling now under an assumed name. His flight would take him to Spain and then on to Venezuela in South America. From there he would take a short flight to Argentina.

He hoped the men from Sinanju weren't waiting for him when he arrived. Thanks to Schatz, he had much to do in preparation for their inevitable visit.

A voice in French called out his flight on the public-address system.

He still saw no sign of either Remo or Chiun. They were not following him. Now.

Hurrying, Adolf Kluge made his way to the departure gate.