"Yeh," said Ilsa. "I'll have someone get rid of the body. Imagine that, a Jew named Smith."
"Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz, and the rage came into his eyes again.
Ilsa sponged the blood off his titanium hand and went out to see if the two new recruits were dead yet.
The new recruits were not dead. There was no sign of them on the firing range. Instead, five White Aryan League soldiers lay in contorted positions.
One of them, his legs shattered, still lived.
"What happened?" Ilsa asked, kneeling at his side.
"They were superhuman. Bullets could not touch them. We tried. We truly did." His voice congealed on itself.
"How could you fail? You are an Aryan. They are mongrels."
The soldier uttered a final gurgle and his head lolled to one side. Ilsa stood up numbly.
Ilsa Gans had always believed in Aryan supremacy. She had first learned it from her parents, who had come from Germany after the war because living in America was better than suffering in a broken and divided land.
She had met Konrad Blutsturz in Argentina, on a family vacation. Her parents always vacationed in Argentina, where they felt free to speak of the old Germany and of the Reich that was now ashes. They and their friends told bitter stories of failure and shattered hopes. It seemed so boring. But Konrad Blutsturz had actually met Hitler. Konrad Blutsturz made it come alive for her.
Even in a wheelchair, he was a giant. Ilsa had thought so at age eight, and the next year, and every vacation after that.
One year, Konrad Blutsturz had asked her to stay on. Her parents were at first apprehensive, even horrified. There was a scene. In the name of the Reich, Konrad Blutsturz had commanded them to release their daughter to him. And they had refused.
Konrad Blutsturz had come into her bedroom the night before she was to leave Argentina, and sadly, with grandfatherly patience, explained to Ilsa, then sixteen, that her parents were dead.
Ilsa had no words. The shock was too great, and to fill the silence Konrad Blutsturz had explained that the Jews had killed her parents, Jews who chose to persecute the vanquished soldiers of Germany.
"We'll get them," Konrad Blutsturz had promised. "And their leader, the evil one incarnate."
"His name is Smith, Harold Smith."
"Is he a Jew?"
"He is worse than a Jew. He is a Smith."
Ilsa became his nurse, his confidante, and the only one he would allow to tend him. She learned to hate the Jews, the blacks, and the other inferior races. When Konrad decided to return to America to seek out Smith, Ilsa had gone along willingly. By that time, he had taught her to kill.
Just as he had taught them all to kill. He had instilled in the White Aryan League the confidence of racial superiority. Even the ones who weren't exactly Aryan. And he had passed out enough rifles to equalize their racial shortcomings.
Yet five crack White Arvan League soldiers armed with rifles had been killed by only two non-Aryans. There were security cameras built into the ceilings of every Fortress Purity building. Ilsa got a stepladder and used it to collect the videotapes of the day.
As she walked across the darkened compound, her brow puckered as she recollected of Konrad Blutsturz' words in the operating room. He had said that the Jews were really not inferior. Perhaps it was stress that made him say those things. After all, he had called the metallurgist Ferris D'Orr by the name of Harold Smith. Sometimes Ilsa worried about her mentor. The strain was becoming great. They had to get to Smith soon, while Herr Fuhrer's mind was whole.
Ilsa had no time to wonder further because across the compound she saw the two new recruits, Remo and Chiun, prowling through the Fortress Purity parking lot.
They were looking for something.
"This is it, Little Father," the taller one said. "Same van, same color and license plate."
"Next time I will remember the state too," the shorter one said. Ilsa thought his accent was peculiar.
She started to draw the Luger that was always holstered at the small of her back, but then she remembered the five high-powered rifles that lay uselessly beside the bodies of the trained soldicrs.
Ilsa Gans hurried on. Whoever these two were, the videotapes would show how dangerous they really were.
Chapter 24
"No one has attempted to kill us in several hours," the Master of Sinanju said.
"The van is empty," said Remo.
"Of course. It is for transportation, not storage."
Remo closed the van door. He hadn't expected to find anything inside, but discovering the van was a final confirmation that they were in the right place.
"Ferris has to be around here," Remo said.
"In the big building," said Chiun. "Where something important transpires."
"What makes you say that?" said Remo.
"Important personages are always to be found in the largest buildings. That is why they are large. Do emperors live in huts or hovels? Even Smith, who claims not to be an emperor, although he is, lives in a fortress."
"Smith lives near a golf course," Remo said. "He only works at Folcroft."
"An emperor lives within himself. Wherever he is, he is home."
"And what makes you think something is going on in the main building'? This place is like a ghost town."
"Exactly," Chiun said. "No one has tried to kill us in several hours. Obviously, they are preoccupied."
"Maybe they're afraid of us?"
"We only killed five. Whoever commands here would not quake when but five soldiers fall. Commanders do not feel fear until their elite guard has fallen. It is the way of such men."
"I didn't notice this before," said Remo slowly.
"Notice what?"
"The design on the side of the van, the repeating one. It's a series of swastikas hooked together like a chain. "
"The Zingh," Chiun corrected. "I must tell you about that."
"On the way," said Remo. "Let's try the big building."