"There's another German squadron heading this way. At least thirty planes."
"Thirty?" Philliston scoffed, stepping forward.
"Thirty-seven," the Master of Sinanju announced.
"I am sorry, my good boy, but nothing can get through the net we have established. The RAF has the shores of Old Blighty locked down tighter than the Queen Mum's bum."
"In that case I'd say it's about time to check the royal knickers," Remo suggested.
The first of the planes came into view, a mere speck against the distant clouds.
Helene stepped forward, mouth open in shock. The head of Source moved in beside her, eyes trained on the sky.
"Impossible," Philliston said, eyes wide.
"Get them out of here!" Remo snapped.
The tone jarred Philliston from his initial shock. He obediently charged over to a uniformed bobby who was posing for photographs beside the crippled plane.
"Have they gotten the phones working yet?" Remo asked, spinning to Helene. He was hoping that Smith might have some rapid way of contacting the RAF.
She fiddled with her cellular phone, stabbing out the number for London information. The line was dead.
"Not yet," she said, shaking her head.
By this time the planes were large enough to be seen for what they were. Some in the crowd began screaming and running for the Underground. Many more simply stood their ground, snapping endless pictures, as if they were participating in some sort of overblown amusement-park ride.
The air-raid sirens around London began sounding their relentless blare. The first dull thuds of distant impacting bombs reverberated through the pavement beneath their feet.
Sir Guy Philliston had convinced the bobbies that they should begin herding people to the Underground entrances. Those with cameras moved reluctantly.
"I vote we join them until this thing blows over, Little Father," Remo suggested.
"Agreed," said Chiun.
They had gone no more than a few paces toward the nearest Underground station when a familiar sound began emanating upward from the stairway. It was the pop-pop-pop of automatic-weapons fire.
There was a collective scream of panic from the mob. People began rolling back out of the staircase, stampeding directly toward Remo, Chiun and Helene.
Remo and Chiun easily avoided the crush of people. Helene wasn't so lucky. Though she tried to resist, she found herself helplessly swept along with the crowd as it surged back out into the blinding sunlight of Trafalgar Square.
By now the German warplanes were high above the square. They began dropping whistling bombs on the teeming throng in the square far below. Sections of pavement exploded upward, mixed with limp, bloodied bodies. A hail of shattered stones pebbled the ground for half a mile around.
At the Underground port, the sound of machinegun fire had grown louder.
On the sidewalk Remo glanced from the black rectangular opening of the Underground to the carnage in the square.
"I'll take the square," he announced grimly.
The Master of Sinanju nodded his agreement. "Have a care, my son."
As Remo ran into the thick of the bombing run, Chiun flew to the mouth of the subway station from which the gunfire had come.
FIVE MINUTES EARLIER Harold W. Smith was meeting his wife at a bus stop a few doors down from a small restaurant on Bond Street around the corner from Trafalgar Square.
"Oh, Harold," Maude Smith called. She smiled as he walked up the busy sidewalk toward her. Mrs. Smith actually seemed surprised to see her husband. "I wasn't sure you'd make it."
"Did we not agree we would meet at twelve?" Smith asked. He took the heavy paper bundles she held in her hands.
"Yes, but with your work and all..." She shrugged her round shoulders. It wasn't an admonishment. Maude Smith would never complain that his work kept him away from her. She was merely stating an obvious truth about their life together. Nonetheless, Smith felt a twinge of too familiar guilt.
"Shall we have some lunch?" he said quickly, indicating the restaurant door with a bony elbow. The straps of the bags weighed heavily against his hands.
"Of course," Maude chimed. She talked excitedly as they walked. "I got some souvenirs today not too expensive, I know. But since it's our last day in London I thought we should get something for Vickie. And Gert has been such a good friend."
Smith bit his tongue. He had no objection to buying a gift for their only daughter, but the prospect of wasting perfectly good money on a nosy neighbor was utterly distasteful to him.
Maude seemed to sense his mild displeasure. It was no secret to her that Harold didn't like Gert Higgins. But the fact that he didn't object to buying the woman a gift spoke volumes about her husband's patience. And-though he didn't like to show it-his love.
She was beaming when they reached the door to the restaurant. Maude opened it, Smith balanced the door with his elbow in order to allow her to pass.
He was about to step inside the hallway after her when he heard a familiar noise. Very distant. Smith paused, half in, half out of the restaurant. It could not be. Not a third time.
He cocked an ear.
"Harold?" His wife had come back out to him. Boom... boom ...boom...
It was like the footsteps of some remorseless movie monster, a celluloid beast come to devour them all.
"Maude, please step outside," Smith said calmly.
"What is it?"
"Please hurry," he pressed, a welling urgency in his tone.
Mrs. Smith obliged. At Smith's urging the two of them quickly made their way back up the sidewalk. There was shouting coming from Trafalgar Square by the time they reached the Piccadilly entrance to London's Underground. Air-raid sirens sounded. Fingers and cameras were aimed at the squadron of incoming fighters.
Smith didn't dawdle. In another minute the crowd would become a mob. As it was, the first clusters of spectators were just beginning to herd themselves toward the safety of the subway as Smith and his wife climbed hurriedly down the stairs.
The stairway ended at a concrete landing that banked right into another staircase. This one was an illuminated tube with a metal railing running up either side.
Smith hurried down through the second enclosed staircase to the train platform below the city. He steered his wife to a spot near one of the largest support columns.
Already behind them the throngs of panicked people from the street were flooding down the stairs. Subway passengers soon got the message. They stopped heading for the exits, staying instead on the platform with the recent street arrivals. Anxious chatter rippled through the crowd.
The station began to quickly fill up.