When he got back up, Remo saw the pursuing police cars winding their way through the twisted wreckage. Wind whipped around his stern face through the open front of the truck. He turned from the side-view mirror.
"This is getting worse and worse," Remo commented. "They'd just better not lock the gates before we can get there," he warned.
Chiun shook his head firmly. "They will not lock the gates," he insisted. "For they would not dare."
"ARE THE GATES SECURE?'' Ambassador Pak Sok asked nervously. He was a squat man with a face as flat as a flying pan bottom. He wiped at his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief.
"Quite secure," replied the ambassador's assistant, who was also an officer of the Public Security Ministry.
Sok did not seem convinced.
It was not that he thought his aide was lying. Although he did not trust his assistant in most matters, Sok knew that he would not lie about something as trivial as a locked gate. He simply was not convinced that a locked gate would make any difference. In fact, it might only make things worse.
As ambassador for Choson Minchu-chuff Inmin Konghwa-guk, otherwise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Sok was his country's highest-ranking diplomat in Germany. He enjoyed all the perks of his posting, including access to Germany's uncensored television broadcasts. It was on the TV that he had seen an image that made his heart sink.
The television was on now, sound down. In the large living room of the North Korean embassy, Sok turned away from the tall multipaned window, looking back at the screen.
A white truck continued to race desperately down Germany's streets, relentlessly pursued by an ever growing convoy of police vehicles. A news helicopter had been following the action from the sky for the past twenty minutes.
To Sok it looked almost like the internationally famous chase that had taken place in America a few years back. But this time the truck was driving at breakneck speed, not at a snail's pace. And there was not an ex-football player cowering in the vehicle. Sok would have preferred that it be an American celebrity unknown to him. Unfortunately, he knew all too well who was in that truck.
"He cannot hope to come here," Ambassador Sok's aide said, watching the screen intently. The truck was racing down familiar streets. It was only a few blocks from the embassy.
"I would hope not," Sok agreed, his voice betraying his jangled nerves. He turned from the television back to the window. His fingers gripped tightly at the thick silk fabric of the red floor-length curtains. Vines crept artfully away from the walls and across strategic portions of windowpane. "You are certain the gates are locked?" the ambassador asked.
"Yes, yes." The aide nodded. He bit a thumbnail as he stared at the TV screen. Eyes growing wide, he suddenly grabbed for the remote control.
Sok heard the gunshots beneath the serious German voice of the reporter. He wheeled around in time to see the truck barrel into a line of parked police cruisers. Cars flew in every direction as the truck pummeled its way through to the other side. It skidded sideways momentarily and then righted itself, racing away from the smashed cars.
"Where is that?" Sok asked.
"About two-"
"Wait," the ambassador demanded, raising a quieting hand. "Turn that down," he ordered.
The aide did as he was told. When the sound had been muted once more, they continued to hear the muffled gunshots. A moment later, Sok's heart sunk as he heard the frantic squeal of tires. Turning back to the TV, he saw the truck finishing up a crazed turn around a very familiar corner.
"They are here," the ambassador said, his voice dead.
"THE GATES ARE CLOSED!" Remo yelled as the truck screamed up to the North Korean embassy.
"They do not leave them open on a normal day," the Master of Sinanju pointed out. Gusts of air from the open windshield whipped fiercely at the gossamer tufts of hair above each ear.
"The guards have guns!" Remo shouted.
"Do they not always?"
"Not pointed at us!" Remo replied.
At least ten embassy guards were standing in the long driveway just inside the closed gate. Kalashnikov rifles jutted through the spaces in the tall wrought-iron fence, aimed directly at the nose of the approaching truck.
Remo's mirror had been picked off by a Berlin police officer. A big enough slab of glass remained that he was able to see the cruisers closing in behind.
"There's not enough time to stop," Remo warned Chiun.
"Do as you must," the Master of Sinanju conceded. "Just do not lose any of my precious treasure."
"That's the least of my worries right now," Remo said.
Turning the wheel sharply to the right, Remo jumped the truck onto the curb at an angle. The big vehicle tipped slightly to one side. Rapidly, he cut the wheel to the left. The vehicle leveled off as it raced across the sidewalk.
Beyond the gates, the eyes of the Korean embassy guards grew wide as the truck barreled remorselessly toward them. As one, the guards opened fire.
They did not have much time to shoot.
The truck crashed the gates a second later, scooping up four guards and flinging them roughly aside. The others scattered like flung jacks into the bushes as the truck flew crazily up the drive.
The brakes were hit the instant the truck struck the gates. Tires screamed in protest as the vehicle screeched toward the ambassador's residence. Black streaks of smoking rubber spread in crazy zigzags as the truck tried frantically to both stop and remain upright while doing so.
In the end, it could not do both.
Halfway up the driveway the big truck toppled over onto its passenger's side. Sparks popped and paint ripped away as the vehicle slid toward the ivy-covered brick walls of the Korean embassy.
Inside the vehicle, Remo and Chiun kept their bodies loose. The moment the truck hit the driveway, they met the impact with an equal repulsive force. They immediately joined with it. The two Masters of Sinanju floated as safely as babies in a pool of amniotic fluid as the truck skidded to a slow, determined stop.
A slight impact at the last moment indicated that the truck had tapped against the wall of the embassy building. Sideways now, Remo could see oddly vertical bricks piled up through the smashed windshield.
The sudden intense silence was filled almost instantly by the sounds of car after car squealing to a stop back beyond the blown-open gates of the embassy. Shouts in both German and Korean filled the air.
Sitting sideways on the upended truck seat, Remo Williams listened to the yelling voices outside. He had one hand braced against the roof of the truck. "We're not out of the woods yet," he commented. He glanced over to the Master of Sinanju-more a glance down than sideways now.
Beyond Chiun's broken window was driveway. The old Korean had braced one bony hand similarly against the roof.
"You did that on purpose," Chiun accused.
"Did what?" Remo asked, his brow creasing.
"You deliberately tipped this vehicle over onto its side." He looked at the pavement, which was framed in his window like some strange modern painting rendered in asphalt.
"Geez, Chiun, we've got more important stuff to worry about right now," Remo complained.
Scuffling footsteps sounded immediately outside the truck. For a moment, Remo thought that the Berlin police had dared to venture onto embassy grounds. But all at once, a familiar red face appeared in the remnants of the front windshield. Remo recognized Ambassador Sok.
"Sorry. We thought this was the McDonald's drive thru," Remo said with an apologetic shrug.
The Korean diplomat was very undiplomatic in his expression. Clearly, he would have found this whole incident more pleasing if Remo and Chiun had perished in the crash.