"Yadda, yadda, yadda," Remo grumbled to Smith. His face held the look of a man totally devoid of enthusiasm.
Hands in his pockets, Remo followed Chiun reluctantly from the office.
Chapter 12
Adolf Kluge was born in La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina.
In spite of the fact that it was the country's national language, Kluge hadn't heard a word of Spanish spoken until he was nearly seven years old. By that time, he already knew that he was different from the people around him.
No. Not just different. Adolf Kluge was better. Even before he could walk, the parents of young Adolf had taught their precious blue-eyed offspring that he was superior to all others. This-he would come to realize later in life-included them.
His proud Nazi parents had fled their homeland during the persecution that came in the wake of the Second World War. Wounded in the early days of the Polish incursion, his father had sat out the war as nothing more than an SS bureaucrat. If the brutality of the Nazi secret police force had never come to light, he might have been able to resume his anonymous life after the war. Unfortunately for the senior Kluge, his name turned up in several key files concerning the torture and deaths of dozens of suspected Allied spies. He had been forced to flee to South America in order to escape prosecution.
The Nazis of Argentina were a close-knit group. They lived together, socialized only with their peers, married one another and raised their children in the old way. And, most of all, they kept the Nazi dream of global domination alive long after the world thought a stake had been driven through its evil heart.
Kluge was born in the early 1950s into a community fueled by bitter hatreds and a festering, impotent rage at the treatment it received from the outside world.
As the community of Nazi exiles grew, so did its members' desire for a place to call home. Germany was out of the question. None of them could ever go back. Not under the climate that dominated so much of world opinion.
It was more than ten full years after the fall of Berlin that IV village was established. As a boy, Kluge remembered driving up with his parents to see the homes under construction. To the little child who had seen his parents' beloved homeland only in old photographs, it was as if they had somehow magically driven across the Atlantic and into the mountains of Bavaria. The funds looted by Hitler's regime and held by Swiss bankers had been used to re-create a small scrap of Germany for that nation's most pitiful outcasts.
Adolf Kluge would never forget how his father had stopped their car in the shade of the old stone fortress. As his mother stared in silence at the homes beyond the large open field, his father wept openly at the sight of the picturesque little houses.
Kluge would never forget the feeling of contempt his father's emotional outburst had raised in him. For, at the tender age of five, Adolf Kluge was as insufferably arrogant as he was intelligent.
Some people grew to rebel against that which they had been taught as children. Not Kluge. He fervently believed in the idea of the master race. He also fervently believed in his role as its eventual leader, a belief that became his driving ambition.
At the private German-only school he attended as a youth alongside the children of other refugee Nazis, he achieved the highest honors of any student in its history. He excelled at languages, mastering more than a dozen tongues by the time he graduated high school.
Kluge was sent to college abroad, studying in both England and the United States. The honors he received while away at school were such that, when his education was finally complete, he had left no doubt in the minds of his fellow villagers that he was the future of IV.
As the years peeled away, Kluge assumed a small position on the leadership council of the village. At that time, IV was still dominated by old-timers who thought that the vaunted Fourth Reich was on the verge of unfolding. Kluge knew that this was insanity. The old fools refused to admit to the political realities of an ever changing world. If IV was to survive, it would have to adapt.
Eventually and not unexpectedly, Adolf Kluge rose to his position as leader of IV. He was only the third in its history-the first from his generation.
At this point in his life, he no longer felt compelled to flaunt his superiority. Rather, he simply excelled at everything he put his mind to.
The life-styles of everyone in the village were enhanced because of Kluge's prudent investments. Unfortunately for the old surviving hard-liners, Adolf Kluge veered away from the principles of IV's founding.
Even though he was dedicated in spirit to the principles of Adolf Hitler, Kluge recognized the futility of trying to establish the Fourth Reich in the way IV's founders intended.
No one in the village seemed truly bothered by Kluge's leadership. Oh, they would scream and yell about the wrong-headed turn their nation of origin had taken, but they always returned to their cozy homes and warm meals. As long as their needs were met and their bellies were full, they didn't question the leadership of Adolf Kluge.
Until Nils Schatz.
One of the last of the original founders, Schatz had used stolen IV money to finance an invasion of Paris in a scheme that at its inception was doomed to fail. This maniac had brought the House of Sinanju down on all their heads.
Schatz was dead now, but his legacy lived on. It was a waking nightmare.
The money was all gone. The bank accounts were empty. The stocks and bonds were inaccessible. The companies were all under investigation. All IV assets were frozen.
Kluge thought he had been careful to cover his tracks. He should have known. Given the timetable under which he had been forced to work, something must have been left.
To his knowledge, every last scrap of information in the village had been destroyed. But some small thing must have survived. And whoever the men from Sinanju were working for had used that single thread to unravel the entire IV financial fabric.
IV was destitute. As was its leader.
With the companies all gone, Kluge had only a paltry hundred thousand dollars at his disposal. It was his innate intelligence that made him open the lone bank account in Germany. But it was his supreme arrogance that told him to put so little into it. Now even that money was gone.
He had spent nearly every cent he had on a ridiculous dream. A bedtime story.
But, in the end, it was all he had.
Kluge sat alone in the back of the Berlin restaurant, lamenting the sad turn his fortunes had taken. When he went abroad, he was used to dining in only the finest eating establishments. The place he was in today was part of a fast-food chain brought over from America. The thick smell of grease made his gourmet stomach churn.
Kluge kept his breathing shallow as he tried not to think about his sorry fate, but of course he couldn't help but dwell on it.
It was desperation.
IV would have been insolvent years ago if not for his leadership. His labors had always guaranteed him a lavish life-style. That life-style had been taken away from him in a flash. He could never hope to reclaim it without great risk.
But this risk...
It was insanity. Utter, foolish insanity. Yet what choice did he have?
Kluge's heart skipped a beat as he saw a familiar face pass before the brightly painted window. Keijo Suk glanced in once as he passed by before continuing along the sidewalk.
A minute later, he was inside the restaurant. Walking briskly across the virtually empty dining area, Suk slid into the booth across from Kluge. His fat face was flushed.
"You were successful," Kluge said. He stared at the wrapped package the man had placed on the table between them.
Keijo Suk nodded. "It was much easier than I thought." The Korean grinned and pushed the bundle over to Kluge.