Failing Marks, page 15
“Kluge?” Chiun demanded of the air. “Who is this fiend who springs up at my every turn?” As he asked the question, he shook Keijo Suk so violently the thief’s molars rattled.
“I do not know,” Suk whined. “He approached me a year ago for business reasons. He wished for me to broker a deal between our government and one of his companies. Only last week did he ask me to steal the piece of wood.”
“Where can we find him?” Remo asked.
“I do not know,” Suk breathed. “He always called me. He was going to contact me once more when he—” he looked down, ashamed “—when he collected the balance owed me for taking the carving.”
“So, Kluge expected to come into some cash,” Remo said.
“What?” Heidi asked. She hadn’t understood a word of what had just been said until Remo’s last comment in English. “What has Kluge to do with this?”
“He’s the one who has our quarter,” Remo explained.
“Not for long,” Chiun said. He spun back to Suk.
“Mercy,” the thief begged. He was on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
Chiun’s lip curled as he regarded the pathetic figure before him. “You will have it though you did not earn it,” he intoned.
A tight hand drew back and fired forward, slamming against Suk’s chest. The thief’s eyes sprang wide as his fragile heart exploded inside his chest cavity. Suk dropped forward onto the carpeted aisle of the plane, his mouth leaking a puddle of deep red.
Chiun pulled the box of taped coins from Remo. Wheeling, he marched up to Suk’s waiting Korean entourage.
“You,” Chiun said, pointing to one man. “Take these to my village. My caretaker will be there to collect these.” A cautionary nail found a spot on the man’s throat. “And be warned, I know precisely how many are there.”
The official cast an eye to the body of Suk. He was unaware that he had begun nodding enthusiastically.
“Yes, Master of Sinanju. At once, Master of Sinanju.”
He took the box in quivering hands, racing out the door and down the stairs. A moment later, Remo spied him out the window, running for all he was worth across the cold tarmac.
“And you,” Chiun said to the other. “Remove this carrion from the Master of Sinanju’s plane.” He indicated the body of Keijo Suk.
“At once, Master of Sinanju,” the government agent said.
As the agent hustled down the aisle and hefted the corpse awkwardly to his shoulders, Remo sidled up to Chiun.
“Your plane?” he asked.
“It is the least they can do, considering my ordeal,” Chiun said. “After all, it was a representative of this despicable regime who violated the sanctity of the Master’s House.” Thus justified, he marched past Remo and took his usual seat over the left wing of the plane.
“I hope the despicable regime agrees with you,” Remo muttered, shaking his head.
He ushered a confused Heidi Stolpe back down the aisle. The guard came past in the other direction carrying the body of the late Keijo Suk.
Chapter Sixteen
Adolf Kluge hated living hand to mouth. As head of IV, he was accustomed to an opulent life-style. Now he was reduced to begging for every meal.
When he had taken over the stewardship of IV, one of his first acts had been to sever the organization’s ties with Germany’s neo-Nazi underground. He considered the years of money that had been lavished on these groups by his predecessors to be money completely wasted.
But Kluge was not without some vision. He had somehow planned for a day where he might be in the situation he found himself in now. It must have been on some instinctive level, for he certainly never truly expected it to happen. Lucky for him, his instincts had been correct.
Kluge had wisely not cut IV’s ties with every neo-Nazi group. The ones that remained—while not eager to part with their money—were loyal to the cause and, therefore, loyal to Adolf Kluge. They shared what little they had with him.
It was only right. After all, at one time it had been Kluge’s money.
Feeling the lightness of his wallet every step of the way, Adolf Kluge stepped into the lobby of Berlin’s Unser Fanatischer Bank. Trying to preserve the sense of arrogance he had displayed his entire life, Kluge marched boldly over to the receptionist’s desk.
“Please inform Mr. Riefenstahl that I wish to see him,” he said officiously.
The woman was aware that Kluge was a large depositor at Unser Fanatischer. She immediately dialed the inter-office number of the bank manager, unaware of the hard times that had recently befallen Herr Kluge.
She found out soon enough.
When Riefenstahl answered the phone, the receptionist informed him of Kluge’s request. There was a great deal of talking from the other end of the line—much more than there would have been a few short weeks before.
The receptionist grew nervous. Embarrassed, she tried to avoid eye contact with Kluge who stood—growing ever angrier—before her highly polished half-shell desk.
The bank manager was actually trying to avoid him! A far cry from the way the man had always fawned over Kluge when the IV leader controlled accounts in the millions.
It was more than Adolf Kluge could bear. Lunging across the desk, he ripped the phone from the startled receptionist’s hand.
“Listen to me, you fat Prussian pig,” Kluge hissed. He was so angry, his words launched spittle into the receiver. “I need access to my safe-deposit box. And unless you want me to turn you over to the national banking commission, I would suggest you drag your greasy carcass down here now!” He slammed the phone into the cradle.
Huffing and puffing and running as if the building were on fire, Otto Riefenstahl appeared down the lobby staircase twelve seconds later.
“Herr Kluge,” he begged obsequiously. “Forgive the error. I was led to understand that you were someone else.” As he mopped his forehead with a sopping handkerchief, he shot an appropriately dissatisfied look at the receptionist.
“My safe-deposit box,” Kluge said, jaw clenched tightly. His eyes shot fiery daggers at the portly bank manager.
“Of course.” The man smiled nervously.
Riefenstahl waddled rapidly away from the desk. Kluge followed, hands clasped behind his back, fingers clenching and unclenching anxiously.
They detoured around the teller windows, heading through a doorway at the end of the long row of glass-enclosed booths. A long hallway lined with several offices led to yet another door—this one polished steel. Riefenstahl used a special key from a chain hooked to his ample midsection to gain admittance into the room.
A short hallway led to a bare archway. This opened into a large inner room. The bank’s safe-deposit boxes were lined up along three of the four walls. There were hundreds of simple metal doors, each with two slots designed for two separate keys.
It was always cool in here, even in the summer. In winter, it was worse. Kluge shivered as they passed the rows of identical boxes and walked over to the larger cabinets that lined the narrowest wall. These were as big and plain as high-school lockers.
“Which was it, Herr Kluge?” Riefenstahl asked nervously.
“Achtzig,” Kluge said.
Riefenstahl went to the eightieth locker and inserted his master key into the right slot. Kluge inserted his own key from the chain he had taken from his pocket.
They turned the keys simultaneously. The locks popped obediently. Kluge pulled down on the handle, and the door sprang open, revealing a large metal box.
“Let me know when you are finished,” Riefenstahl said.
When Kluge said nothing more to him, the grateful bank manager hurried from the chilly room.
Once Riefenstahl was gone, Kluge hefted the large box from the bottom of the locker. Bearing it ahead of him like a sacred relic, he placed it on one of several tables that were arranged around the center of the floor. Inserting the same key he had used on the safe deposit box door, Kluge opened the lock on the top of the large box.
There was not much inside. Just a dusty collection of useless things his father had been proud of. Things that Kluge had never really bothered with since assuming his position as head of IV.
His family’s lineage had been lovingly recorded and preserved. Not that Kluge had ever believed that he was a direct descendant of the Nibelungenlied protagonist Siegfried. The entire history had been recopied sometime at the end of the last century. The pages of the book in which the Kluge family tree had been written were yellowed with age.
Kluge had only recently begun to lend credence to the old stories. Encountering the Sinanju Masters had been the catalyst. If they were real, then perhaps his father’s fanciful stories were true, as well.
Looking down on those pages, he only wished that someone had had the sense of history to save the original manuscripts from which this one book had been compiled. They would have been priceless.
Kluge placed the book to one side.
Aside from the lone manuscript, there was a folded Nazi flag tucked into a corner of the box. A memento of his late father’s war days. There was other assorted junk—the Iron Cross, old letters. Kluge went instinctively to the two letters that were written and signed by Hitler himself. He had always sought these two out, even as a boy. He examined their dog-eared edges for a moment before putting them aside.
It was a paltry pile of useless junk.
The item Kluge had been looking for was at the bottom. Atop it, half-tucked into a yellowed envelope, was an old photograph.
Kluge picked up the envelope. Pulling the photo out, he examined it carefully.
He was disappointed to find that it was not as he hoped it would be. Most of the details of the map were clear; however, there had been an unintentional blurring in the lower right-hand corner of the picture.
He cursed himself inwardly for not being certain the box containing the IV section of the map had been spirited away with the rest of his personal belongings. There had been so much planning at the end, and—truth be told—even though he imagined early on that the village was doomed, he had never expected that the men from Sinanju would find a way to bankrupt the secret Nazi group. He had always thought to set up IV elsewhere. Now that his businesses were gone and he was forced to resort to archaeological sleuthing, all he had to go on was a blurry old photograph.
Well, not all, he realized.
The final item in the box was in an old black felt bag, which Kluge lifted gently from the bottom of the metal container. Unknotting the dingy cord at the neck of the bag, Kluge slipped a flat square object from inside.
Kluge examined the details of his family’s section of the Siegfried block carving. It was in excellent shape. Better shape, in fact, than the IV square.
That piece of the puzzle—now missing—had been collected by his father during the height of Nazi Germany’s power. The descendants of Hagan’s family were weak. And, as an odd quirk of fate would have it, they had found themselves at that unfortunate time in history to be of a particular religious sect that was not in line with the progressive reforms of the fascist government.
After they were dead, Kluge’s father had pillaged their belongings. His search had turned up not only the block carving, but also the stained-glass windows which would eventually be installed at the South American fortress of IV.
Kluge supposed he owed the Hagan family a favor. If not for the picture of Siegfried holding a piece of the block in that window, he might never have realized the significance of the sections already in his possession.
Kluge quickly slipped the block, as well as the picture of the missing piece, inside the cloth bag. Replacing the other items inside the safe-deposit box, he secured the lid. He put the container back inside the locker, shutting the door tightly.
After he locked the door, he collected the black bag from the table.
Though the Hagan block was no longer in his possession, he did have a photograph of it. That, along with his family’s section and the Sinanju section so thoughtfully provided by Keijo Suk, had already given him a fairly strong idea where the treasure might be hidden.
But he needed to know for certain. There was one section left. And Adolf Kluge knew where it would be.
He hurried from the room, not bothering to tell the obese bank manager Riefenstahl that he was through.
Chapter Seventeen
The North Korean government was surprisingly generous in loaning its plane to the Master of Sinanju and his party. Provided, of course, that the Master of Sinanju not blame the actions of Keijo Suk on the North Korean government.
Via the pilot’s radio, Chiun had flatly stated that there would be no provisions. Government authorities had said that this was good, too, and told the pilot to do as he was told.
The jet had been cheerily refueled and allowed to take off from Pyongyang airport without delay. To Remo’s delight and Chiun’s dismay, there were no British situation comedies being played on the plane.
The long flight back to Germany was uneventful.
As the plane finally began its descent over Berlin, Remo looked out the window at the rapidly growing rooftops.
“It feels like we just left here,” he griped.
“I will not complain,” Heidi said in her soft Spanish accent. “I spend far too little time here.”
“Do not talk of spending, swindler,” Chiun accused from the seat behind them.
“Is he going to start again?” Heidi asked Remo.
“One thing you should know about him,” Remo explained. “He may quiet down for a continent or two, but he never really stops.”
“Really, Remo, I do not know why you would converse with this flimflammer,” Chiun called over the top of the seat. “We merely agreed to do business with her—we do not have to be nice to her. Look on her as you would a rat catcher or the Rooty Rotor man.”
“This is your deal, Little Father,” Remo reminded him. “At this point I’m just going along to zap Kluge.”
“Remember that when we find the gold,” Chiun cautioned. With that, the Master of Sinanju fell silent.
Remo rolled his eyes. “If we find it,” he muttered.
“We have three-quarters of the map,” Heidi reminded him. “Success may be in our grasp.” She nodded serenely. “It is as it was intended to be.”
“How so?” Remo asked, bored. He was looking out the window for the regimented runway lines of Tegel Airport.
“Siegfried was actually quite clever,” Heidi said. “According to my family records, which date back to the time the carving was made, Siegfried wished that the money be divided equitably at the time of his passing. His son would have a segment, as well as each of our ancestors. At the time of his death, the location of the fourth piece would be revealed and the three interested parties would be able to find the Hoard. We could then divide it in thirds.”
Behind them, Chiun snorted. “Poppycock,” he volunteered.
Heidi pressed ahead. “With our two factions united, we need only bring aboard the descendant of Siegfried. If he is willing, we could all be much richer by morning.”
“Wait a minute,” Remo said, spinning away from the window. “You’re not talking about cutting a deal with Kluge?”
“If necessary,” Heidi admitted.
“Any separate deals you make will come out of your fifty percent,” Chiun piped in.
“Think of another option,” Remo told Heidi. She shrugged.
“We do not necessarily need to make a deal,” she suggested. “As long as we acquire his portion of the block carving.”
“No deals,” Remo said firmly. He turned back to the small window. The airport runway was racing rapidly up to meet them.
Heidi sighed. “As you wish. It is a shame, however. We have come so far to fulfill the wishes of an ancient hero. This quest was intended by Siegfried to be a group effort by those deserving of the treasure.”
“I deserve it all,” called the Master of Sinanju’s squeaky voice.
The Korean jet touched down with a heavy jounce and a shriek of tires.
. . .
As he waited in the car, Hirn Zeitzler touched the small flesh-colored bandage on his nose with delicate fingertips.
It still hurt, but nowhere near as much as it had when his nose rings had been ripped out.
That was two weeks ago.
Two weeks since the killer with the dead eyes had assaulted Hirn and his neo-Nazi friends in the Schweinebraten Bier Hall in Juterbog. Two weeks since the same man had killed Gus Holloway and Kempten Olmutz-Hohenzollerkirchen. Two weeks since the deaths of Nazi sympathizers had stopped. The assassin was obviously gone.
And with his departure, those who had been lucky enough to survive his attacks had woven tales of great heroism in which they played the dual role of both victim and hero.
Hirn’s nose had been shredded so badly that it had required more than forty stitches to piece it back together. He had spent much of the past two weeks in great pain and with his proboscis swathed lavishly in gauze bandages. However, any discomfort he may have felt was not enough to stop Hirn from claiming that he was one of the ones who had stopped the assassin in his tracks.
Since the attacks by the killer had ceased after his encounter with Hirn, he felt safe making this boast.
Of course, he had had the good sense to wait a week and a half before bringing it up among the neo-Nazi beer-hall circuit. After all, Hirn wasn’t completely stupid. The last thing he wanted was to invite the angry return of the man who had liberated him of not only his nose rings, but also of much of the cartilaginous ridge between his nasal hemispheres.
Once he had begun weaving his tall tales, it had taken just under two days for Hirn to actually begin believing his own stories concerning his deadly encounter with the mysterious assassin.
As they waited in the car, Hirn and his skinhead companions whiled away the time laughing and cursing as they recounted the story to one another. Each of the men managed to embellish the account further.
One of the other two—a youth named Erwin—had already gotten the remnants of his nose pierced. A silver swastika dangled on a chain from out the cluster of deep red furrows where his skin had been pieced together.
