"I wish we were closer to Berlin," Remo complained. "One visit'd get the air force out here like a shot. Heck, kidnap the presidential pastry chef and you could probably get that pork hog to surrender to France." He spun from Heine. "Let's go."
"Do you wish me to drive?" Colonel Heine said with weak hopefulness.
"Naw," Remo said. "We've screwed around enough. I think we're going to have to start picking up the pace."
He headed back to the jeep. Heine followed reluctantly.
Chapter 23
In spite of the cold weather, they found the digging easy. The nearness of the small stream kept the ground where they worked much damper than the rest of the forest floor.
The skinheads were caked with slippery brown mud. They grumbled among themselves with each shovelful of rich, cold earth they overturned.
The pile of displaced slimy sod had grown large over the past two hours. The Master of Sinanju remained at a cautious distance, ever aware of even the slightest dollop of mud that might fly his way. Whenever a skinhead would overshoot the pile and send a speck of dirt near Chiun's brilliant yellow kimono, the Master of Sinanju would let out a horrified shriek.
Once, when a clod of dirt came perilously close to his brocade robe, Chiun had stomped over to the diggers and wrenched the shovel from the perpetrator's hands, clanging the young man over the head with the flat end of the metal spade. After that, both the skinhead and his companions had made an extra effort to keep the mud within the designated area.
Kluge had brought three small folding stools from the rental car, one for each of them. Chiun had refused the seat, preferring instead to stand as close as possible to the deepening hole. Heidi paced back and forth between the line of stools and Chiun. Only Adolf Kluge opted to sit.
Kluge was sitting there now, hands folded patiently across his precisely crossed knees. The only outward hint of any inner agitation the IV leader might have felt was at his mouth. Kluge's tongue darted forward with unswerving regularity, dampening his lower lip. It was a nervous habit he had picked up years before.
"Pah!" Chiun complained, spinning from the massive mound of jiggling mud. "It is too deep."
"That is the correct spot according to the map," Heidi said nodding. Arms crossed, she chewed one thumbnail anxiously as she watched lumps of mud fly up from the hole.
"Fifteen hundred years is a long time," Kluge suggested. He pointed at the marks in the surrounding uneven forest floor. "It appears as though the river ran directly through this area at one time. Surely sediment would have collected, covering it more deeply."
"But if the river was here, how did they build it to begin with?" Heidi asked.
"That which you call engineering was not invented for the convenience of this century," Chiun said impatiently. "Such a feat would not have been impossible. It would also explain the difficulty my ancestor had in finding the Hoard."
"I hope we have better luck than him," Heidi said. She continued to stare into the wide hole at the muddy riverbank.
The men dug for another half hour. Kluge was about to suggest that they should redraw the map, this time with more care, when a sharp clang emanated from the deep hole. It was followed by another.
Kluge got to his feet.
"There is something here!" one of the skinheads called from within the deep pit.
Kluge and Heidi looked at each other, neither of them certain what to do next. Heidi seemed genuinely surprised.
The Master of Sinanju was first to react. He flounced to the edge of the hole, looking in his jaundiced kimono like a huge yellow bird that had just spied a particularly succulent worm. He stopped at the muddy edge of the pit.
Only five skinheads could fit in the hole at one time. The area they had excavated was more than ten feet deep. The men inside were looking up from the bottom, their bodies coated with thick black mud.
"See?" one of the skinheads said.
He handed his shovel to one of the others and got to his soiled knees. With the palms of his filthy hands, he wiped away a pile of thick, gloppy mud, revealing a flat surface underneath. The men were standing atop what appeared to be a buried strip of sidewalk.
Kluge and Heidi came up behind Chiun.
"Clear off the rest!" the Master of Sinanju boomed. His eyes sparkled brightly.
The men did as they were told. More shovelfuls of mud had to be removed to clear the stone to its edges. It was found to be rectangular in shape.
Some of the blond-haired men brought buckets from one of the trucks. As the last of the dirt was hauled out, water was brought from the nearby stream. Lowering the pails into the hole, they washed the surface of the chiseled granite.
"I cannot read it," Kluge said. He strained to look down at the ancient letters. They appeared to be nothing more than a series of indecipherable slashes. He glanced at the Master of Sinanju for help.
Chiun's eyes had narrowed to narrow slits, swallowing up any small spark of hope in his hazel orbs. His mouth was a thin, furious line.
"Accursed fiend," Chiun hissed. There was far more menace in the softness of his tone than in a thousand screaming voices. "He dares mock the House of Sinanju from across the ages." His rage suddenly boiled over. "Villain! Cur! Fraud! Lying Hun thief!"
Like a crazed Olympic diver, Chiun flew down into the hole. A swirling, frenzied yellow tempest, he swatted vicious, angry hands at the skinheads still gathered below. The slime-coated men scurried up the muddy banks in fear.
Mindless of the grime, Chiun dropped to his knees atop the stone. It was as large as a big door. He pried slender fingers around its smooth edge.
"What does it say?" Kluge asked in wonder as he watched the aged Korean tear at the stone.
"I believe those are runic characters," Heidi said. Her eyes narrowed as she attempted to read what was visible around Chiun. They looked like random cat scratches. "I am not entirely unfamiliar with this. Those are bitter runes. They are intended to bring down evils upon enemies."
Kluge glanced from the scampering form of Chiun to Heidi. "This is not the storing place of the Nibelungen Hoard?" he asked. He could not mask his disappointment.
Heidi smiled tightly. "I am afraid not," she said. In the pit, the Master of Sinanju had pried up the massive flat stone, heaving it to one side. There was nothing beneath but a pile of mud-swamped rocks. "Aiieee!" Chiun screamed.
His hand flew toward one of the short sides of the stone. There was a sound like a thunderclap. As Kluge watched, the flat rock split in two long halves. Before the pieces had even fallen to the bottom of the pit, Chiun's pipestem legs shot out in two quick jabs. The halves split in half again, falling into smaller pieces. Chiun fired his tiny fists forward into the quarters, cracking the chunks of stone into ever smaller fragments. All the while, he screamed his anger and frustration at the mud walls of the deep, slick pit.
Kluge backed slowly away from the hole. Witnessing the awesome sight of the wizened Asian shattering a two-ton slab of rock as if it were made of glass, Kluge felt almost a little grateful that he hadn't been able to follow through on his plan to kill the Master of Sinanju. This lasted only as long as it took him to realize that the wealth he so coveted was not there. Without that money, there would be no reestablishing IV. The fifty-year-old ultrasecret Nazi organization was finished.
And along with it, Adolf Kluge.
This realization was only just beginning to sink in when Kluge spied the first figure creeping through the underbrush on the other side of the river.
He stiffened. Made an effort not to stare.
Kluge tried not to let the man know he had spotted him as he casually began to scan the surrounding flora.
There was another. And another.
Creeping forward, they were attempting to stay hidden in the winter woods. The men were all armed.
In the pit behind him, the Master of Sinanju continued to pound away at the diminishing chunks of rock. Dust and pebbles flew up out of the hole as if from some insane sculptor's underground studio. The tiny Korean's screams had grown less fierce with every passing second.
Kluge hardly noticed Chiun's tantrum any longer. Keeping his arms close to his sides and his movements subdued, he walked with forced casualness over to Heidi.
She was in the process of gathering up Kluge's three collapsible stools from where they had been propped on the forest floor. They were draped over her forearm as Kluge stepped up to her.