Chapter 6
Fifteen minutes later, Harold Smith was out of his pajamas, dressed in his familiar gray three-piece suit with attendant Dartmouth tie, and sitting in the more comfortable environs of his Spartan Folcroft administrator's office.
The headache he was experiencing was not as it had been. The pain now was like the ghostly afterimage of the dangerous bout of hydrocephaly. Still, it was enough to remind him of all he had been through.
Smith held firmly to the edge of his desk with one bony hand while with the other he clamped his blue desk phone to one ear. He waited only a few moments for the scrambled satellite call to be picked up by the North Korean embassy in Berlin.
"Apprentice Reigning Master of Sinanju, please," he said to the Korean voice that answered. There was no need for secrecy. A sophisticated program ensured that the call could not be traced back to Folcroft.
It was the word Sinanju that did it. Although the man who answered apparently spoke no English, he dropped the phone the minute it was spoken.
Moments later, Remo's familiar voice came on the line.
"What kept you?" he said by way of introduction.
"Have you lost your mind?" Smith demanded.
"Cripes, what's the matter, Smitty? Someone squirt an extra quart of alum in your enema this morning?"
"Remo, this is serious," Smith insisted. "I have the news on in my office right now." He glanced at the old battered black-and-white TV set. "They are playing videotape of what can only be you and the Master of Sinanju in a highspeed chase with Berlin police."
"Edited or unedited?"
"What?" Smith asked sourly. "Edited, it appears," he said, glancing at the screen. "Why?"
"'Cause over here we're getting the full treatment. They've rebroadcast the whole chase virtually in its entirety a bunch of times since last night."
"Remo, you almost sound proud," Smith said, shocked. "You must know that this is outra-" He froze in midword. "My God," he gasped.
"The gate crash, right?" Remo guessed. "Beautiful piece of driving if I do say so myself."
On the screen of Smith's portable TV, Remo's rental truck had just burst through the twin gates of the Korean embassy. Guards were flung to either side as the truck flipped over, skidding in a spectacular slide up to the front wall of the brick building. Every inch of the incredible crash had been recorded by a German news helicopter.
"This is beyond belief," the CURE director announced. His stomach ached. If his head reeled any more, it would tangle in the phone cord. At this moment, strangulation would be a blessed relief.
"I thought so, too," Remo said proudly. "It was touch and go for a little while there, but we came out of it okay. Except Chiun is a little ticked at me. But he'll get over it."
"No, I will not!" the squeaky voice of the Master of Sinanju yelled from the background.
"Remo," Smith said, trying to infuse his voice with a reasonable tone. It was not easy. "I do not know what to say. You have recklessly and deliberately compromised yourself. According to what I have read, this footage is playing the world over. The German authorities are screaming for your heads."
"Can't do it," Remo said. "Extraterritoriality. As official representatives of the North Korean government we are exempt from the laws of our host nation. That would be Germany. Legally, they can't touch us."
"You are not Korean diplomats," Smith explained slowly.
"I am Korean," Chiun called. "And am quite diplomatic."
"Tell Master Chiun that-semantics notwithstanding-he is absolutely, unequivocally not a representative of the North Korean government," Smith deadpanned.
"You're not a diplomat, Little Father," Remo called.
"Do not 'Little Father' me, flipper of trucks," Chiun snapped back.
"He says he's not talking to me," Remo explained to Smith. "Of course, as usual, that only lasts until he can come up with the next insult."
"Nitwit," Chiun called.
"See?" Remo said.
"This is insane," Smith said, aghast at Remo's flippant attitude. "How can you not realize the seriousness of this situation? My God, Remo, they filmed you."
"Videotaped, actually," Remo said. "And while we're at it-no, they didn't."
"I can see you!" Smith snapped. The image of the battered truck was replaced by a vapid news anchor.
"You see a truck, Smitty," Remo explained patiently. "You didn't see either of our faces. You know how Chiun and I can avoid being shot by cameras."
"That is irrelevant," Smith said. "You are found out. According to reports, the Berlin police have the embassy surrounded. The German government has gotten involved in the situation. North Korea is stonewalling for now, but that will not last. The two of you are sitting in the middle of a growing storm of international scrutiny."
"Not for long," Remo said confidently. "We're getting out tonight."
"How?" Smith asked, instantly wary.
"Don't you worry your pretty little head," Remo said soothingly. "Just rest assured that those police barricades won't stop us. We should be fine on this end as long as we don't get turned in first."
"Is there a danger of that?"
"Unlikely. The ambassador is scared to death of us. He knows all about Sinanju, so he doesn't want to cross us. The guy who worries me is his aide. I think he's with the secret police or something."
Smith closed his eyes as he considered the predicament. "I told you I was not comfortable with your going to the North Korean government for help," he said.
"You're the one who told us we were on our own."
"And I stand by that. CURE's facilities are not at your disposal when you wish to smuggle the Nibelungen Hoard out of Germany," Smith said, restating his earlier position.
"Which is why Chiun turned to North Korea," Remo said. "It's easier this way, Smitty. That dipshit Kim Jong Il pees his pants whenever he hears Chiun's name. He couldn't wait to loan us his personal jet. Diplomatic pouch. No searches. Zip, bang, boom into Pyongyang Airport. Every trip has been flawless. We were home free until today."
Eyes still closed, Smith pinched the bridge of his nose. "How much treasure is left?" he asked wearily.
"Not much," Remo said. "Luckily, we were on our last run. A couple of boxes. Maybe twenty, twenty-five in all. About as big as orange crates."
"You can get them out undetected?"
"Bet on it," Remo said.
"I would prefer not to," Smith said dryly. He exhaled a loud, painful puff of stale air. "Do what you have to as quickly as you possibly can. I want you both off of German soil and back here at the absolute earliest. Is that clear?"
"Not a problem," Remo said amiably. "Consider us already gone. By the way, you don't sound too chipper. How are you feeling, Smitty?"
Smith did not even bother to reply. With an exhausted stretch of his tired arm, he dropped the blue receiver back into the old-fashioned cradle.
Chapter 7
Whenever Dan Bergdorf slept, he had nightmares. The dream pattern was always the same. He was in the middle of some grand disaster movie from the 1970s. Not the actual film itself, but the making of the film. Dan would be on a plane with Burt Lancaster, directing an epic crash. Cameras would roll, Dan would call "Action" and all at once the dummy bomb from props would somehow wind up being real. The explosion would rip through the fuselage, and the plane would make a screaming beeline for the ground thirty thousand feet below. Unlike in the movies, all aboard perished.
Sometimes he was putting out skyscraper fires with Steve McQueen. Other times he was crawling through greasy passageways of a capsized luxury liner with Gene Hackman. Always, the phony disaster would wind up being all too real. At the terrifying moment his dream alter ego perished in whatever the latest calamity might be, Dan would scream himself awake.
Sweating, panting, disoriented, Dan would realize as he came back to his senses that it had all been a bad dream.