He heard a scuffling somewhere before and above him. A single, rapid heartbeat filtered down through the thick pine branches. Boots scraped along rough bark.
Remo took a few steps forward. He found a lone skinhead hiding in a tree above the spot where the six men had been hunkered down. The man was attempting to hold on to the tree trunk while at the same time angling his rifle down at the top of Remo's head.
Before the man could fire, Remo reached up and grabbed him by his loose shoelace. He pulled.
The skinhead came crashing out of the tree like a clumsy fat bird, collapsing to the forest floor amid a pile of broken branches. Pine needles continued to rain down on him as he shook his head in groggy confusion.
The flurry of activity around the tree started a new wave of gunfire from across the river. Luckily for Remo, they were behind the broad tree trunk, safe from the bullets of the Federal Border Police.
"Speaky the English?" Remo asked the skinhead.
"Yes," the man answered fearfully. He shook some of the needles out of his hair. Though his eyes stayed locked with Remo's, his hand searched for his dropped gun.
"The old Korean who was with Kluge. Where is he?"
"There," the man said, nodding out toward the hole.
Remo looked out at the mound of earth. He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Even as he did so, the skinhead was grabbing up his gun from the ground. Still seated, he spun around with the weapon, aiming it at Remo's exposed belly.
In a move so swift that it was almost blinding, Remo used one hand to pull the gun away from the man. As he was tossing the weapon away, he used his free hand to pull the skinhead to his feet.
"I'll check, but you better not be lying," he warned. With that, Remo tossed the man out into the clearing. There was the expected burst of gunfire, followed by the sound of the dead skinhead dropping to the ground.
Remo hardly noticed the noise as he strode out into the wide opening. Both sides began to fire wildly-the skinheads at the closeness of the intruder, the border police in anticipation of more assured kills. Remo had to twist and turn spastically to dodge the lead volleys as he made his way across the clearing to the edge of the hole.
At the muddy rim, amid the hail of bullets, he looked down in surprise on a familiar tiny shape standing among the ruins of the unearthed stone marker.
"I gotta hand it to you. Money hasn't changed you one bit," Remo said from the edge of the pit. Bullets zinged like pesky flies around his head.
The Master of Sinanju looked up, his face cross. He stood ankle deep in a pile of chipped stone. "The gold was not here," he snapped.
"I gathered as much."
"The scoundrel Siegfried left a carved note in runic berating thieves who would attempt to locate the Hoard without a proper map."
"I thought you had the whole map," Remo said. Chiun tipped his head. "As did I," he said. He had been so intent on venting his anger and frustration against the stone marker that he had lost all reason. As he stood there now, however-coated with mud in the remnants of his own destructive rage-a thought seemed to pass visibly across his aged features. He looked up at Remo, head tipped in sudden confusion. "Is it possible that my partners have betrayed me?"
"Oh, I don't know," Remo replied sarcastically. "One was a Nazi who broke into your house and tried to have us killed about a zillion times. The other was a woman we knew pretty much nothing about except that she lied to us and tried to break into your house. Sounds like a decent enough bunch to me."
"Descendants of dastards," Chiun hissed.
"Look," Remo called down. He jumped to avoid a fresh batch of autofire, "the thing is, I'm kind of getting shot at up here. So if you're done working this vein, I'd suggest the two of us skedaddle." Chiun nodded. Remo didn't see his legs tense beneath the hem of his mud-splattered kimono, but the Master of Sinanju was suddenly airborne. He appeared to float gracefully up from the bottom of the ten-foot-deep pit-the reverse film of a feather sinking to the ground. He landed on the muddy lip beside Remo. Bullets zipped relentlessly around them from every direction.
The instant he had landed, they were both running. Remo and Chiun took off for the protective cover of the forest.
"What have you started up here?" Chiun demanded as they ran through the driving storm of lead. His nose crinkled unhappily as he eyed the half-hidden skinheads.
"Don't blame me. This was your party, remember?"
"It was peaceful before your arrival," Chiun said. They made it safely to the trees on the side of the clearing opposite the river. Once they were beyond the firing line, Chiun began glancing around the woods.
"Where is the thief and the harlot?" he demanded.
"I haven't seen them." Remo shrugged.
The look of pain that passed over the aged features of the Master of Sinanju was so great it was as if someone had reached into his body and plucked out his very soul.
His eyes held a look of horror Remo had never before seen. When he spoke, his voice was faraway. "My money," Chiun croaked.
Chapter 24
The rented car bounced crazily through the rough terrain beside the mighty Danube River.
The vehicle hadn't been built for this type of driving. Heidi knew this to be true even as she steered down into a broad gully in the middle of the unused road. The rear wheels caught briefly in a pool of muddy water before grabbing on to the sandy clay beneath.
The car lurched suddenly forward, clamoring madly up the far side of the shallow indentation. It bounced wildly as it flew back up onto the road. Heidi had to cling to the steering wheel for dear life.
Her head slammed against the roof of the car even as the vehicle settled back down onto its straining shock absorbers.
The stretch of road ahead of her seemed positively level compared to the area she had just passed through. Used only for access in the warmer months, the road was lucky to see a single government truck every few weeks. She aimed the car down the rugged straightaway, unmindful of the rocks and potholes that littered the path before her.
She had to be sure first. After that, everything would fall into line.
She couldn't believe how easy it had been. Kluge and the Master of Sinanju were so blinded by greed that they didn't notice her deception.
Indeed, how could they? They had taken her word that the quarter of the map she had drawn in the dirt had been real. They had never expected her to lie.
Chiun with his blind avarice. Kluge, just as greedy, yet masking his money lust in a blase veneer.
It had been too easy.
Of course, the piece she and the men from Sinanju had retrieved from her family castle in the Harz Mountains was a forgery. It had been commissioned by one of her ancestors in the century after Siegfried's death. Her family had the bogus segment carved as a decoy for thieves.
She had destroyed the original copy months ago. Heidi had memorized the genuine quarter long before she had gone back to her family castle with the two Masters of Sinanju.
It was all a show. She had to make it look as if she didn't intend to cheat them. It had worked. The speeding car struck a deep rut. The front right wheel grabbed at the road for a moment and the car began to slide to one side.
Heidi cut the wheel into the turn, stomping down harder on the accelerator. The car popped free of the pothole. Skidding in the dirt, she righted the car expertly.
Without a change in speed, she continued racing down the bumpy road.
"THAT IS NOT HIM!" Chiun screamed as the border police brought forward the tenth skinhead body. He swatted at the corpse with his long talons.
The police officer holding the body dragged it away. The others nearby were herding captured neo-Nazis into the backs of awaiting Federal Border Police trucks.