Failing Marks, page 6
Already fatigued by the battle not yet fought, he got up from the bed.
. . .
It turned out rousting Chiun was not as difficult as Remo imagined it would be.
The Master of Sinanju’s umpteenth viewing of the same British sitcom episode ended an hour before their flight was scheduled to leave from Tegel Airport. Remo rounded up the seven steamer trunks Chiun had brought from the United States and herded them into two small European taxis. Remo and Chiun followed in a third cab.
As they drove through Berlin’s crowded post-twilight streets, the Master of Sinanju detailed all that had occurred on the television while Remo was talking to Smith.
“When the ugly British woman removed the fowl from his head, he found to his delight that the item he sought was in his very mouth.”
“Uh-huh,” Remo said. He stared out the cab window.
“Did I mention that it was his wristwatch?”
“Yes, you did,” Remo sighed.
“I ordinarily do not approve of the use of ornamental timepieces,” Chiun cautioned. “They are for those too slothful to develop the inner clock in the minds of all men. However, for comic purposes it was quite amusing.”
He looked over at his pupil. Remo remained silent. His sharp features were illuminated at regular intervals by Berlin’s streetlights.
“You do not appear to be amused,” Chiun challenged.
Remo shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I saw that show before.”
Chiun raised an eyebrow. “So?”
“So, I couldn’t give a fat flying frig.”
Chiun’s wrinkled face drew into a deep frown. “You do not have a sense of humor,” he accused.
“I do, too,” Remo argued. “The first fifty times I saw those shows, I thought they were funny. But we’ve been in Europe now for over three months, and that’s all every country seems to play, day in and day out. I can’t take anything twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
The harsh frown lines were reshaped into a look of intense pity. “You are a humorless man, Remo Williams,” Chiun pronounced sadly. “I knew it the day we met. Not that you made any effort to hide the fact.”
“I do, too, have a sense of humor,” Remo said defensively.
Chiun raised an instructive finger. His nail was long and fiercely sharp. “If one must say it, it is untrue,” he declared. “For only the humorless man is ever accused of being so.”
Remo could not think of a clever retort. Unfortunately this didn’t prevent him from trying. “Blow it out your ears,” Remo said sullenly. Crossing his arms, he hunched down in the seat and stared at the back of their driver’s head.
Chiun clutched at his heart. “Oh, I am stung by your piercing wit,” he moaned histrionically. “Forgive me, O King of Comedy, for ever doubting your jovial soul.” The Master of Sinanju smiled happily, pleased at having made his point.
Remo felt the blood rise in his cheeks.
“Is it any wonder I’m annoyed right now?” he groused. “You ditched me weeks ago for that hotel idiot box. I’ve been clomping alone around this backward excuse for a country whacking every knockwurst-fueled spike-hat I find, while you’ve been having a hey-ho time watching Brit-coms and ordering room service. So forgive me, Chiun, if I’ve lost my goddamned sense of humor.”
“I did not accompany you because I lost interest,” Chiun said simply. “We are assassins, not exterminators. Smith had you scouring the countryside for all manner of vermin. In Germany, that could be a lifetime’s occupation. And as for your second point—” the impish smile returned, “—one cannot lose what one never had.”
The elderly Korean settled placidly back into the taxi’s seat.
Beside him, Remo racked his brain for something witty to say. Most everything he came up with, however, involved surly references to biological functions. Any of these would doubtless inspire further derisive comments from Chiun.
With great reluctance, Remo remained mute for the remainder of their trip to the airport.
. . .
While Remo had made a deliberate choice to remain mute for the duration of his ride to Berlin’s airport, the man who intended to kill him had been born that way.
The assassin had been sent from the IV village, accompanied by three colleagues.
Lounging around the main terminal building of Berlin’s Tegel Airport, the four of them were an odd sight. The casual observer would have assumed they were related somehow. And in a very real way, they were.
In order to keep the curious at bay, an attempt had been made to differentiate between them.
One had long hair and was dressed casually in blue jeans and denim jacket. Beneath the coat was a red flannel shirt.
Another man wore dark sunglasses and a tweed blazer. His hair had been pulled back into a ponytail and tucked down behind his jacket collar.
The hair of the third had been cut short. He wore a conservative business suit and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
The well seemed to have run dry with the fourth. He, too, wore a business suit, though of a different color than the third man. He had been allowed to keep his hair long, but not at the same length as the first two. It was trimmed and moussed and parted neatly in the middle like a young Hollywood star.
Even after all the effort at disguise, close inspection revealed a rather startling fact. These men did not simply look alike; they were each identical to the next.
Four interchangeable muscular young men with perfectly chiseled Aryan features.
The man in blue jeans was their leader. He watched the glass double doors to the airport terminal with hooded eyes.
They had come here immediately upon receiving their orders from Kluge’s underling, Herman. The four men had sat virtually unmoving for almost three hours. Incapable of speech, they had passed the time in utter silence.
Oddly they didn’t seem agitated in the least. It was as if nervousness or boredom were concepts completely alien to them. They had been given a mission and were waiting with absolute patience to carry out their assignment.
They were closing in on the end of the third hour when their long wait finally came to an end.
The man in blue jeans spotted the short line of cabs as the three vehicles drew up to the curb outside the door.
The first two cabbies sprang out of their cars. One raced to find a pushcart while the other began unloading his cargo of lacquered steamer trunks to the sidewalk. It was as if they had been rehearsed, so precise was their performance.
Remo and Chiun climbed out of the third cab along with their cabbie. Chiun immediately began issuing orders to the remaining drivers.
The blond man with blue jeans tapped once on his seat, and his three colleagues took note of the activity on the sidewalk.
Like well-rehearsed zombies, the trio got up and walked deeper into the terminal. Their leader remained sitting, waiting for the hectic scene on the sidewalk to spill inside.
The missing cabbie returned with a cart. He and the others loaded up the steamer trunks while Chiun flounced between them in his saffron kimono. The Master of Sinanju made copious use of both hands and feet to ensure that his luggage was properly attended to.
In the end, one unlucky driver was chosen to wheel the cart inside. The other two were allowed to leave. Their tiny cabs made smoking rubber stripes on the asphalt in their eagerness to leave before Chiun changed his mind.
Remo and Chiun followed the least lucky cabbie inside the drafty building.
As they walked past the row of plastic seats near the door, the young blond man got to his feet. He trailed the two targets at a discreet distance.
“Use care, lummoxy Teuton,” Chiun clucked angrily when the cab driver hit a bump on the rubber mat that was spread before the baggage check counter. The cabbie cringed, expecting a swat from the old Asian’s lightning-fast hands.
“You going to be okay with this?” Remo asked.
“We are fine,” Chiun said, eyeing the taxi driver with suspicion.
“Okay, I’ll get the tickets,” Remo offered. They separated, each going to an end of the counter. Remo collected the boarding passes Smith had ordered for them. The overly friendly woman behind the desk was more than willing to help Remo and his aged companion. Beaming, she relayed Chiun’s pertinent ticket information via computer to the woman operating the baggage-check terminal at the far end of the counter.
“Iss dere someting else?” she asked with a lascivious grin. It was clear from the look on her face that she would have invaded Poland for him.
The look she gave him sparked a thought.
“Actually there is,” Remo said.
The woman squealed in delight. “I get off at nine. Actually I can get off right now. I’ll be sick. Or I could qvit. I’ll qvit. I qvit!” she shouted to no one in particular. A few faces turned her way.
“No,” Remo said, easing the woman back behind her computer. She had been climbing over the counter to get to him. “I was just wondering about the menu on the flight.”
“Oh.” The woman seemed crestfallen. When she glanced around, she saw that the few people who had looked at her were already looking away. Forcing a businesslike air, she studied her computer. “Ve haff bratwurst and sauerbraten sandwiches. Braunschweiger or wienerwurst. Unt beer.”
“Any way of getting some shark meat?”
Remo was surprised when the woman nodded. “Ve haff koenigsberger klops,” she offered helpfully.
“Is that shark?”
“German meatballs,” the woman said.
He saw now that she was only half listening to him. She was staring at his crotch even as she tried to work.
“You’re drooling on your keyboard,” Remo observed.
“Vant to sit on it unt dry it?” She grinned lewdly at him as she tapped the counter.
“Tell you what—you start, and I’ll catch up with you.”
The woman did not need to be told a second time. In an instant, she was off the floor. Her Bavarian backside mashed her damp keyboard. As she slid from side to side like a human mop, Remo gathered up his and Chiun’s tickets.
As he walked back over to the Master of Sinanju, he noticed that the woman had scrawled her telephone number on the bottom of his ticket. He rubbed his thumb against the handwriting, exciting the particles of ink at the atomic level. By the time he reached Chiun, the pen marks had faded to invisibility.
Chiun had just finished supervising the passing of his luggage through the square hole in the side of the counter. He was dismissing the grateful cab driver as Remo sauntered up beside him.
“I suppose I don’t have to tell you we’re being watched,” Remo announced.
“Since our arrival,” Chiun said blandly. He studied his last trunk as it slid along the conveyor. Their work in Germany was over. Remo had gotten the information they needed to proceed.
“What do you want to do?” he asked Chiun.
“I wish to leave this land of pastry-eaters in peace.”
“Me, too,” Remo said. “Let’s ignore him.”
Together, they began walking toward the stairs that would take them to their boarding gate.
They had gotten no more than four feet from the counter when the first bullet was fired at them.
It was aimed at Remo’s back. He shifted his weight slightly to his left foot in order to avoid the incoming round. After the bullet had passed harmlessly by, he continued his lazy glide across the main concourse.
The lead projectile thudded between two doors set into the wall beneath the main staircase.
“He’s using a silencer,” Remo commented.
“It is still not silent enough.”
“Not for us, maybe,” Remo said. “But at least no one else can hear it.”
Another two bullets came whizzing in their direction. This time both Remo and Chiun had to dodge the fat lead rounds.
“He’s using a clip.” Remo frowned.
“Should I care?” Chiun asked.
“Dammit, Chiun, a clip holds more rounds. He’s bound to shoot someone by accident before we can get out of here. Crap,” he griped. “What is it with this dingdong country?”
Abruptly Remo dropped back from Chiun, twisting sharply on his left heel. In a flash, he was suddenly walking in the opposite direction.
The shooter obviously had not anticipated a change of course on Remo’s part. He didn’t have time to slow his own brisk pace before he slammed directly into Remo.
“Oh, sorry,” Remo apologized, helping the stumbling man to his feet. As he did so, he tugged the man’s gun free. The would-be killer had secreted the weapon beneath a newspaper that was draped over his hand.
They were near the wall struck by the first fired bullets. A waist-high trash receptacle was sitting next to the men’s-room door. Remo slipped the gun through the metal lid, dropping it into the pile of trash within the barrel.
“Gee, pal, you don’t look so hot,” Remo said.
He took the man by the arm as if to support him. With his free hand, Remo tapped a hard finger against the killer’s chest. Immediately the man’s heart stopped beating. He would have slumped to the floor had Remo not still been holding him upright.
“A little cold water on the face should fix you up,” Remo suggested to the corpse. “Chiun, gimme a minute. This poor guy needs a hand.”
“Do not dawdle,” Chiun urged.
Remo pushed his way through the swinging men’s-room door, carting the body with him. The Master of Sinanju took up a sentry position outside the door.
Inside the bathroom, Remo propped the body up against the line of sinks. He quickly searched the man’s pockets for identification. There was none.
“Great,” Remo muttered unhappily. He stepped back from the corpse, looking more closely at the face. Maybe Smith would have a photo on file that would help identify whoever this had been. Not that it mattered very much at this point.
As he examined the features, something about the man’s face sparked a distant memory.
Leaving the body leaning against the sink, he stuck his head out the bathroom door.
“Hey, Chiun, come in here a minute.”
Frowning, the Master of Sinanju followed Remo into the bathroom. Inside, Remo pointed at the body.
“Does he look familiar to you?” he asked Chiun. Casting a puzzled glance at his pupil, the Master of Sinanju tipped his head, examining the young man’s face. His hazel eyes opened wide almost at once.
“He wears the face of the voiceless lout from the place that robbed us of free will.” The old Korean sounded surprised.
“That’s right,” Remo said, remembering all at once. “He worked for what’s-his-name.” He snapped his fingers. “Holz. He was Holz’s assistant.”
It was six months ago during what they would later learn had been their first brush with IV. That man had been a mute. As Remo inspected the features of the corpse in the Berlin airport he realized that he was the spitting image of the man they had encountered half a year before.
“This is eerie,” Remo said. “That guy is dead.”
“So is this one,” said Chiun. He nodded to the door.
“Yeah,” Remo said, nodding his understanding.
He took the body and stuffed it in one of the bathroom stalls. Slamming his palm against the door, he crushed the metal lock. It would be necessary for airport maintenance to use a welding torch in order to free the body.
“Let’s make like the German band and blow,” Remo suggested.
They hurried back out the rest-room door.
They hadn’t even gone around to the bottom of the escalator before they were again assaulted. This killer attempted to use a dagger.
The man jammed the knife toward Remo’s ribs. Rather than dodge the blade, Remo tightened his muscles at the point of impact, flattening out the skin above as he did so. The knife blade slammed against Remo’s back, but—much to his attacker’s consternation—his back was incredibly unyielding. The knife failed to even puncture Remo’s tight skin.
The abrupt manner in which the knife was stopped caused its wielder to lose his grip. His hand inadvertently skipped up beyond the hilt, gripping down again automatically. Unfortunately the portion of the knife he managed to grab on to was the sharpened, double-edge blade.
Remo was surprised that the man didn’t cry out in pain. His mild surprise turned to utter bewilderment when he turned around to face his attacker.
It was the same man as before. This time the young blond killer wore a sedate blue business suit. His hair was shorter, and a pair of glasses sat atop his nose.
“What the hell?” Remo said, glancing at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju seemed confused, as well. That was good. At least Remo knew he wasn’t going nuts.
The man was bleeding profusely from twin gashes in his hand. Like the first time, Remo gathered the killer up and carted him off to the men’s room. This time he didn’t get as far as the bathroom before the third killer attacked.
This assassin used a high-powered rifle. Unseen by passersby, he was on the upper tier of the terminal building wedged between a pair of tall plastic signs that advertised two competing international credit-card companies.
The silenced bullets from the rifle ripped into the wall beside Remo and Chiun, who fluttered and danced to avoid the spray.
“I will attend to this facsimile,” Chiun announced sharply. Like an orange typhoon, the Master of Sinanju flew toward the escalator to the second floor.
This was getting tricky. Although the people passing through the airport didn’t know exactly what was going on, Remo and his bleeding companion had caught their attention. A few raised curious eyebrows. Fortunately the assassin didn’t ask any of them for help.
“Let me give you a hand,” Remo said, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. He was careful to keep this one alive as he led him into the men’s room.
Remo was positive he had killed the assassin on the first attempt, but had to be certain. Leaving the man to attend to his bloody hand at the sink, Remo peeked under the stall door just in case. The dead killer was still there. His sightless blue eyes stared into Remo’s.
