Remo squinted at the bridge, uncertainty clouding his features. "Didn't you feel-?"
He never finished the question.
A powerful rumble rose from beneath their feet. The vibrations were different from those of land mines or machine guns. This was something muffled and heavy.
And as both men watched, each one knowing now what Remo had heard, the bridge before them began to collapse.
The carefully buried charges tore huge slabs of the bridge away. The massive chunks of rock tumbled in slow motion to the ravine floor more than a half mile below.
The wide gap the crashing stone left behind was too great for even a Master of Sinanju to traverse.
ADOLF KLUGE removed his finger from the single red button. He turned to Herman.
"We should go," he said. His face was stone. Herman seemed shell-shocked. He nodded numbly to the IV leader. Together, they left the monitor room, heading farther into the bowels of the ancient temple.
REMO RAN back to the village in order to find something to bridge the gap left by the collapsed bridge. He returned after a few moments with a long extension ladder.
Extending the ladder fully, Remo lowered it across the ravine.
Unmindful of the dizzying height, he and Chiun raced across the aluminum ladder and into the temple.
Remo was surprised when they encountered no resistance inside the huge, drafty fortress. He commented on this to the Master of Sinanju.
"This Kluge is wise," Chiun said knowingly as they raced through the cool stone corridors, "Fearful for his life, a prince would ordinarily surround himself with guards. He realized that his greatest safety lay in sending his entire legion against us."
"Fat lot of good it did him," Remo commented. They found the monitor room, which had been abandoned. Remo immediately identified the pungent odor of nervous sweat.
"That way," he said, pointing to a narrow hallway off the large stone room.
He and Chiun ran through the cramped space and into a much larger chamber.
This had been the main sacrificial room for the priests of the ancient temple. A rock stairway led up the side of a huge pyramid-shaped stone structure in the center of the room. The sacrificial pit.
Obviously the previous occupants of the temple hadn't limited themselves to animal oblations. Cracked, brownish human skulls lined the ancient rock steps.
"I love what they've done with the place," Remo said dryly.
"Shh," Chiun hissed. He was listening intently to something distant.
Remo cocked an ear. He heard the sound, as well. It was very faint. And hollow.
Exchanging glances, Remo and Chiun flew side by side up the stairs to the sacrificial pit.
They found what they had expected at the top. There was a deep black hole in which the dead victims of the temple priests had been dumped. Far below-much farther than the floor of the chamber itself--could be seen the reflective glow of dull yellow light.
A steel ladder was attached to the interior stone wall of the pit. Obviously a new addition since the IV occupation of the village.
The noise they had both heard grew fainter as they climbed over the edge of the pit. Propping their hands against either metal side of the ladder, they slid down to the bottom of the pit.
The vertical shaft stabbed deep into the bowels of the mountain. The wide stone floor at the base was rimmed with shattered yellowed bones. Remo and Chiun touched softly to the floor amid the dusty, headless skeletons.
A horizontal shaft ran off from one side of the pit. They followed the ancient escape route down a gradually declining tunnel. Emerging into sunlight a few moments later, they found themselves on a hollowed, level plateau, rimmed on nearly all sides by mountains. Only a narrow path appeared to lead down to the valley below.
But it was not the path that would have carried Adolf Kluge to safety.
The noise they had heard from inside was so indistinct by now as to be only a mocking memory. Remo's jaw clenched in helpless rage as his gaze settled on the well-tended and empty helipad that had been constructed on the plateau.
As the echoes of the helicopter's rotor blades faded, Remo became aware of another noise coming from behind them. He didn't even turn around as Heidi Stolpe burst, panting, from the mouth of the long tunnel.
"Where have you been?" he snarled. He was still staring up at the empty sky.
"Hiding," she said, breathless. She adjusted her backpack. "There was a soldier in the house you threw me into. I barely escaped with my life."
"You're not the only one," Remo said.
Heidi also detected the faint sound of the helicopter. As she strained to hear, the sound was swallowed up by the mountains. Kluge was gone.
Wordlessly Remo wheeled back around to the tunnel's circular black mouth. As he did so, there was an angry rumble from within the dark cave.
The explosions came one right after another. The bombs had been placed midway up the length of the tunnel. As they were detonated from some remote location-presumably the helicopter-their force ripped apart the long rock cavern.
With a shudder of earth, the tunnel collapsed, sealing them outside the quickest route back to the IV village. A thick cloud of dust belched out in a massive mocking blast onto the elevated rock face on which they all stood.
"Perfect," Remo snapped.
It would take forever to climb back up the side of the cliff. The path was out of the question. The valley circled too far around the broad bases of several converging mountains. That route could take days. And there was the matter of Heidi. Remo looked dully at her.
"Um..." she said. She looked first to the path, then to the rocky cliff face.
Chiun had turned away in disgust. He was already scaling the mountain face up toward the flat rear wall of the huge temple.
Heidi smiled wanly. "Could you...?" Sheepishly she pointed up toward Chiun.
Remo considered leaving her there. But his conscience got the better of him. "Let's go," Remo said with a deep sigh. Hefting Heidi up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, he stepped over to the sheer rock face.
Trailing the Master of Sinanju, Remo began the tedious climb back up to the top of the mountain.
OVER THE COURSE of the next three days, Remo and Chiun searched for Adolf Kluge in vain. The trail was cold.
Heidi left for parts unknown. The Master of Sinanju eventually hunkered down in their hotel in Uruguay, refusing to involve himself in yet another wild-goose chase.
Smith had no luck finding the fugitive head of IV with the CURE computers. Eventually, he admitted defeat.
With great reluctance, Harold Smith ordered Remo and Chiun home.
Chapter 10
When Keijo Suk accepted the money with a promise of more, he didn't know it was all the man had left in the world. He immediately deposited the large sum of cash in one of Berlin's many impressive Western banks.
If Suk had so chosen, he could have left it at that. The man who had given him the money had a desperate, hunted look about him. His clothes were disheveled, his hair unkempt. It looked as if he hadn't slept in days. Dark semicircles rimmed his watery blue eyes. If Suk had kept the cash without performing the requested service, he doubted the man would be able to do much to stop him. But the man had surprised him.
"You will not be able to take so much with you back to your country," he had said.
Suk only nodded. Already he had decided in his head which bank the money would go into.
"You will likely leave it here," the man continued.
Again, Suk silently agreed.
"If you attempt to keep the money without supplying me with that for which I have retained you, I will turn you over to the authorities of your country. I am certain they will want to know how you came to have so much in an illegal bank account."
The look in the man's sleepless eyes convinced Suk that he was telling the truth.