Part 26 (2/2)

They could see Remo pause on one side of the staircase that led into the palace. He tipped his head oddly, looking over the side railing into a small landscaped garden beyond.

Abandoning the stairs, Remo slipped over the railing and disappeared from sight.

”What b.u.t.ter?y does he chase now?”

Perturbed, Chiun led Smith to the base of the stairway. They skirted it, going around the far side. The smell of death hit them immediately.

Smith saw dozens of bodies lying in a tangled bunch amid the roses and rhododendrons. They were French soldiers. The men who until yesterday had successfully guarded the palace.

Remo crouched at the edge of the pile of corpses. He was looking down at a particularly mangled body. The face was unrecognizable. It had been smashed repeatedly with a ?erce glee that was clearly unnecessary. The ?rst few blows had done the job. Most of these wounds had been in?icted after death.

When he stepped around Remo, Smith was surprised to see that it was the body of a woman. Remo looked up, face hard.

”You knew her?” Smith asked.

”I borrowed her phone a couple of times,” Remo said tightly.

Smith understood immediately. ”We must stop him before he kills again,” he said softly.

Remo glanced back at the corpse. Nodding, he got to his feet. They left the body of Helene Marie-Simone in the small garden and continued inside.

ADOLF KLUGE SPOKE in German. Lest any of the French of?cials present understood the language, he pitched his voice low.

”You realize now that this operation is doomed to failure,” he whispered.

The old radio operator glanced at the pair of skinhead guards near the door. Swallowing, he looked back at Kluge.

”We did not know it would come to this, Herr Kluge,” he admitted sadly. ”He promised glory.”

”The time for glory has pa.s.sed, old friend,” Kluge said. ”The best we can hope for now is simply to survive.”

He could see that he almost had the man on his side. Schatz had left ten minutes before. Kluge had been working hard to get the old n.a.z.i radio operator to see the futility of this insane campaign.

”I did it all for the fatherland,” the old man said. His bloodshot eyes were moist.

”I'm sure you think that,” Kluge replied. ”But I a.s.sure you that you have done more harm here than good. Please help me to undo some of that damage. While there is still time.”

The old man cast a glance at the pair of skinhead guards who were standing over near the dais. Each of them held a Gewehr a.s.sault ri?e. Proud of their rather limited role in the neo-n.a.z.i occupation, they stood at attention. They stared blankly ahead. Kluge suspected they were on some sort of drug.The old radioman had made up his mind. Turning away from the soldiers, he unclipped the single silver snapper on his hip holster.

He was about to reach for the gun in order to turn it over to Adolf Kluge when he was distracted by the sound of gun?re down the corridor.

The soldiers at the stage immediately grew alert, spinning toward the open door.

Kluge would never have a better chance.

He ripped the gun from the old n.a.z.i's holster, twisting the man around and using him as a human s.h.i.+eld. To the French it looked as if his long secret conversation with the radioman had caused the old soldier to drop his guard.

”Get down!” Kluge yelled in French to the diplomats seated on the ?oor.

As the men and women ?ung themselves to the carpeted aisle, ?ngers interlocked above their heads, Adolf Kluge opened ?re on the pair of n.a.z.is at the front of the stage.

He took two shots at the nearest skinhead. The ?rst 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 ?rst off the stage and then crumpling to the ?oor.

The second skinhead managed to get off a couple of shots from his ri?e.

Kluge felt a few rounds pound against the body of the old man. The n.a.z.i 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 ?ung the body of the dead n.a.z.i to the ?oor, 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, ?inging his gun to the ?oor. 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 ri?es.

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 ri?e 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 ri?e 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 ?oor Kluge suppressed his surprise at seeing for the ?rst 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 dif?culty 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 ?rst 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.”

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