For now he was concerned about the ancient bombs he was carrying. The Gotha had been designed to carry six one-hundred-pound bombs. He had that many aboard right now. They sat, rusted and beautiful, in the rear of the plane.
Paul pushed down on the throttle. The plane began to skim forward. The rocky scenery whipped past the Plexiglas dome he had installed aboard the aircraft.
For all he knew, some of the bombs he carried could have been dropped by this very plane over France more than eighty years ago. Back then they had been duds. There was no doubt about it this time, however. They were so fragile the slightest bump might set them off.
They would find their targets. And they would rain fiery death upon them.
As he picked up speed, this thought filled Paul with contentment while he carefully steered the plane toward the end of the runway. And into the jaws of history.
REMO AND CHIUN had attacked the first stone stairs with a ferocity of purpose. The staircases were like a stack of giant Zs carved into the solid cliff face.
Both men were buffeted by the cold ocean wind as they raced at top speed for the summit of the cliff. The stairs ended abruptly at a rock-hewed landing. Here the rock tapered off and split in either direction. From this vantage they were able to see farther inland.
The runway was to their left. It cut off sharply toward the cliff face to the west. They could see the small tin hangar squatting in the scrub grass farther beyond the long asphalt strip.
More than a dozen planes were heading away from the hangar area. Though he had no idea what kind they were, Remo saw that they were from a different era.
Two had already picked up considerable speed and were racing for the edge of the bluffs. Others were moving obediently in behind them.
Remo and Chiun didn't stop when they reached the summit. Cutting west after the fleeing planes, they loped through the tall grass toward the runway. They reached it in a few dozen quick strides.
"Should we try to stop these?" Remo shouted to Chiun over the roar of the planes and the wind. They had pulled abreast of the field of slower-moving planes.
Chiun shook his head. Wisps of hair flew wildly in the gale. "It is too dangerous. We will take those in the lead."
Remo knew what Chiun meant. The bombs the aircraft doubtless carried made this a tricky matter. They didn't want to jolt the planes and accidentally set them off. It would be an easier matter to stop them when airborne.
Although, Remo thought as he nodded his reluctant agreement, easier was a relative term.
The two men raced past the slower-moving aircraft toward the pair of planes that were even now preparing for takeoff.
Remo and Chiun were no longer running unnoticed. Radios aboard the planes squawked hurried questions in German.
A gunner opened fire as they raced past. A single bullet nicked the fuselage of one of the Fokkers. The old plane instantly exploded in a ball of bright orange flames and a spray of jagged metal fragments.
After that the other planes held their fire.
Legs and arms pumping madly, the two Masters of Sinanju left the edge of the runway and moved into the center behind the foremost planes.
The wheels of the Gotha had already left the ground. The Messerschmitt was outpacing it, but had not yet begun to skim the runway surface.
Chiun broke to the right, tearing off after the newer plane. Remo stayed on course, running at full speed for the tail of the fleeing Gotha.
Cold wind whipped against his face as he ran past the tail assembly. Wind caught the dorsal tail, fluttering it ferociously as he outpaced the rear of the plane.
A line of ragged grass sprouted up before them. The end of the runway. Beyond that a threehundred-yard drop to the rocks below.
And Remo was running full out. Even if he wanted to, he doubted he could stop on time.
There would only be one chance at this.
The Gotha was pulling up into the air. Legs pumping crazily, Remo forced a single burst of furious acceleration. He leaped from the surface of the runway and spread-eagled himself on the bottom left wing of the large biplane.
The plateau surface suddenly dropped out from beneath him. Far below, frothy waves crashed against basalt rock.
The plane was airborne.
The Gotha tilted slightly, attempting to right itself. The engine whined in protest as the aged aircraft soared off over the English Channel.
Chapter 12
Unlike most people whose lives were fraught with doubt, Helene Marie-Simone was certain of almost everything. The most recent thing she found herself being certain of was the fact that she didn't trust Remo and Chiun.
But she had learned the hard way back in Paris that she should trust certain aspects of the two men. Their hearing, for one.
If they said that they heard planes taking off from the plateau high above the rocky shore, then she was certain that was exactly what they heard.
The minute the two men had broken for the stairs, Helene had climbed down from the boat and raced after them.
They were the most agile climbers she had seen this side of the monkey house at the Paris Zoo.
The two men quickly outdistanced her, leaving her to huff and puff her way up the many flights of stairs to the top of the cliffs. When she did finally reach the top, she was just in time to see Remo make a flying leap onto the wing of a departing Gotha G.V. She thought she saw a streak of crimson that might have been Chiun's kimono splayed across the wing of a fleeing Messerschmitt, but she couldn't be sure. Both aircraft dropped from the edge of the bluff and then ascended back up into sight farther out over the channel. They pulled into the sky in a whine of engines.
She could see neither man after that.
They had committed suicide. For however good their hearing might be, they would never survive perched like birds atop the wings of two ancient warplanes.
The rest of the planes were lining up for their turn in the air. Two more were about ready to tear off the edge of the cliff and soar into the pale blue sky.
They zipped past the burning ruins of a single plane.
The bouncing of the ancient ordnance aboard must have been the cause of its destruction, Helene surmised. Just as it had been in the truck back at the American Embassy in Paris.
And if a minor disturbance could destroy one plane, it could easily disable some of the others. Helene pulled her handgun from her pocket. Her lungs were raw as she ran down to the field.
THE GOTHA WAS TEARING through the air at a speed in excess of one hundred miles per hour.
The wind pressed like a powerful fist against Remo's chest. His T-shirt fluttered crazily in the back. Short hair blew angrily around his head.
It was an old plane, but it had fallen into the hands of a tinkering hobbyist. Although it looked identical to the original model, structurally it had been greatly improved upon. Remo stood up on the aluminum lower wing. He held on to the hollow, lightweight metal support tubes that were strung between the upper and lower wings.
Mindless of the racing wind, he advanced on the cockpit.
Remo's presence on the plane hadn't gone unnoticed by the pilot. Paul Niemlur had been startled by the sudden shift of weight at the moment of takeoff.
Concerned that the unexpected imbalance might upset his sensitive cargo, he had quickly moved to right the plane. It was only after he had leveled off over the channel that he dared look out at his left wing.
He could not believe what he saw.
The thin stranger with the deep-set eyes and abnormally thick wrists was strolling over to Paul across the wing as casually as a friend might step across the road in Paul's native Dusseldorf. Except the expression Remo wore was not that of a friend. It was the face of Doom.
Ever mindful of the payload he carried, Paul slowly tipped the plane to the left.