Chiun nodded. "If you had been able to save the life of that woman who summoned images of your troubled youth, would you have been pleased?"
Remo shrugged. "Yeah. I guess so."
"You will never change, Remo Williams." Chiun smiled sadly. "Though I have labored lo these many years to alter your narrow perception of the world, my efforts have come to naught. The image you have of yourself is that of a fat sowboy in a white hat riding your trusty steed hither and thither in the defense of justice. I tell you this now, Remo. You are not here to root out injustice. You are here at the request of your emperor. The job of an assassin is a simple one. It is you who make it complex."
"I don't know," Remo said sullenly. "Maybe."
"It is fact," Chiun stated simply. "You were angry before coming here. Now you are no longer angry about the thing you were fleeing-you are angry at something new. When our work here is finished, you will find something even newer to be angry about. You are like a child flitting from one shiny toy to the next, never satisfied with what he has."
Remo knew that there was a great deal of truth in what Chiun was saying. He nodded reluctantly. "So what should I do?" he asked.
"Learn from my example," Chiun said. "See what we do as the business it is. And never take your work home with you."
Remo wanted to laugh. Chiun was talking about assassination like a bookkeeper talked about the company's accounting ledger.
"I'll try," Remo promised, shaking his head.
"You will find that such an outlook lessens the complications in life greatly," Chiun offered. He lifted his teacup and took a thoughtful sip.
Remo glanced back to the office where Guy Philliston was hiding with his tea set.
"Tell me the truth," Remo asked, pitching his voice low. "Wasn't there a little part of you that wanted to zap Hitler all those years ago just for the satisfaction?"
"Absolutely," Chiun replied. "For the satisfaction of a job well done. The little Hun's head on a post outside my village would have brought much work to our House. Lamentably it was not so."
Remo shook his head. "You'll never convince me that you didn't want to bump him off for the sheer pleasure of it."
Chiun's sad smile deepened.
"That is where we will forever differ, my son," the old Korean said.
There was a sudden stomping on the staircase from the apothecary shop. Both Masters of Sinanju grew silent as a young Source agent came running into the main office area. Ignoring the men on the desks, he went racing into the side office of Sir Guy Philliston.
"Jilted boyfriend?" Remo asked, with a nod to the glass office door.
"I do not wish to think about it," Chiun sniffed. A moment later Sir Guy appeared from the room, the young man following obediently in his wake. He marched over to a large television set in the corner of the room.
"This had better be important," Philliston complained. He shot a nervous glance at Remo and Chiun. "The lad is worked up about something on the telly," he explained. He scanned the front of the set. "How does one activate this box thingie?" he asked his underling.
The young assistant turned the TV on. The audio came on before the picture. The stentorian voice of a Thames television announcer blared across the room.
"...the scene in Paris this afternoon is a page torn from the history books. A document of surrender that has been authentically verified as being signed by the president of France himself was released to the world press not half an hour ago. In it control of Paris is ceded to the invasion force you see behind me now...."
The picture slowly congealed into recognizable shapes.
Remo blinked in disbelief as the camera image settled on a column of marching soldiers led by a single man on horseback.
He had seen the footage before. But always in the grainy black-and-white of decades-old newsreels. This was in full, glorious color and surround sound.
The Arc de Triomphe stood in the background, surmounting the hill of Chaillot in Paris. Before it, the soldiers marched proudly through the street, black boots kicking high in the familiar Nazi goose step. Red-and-black armbands were the single spots of brightness on their drab uniforms.
It was an image of historical deja vu.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" Remo asked angrily.
"I'm sure I don't know," Philliston said nervously. He quickly turned to his underling. "Is this some sort of Gallic prank?" he demanded.
The young man shook his head. "No, Sir Guy. It's everywhere on the radio and telly. The World Service, ITN, BBC television, Thames. It became official at noon today. The French have surrendered Paris completely."
The column of men-Remo could see there were only about two hundred of them in all-turned in a wide arc as they passed by the camera. The long white tail of the lone horse in the lead waved merrily in the late-summer air.
"Thought they would have learned their lesson last time out," Sir Guy Philliston commented.
The television report next cut to a scene of raucous cheering near the Brandenburg Gate in Germany. The joy and optimism that had been displayed by the German people at the fall of communism on this very site was replaced by a dance of sheer blood lust by a huge crowd of skinheads.
The television announcer droned on. "This was the scene in Germany just minutes after the announcement of French surrender came. Obviously word of the impending bloodless coup had been deliberately leaked to fascist groups throughout the republic of Germany. Men who had until yesterday planned to join forces with the attack on London, have since switched their allegiance to the group that now controls Paris. The new regime has welcomed them with open arms. However, it remains to be seen whether they will encounter resistance upon reaching the French border."
Remo hopped down from the desk.
"I think we can guarantee them that," he said somberly.
Chiun had alighted to the floor also in a flutter of silk. Together they headed for the door.
"The two of you are going in alone?" Philliston's youthful aide asked, surprised. He turned to his commander. "Might that not be just a touch dangerous, sir?"
Remo and Chiun were just sliding out into the hallway. They vanished down the staircase.
As they were leaving, Sir Guy had taken a longstemmed meerschaum pipe from his pocket. It was carved in the shape of Anne Boleyn's head. Tiny fissures indicated where the pipe had once been cracked and glued back together. Guy stuck the pipe between his lips and lit the already stuffed bowl with a single wooden match. He blew a thoughtful puff of smoke at the ceiling as he shook the flame off the match with a gentle back-and-forth movement.
"Yes," Sir Guy said finally, nodding. "For the Nazis."
THE IMAGE of the marching neo-Nazi forces was beamed via satellite to a small television set in a neat little office in the ancient stone fortress that perched on a small South American mountain peak separate from the rest of the IV village.
The bright blue eyes of Adolf Kluge turned a flinty gray as the line of goose-stepping soldiers marched beyond the camera's range.
Hands clenched in bloodless white knuckles, Kluge rose slowly from behind his large desk. Wordlessly he stepped from the office into the huge stone corridor.
He did not turn the television off.
Chapter 24
Harold Smith pushed aside the heavy drapes in his hotel room, revealing an inch-wide strip of dirty glass.
His vantage point afforded him a fairly unobstructed view of the street three stories below. Occasionally a rental truck whose sides had been repainted red and emblazoned with an enormous black swastika would drive slowly down the road, turning off on a distant side street.
They were making their presence known. A lazy victory lap for the mighty conquerors.