Something broke free from beneath the truck. In the side-view mirror, it seemed to skip back into their wake and beneath the tires of one of the leading police cars.
As it bounced over the long strip of twisted metal, rubber erupted in hot bursts from both sides of the police cruiser. The car did a perfect 180-degree turn into the nose of another oncoming cruiser.
The crash was spectacular. A dozen police cars slammed into one another, buckling and crumpling like paper cups. The rest skipped around the huge crash site, driving even more determinedly after Remo.
"I hope they've got air bags," Remo commented as the horrid scene faded to a rapid speck behind them.
"They eat a diet of pastry and pork," Chiun explained indifferently. "Germans are their own air bags."
"You realize if they catch us they're going to find him in the back," Remo said. He jerked his head over his shoulder to indicate where various body parts of the dead Burg police officer were even now bouncing around amid the remnants of the Nibelungen Hoard.
"They had better not catch us," Chiun warned.
"I'm doing my best," Remo said, irritated.
He swerved in and out of traffic as he drove wildly down the wide street. Cars seemed to move almost instinctively out of his way. Those that did not were batted by the fenders of the truck. The metal was already a crumpled mess.
"That cop's brother must have ratted us out," Remo said, narrowly avoiding a collision with a van that was pulling out of a side street. The other vehicle slammed on its brakes. "Either that or somebody saw us at the cop car."
"I was nowhere near the constable's vehicle," Chiun pointed out. "I am innocent in that matter."
"Yeah, you only killed him," Remo snapped sourly.
"Oh, of course," Chiun sniffed. "Blame me for the dead highwayman. How like you, Remo."
"You killed him!" Remo snapped.
"A technicality," Chiun said dismissively. "Do not assault my delicate ears with trivialities."
"I've got another triviality for you," Remo said. "Your buddies aren't going to be too happy to see us show up with all of this going on around us."
"Do not concern yourself with them," Chiun said with certainty. "They will do as they are told."
"You hope," Remo said.
He cut around another sharp corner, more slowly this time. The truck's tires remained firmly on the street; however, the pursuing police cars seemed to leap dramatically ahead. They buzzed around the corner and into Remo's wake.
"This road appears closed," Chiun mentioned.
Remo had gotten the same impression. There was no vehicular traffic on the long thoroughfare. It hadn't been this way during any of his other trips. Far up ahead, Remo thought he saw why.
"Is that what I think it is?" he said anxiously.
"Where?" Chiun asked, peering through the windshield like a Gypsy looking into the heart of a crystal ball. "Before the line of parked police vehicles or after it?"
"That's what I thought," Remo groaned.
He could see them clearly now. There were two rows of them. One lined up before the other. They stretched from one side of the street to the other, effectively blocking the avenue to through traffic.
Berlin police officers were standing with rifles before the cars, faces taut. Hazy rain dribbled across the stabs of flashing blue light issuing from the roofs of the dozens of parked cruisers.
"We could bail out here," Remo suggested rapidly. "They'd never catch us."
"And abandon my treasure to these stickyfingered Huns?" Chiun asked, incredulous. "Never!"
"That's what I thought you'd say," Remo sighed. He hunched down behind the steering wheel. "Brace for impact."
When it became obvious that the truck was not going to slow down, the order to fire was given by the commanding officer on the scene. The gunfire started before they even slammed into the first line of cars. Rifle fire crackled through the damp evening air.
Quarter-size pockmarks erupted across the nose of the rushing truck. The windshield spiderwebbed then shattered in a spray of thick greenish chunks.
Remo and Chiun had ducked behind the dash board. Glass exploded across their backs as they tore into the defensive police line.
Berlin police scattered out of the path of the truck like timid matadors from a crazed bull. The vehicle lurched as it slammed the first row of cars. Bullets riddled the doors and side panels as the large truck roared past.
Fortunately for Remo, the police cars were of the small European style. They were flung from the crumpling nose of the truck as it plowed forward into the second line. It pushed these aside, as well. More slowly now, it continued onward, bullets and shouts following it.
When he got back up, Remo saw the pursuing police cars winding their way through the twisted wreckage. Wind whipped around his stern face through the open front of the truck. He turned from the side-view mirror.
"This is getting worse and worse," Remo commented. "They'd just better not lock the gates before we can get there," he warned.
Chiun shook his head firmly. "They will not lock the gates," he insisted. "For they would not dare."
"ARE THE GATES SECURE?'' Ambassador Pak Sok asked nervously. He was a squat man with a face as flat as a flying pan bottom. He wiped at his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief.
"Quite secure," replied the ambassador's assistant, who was also an officer of the Public Security Ministry.
Sok did not seem convinced.
It was not that he thought his aide was lying. Although he did not trust his assistant in most matters, Sok knew that he would not lie about something as trivial as a locked gate. He simply was not convinced that a locked gate would make any difference. In fact, it might only make things worse.
As ambassador for Choson Minchu-chuff Inmin Konghwa-guk, otherwise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Sok was his country's highest-ranking diplomat in Germany. He enjoyed all the perks of his posting, including access to Germany's uncensored television broadcasts. It was on the TV that he had seen an image that made his heart sink.
The television was on now, sound down. In the large living room of the North Korean embassy, Sok turned away from the tall multipaned window, looking back at the screen.
A white truck continued to race desperately down Germany's streets, relentlessly pursued by an ever growing convoy of police vehicles. A news helicopter had been following the action from the sky for the past twenty minutes.
To Sok it looked almost like the internationally famous chase that had taken place in America a few years back. But this time the truck was driving at breakneck speed, not at a snail's pace. And there was not an ex-football player cowering in the vehicle. Sok would have preferred that it be an American celebrity unknown to him. Unfortunately, he knew all too well who was in that truck.
"He cannot hope to come here," Ambassador Sok's aide said, watching the screen intently. The truck was racing down familiar streets. It was only a few blocks from the embassy.
"I would hope not," Sok agreed, his voice betraying his jangled nerves. He turned from the television back to the window. His fingers gripped tightly at the thick silk fabric of the red floor-length curtains. Vines crept artfully away from the walls and across strategic portions of windowpane. "You are certain the gates are locked?" the ambassador asked.
"Yes, yes." The aide nodded. He bit a thumbnail as he stared at the TV screen. Eyes growing wide, he suddenly grabbed for the remote control.
Sok heard the gunshots beneath the serious German voice of the reporter. He wheeled around in time to see the truck barrel into a line of parked police cruisers. Cars flew in every direction as the truck pummeled its way through to the other side. It skidded sideways momentarily and then righted itself, racing away from the smashed cars.