"Yeah," Remo said. "They're skinheads or something. Didn't I mention that?"
Smith had stopped typing. "No, you didn't." There was a pregnant pause on the line, broken only when Smith muttered a single word.
"Four," he said, softly. He was deep in thought.
"Is that an unlucky number for you or something?" Remo asked with a puzzled expression.
Smith's voice had grown troubled. "Remo, you no doubt remember the incident this past spring concerning PlattDeutsche America and that company's mind-controlling product, the Dynamic Interface System?"
"Remember it," Remo scoffed. "I'll never forget it. They had Chiun and me wired up like a couple of robots."
"You remember at the time the individuals involved in that scheme referred to something called IV."
"Yeah," Remo said. It was coming back to him. "That old Nazi scientist boxed up duplicates of mine and Chiun's brain patterns and was going to ship them off somewhere. We never found out where."
"Precisely," Smith said. "I assumed when I could not find a reference to a IV group in any of the neoNazi literature that it was a minor splinter group. Perhaps I was in error. It is possible that we are dealing with a much larger organization than I had anticipated."
"You mean there's more of those skunks around?"
"Look at the evidence thus far," Smith said excitedly. "German warplanes armed with stolen German bombs. A new blitz on London. And skinheads sporting a particular and otherwise unexplainable tattoo. I think it is more than possible. I think it is a high probability that IV is an organization of either former Nazis or like-minded individuals."
"The guy that was in charge here looked old enough to be from the World War II generation," Remo offered.
"He most likely was," Smith answered. "I will do further research into IV. With any luck we will be able to work our way down from the top."
"Well, whatever you do, do it quick, because going from the bottom up has gotten us squat so far." There was a sudden familiar whine in the background. At first Remo thought the planes were returning to Guernsey. It took him a moment to realize the noise was coming from the other end of the line. "Smitty, am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"
Remo heard a rustling sound. Smith had gone to the window of the hotel, drawing back the drapes. "It is starting again," the CURE director said flatly.
The first dull explosions from the aerial bombs began filtering over the line.
"Find cover," Remo said quickly.
Whatever Smith might have said next was lost forever. The connection to England was abruptly severed. Remo stared at the dead phone in his hand for a few long seconds.
"London is under attack," Remo said, turning to Helene.
"What?" she asked, shocked.
"I thought you told them they were coming," he pressed.
"I did," she insisted.
Remo glanced up at the camera. It was still directed to the spot on the floor from which the mustard gas had emanated.
"I guess we made the same mistake England always makes. We put faith in British Intelligence." Without turning in her direction, he handed the phone out to her. She accepted it. As a precaution, in case Remo's contact hadn't reached DGSE, she began punching in her direct line back to her Paris headquarters.
As Helene dialed, Remo walked over to the corner of the hangar. Avoiding a stack of shells, he drew an empty crate to a spot directly beneath the camera. He climbed atop the crate. For the first time since reentering the hangar he put his face in the camera's purview.
He stared coldly into the lens.
"I am going to kill you," Remo said. He exaggerated each word so that whoever might be on the other end would have no difficulty understanding him.
This accomplished, he held his hands out on either side of the camera. He brought them together with a sharp clap. The camera sprang apart in a million shards of plastic and metal.
Chapter 16
I am going to kill you.
The camera had no audio capability, but that didn't matter. The words were plain enough.
Nils Schatz didn't even think to rap his cane on the floor as he watched Remo lift his hands up out of view of the camera. A moment later the extreme close-up of the young Sinanju master exploded in a spray of white-and-gray static.
As the snow-filled screen hissed mockingly at him, Schatz woodenly switched off the television monitor. He stared at it for what seemed like hours.
A feeling of unease that he had not felt in many years had crept from the murkiest depths of his black soul.
It was Germany. April 1945.
Schatz was a young man then. He had been a colonel in the Geheime Staatspolizei, the Gestapo, under the notorious Adolf Eichmann. It was while he was working for the Gestapo's subsection four of the second section-which dealt with religion, and in particular the perceived Jewish threat to the glorious reich-that he had caught the attention of none other than Schutzstaffeln head Heinrich Himmler.
The leader of the SS was impressed by Schatz's unparalleled talent for brutally savage interrogation. Since the Gestapo had become part of the SS, no one protested when Himmler stole Schatz away to become his personal assistant.
Schatz was taken to the seat of Axis power. Eventually Himmler had grown to rely on his young colonel. So much so that he one day brought him along to an important meeting in the chancellery in Berlin.
Schatz had never expected the fuhrer to be at the gathering. He had thought it would be a collection of SS officials, as had been the case in many of the other meetings he had attended since joining the upper echelon of the secret state-police force.
His shock when Hitler entered the room was obvious-even humorous-to all gathered. Schatz was like a star-struck American teenager who had just run into Veronica Lake on a Hollywood sidewalk.
Hitler had laughed off the attention. The rest did, as well. The meeting was allowed to continue. Schatz made a good show of getting himself under control. But the truth was he never got over that first thrill of seeing Germany's supreme warlord face-to-face.
It was not only Hitler.
That the man was charismatic was an understatement. He held a fascination for the German people that was misunderstood and forever mischaracterized by the outside world. They were like helpless moths drawn to an open flame.
But the fuhrer was only part of the equation. It was what he represented that was even more important. Hitler had a vision for the future of Germany that had captured the hearts and the souls of millions of Germans.
The Third Reich. A thousand-year Teutonic empire.
Nils Schatz believed not only in Hitler-he believed passionately in the idea of the reich.
His wholehearted belief in the Third Reich remained strong up until one fateful morning only a few days before its spectacular collapse.
Things were already bleak when news was brought into the SS from a captain who was supposed to be stationed in Italy. For some reason the man had seen fit to abandon his post. He had traveled all the way back to Germany during some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
Schatz had intercepted the captain on his way to deliver a message to Heinrich Himmler. When pressed by Schatz, the man said simply that he brought word to those highest up in the modern Hun empire.