Remo turned his attention back to Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju was still sniffing carefully at the air, drawing in delicate puffs of some distant scent.
"Okay, what is it?" Remo asked.
"I am not yet certain," Chiun responded. "But there is something here. Very faint. The boom devices have managed nearly to erase it." He turned ever so slowly in the direction of the battered truck, as if trying to sneak up on something long lost.
While they spoke, Remo caught Helene looking at them from the corner of her eye. When she thought that they were paying no attention to her, she pulled a small plastic bag from the pocket of her short leather jacket. Shielding her body from them, she quickly stuck something she had found from the ground in the bag and then hurriedly stuffed the whole bundle back into her pocket. Face flushed, she resumed her search.
"Back in a sec," Remo told Chiun. He wandered over to Helene. "What was that?" he asked, stopping above the kneeling agent.
She looked up at him, blandly innocent. "What was what?" she asked dully.
"Can the innocent act, Madam Clouseau," Remo droned, reaching down into her pocket and plucking out the small bag.
Helene jumped to her feet, eyes charged with horrified fury.
"That is evidence taken from the crime scene beyond the wall! It was collected on French soil!" She made a grab for the bag. Remo held it away from her grasping hands.
"I saw you pick it up from in here," he said. He held the bag up a few inches from his eyes.
Inside was a piece of jagged metal. It was a small fragment, no larger than a fingernail. It had survived the blast in surprisingly good condition, considering that corrosion had taken hold of it long before the explosives it had contained were detonated.
"Give me that this instant," Helene hissed. She snatched once more, missing again.
"Which world war is this from, do you think?" he asked aloud. He glanced over at her.
Helene's eyes immediately glazed over. It was a very deliberate affectation. She stopped jumping. "What do you mean?" she asked blandly.
"It's obviously part of the munitions that were stolen from your depots last night. I'd say it was World War I. That metal has seen at least seventy years' worth of air and water eating away at it."
Helene's stomach knotted. The thefts were not yet public knowledge. As far as everyone was concerned, the bombing at the embassy was separate from the explosions that were still designated as accidents at the deminage depots.
Helene scrutinized Remo carefully, as if seeing him for the first time.
"You are with your State Department?" she asked finally.
Remo smiled. "I guess I'm really a Jacques of all trades."
"That may be, but here you are mistaken," she said flatly. "First there was no theft at our storage facilities. Second there is no evidence to connect the two events. My government has no intention of linking those accidents with this act of terrorism."
"Tell that to the DGSE," Remo said. "They seem pretty certain there's a connection. And they're also sure that a huge amount of stuff was stolen off the bases. Those explosions weren't accidents, but I'm willing to bet that this one was."
Helene refused to give in to incredulity. She forced calm into her voice. "Who are you?" she asked.
Remo brushed off the question as irrelevant. "See where the truck is?" Remo instructed, waving the bag with the bomb fragment toward the street. "Stopped in traffic. It wasn't in a spot where it could have inflicted maximum damage. Look at the wrecked part of the embassy. Superficial on this side. They could have taken out a lot more of the place if they parked around the east wall. And here's the biggest proof. No one's taken credit for the explosion yet. Everyone knows the types of people who do this stuff on purpose love to see their names on page one. "Nope, I'm willing to bet that one of the trucks with the stolen bombs just happened to be waiting here when one of the things went off by mistake." Remo waved the bag in her face. "One of these things," he mocked.
She made another desperate grab for the bag. This time he allowed her to snatch it away.
"Wild speculation," she snarled, stuffing the bag back into her jacket pocket. With sharp movements she fastened the flap with a metal snap.
"Call it what you like," Remo answered airily. "You're the ones with the problem. By now the metal casings on those things are so deteriorated a sneeze could set them off."
If Helene wanted to say something else, she didn't get the chance. The Master of Sinanju had completed his olfactory sweep of the area. He returned to Remo's side.
"What have you got?" Remo asked.
Chiun was frowning. "There is a hint of the gaseous condiment substance used by the barbarian Hun in the First Global Idiocy."
"Mustard gas," Remo said, nodding. "I thought I smelled it when we first showed up."
"No doubt there was some present on the vehicle when the booms went off. Though faint now, at first it interfered with my senses."
"But not anymore," Remo pressed.
Chiun shook his head. "I have isolated another scent. There is a definite odor of the Hun in this vicinity."
"From the bombs themselves," Remo suggested, though even he doubted the Master of Sinanju could smell traces of whoever had handled the rusted bomb casings some eighty-odd years ago.
"From the booms, yes," Chiun agreed. "But recently. The odor comes from the vehicle. The thieves were German."
"German?" Remo said with a frown.
"How could he know that?" Helene asked dubiously.
"Trust me, he knows," Remo informed her. "But Germany and France are no longer enemies. We are in NATO together. We are both members of the European Union. What he says makes no sense."
"The Germans reek of the fermented grains they drink and the pork products they eat," Chiun said firmly. "They are the dastards responsible for this." Helene's better instincts took over. She shook her head doubtfully.
"Your nose will no doubt forgive me if I investigate further?" Helene asked acidly. Stepping away from them, she resumed her search of the yard.
"There's nothing stronger to go on, Little Father?" Remo asked quietly once they were alone.
"I thought briefly there was, but the scent went away." The old man shook his head in frustration. "There are too many Frenchman fouling the area. If only a handful of them owned a washcloth and soap, it might be possible. As it is..." He threw up his hands, kimono sleeves snapping in annoyance like twin flicked towels. Irritated, he turned his attention away from the air and began examining the ground.
As the Master of Sinanju worked, Remo tried briefly to clear away the layers of odors filling the Paris street. It took a few minutes, but he finally got beyond the human and machinery scents. He found the distinctive German smell beneath the acrid odor of the burned-out truck.
Chiun was right. There was nothing more. The body odors made it impossible to go further.
With nothing more to do, he joined Chiun in his inspection of the grounds.
FORTUNATELY for the young man in the thick crowd of gawkers gathered on the other side of the French police line, the wind was blowing in the right direction. Had it not been, either Master of Sinanju would have easily been able to sniff out the beer-and-sausage lunch he had eaten not more than an hour before.
The man wore a black knit cap rolled down to cover the tattoos on his shaved scalp. A pair of khaki pants, a ripped black T-shirt and a denim jacket that advertised the name of an obscure German punk-rock band across the back and arms completed his ensemble.
The youth watched Remo and Chiun, as well as Helene and the rest of the investigators, for a few minutes longer. Eventually he grew bored with observing the meticulous search of the embassy wreckage.
He left the scene.