Get the panic under control.
Deep breaths. No! Save it for outside. Outside.
He headed for the stairs, casting one final glance at his end of the collapsed corridor.
The others were dead. The gold was all his. He could collect whatever was left at the bottom of the stairs later.
Exhilarated by his success, Adolf Kluge raced up the staircase to the distant square of light.
THE ICY WATER CRASHED down in an enormous burst of frothy, churning white. The floor flooded in seconds.
"Back!" Chiun commanded.
The skinheads were already running in panic through the waist-deep water toward the rear rooms. "I don't think that'll do any good!" Remo shouted over the roar of the waterfall.
"It will give us time!" Chiun insisted.
Bony arms pumping in furious motion, the Master of Sinanju fought against the lethal, swirling current. Remo followed. Heidi struggled after them.
Heidi had not taken more than a few fumbling steps when she tripped against a shattered chunk of toppled stone. She fell beneath the rapidly rising water. Thrown forward on the waves, she lost all sense of direction. She swam for what she thought was up, bumping against the floor of the flooding cavern. Or was it the wall?
No time to decide. She kicked off, pushing up to the surface. A wave caught her midway, tumbling her sideways. She no longer had any sense of up or down.
Heidi began to panic.
Strong arms suddenly grabbed her by the armpits. She was hauled, spluttering above the water by Remo. It was now as high as their chests.
Remo carried her along with him, taking a few swift strides across the room. The water was at their chins by the time they made it into the second room.
The skinheads were in hysterics. They were clawing at the walls and at one another, trying to climb above the water. Screaming and crying, they pushed up on the shoulders of their confederates. One body floated face down in the water. Another skinhead attempted to ride it like a raft.
Chiun was treading water.
"There's no way out of here!" Remo shouted to him.
"There is one!" Chiun yelled back.
Beyond the door, they could see the river pouring relentlessly through the broken ceiling. It was so steady it was like a single, huge column of water. "It's too dangerous!" Remo shouted.
"I am open to suggestions!"
There was a massive rumble. They watched as a new section of the outer ceiling began to give way. It fell in huge irregular blocks to the rising, churning water.
The water was only a few feet from the ceiling now and rising ever more rapidly.
"Go!" Remo yelled to Chiun over the roar of the river.
The Master of Sinanju nodded sharply. Twisting up, he ducked below the waves. His spindly legs appeared for an instant as he jackknifed underwater. Then he was gone.
They were at the ceiling now. Heidi held her face up to the approaching rock, breathing desperately. "Take a deep breath!" Remo yelled.
She was so disoriented she didn't know where Remo was any longer. The skinheads were screaming as the water swirled up around them. Heidi craned her neck to see Remo.
"What?"
"Do it!"
Heidi did as she was told. The instant she had filled her lungs, Remo grabbed her around the waist. Pulling her close to him, he threw himself into the swirling torrent.
The push of water was like a fist shoving against him. Dragging Heidi beside him, Remo kicked hard against the racing current.
The freezing water was murky and filled with swirling plants and mud.
As they passed out into the remnants of the outer room, Remo felt a series of muted booms behind them. The roof of the room they had been in was collapsing. The stones of the ceiling were crashing in slow motion to the new riverbed.
A few scissorlike kicks brought them to the largest waterfall. It was like fighting against the mighty spray of a jet-powered firehose.
Remo pushed them into the center of the driving water.
He had to fight against the force of the inconung river. It was hard enough to do alone; carrying someone else made it all the more difficult.
The roar of the flooding water pounded against his ears as he propelled the two of them forward. His limbs were like leaden weights.
Chiun's fault. He had forced Remo to haul his precious booty for almost twenty hours. The heavy labor had taken its toll on his arms and legs.
Remo's muscles ached as he pushed up through the remnants of ceiling and earth. For an instant, it seemed as if he might be thrown back down through the opening.
He kicked a final time, hard.
They were propelled upward against the tide. A new current caught him, pushing him away from the ragged opening. The legitimate bed of the Danube began to slide rapidly beneath him.
Remo caught the bottom of the river with the tips of his toes and pushed. The force was gauged to bring them at an angle through the racing current of water. Remo and Heidi were propelled up to the surface. In an instant, sunlight exploded all around them.
Heidi pulled in a ragged gulp of air.
Remo gave her little time to fill her lungs. Cutting across the roaring river, he swam swiftly to the shore, dragging her behind him.
In a few seconds, they were pulling themselves up onto the grassy riverbank, drenched and weary. But alive.
The Master of Sinanju was there to greet them. "He has stolen my gold!" Chiun cried. His sopped kimono clung in mud-encrusted sheets to his bony frame.
"Who?" Remo asked, pulling himself to his feet. His clothes dripped icy water.
"The thieving scion of the scoundrel Siegfried and his army of pinheads, of course," Chiun huffed. "Hurry!" He bounced, dripping wet up the weedstrewed bank.
Remo climbed up the embankment and looked out over the meadow. Most of the Nibelungen Hoard was still there, but Kluge's trucks were gone from the nearby access road. There was no sign of the skinheads or defecting border police.