He chose not to be voyeuristic.
Abandoning the personal note, Smith scanned quickly through the rest of the mail. He was about to deem his search a failure and move on when he found something startling nestled comfortably between a pair of interoffice memos. Smith blinked in surprise, for a moment forgetting the dull, constant ache in his head.
IV.
The Roman numeral leaped out at him, mocking him from beneath the neat rows of letters lined up on his high-tech computer screen.
Smith scanned the electronic note. With each line, his eyes grew wider behind his rimless glasses. After he was finished reading, he backed out of the system and dived quickly into the E-mail of some of the other large Frankfurt brokerage firms. The same note had been sent to each. At the bottom of every letter was the same legend: "IV." Smith was acutely aware of his headache now. It pounded in sharp, furious bursts at the back of his skull as he exited the last of the German stockmarket computers.
He had thought he had finished them. They had no funds. Smith had been so very careful in his market manipulations. Certainly some unlucky investors had experienced losses, but he had averted a major downward turn with his deft handling of the IV accounts.
Now it might all have been for naught.
On another level, it concerned Smith that so many powerful men in Germany had been aware of IV for years and kept silent. It didn't reflect well on a nation trying to crawl out from under its fifty-year-old past.
Obviously the news contained in the E-mail had not yet exploded on the European trading floors. But it had leaked out. And the hesitation in the day's market was the result.
The reluctance to accept the fanciful tale at face value was probably the only thing that had saved the world market from collapse. But if the rumors contained in the memo proved true, the panic would be worldwide. For in the end, the stock market would react however the stock market chose to react. Smith would be helpless to avert a total meltdown.
But for now, there was still cause for hope. By the sound of his last phone conversation with the CURE director, Remo was already in the thick of things.
The future of the world's economic stability-and, by extension, civilization itself-was in the hands of CURE's enforcement arm. Harold Smith only hoped that Remo was up to the challenge.
Chapter 21
Remo sat on his private, second-story balcony at the vine-covered side of the Pension Kirchmann. The empty road leading into the Black Forest snaked off around a tree-shrouded bend far away. There had been no traffic on the desolate path since Chiun's caravan had left eight hours ago.
All Remo could do was wait.
On the floor of the balcony before his chair were several handfuls of small stones. Until an hour before, they had rested in a large decorative clay pot near the black-painted wrought-iron railing.
Remo had dumped the stones out where they could be easily reached. Bored, he would occasionally flick one with the toe of his loafer. The trunk of a tree at the side of the yard had borne the brunt of the deadly missiles.
The resulting clap as each stone hit and burrowed inside the tree was enough to draw a few increasingly curious guests from the warmth of the lodge. Two swore they had heard gunshots. Suspicious eyes strayed in Remo's direction.
Whenever they looked up from the lawn, Remo would shrug his confusion and pretend to search the treetops. Each time they would eventually give up and return to the inn. The last time they had gone inside was barely two minutes before.
Remo was pulling another rock into firing position when the room phone squawked at his elbow. Not wanting to get up from his chair, he had placed it on the cheap metal table next to him. Remo hefted the phone to his ear, at the same time snapping his toe into the next stone in line.
The rock took off like a shot. It moved in a blur, cracking audibly into the thick black tree trunk. There was a shouted voice from below. "Remo?" asked the puzzled voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith. Since lifting the receiver, Remo had failed to speak.
"Just a minute, Smitty," Remo whispered, leaning forward.
A group of lumpy Germans and Continental tourists came bustling into view below him. They were pointing at the woods and chattering excitedly to one another.
Two of them were dressed in khaki clothing. These took off through the underbrush. There was crashing and shouting as they stumbled and panted out of sight.
Their labors had a comforting effect on Remo. "Yeah, Smitty," he said. "How'd you track me down?"
In the distance, the hunters still labored through the woods.
"Your credit card," Smith explained quickly. "Are you and Chiun still searching for the Nibelungen Hoard?"
"It's always right to the chase with you, isn't it?" Remo said. He toed another rock into place. With a sharp kick, he launched it into the forest. There was renewed shouting as the stone struck a tree much farther in.
"Remo, I need to know," Smith demanded urgently.
"I'm not," Remo replied. "Chiun is."
"He is not with you?"
"Nope."
"Have you any idea where he has gone?"
"Into the Black Forest," Remo said. "Which isn't really all forest. Did you know that?"
"Yes," Smith said tersely.
"Really? 'Cause I didn't."
"Remo, I have come across information that indicates that Four is also in search of the Hoard. They plan to disrupt the economy of Germany by dumping the treasure onto the market all at once."
"So what?" Remo said. "I thought America was supposed to be all worried about Germany's big-shot new economy. I say let 'em wreck it."
"It is not that simple," Smith said. "There is an interconnectedness among economies in the modern age. And Germany's is one of the most complex of the Western world. If it topples, it could bring the rest down with it."
"Again," Remo said, "so what?"
"It could be the dawn of a new Dark Ages."
"Sinanju survived the first Dark Ages," Remo countered. "In fact, Chiun would probably be happy if the world economy collapsed. There'd be a whole slew of regional despots vying for our attention. It'd be an assassin's feeding frenzy."
Remo could hear Smith taking patient, calming breaths. He heard the rattle of one of Smith's pill bottles. The CURE director had just downed a few more baby aspirins.
"Remo," he said levelly, after the pills had gone down, "please be serious. Things could very well be as you say. If the world economy collapses, the type of people who would stand to benefit the most are those least suited to lead. We have encountered men from Four twice before. I cannot believe that you would want the likes of them leading the world. And I find it less likely that you would want to work for them."
Remo frowned. "You got that right."
Smith persisted. "Chiun, on the other hand, would have no such reservations. If he chose to throw in with Four, there would be an inevitable rift between the two of you."
"Where were you yesterday?" Remo muttered.
"What do you mean?" Smith asked.
"I mean it's already too late. Chiun took off this morning into the Black Forest with Adolf Kluge's band of merry Nazis to find the lost pile of gold." "You actually met Kluge?" Smith asked, shocked.
"So did you, Smitty," Remo said. "He's the guy who cracked you over the noggin in Paris. He's teamed up with Chiun and that girl we met in South America. They're going to divvy up the prize when they find it."
Smith was attempting to absorb this information. "You cannot allow that to happen," Smith urged. His lemony voice was tight with concern.
"Too late," Remo said. "The ink's already dry."
"You have to stop them, Remo," Smith insisted. "Chiun wouldn't listen," Remo explained, sighing. "He'd just be ticked at me for keeping him from his precious gold."
"Remo, I am ordering you to find Adolf Kluge and kill him." The serious treatment Smith was giving this was evident by his choice of words. Ordinarily he would substitute a euphemism for the distasteful kill.