The wheels of the Gotha had already left the ground. The Messerschmitt was outpacing it, but had not yet begun to skim the runway surface.
Chiun broke to the right, tearing off after the newer plane. Remo stayed on course, running at full speed for the tail of the fleeing Gotha.
Cold wind whipped against his face as he ran past the tail assembly. Wind caught the dorsal tail, fluttering it ferociously as he outpaced the rear of the plane.
A line of ragged grass sprouted up before them. The end of the runway. Beyond that a threehundred-yard drop to the rocks below.
And Remo was running full out. Even if he wanted to, he doubted he could stop on time.
There would only be one chance at this.
The Gotha was pulling up into the air. Legs pumping crazily, Remo forced a single burst of furious acceleration. He leaped from the surface of the runway and spread-eagled himself on the bottom left wing of the large biplane.
The plateau surface suddenly dropped out from beneath him. Far below, frothy waves crashed against basalt rock.
The plane was airborne.
The Gotha tilted slightly, attempting to right itself. The engine whined in protest as the aged aircraft soared off over the English Channel.
Chapter 12
Unlike most people whose lives were fraught with doubt, Helene Marie-Simone was certain of almost everything. The most recent thing she found herself being certain of was the fact that she didn't trust Remo and Chiun.
But she had learned the hard way back in Paris that she should trust certain aspects of the two men. Their hearing, for one.
If they said that they heard planes taking off from the plateau high above the rocky shore, then she was certain that was exactly what they heard.
The minute the two men had broken for the stairs, Helene had climbed down from the boat and raced after them.
They were the most agile climbers she had seen this side of the monkey house at the Paris Zoo.
The two men quickly outdistanced her, leaving her to huff and puff her way up the many flights of stairs to the top of the cliffs. When she did finally reach the top, she was just in time to see Remo make a flying leap onto the wing of a departing Gotha G.V. She thought she saw a streak of crimson that might have been Chiun's kimono splayed across the wing of a fleeing Messerschmitt, but she couldn't be sure. Both aircraft dropped from the edge of the bluff and then ascended back up into sight farther out over the channel. They pulled into the sky in a whine of engines.
She could see neither man after that.
They had committed suicide. For however good their hearing might be, they would never survive perched like birds atop the wings of two ancient warplanes.
The rest of the planes were lining up for their turn in the air. Two more were about ready to tear off the edge of the cliff and soar into the pale blue sky.
They zipped past the burning ruins of a single plane.
The bouncing of the ancient ordnance aboard must have been the cause of its destruction, Helene surmised. Just as it had been in the truck back at the American Embassy in Paris.
And if a minor disturbance could destroy one plane, it could easily disable some of the others. Helene pulled her handgun from her pocket. Her lungs were raw as she ran down to the field.
THE GOTHA WAS TEARING through the air at a speed in excess of one hundred miles per hour.
The wind pressed like a powerful fist against Remo's chest. His T-shirt fluttered crazily in the back. Short hair blew angrily around his head.
It was an old plane, but it had fallen into the hands of a tinkering hobbyist. Although it looked identical to the original model, structurally it had been greatly improved upon. Remo stood up on the aluminum lower wing. He held on to the hollow, lightweight metal support tubes that were strung between the upper and lower wings.
Mindless of the racing wind, he advanced on the cockpit.
Remo's presence on the plane hadn't gone unnoticed by the pilot. Paul Niemlur had been startled by the sudden shift of weight at the moment of takeoff.
Concerned that the unexpected imbalance might upset his sensitive cargo, he had quickly moved to right the plane. It was only after he had leveled off over the channel that he dared look out at his left wing.
He could not believe what he saw.
The thin stranger with the deep-set eyes and abnormally thick wrists was strolling over to Paul across the wing as casually as a friend might step across the road in Paul's native Dusseldorf. Except the expression Remo wore was not that of a friend. It was the face of Doom.
Ever mindful of the payload he carried, Paul slowly tipped the plane to the left.
Remo didn't budge.
Paul edged the plane farther over, trying to dislodge the man on the Gotha's wing.
All at once something heavy shifted in the back. With a dangerous, instinctive quickness, Paul tugged the steering column level once more. He could feel the weight shift back to where it belonged.
He didn't have time for a sigh of relief. Remo was at the cockpit dome.
Niemlur pulled at the authentic World War II Luger in its lovingly preserved leather combat holster at his hip. As he fumbled with the strap on the holster, he heard a horrid tearing sound all around him. He felt the sudden blast of cold air against his face. His eyes squinted and teared against the gale-force wind.
Turning away from the howling blast of air, he caught sight of the specially adapted bubble dome tumbling down the length of the fuselage. It bounced off the tail and disappeared into oblivion.
Even while this was going on, Paul had continued to fumble with his gun. The weapon was free by now.
He raised the Luger from beside his hip only to feel it being torn from his hand before he could even fire.
His fingers were numb. His wrist ached from the wrenching force that had ripped the gun away. Paul saw that the man on the wing was now holding his weapon.
"You won't be needing this!" Remo announced over the buffeting wind.
With a flick of his wrist, Remo tossed the Luger into the Gotha's slipstream. Paul saw the gun flying backward, like the dome. It clunked off the rear of the plane and fell to the sun-dappled water of the English Channel some four hundred feet below.
"Time for twenty questions!" Remo was forced to shout even though Paul was only a foot away. "Let's start with who you work for!"
The German decided that politeness was the best way to respond to this lunatic, particularly considering the capabilities he had so far displayed. Unfortunately, though he wanted to speak, he couldn't bridge the language barrier.
"Entschuldigen Sie?" Paul said with a polite shrug.
"Oh, crap," Remo griped. "Do you speak English?"
"Nein," Paul admitted with a helpless shrug. The wind continued to howl against his exposed face. His ruddy cheeks had grown bright red in the bitter gale. He had turned his right ear against the wind. It ached. "Great," Remo grumbled.
He peered over the cockpit and down the alley created by the Gotha's long wingspan. Half a city block away, the Master of Sinanju was climbing along the fuselage of the Messerschmitt. As the old man slid along the upper part of the plane, his crimson robe fluttered like a crazy flag in a hurricane.