The demonic yellow glow in the eyes of Sun grew weak, as well. It died momentarily, like twin vanishing embers in a spectral fire.
Sun looked away from Princippi, across one of the governor's weak shoulders. "The Boston Museum of Rare Arts," he said sharply. "Greek room. Not on display. It is in a rear chamber with other artifacts. Go."
Roseflower and two of the other men left wordlessly. The rest stayed.
The former governor and presidential candidate knew precisely what it was Sun had sent the men to retrieve. He had donated it to the museum himself. Somehow, Sun had gleaned this from his own thoughts.
"Now we wait," Sun said. He walked back around his desk, settling into his chair.
Princippi spoke freely now, without reservation. "You know the people who were involved with this before are either dead or aren't talking. No one wants to be linked to the Truth Church or the crazies who ran it. It's over." He said this last bit as a warning.
"That is where you are wrong, Governor," Man Hyung Sun announced with certainty. He folded his hands with calm precision on the surface of his gleaming mahogany desk. "It has only just begun."
Sun gave him a smile so disconcerting it made Princippi want to dash for the nearest urinal.
Chapter 4
The truck careered wildly down Kantstrasse. The Theater des Westens soared past on the left as Remo floored the big vehicle. He aimed for the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
"Hold on!" he yelled.
Without shifting gears, he whipped around the sharp corner and out across Kurfurstendamm. Cars driving in both directions slammed on brakes or swerved from the path of the seemingly out-of-control truck.
From around the facade of the huge church, dozens of tiny police cars soared. Bumping into one another, grinding paint on paint, they bunched up again. Like a swarm of angry wasps, they roared in the direction of the runaway truck, lights and sirens flashing and wailing.
Remo had taken the curve too sharply. The right wheels of the truck bounced once against the curb and began rising slowly into the air. The world took on a weird angled look as the vehicle began to tilt onto Remo's side.
"Lean over!" Remo commanded. Still holding the wheel, he flung himself toward the Master of Sinanju.
"Do not get too familiar," Chiun complained as the back of Remo's head popped into his field of vision. He tipped his own head to see around it.
"Dammit, Chiun, lean!" Remo commanded. Still on two wheels, they had managed to cross over to Tauenzienstrasse.
"You told me to hold on," Chiun pointed out. Though they had been outrunning the police for more than ten minutes, he was still as calm as a crystal pool.
"It was a figure of speech!" Remo yelled. "Lean!" He felt the van moving farther over. Another few seconds and they would be flat on one side and skidding at a hundred miles per hour.
Chiun sighed. "Very well." He tilted toward his door.
The Master of Sinanju's ninety-pound frame seemed to do the trick. With his weight added to Remo's, the truck collapsed back onto all four wheels, settling in an angry bounce of tires and grinding shocks.
Something broke free from beneath the truck. In the side-view mirror, it seemed to skip back into their wake and beneath the tires of one of the leading police cars.
As it bounced over the long strip of twisted metal, rubber erupted in hot bursts from both sides of the police cruiser. The car did a perfect 180-degree turn into the nose of another oncoming cruiser.
The crash was spectacular. A dozen police cars slammed into one another, buckling and crumpling like paper cups. The rest skipped around the huge crash site, driving even more determinedly after Remo.
"I hope they've got air bags," Remo commented as the horrid scene faded to a rapid speck behind them.
"They eat a diet of pastry and pork," Chiun explained indifferently. "Germans are their own air bags."
"You realize if they catch us they're going to find him in the back," Remo said. He jerked his head over his shoulder to indicate where various body parts of the dead Burg police officer were even now bouncing around amid the remnants of the Nibelungen Hoard.
"They had better not catch us," Chiun warned.
"I'm doing my best," Remo said, irritated.
He swerved in and out of traffic as he drove wildly down the wide street. Cars seemed to move almost instinctively out of his way. Those that did not were batted by the fenders of the truck. The metal was already a crumpled mess.
"That cop's brother must have ratted us out," Remo said, narrowly avoiding a collision with a van that was pulling out of a side street. The other vehicle slammed on its brakes. "Either that or somebody saw us at the cop car."
"I was nowhere near the constable's vehicle," Chiun pointed out. "I am innocent in that matter."
"Yeah, you only killed him," Remo snapped sourly.
"Oh, of course," Chiun sniffed. "Blame me for the dead highwayman. How like you, Remo."
"You killed him!" Remo snapped.
"A technicality," Chiun said dismissively. "Do not assault my delicate ears with trivialities."
"I've got another triviality for you," Remo said. "Your buddies aren't going to be too happy to see us show up with all of this going on around us."
"Do not concern yourself with them," Chiun said with certainty. "They will do as they are told."
"You hope," Remo said.
He cut around another sharp corner, more slowly this time. The truck's tires remained firmly on the street; however, the pursuing police cars seemed to leap dramatically ahead. They buzzed around the corner and into Remo's wake.
"This road appears closed," Chiun mentioned.
Remo had gotten the same impression. There was no vehicular traffic on the long thoroughfare. It hadn't been this way during any of his other trips. Far up ahead, Remo thought he saw why.
"Is that what I think it is?" he said anxiously.
"Where?" Chiun asked, peering through the windshield like a Gypsy looking into the heart of a crystal ball. "Before the line of parked police vehicles or after it?"
"That's what I thought," Remo groaned.
He could see them clearly now. There were two rows of them. One lined up before the other. They stretched from one side of the street to the other, effectively blocking the avenue to through traffic.
Berlin police officers were standing with rifles before the cars, faces taut. Hazy rain dribbled across the stabs of flashing blue light issuing from the roofs of the dozens of parked cruisers.
"We could bail out here," Remo suggested rapidly. "They'd never catch us."
"And abandon my treasure to these stickyfingered Huns?" Chiun asked, incredulous. "Never!"
"That's what I thought you'd say," Remo sighed. He hunched down behind the steering wheel. "Brace for impact."
When it became obvious that the truck was not going to slow down, the order to fire was given by the commanding officer on the scene. The gunfire started before they even slammed into the first line of cars. Rifle fire crackled through the damp evening air.
Quarter-size pockmarks erupted across the nose of the rushing truck. The windshield spiderwebbed then shattered in a spray of thick greenish chunks.
Remo and Chiun had ducked behind the dash board. Glass exploded across their backs as they tore into the defensive police line.
Berlin police scattered out of the path of the truck like timid matadors from a crazed bull. The vehicle lurched as it slammed the first row of cars. Bullets riddled the doors and side panels as the large truck roared past.
Fortunately for Remo, the police cars were of the small European style. They were flung from the crumpling nose of the truck as it plowed forward into the second line. It pushed these aside, as well. More slowly now, it continued onward, bullets and shouts following it.