Part 4 (1/2)

Claude cringed, waiting for the sh.e.l.ls to explode. They remained blessedly intact.

”I thank you for holding these for us. They are back in the hands of their rightful owners now.” One of the skinheads had come over next to the old man. He stood there patiently.

The wind suddenly s.h.i.+fted, bringing the sharp scent of gasoline to Claude Civray's sensitive nose. The rest of the men hurried away, out of sight.

In that moment Claude understood what these men had in mind for him. He shook his head dully. ”No,” he begged. The word was a croak.

The old man ignored him.

”Soak them,” he said to the skinhead. He turned and walked briskly back to the truck.

Grinning, the young man upended his container over the bodies of Claude Civray and Maurice St. Jean.

The gasoline poured out clear in the dull lamplight. The acrid smell cut into Civray's ?aring nostrils.

As the gas soaked into his clothes and mottled his hair, the truck carrying the old man drove calmly away. The man did not even cast a glance in Claude's direction.

When the man had ?nished dousing him with gas-oline, he laughed uproariously at the two helpless Frenchmen. Dropping the can onto Claude's legs, he ran from sight.

Maurice began to stir groggily. Claude prayed that his friend wouldn't awaken.

The minutes dragged on. It seemed to take forever.

After a time Claude allowed the hope that the men had reconsidered.

As the night insects chirped in the gra.s.sland around the facility, Claude Civray heard something approaching. It was a soft whoos.h.i.+ng noise. Like the sound of a distantly racing train or wind across an open ?eld.

The wall of ?ame slipped into sight up the dirt path. It glowed malevolently, illuminating the sides of the guardshack in weird patterns, stabbing streaks of yellowy-orange into the black French sky.

It came slowly. Looping in from the main gate, it almost seemed as if it might pa.s.s him by. But like a dog on a scent the ?ames caught the path of gasoline poured in to the spot where the two guards lay.

Much faster now, the strip of ?re raced toward Civray.

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

He didn't feel the ?re because before the ?ames had reached him they had already found an opening in one of the stacks of sh.e.l.ls.

As the ?rst sh.e.l.l detonated, the rest in the stack of 75 mm sh.e.l.ls exploded, as well. The ground rocked as the huge pallets with their tons of ordnance blew apart in a ma.s.sive eruption of ?re 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 ?rst 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 ?ery orange.

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

For the ?rst time in more than ?fty 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 Emba.s.sy.

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 ?ight. 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.signment,” 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 ?nished.

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