"It is a pity you didn't see me following you," Kluge called in mock sympathy from the edge of the pit. "From your perspective, of course," he quickly added. "After you turned onto the access road, it became a simple enough matter. There are no paths leading off it. Those twisted genetic bastards had the right idea for once, it seems. They had sense enough to steal my trucks and make a run for it. Not you. You led me directly here."
As Kluge thought of the missing blond-haired Numbers from the IV village, his face suddenly clouded over. He peered more closely at Heidi Stolpe. All at once, his eyes opened in delighted surprise. It was a spark of joyous realization.
"You are one of them, aren't you?" he asked happily. He beamed as the truth of his words sank in. "I knew you looked familiar when I first laid eyes on you. But I never knew our friend Dr. von Breslau created a female lab rat. Perhaps you were an accident? An improvement on the men, I must admit. You at least can talk. That is, until now." He smiled a wet, superior smile.
In the pit, covered with dirt, Heidi tried to hold his condescending gaze. She nearly succeeded. But as she stared into the fiery blue-gray eyes of Adolf Kluge, a sinking feeling of inferiority seemed to settle like a fog over her slender frame. Her shoulders sank. She averted her eyes, ashamed.
Kluge knew in that instant that he had guessed correctly. Somehow Heidi Stolpe was the freakish sister to the hundreds of Aryan males mass-produced by IV more than thirty years before.
He would have been fascinated to learn more about her life. About how she alone of all the embryos concocted in that Nazi lab in South America had been born female. About how she had come to be where she was today. About her apparent knowledge of IV. But it turned out that Heidi was not the only one surprised at that moment.
Kluge felt a rough shove between his shoulder blades. The air was knocked from his lungs from the severity of the blow. He toppled forward into the open hole.
Kluge thudded hollowly atop the huge stone slab beside Heidi, banging his knees painfully against the rock.
He rolled over onto his back on the cold chunk of stone. Kluge was shocked to see, framed in the square of light above him, a familiar mud-splattered yellow kimono. Above it was an enraged parchment face.
"Claim jumpers!" the Master of Sinanju announced.
The two skinheads who remained in the hole with Heidi helped Kluge to his feet.
The IV leader had to think quickly.
"Ah, you made it," Kluge called up to Chiun. "Excellent." He smiled weakly.
Remo Williams slipped into view beside the old Korean.
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter," he advised Kluge.
"No, really," Kluge insisted. "It was bedlam back there. I am genuinely pleased that all of the interested parties have found their way here."
"It wasn't luck," Remo said. "The German air force spotted your stupid convoy headed this way. They radioed your position to the border police, who put us on your tail."
"It is fortunate that I knew how to operate the radio device," Chiun announced. "Or we might still be driving aimlessly through this bleak forest."
"Hey, I thought we were going to share the credit for the radio," Remo complained.
"Oh, please, Remo," Chiun remarked testily. "While you occasionally display signs of almost being a good son, I live in constant fear that you will someday die in a bathroom after misremembering the operation of the doorknob."
"Man, you're nasty when you're greedy," Remo said. He left the edge of the hole to go off and sulk near the river.
Chiun was too busy to be concerned with Remo's fragile state of mind.
From beyond Kluge's and Heidi's limited field of vision, the Master of Sinanju produced two handfuls of long metal crowbars. Each weighed approximately fifteen pounds. Chiun held them in his hands as if they were plastic drinking straws. He flung the bars to the bottom of the pit where they clanged in an angry pile.
"Remove the stone," he commanded imperiously.
IT TOOK LONGER than either Kluge or Heidi had expected. Perhaps they had imagined it would not be so difficult after seeing Chiun fling the previous stone with such ease.
It would have taken Chiun no time at all to pull the ancient stone from its age-old resting place, but the Master of Sinanju was not about to dirty his hands this time. He let the others strain and tug along with the neo-Nazis and former border police.
It took twenty minutes.
Remo tried to remain aloof for most of the time, but curiosity eventually got the better of even him. He stood above the hole alongside the Master of Sinanju.
Panting from her exertions, Heidi joined them up above, allowing the men to pry and tug at the stubborn edges of the fifteen-hundred-year-old block of buried stone. Her eyes strayed only once to the woods at the edge of the field.
After many long minutes of grunting and straining, the stone finally popped loose. A burst of fetid, swampy air poured up from around the edges of the dislodged slab of ancient rock. The men in the pit struggled to avoid the urge to vomit at the stench.
The worst of the smell passed as they labored to stand the rock door on its side. With difficulty, the men managed to lean the huge piece of stone up against the dirt-smeared rock wall of the shallow pit.
Below the spot where the ancient stone had rested for more than a millennium was an empty blackness. Stone stairs led away into darkness.
The Master of Sinanju couldn't contain his joy. He bounced happily on his sandaled feet.
"Come, Remo," he enthused. "Let us reclaim the treasure of poor maligned Master Bal-Mung." He headed for the edge of the hole.
"What about them?" Remo asked, indicating the skinheads and border police who were still standing in the small field.
Chiun paused, looking at the collection of men. There were only about twenty of them in all. "We will need them to transport my treasure," Chiun said merrily.
He hopped down into the hole.
Remo and Heidi followed, along with the curious group of neo-Nazis and Nazi sympathizers.
The moss-coated stairs led deep underground. As the motley collection of treasure hunters made their way down the long, treacherous flight, more than one skinhead slipped and fell. Once, Remo had to grab Heidi when the heels of her boots slid out from beneath her. Only Remo and Chiun descended the ancient staircase with ease.
The waning late-afternoon sunlight from above grew dim when they were only halfway down the stairs. Their group had only two weak flashlights, which they played along the slime-coated walls and slick staircase. Adolf Kluge held one of the lights as he stepped gingerly down the stairs immediately behind the Master of Sinanju.
The staircase led into a narrow, stone-hewed hallway. There was a shelf set into the wall on which rested dozens of slender rock-carved torches.
Siegfried must have considered the possibility that the treasure might languish down there for many years. While it would have been traditional to fashion a torch from wood, wood rotted. Stone did not.
Chiun took one of the unlit torches down from the wall. As Kluge shone a flashlight on him, the Master of Sinanju made an unhappy face.
The torch had a wide cup that tapered down into a long handle. It was like an oversize golf tee. Chiun dipped his index finger into the hollow at the top of the rock torch. He removed it, pressing the finger to his tongue.
Angry, Chiun spit the drop of oily substance between Adolf Kluge's boots.
"Your ancestor's final theft," he said to Kluge. Chiun continued forward down the corridor, toying with the top of the torch.
As the Master of Sinanju walked away, Remo took down one of the torches. He smelled the end, nodding.
"What is it?" Kluge asked, confused.
"Old family recipe," Remo explained. "Lasts for years."