122752.fb2 Failing Marks - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 41

Failing Marks - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 41

And the Great Depression was what had given rise to Adolf Hitler. After the turmoil of the German national elections less than two short months before, anything was possible. The chancellor shuddered at the thought.

The rough details were all there in the letter. Siegfried and Hagan. Something about a long-lost map to the Hoard, alleged to have belonged to the two players in the Nibelungenlied.

All backed up by the mark of IV.

That was what confirmed it to the chancellor.

He had been aware of IV for years as it hovered at the edge of legitimate society. But until now, the actions of the secret organization had always benefitted the economy of Germany.

But this came too close on the heels of the Paris incident. If IV had finally decided to make its move to destabilize the German mark, what better way to do it than by flooding the gold market? That much of the priceless metal dumped at once would surely devalue gold prices to the point of worthlessness.

IV's holdings were already on shaky ground as it was. Vast sums of cash had been exchanged over the past few weeks. Companies thought strong were collapsing before their stockholders' eyes. Others were being sold off for bargain-basement prices. The result was a growing uncertainty in the stock market in Frankfurt.

As those reports had come in, the chancellor had thought that IV was dying. Either internally, or due to some unseen external force. He now realized he had been mistaken.

He now saw that it was most certainly part of some grand strategy by the shadowy neo-Nazi organization to make one last grab at power.

And it would destroy Germany to do it.

The chancellor pressed the button on his desk intercom.

"Yes, Chancellor?" asked his concerned assistant. It was the same nervous man who had brought the fax to the German leader.

"Get me the head of the Federal Border Police," the chancellor intoned. His voice was grave.

Chapter 20

Within the confines of his modest Folcroft office, Smith watched the uncertainty unfolding in the German market with a look of pinched displeasure.

Always an erratic business, it was difficult now to gauge precisely why the market was slipping. But there was no doubt that it was.

It was very slight at the moment. The overall market had lost only five percent of its value since trading had begun that morning. The London market had reacted to the trend, dropping by a few points, as well.

It was a ripple effect that was barely registering. Trading on Wall Street had begun only an hour before, and the European markets had yet to have anything more than a minor influence on the Dow Jones. It appeared that it did not yet matter to anyone of consequence.

Except Harold W. Smith.

Smith had been watching the markets carefully ever since he had begun dumping shares of IV companies onto the German trading floors. There had been a gradual downward trend in Frankfurt about two weeks before. This had brought a minor adjustment all around the world. Wall Street had caught on to the trend. As a result, the Dow had dipped by about thirty points before adjusting to the hit caused by the liquidation of the secret organization's vast holdings. Barely a hiccup. Afterward the markets had rebounded and had pressed bullishly upward. It had been smooth sailing ever since.

Until now.

Something was causing a downswing in European trading. And it was originating in Germany. Utilizing a program he had created during the stock-market upheavals of the late eighties, Smith accessed the private computer lines of one of Germany's largest brokerage firms. Not wasting time with the transactions themselves, Smith went immediately to the top. Typing rapidly, he accessed the company president's morning E-mail.

He found that it was all pretty dry stuff.

There were concise digests of the previous night's activities on Japan's Hang Seng Stock Exchange. A note had been sent from the lawyer of the company president's soon-to-be ex-wife. As Smith watched his screen another electronic letter materializedthis one from the man's mistress.

He chose not to be voyeuristic.

Abandoning the personal note, Smith scanned quickly through the rest of the mail. He was about to deem his search a failure and move on when he found something startling nestled comfortably between a pair of interoffice memos. Smith blinked in surprise, for a moment forgetting the dull, constant ache in his head.

IV.

The Roman numeral leaped out at him, mocking him from beneath the neat rows of letters lined up on his high-tech computer screen.

Smith scanned the electronic note. With each line, his eyes grew wider behind his rimless glasses. After he was finished reading, he backed out of the system and dived quickly into the E-mail of some of the other large Frankfurt brokerage firms. The same note had been sent to each. At the bottom of every letter was the same legend: "IV." Smith was acutely aware of his headache now. It pounded in sharp, furious bursts at the back of his skull as he exited the last of the German stockmarket computers.

He had thought he had finished them. They had no funds. Smith had been so very careful in his market manipulations. Certainly some unlucky investors had experienced losses, but he had averted a major downward turn with his deft handling of the IV accounts.

Now it might all have been for naught.

On another level, it concerned Smith that so many powerful men in Germany had been aware of IV for years and kept silent. It didn't reflect well on a nation trying to crawl out from under its fifty-year-old past.

Obviously the news contained in the E-mail had not yet exploded on the European trading floors. But it had leaked out. And the hesitation in the day's market was the result.

The reluctance to accept the fanciful tale at face value was probably the only thing that had saved the world market from collapse. But if the rumors contained in the memo proved true, the panic would be worldwide. For in the end, the stock market would react however the stock market chose to react. Smith would be helpless to avert a total meltdown.

But for now, there was still cause for hope. By the sound of his last phone conversation with the CURE director, Remo was already in the thick of things.

The future of the world's economic stability-and, by extension, civilization itself-was in the hands of CURE's enforcement arm. Harold Smith only hoped that Remo was up to the challenge.

Chapter 21

Remo sat on his private, second-story balcony at the vine-covered side of the Pension Kirchmann. The empty road leading into the Black Forest snaked off around a tree-shrouded bend far away. There had been no traffic on the desolate path since Chiun's caravan had left eight hours ago.

All Remo could do was wait.

On the floor of the balcony before his chair were several handfuls of small stones. Until an hour before, they had rested in a large decorative clay pot near the black-painted wrought-iron railing.

Remo had dumped the stones out where they could be easily reached. Bored, he would occasionally flick one with the toe of his loafer. The trunk of a tree at the side of the yard had borne the brunt of the deadly missiles.

The resulting clap as each stone hit and burrowed inside the tree was enough to draw a few increasingly curious guests from the warmth of the lodge. Two swore they had heard gunshots. Suspicious eyes strayed in Remo's direction.

Whenever they looked up from the lawn, Remo would shrug his confusion and pretend to search the treetops. Each time they would eventually give up and return to the inn. The last time they had gone inside was barely two minutes before.

Remo was pulling another rock into firing position when the room phone squawked at his elbow. Not wanting to get up from his chair, he had placed it on the cheap metal table next to him. Remo hefted the phone to his ear, at the same time snapping his toe into the next stone in line.

The rock took off like a shot. It moved in a blur, cracking audibly into the thick black tree trunk. There was a shouted voice from below. "Remo?" asked the puzzled voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith. Since lifting the receiver, Remo had failed to speak.

"Just a minute, Smitty," Remo whispered, leaning forward.

A group of lumpy Germans and Continental tourists came bustling into view below him. They were pointing at the woods and chattering excitedly to one another.

Two of them were dressed in khaki clothing. These took off through the underbrush. There was crashing and shouting as they stumbled and panted out of sight.

Their labors had a comforting effect on Remo. "Yeah, Smitty," he said. "How'd you track me down?"

In the distance, the hunters still labored through the woods.