In the meantime the best Remo could do would be to turn this one plane back to Guernsey.
"Back," Remo ordered. He twirled his hand around in the air and pointed back in the direction of the Channel Island.
Paul seemed to get the idea. He nodded agreeably. The Gotha's control panel looked pretty straightforward. Paul was drawing the U-shaped wheel to the left to begin his arc back to shore when there was a sudden, furious whine of engines from the south. Both Remo and Paul turned in time to see a lone Bf-109F Messerschmitt tearing down towards them from an altitude of five hundred feet. Sunlight glinted off the plane's gleaming shell as the pilot opened fire from the wing-mounted machine guns.
Two dozen holes ripped through the nose of the Gotha from a spot just behind the propeller to an area a fraction ahead of the cockpit.
When the attacking plane opened fire, Remo immediately grabbed on to the lip of the open cockpit for support and vaulted over to the other side of the plane. With the sudden shift of weight, the Gotha angled downward on the right.
The movement shifted the hundred-pound bombs in their bays at the center of the plane.
Sweating in spite of the wind, Paul tugged at the steering column to straighten out the listing plane. As he did so, he scrambled for the radio microphone. "Nein! Nein!" Niemlur screamed over the radio. The pilot in the other plane wasn't listening. He had torn over the wings and cut sharply back. Swooping around, he made another strafing run from the rear.
A hail of lead tore through the air around them. The old plane was peppered with fresh wounds, these near its tail. Miraculously none of the explosives in the back was detonated.
The Messerschmitt continued firing on the slower plane, stopping only as it buzzed over the upper wings of the Gotha.
Remo saw its gleaming underbelly as it soared above them. He glanced at the huge magazine case on the wing near him. There was another on the other side. Jutting out at the front of each of the upright boxes was a single machine-gun muzzle.
"How do you work them?" Remo asked, pointing at the guns.
Paul only shrugged, frightened and confused.
The Messerschmitt had broken off the attack for the moment. Spying Chiun sliding across the fuselage of the other plane, the pilot took a strafing run at that aircraft. The radio squawked with another panicked German voice as the Messerschmitt opened fire.
Chiun dodged the bullets by simply letting go of his grip. The wind grabbed his kimono and flung him back toward the tail section of the plane. He grabbed hold again as the shadow of the attacking warplane passed over the midsection of Chiun's plane.
The bullets had missed the explosives stored aboard the aircraft, but they had caused damage nonetheless. Acrid smoke began pouring from the engine, filling the air behind it with a widening cloud of oily black.
With a pained hum the plane began losing altitude. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the attacking Messerschmitt swooped around for another pass.
Remo had no time to worry about the language barrier. He grabbed Paul by the back of the neck. The pilot went as rigid as a board.
Remo manipulated the German's neck muscles expertly. Paul responded like a marionette. The pilot's hands gripped the half-moon steering wheel and tipped the Gotha into an angled dive.
One of the bombs broke free of its mooring in the rear of the plane. It tumbled forward into the bulkhead directly behind them with a crash. Somehow it failed to explode.
They were closing in on the attacking plane.
A stream of smoke continued to pour from the lead aircraft. Through the hazy black fog, Remo could no longer see the Master of Sinanju.
The pilot of the first Messerschmitt had cut back toward shore as his plane descended. The rock face of Guernsey's south shore rose up like a deadly stone barrier directly ahead of them.
They were within range of the attacking plane. Without help from the pilot, Remo would have to guess at what the firing mechanism was for the machine guns. Scanning the cockpit, he found what he was looking for. It was a single stick with a flat button embedded in the tip.
Delicately shifting the muscles in Paul Niemlur's neck, Remo had the German release one hand from the steering column. Helpless to do anything to stop Remo, Paul gripped the stick in his right hand. Remo had him stab down against the button with his thumb. Nothing happened.
Up ahead the Messerschmitt seemed to take its cue from Remo's plane.
The instant Paul had depressed the firing button, the aircraft up ahead opened fire on the damaged and smoking lead plane. The bullets tore violently into the fuselage of the first plane.
One or more of the small leaden projectiles must have come into contact with the ordnance stored aboard the front plane. As Remo struggled to work the machine guns on his own plane, the lead aircraft erupted in a blinding ball of orange-white light.
Shattered bits of steel launched backward. Small shards pinged off the propeller of the Gotha.
Remo dodged the spray even as he searched the sky for bodies.
There was no sign of Chiun. What remained of the plane the Master of Sinanju had been atop belched fire and smoke as it raced down into the waters below.
It crashed atop the waves a moment later. Furious, Remo glanced around the cockpit of the Gotha. He found a small toggle switch on the dashboard marked in red. He reached over Paul and flipped the switch.
The attacking Messerschmitt had remained before them throughout the spectacular crash, but once the lead plane was down it began pulling up into the sky, exposing its back to them. Remo could see the pilot grinning victoriously in the cockpit.
Remo cranked a knot of muscles on Niemlur's neck.
The Gotha's huge wing-mounted machine guns with their stacks of ammunition burst to life.
The bullets caught the Messerschmitt square in the cockpit. The glass that didn't shatter was sprayed with the blood of the pilot as the projectiles ripped through the body of the plane.
The aircraft had been perched on its tail like a dolphin clearing the water. But now, with no one to guide it, gravity quickly took hold of it.
Spiraling out of control, it screamed back to earth. It crashed into the first cluster of rocks that stabbed out from Guernsey into the English Channel.
Remo was surprised that the island was so close. He had little time left to work.
Paul seemed relieved that the ordeal was nearly over. That relief turned to shock as Remo turned his attention away from the crashed Messerschmitt back to the Gotha.
"Auf Wiedersehen," Remo said to Paul, summoning up what little German he knew.
He reached into the cockpit and ripped out a handful of wires. For good measure he wrenched at the steering column.
It came free like a half-loose tooth. Tendrils of wires still connected it to the rest of the plane. Remo didn't have time to complete the job. The rock wall of Guernsey loomed larger before them. Hoping he had done enough, he dropped the broken steering column onto the pilot's knees. Turning, he leaped backward, off the wing of the plane.
At the point when his feet left the wing, the aircraft was only about fifty feet above the channel. Remo sliced into the cold waters a few seconds later. Kicking sharply, he broke through the surface just in time to see the crippled Gotha crash directly into the cliff face of the island.
The impact propelled the payload of six hundred-pound bombs forward into the rear of the cockpit. The explosion was massive. It blew up and back in a huge plume of fire and smoke. In slow motion the charred remnants of the aircraft broke away from the wall and fell to the sea. Minutes afterward huge slabs of loosened basalt rock continued to sheer away from the cliff wall, crashing down to the rocks below. Bobbing in the cold water, Remo didn't exult in the scene. A sick feeling clenched his belly. Chiun was out there somewhere. In what condition, Remo had no idea. However, he couldn't help but think the worst.
He was about to head back out to sea to begin his search for a body when a familiar squeaky voice called from the nearby rocks.
"Do you intend to splash about like a lazy walrus for the rest of the day?"
Remo turned his head in the direction of the voice. Relief had flooded his soul when he'd heard the first tones.
The Master of Sinanju stood on the strip of black rocks that jutted like a crooked finger from the unforgiving shore. The old Korean was dripping wet.
"You're okay!" Remo called over. His voice was a mixture of joy and relief.