It would be days before fire officials learned about the oil tanks, days before they realized why the fire had taken so long to put out. By the time it was extinguished, there wouldn't be so much as a tooth or scrap of bone left of Herr Hahn's latest victims.
Herr Hahn was about to lower the binoculars when he caught a brief flash of movement near the driveway of St. Clair's chalet.
Fire and police officials wouldn't be there already. Probably gawking neighbors.
Hahn shifted his great bulk in his creaking chair, backtracking with the glasses.
When he found the source of movement, Herr Hahn shot to his feet as if someone had wired his chair. The pfeffernuesse plate tumbled to the floor along with a stein of thick German beer. The plate shattered, and little cookie balls rolled across the cabin floor.
It couldn't be.
The old Asian stood at the mouth of the driveway. Along with him was the Lifton woman. As Hahn watched in shock, the Asian ran back up the driveway.
The old man rounded the ruins of the house. The heat from the fire should have been unbearable. Yet he seemed unmindful as he ran.
Hahn's brain could not reconcile this with the world he knew.
He couldn't have gotten out. Hahn had tracked them with the thermal sensors to the last possible instant. They were trapped in the basement. He had detonated the explosive cap attached to the furnace when they were standing in front of the door. In Herr Hahn's world, men did not outrun explosions.
Maybe there were two old men. Another woman who resembled Amanda Lifton. He didn't see the younger man. Maybe he didn't have a twin. Maybe the sole young one had been properly killed in the blast that had obliterated the twins of the old Asian and Amanda Lifton.
This ludicrous speculation flitted through Herr Hahn's brain in a shocked instant. All such conjecture ended the moment Hahn saw a new figure race out from behind the wall of flame.
It looked as if the fire was holding on to him, but Herr Hahn soon realized that the young one's shirt was ablaze. He stopped, did a little pirouette, and the flames winked out. It was as if that simple move had created a vacuum, extinguishing the fire.
The old Asian raced up to the young American. Sharp hands slapped furiously at the back of the young one's shirt.
They appeared to argue for a moment, the young one pushing away the old one's slapping hands. But then the attention of both seemed to be drawn in another direction. Like two heads controlled by a single mind, the two men turned their eyes down the hill.
They didn't search the waters of Lake Geneva. There was no uncertainty. No hesitation at all. It was as if they were possessed with an ability to focus in like laser beams on something that was breaking into their conscious sphere.
They found the boat.
They found the man on the deck of the boat. Together, they stared down the binoculars of Herr Hahn.
And then they began loping down the hill toward him.
"YOU DIDN'T HAVE to slap me like that," Remo complained as they bounded down the steep hill toward the distant lake.
"True," Chiun replied. He leaped over a boulder, landing at a sprint. "I could have left you to cook like a pig on a spit."
A broad black rock surface appeared suddenly on the hill before them. Remo's legs split like a hurdler's as he soared over an angled crevice in the rock face. Chiun bounded down after him. They continued on. "I was already out," Remo snarled.
"I thought I saw an ember."
"Ember shmember. You were ticked because you thought I'd got myself blowed up real good. If Amanda had slowed me down a second more, I might have."
"Do not blame the woman," Chiun said, leaping down over a knot of pines that was growing up from a sheer rock face on the mountainside. "And if I am upset with anything, it is your new habit of causing every dwelling we enter to spontaneously combust. Really, Remo, how do you expect me to get home insurance for any future Castle Sinanju if you persist in playing with matches?"
Remo ignored him.
The mountain angled flat. Remo vaulted a hedge, landing in someone's backyard. Chiun floated in after him.
They flew past another chalet set into the hill and exploded out onto a narrow road. The lake was closer than it had been, but it was still too far away. More rooftops peeked from pine trees below. Beyond, the boat still sat in the cold waters of Lake Geneva. The man with the binoculars was no longer on the deck. Both boat and lake vanished as they raced into another grove of trees.
"That wasn't St. Clair," Remo said. "If he's the one at the greenhouse, too, I can't wait to get my hands on him."
"We may not get the chance," the Master of Sinanju pointed out.
In spite of an area of over two hundred square miles, Remo's keen ears isolated the same, lone sound Chiun had detected over all the other lake noise.
It was the sound of a boat engine misfiring. Remo's face grew grim. Feet flying over treacherous rock, the two men continued racing down the steep slope.
"START, DAMN YOU, start!" Herr Hahn snapped.
As a rule, he rarely spoke. But with no one around to hear him, it didn't matter. And right now, maintaining his habitual silence was the least of his troubles.
A choking splutter sounded at the rear of the boat. He stabbed the ignition switch. Nothing. No time to check the engine. The last he had seen, they were halfway down the hill. The two men were still three-quarters of a mile up on rough terrain, darting in and out of tree cover and between tidy Swiss homes. But the speed at which they were descending was inhuman.
In the boat cabin, Hahn's round face glistened with sweat. His armpits were moons of freezing perspiration.
"Start, start, start..."
The boat engine coughed and spluttered but wouldn't turn over. Herr Hahn didn't believe in prayer, but at that moment he said a silent entreaty to every thief, pirate and murderer who had come before him to deliver him from the two men who were running at him with death in their eyes.
Holding his breath, Hahn struck the button again. The engine coughed once and roared to life.
Hands shaking, he grabbed frantically at the steering column and the throttle stick. Shoving the throttle to the max, he sent the boat bobbing and zooming across the frothy waves of Lake Geneva.
BY THE TIME Remo and Chiun crossed the last lawn and broke through the tree cover at the shore, the boat was already halfway across the section of lake that separated the new and old cities of Geneva.
Remo was heading for the water, but Chiun touched his arm.
"He is too far gone," the Master of Sinanju said. Remo stopped, squeezing his hands in impotent frustration at the rocky shore. The boat weaved through shuttle traffic and sped toward the big white shape of the cruise liner.
"Damn," Remo said. "Judging by the whiff in the air, that's definitely the guy who was in St. Clair's house. If he'd used binoculars instead of some electronic whatsit in the first place, we could have had him."
Chiun nodded tight agreement. He watched the distant boat through narrowed eyes before finally turning away.
"Come, Remo," the old man said. A long nail flicked at the holes burned in the back of Remo's shirt. "Even the Swiss must have laws against exhibitionism."
Remo looked up the near-vertical hill they'd just descended. A cloud of black smoke belched high into the clear blue sky. He sighed bitterly.
Together, the two Masters of Sinanju began the long climb back up to the burning chalet.
Chapter 11