Failing Marks, page 14
“I wouldn’t get too full of myself,” Remo grumbled. “That ain’t exactly Masterpiece Theatre you’ve been watching to death lately.”
“I found them,” Smith interjected, drawing Remo’s attention back to the phone.
“Everything?” Remo asked, surprised at the speed with which the CURE director had tracked the items.
“Just the coins,” Smith said. “Following the German pattern, I thought to begin my search there. They were offered to a rare coin dealer in Berlin by a Korean cultural representative. The merchant was concerned that the coins might be stolen, so he brought in the authorities. When their authenticity was confirmed, the Korean was remanded to the custody of his embassy. With no explanation for how he came by them, he was sent back to North Korea to face disciplinary measures for their possession.”
“Where are the coins?”
“They are being sent along with him. The Korean government requested them for use in the trial. With the cultural official’s diplomatic immunity, they were useless to the Germans as evidence.”
“What’s his name and when does he arrive?” Remo asked.
“Keijo Suk,” Smith said. “His plane lands in Pyongyang at three o’clock, your time.”
“Thanks, Smitty,” Remo said. “I owe you one.” He hung up the phone. “Did you get all that?” he asked, turning to the Master of Sinanju.
“I did,” Chiun said. He was standing impatiently near the front door, arms tucked inside the folds of his kimono sleeves. “However, he did not mention the carving.”
“They probably didn’t think too much about it,” Remo reasoned. “The coins would be more important to them. Anyway, it won’t do any good to sit here and think about it. Let’s shake a leg.”
Remo headed for the door. When he pulled on the handle he was surprised to find that he had yanked into the house someone who had been grabbing the knob from the other side. The intruder tumbled forward into him.
Remo grabbed the toppling stranger by the shoulders, setting her on her feet. He was about to demand that she identify herself when he realized he recognized her face.
“Hello, Remo,” said Heidi Stolpe. She smiled guiltily.
. . .
“I did not mislead you completely,” Heidi promised.
They were racing along the highway away from Sinanju in a government car Remo had liberated earlier that day from the Pyongyang airport parking lot. Remo was behind the wheel. Heidi sat beside him in the front. Chiun had positioned himself like royalty in the center of the rear seat.
“I was in South America in search of fugitive Nazis,” she continued.
“But that was only part of it,” Remo said angrily. Frozen mud fields whipped past the speeding car.
“Not at first,” she insisted. “But eventually, yes. You see, I am a descendant of Gunther, whose sister Kriemhild was married to Siegfried.”
“Your relatives must have the stupidest-looking headstones in Nibelung,” Remo said. “Wherever the hell that is.”
Heidi persisted. “I only recently became aware of the legend surrounding the treasure. My uncle died, and I inherited my family’s castle in the Harz Mountains. In his personal belongings was Gunther’s portion of the block carving. It has been in my family’s possession for fifteen hundred years.”
“This carving. It is in good condition?” Chiun asked from the back seat. He feigned disinterest.
“The map has survived intact,” she said to him.
Remo could tell that Chiun was intrigued. However, the Master of Sinanju was playing it cool.
“Still,” Chiun ventured, “with only two sections we are no nearer the gold.”
“Not two sections,” Heidi said excitedly. “Three.”
“How is this possible?” Chiun asked with a frown.
“At the Four village in South America,” Heidi explained. “While the two of you were chasing after Kluge through the tunnels, I searched through the things he left behind. One of the sections of the carving had been packed in a box but not taken with him. I suppose he did not think it crucial to whatever future he has planned for his group.”
“Wait a minute,” Remo said. “While we were risking our necks, you were on some frigging scavenger hunt?”
“I do not have to explain myself to you,” Heidi sniffed.
“Damned lucky for you,” Remo replied angrily.
“How did you know Kluge would have a map section?” Chiun asked, steering them back to the most important topic.
“I did not mention that?” she asked, surprised. “According to what I have learned, he is a direct descendant of Siegfried. The block has been in his family for as long as we have owned our respective sections.”
“You used us,” Remo said. “You knew about Kluge all along. You used us to get yourself safely into the village.”
“There is still the final quarter,” Chiun insisted, pointedly ignoring Remo. “Which, according to rumor, fell into the hands of the murderer Hagen.”
“That piece will be difficult,” Heidi said thoughtfully. “Through my uncle’s records, I traced both Siegfried’s and Hagen’s descendants. The last of the family of Hagan died out around the time the Nazis came to power. His land and possessions were confiscated by order of Hitler. If there was a fourth surviving piece, it was lost back then.”
Chiun sank back into his seat. The glimmer of hope threatened to fade from his hazel eyes.
“Then we, too, are lost,” he lamented.
“Not necessarily,” Heidi stressed. “We have three out of four sections. It is possible that we could piece together enough of the map to locate the treasure.”
“I suppose I don’t have to remind you, Chiun, that she was in Sinanju to steal our piece of the map,” Remo called over his shoulder.
Chiun stroked his thread of beard pensively. “She is enterprising,” the Master of Sinanju offered. “It is an attractive trait. What did you have in mind, daughter of Gunther?”
“Whatever we recover will be split ninety/ten.”
“That would be acceptable,” Chiun nodded. Heidi seemed surprised. “I did not think you would agree to such an arrangement. According to my family record, the House of Sinanju is quite greedy.”
“Give him a minute,” Remo warned.
Chiun waved a magnanimous hand. “Ours is a reputation undeserved,” Chiun proclaimed. “You have done much work. You have earned your ten percent.”
“Bingo.” Remo grinned.
“What?” Heidi demanded.
“It is a large sum, surely,” Chiun said, considering. “Perhaps I should allow you only five. What do you think, Remo?”
“Don’t get me in the middle of this,” Remo said.
Heidi was livid. Her porcelain skin had flushed red. “If anyone is getting five percent, it is you,” she challenged.
“Are you mad, girl?” Chiun asked, shocked. “You did not believe I would allow you to steal nine-tenths of my money?”
“Your money?”
Chiun grew indignant. “The treasure is the rightful property of the House of Sinanju. If I so desired, I could keep the entire amount myself.”
“Without my half of the map, your quarter is useless,” Heidi reminded him.
“And without my quarter, your half is useless,” Chiun countered.
Heidi fumed. “Seventy/thirty,” she said eventually. “The seventy goes to me,” she added quickly.
“That is ludicrous,” Chiun huffed. “Sixty/forty. In the favor of Sinanju.”
“No,” Heidi insisted stubbornly.
“As an impartial observer who doesn’t give a wet fart in a windbreaker about the gold, why not split it fifty/fifty?” Remo suggested.
“Outrageous,” Chiun snapped.
“Out of the question,” Heidi sniffed.
“In that case, you’re both going to walk away with diddly. Just like your ancestors.”
“That treasure is Sinanju property,” Chiun fumed.
“You forfeited it when Siegfried was murdered,” Heidi countered stubbornly.
“Are you deranged, woman? That is when it became Sinanju property.”
“Siegfried only hid the Hoard because he did not trust your ancestor Bal-Mung,” Heidi snarled hotly.
“Lies!” Chiun shrieked. Hands knotted in fists of furious bone. “Stop the car, Remo. I will not travel another inch with one who dares sully the name of my beloved ancestor.”
“First off, I am not stopping. Secondly you weren’t too charitable to him back at your house,” Remo reminded him.
In Korean, Chiun snapped, “I may say what I want about my family. She may not.”
“All right, all right!” Heidi snapped, angry that she couldn’t understand what Chiun was saying. “I will agree to a fifty/fifty split.”
“Sixty/forty,” Chiun said quickly.
“Fifty/fifty,” Heidi repeated firmly.
In the back seat, Chiun huffed as he considered the offer. At long last he broke his silence.
“Though my heart breaks to cast away that which is so obviously mine, I fear I am at your mercy, devil woman. Fifty/fifty. And may you choke on your ill-gotten prize.”
The Master of Sinanju settled back into the rear seat.
“Then we have a deal,” Heidi said, exhaling in relief. “Where is your quarter of the map?”
“Here’s where it gets tricky,” Remo said, smiling.
“Why?” Heidi asked suspiciously. It was as if a light suddenly snapped on in her head. She spun around in her seat. “You do have it, do you not?” she asked Chiun.
“That would be not,” Remo said.
“You are joking,” she accused.
“Nope,” said Remo happily. “That’s why we’re here. Somebody stole our section.”
“I cannot believe this,” she said, twisting back around. “Stop the car.”
“Lady, I didn’t do it for him—I’m sure as hell not doing it for you,” Remo promised evenly.
“This is beyond duplicity,” she said, astonished.
“It is no wonder Siegfried did not trust Bal-Mung. You are a family of liars. Stop this car!”
“I have memorized the map,” Chiun said softly.
Though she had been growing more enraged with each passing second until this point, Heidi instantly became calm. She peered cautiously at the Master of Sinanju.
“Is this true?” she questioned suspiciously.
Chiun gently tapped the parchment skin of his temple with the tip of a tapered fingernail.
“Every detail of our map section is forever burned into my memory,” he said pleasantly.
Heidi looked at Remo questioningly. Remo paid her no attention as he looked out over the hood of the speeding car. Finally she turned back to the Master of Sinanju.
“How good is your memory?” she asked. Chiun didn’t respond to the insulting question. He merely stared out at the frozen paddies as the car soared down the empty highway.
Chapter Fifteen
Keijo Suk could not believe how quickly he had been apprehended. He had always trusted in the basic dishonesty of every Western store owner. Unfortunately he had found the last honest merchant in the hemisphere.
The coin dealer had called Suk back to his shop twice before turning him over to the authorities. Suk had thought the man was working up the courage to purchase the coins he had stolen from the Master of Sinanju’s house. In retrospect, he realized that the man was checking on their authenticity. Without proof of ownership of the heretofore unknown variety of coin, it was determined that Suk was quite obviously a thief. The only question was how he had managed to sneak into and out of Egypt with his stolen prize. Never mind the fact that while there he had discovered and looted an unknown yet apparently flawlessly preserved tomb.
Suk realized how useless it would be to explain where he had gotten the coins. He had decided to merely sit quietly and take whatever punishment was given, hoping that he would not encounter the Master of Sinanju.
In truth, Suk doubted the Master of Sinanju would ever find out about the theft. There was so much treasure in that rambling house that the infamous assassin could not possibly miss a few coins and a simple chunk of wood. Also it was known in his native land that the Sinanju Master spent much of his time in the decadent West where he had been commissioned to train a white in the ancient arts of his village. It was likely that he would not return for months. Perhaps years.
Reasoning thusly, Keijo Suk had managed to calm himself somewhat as the German authorities turned him over to the North Korean consulate in Berlin. Even the torn cartilage and fractured bone in his shoulder had begun to feel better.
His embassy had shipped him off to North Korea, where he would be placed under arrest the moment his plane landed.
The official government aircraft had just touched down at the airport in Pyongyang. As it taxied slowly to a stop, Suk made a final appeal to whatever gods might still listen to a thieving Communist that the Master of Sinanju would never learn of what he had done.
. . .
Remo parked the car in the same spot from which he had stolen it that morning.
The Korean soldiers who patrolled the airport gave them a wide berth. Although it would have been more than reasonable to question an odd group like theirs, the reputations of both Masters of Sinanju preceded them. They were allowed to move across the parking lot with impunity, just as they had been after landing earlier that day.
But this time Heidi was with them. A thought suddenly occurred to Remo.
“How did you get in here, by the way?” Remo asked. He was looking at her very pale skin and obviously non-Korean features.
“Anything is possible with the proper bribes,” Heidi said. She clearly didn’t wish to discuss it further.
“Whatever.” Remo shrugged.
Remo left the others and went inside the terminal to ask about the flight from Germany. He learned that it had landed only a few minutes before.
Coming back outside, Remo led their party out through the restricted chain-link fence onto the tarmac. The soldiers on duty made an effort to look wherever Remo and Chiun were not.
A boarding ramp had just been secured at the side of the government aircraft, and the first of the passengers was beginning to deplane. Keijo Suk was led out in manacles in the company of a pair of North Korean police officials.
The Korean cultural officer needed only one glance at the pale purple kimono on the old man who waited for him at the bottom of the ramp. His eyes grew wide in fright.
“Ahhhhh!” screamed Keijo Suk. He turned around and, shoving his captors roughly aside, raced back up the stairs, disappearing inside the plane.
Recognizing the flight instinct of a guilty man, Remo and Chiun each hopped up onto a railing of the ramp. They ran up, jumping onto the platform at the top. They followed Suk inside. Heidi was forced to push her way past the irate passengers. The men who had been escorting Suk stayed far behind in the doorway, fearful of the Master of Sinanju and his protégé.
Inside, Chiun found Suk cowering on the floor behind the last three coach seats. He cradled his injured shoulder with his shackled hands.
“Thief!” the Master of Sinanju charged, eyes furious.
Chiun grabbed Suk by the front of his jacket and dragged the terrified man to his feet. Suk was sweating profusely.
“Don’t kill him yet, Little Father,” Remo warned, running up behind Chiun.
“Yes!” screamed Suk. “Please! Do not kill me yet!”
“Tell what you know, thief!” Chiun ordered. As incentive, he slapped Keijo Suk back and forth across his tear-soaked face.
“I know that I have stolen from the Glorious House of Sinanju and that I must be made to pay for my actions,” Suk blubbered. He held his hurt shoulder away from Chiun.
“And so you will,” Chiun hissed.
“But must that payment be in blood?” Suk pleaded.
“Of course,” Chiun replied, as if Suk were an imbecile.
“Everything is negotiable,” Heidi Stolpe volunteered in German. She was standing behind Remo.
“Silence, wench,” Chiun menaced.
Suk looked up at her, a spark of hope in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, also in German. “She is correct, Master.”
“She is a woman and is therefore incapable of correctness. You are dealing with me,” Chiun warned. “Where is my property?”
“The men who escorted me here have the coins,” Suk answered.
“Remo,” Chiun snapped. He jerked his head toward the men who still stood back near the door. Remo went dutifully, if somewhat reluctantly, over to the door. One of the men held a small package-about the size of a cigar box. He willingly handed it over to Remo.
“Wait here,” Remo ordered. He jogged back to Chiun. “Here it is,” he said. His tone was painfully uninterested.
Chiun ripped the box from his hands. Tearing it open, he fussed over the coins inside. They were wrapped in two long tubes of cellophane.
“Is this all?” he asked, knowing full well that it was.
“Oh, yes,” Suk said pleadingly. “They are all there.”
“Very well,” Chiun said. Snapping the box shut, he handed it to Remo. “Where is the other item?”
“Other item?” Suk said. He was frightened beyond reason.
“The wood carving,” Remo interjected.
“Oh, that. I no longer have it.”
“What!” Chiun bellowed.
The old man picked up Suk as if he weighed no more than a packet of complimentary cashews. Kimono sleeves snapping, he hurled Suk against the bulkhead of the plane. Suk slammed full force against the wall. He slid painfully into a window seat.
Chiun was on him again. Yanking the whimpering man to his feet once more, the Master of Sinanju flung Suk to the other side of the plane. As he slammed against the far wall, the nearest Plexiglas window cracked beneath Suk’s elbow. His bone fared no better.
Suk shrieked in pain. He scampered back against the wall as Chiun again approached him.
“I know who has it,” Suk begged, cradling his arm.
“Who?” Chiun demanded.
“A man. A German,” Suk panted. “Adolf Kluge.”
“Kluge?” Remo asked, coming up behind Chiun. For the first time, this wasted trip began to interest him.
