There was no sign of Chiun. What remained of the plane the Master of Sinanju had been atop belched fire and smoke as it raced down into the waters below.
It crashed atop the waves a moment later. Furious, Remo glanced around the cockpit of the Gotha. He found a small toggle switch on the dashboard marked in red. He reached over Paul and flipped the switch.
The attacking Messerschmitt had remained before them throughout the spectacular crash, but once the lead plane was down it began pulling up into the sky, exposing its back to them. Remo could see the pilot grinning victoriously in the cockpit.
Remo cranked a knot of muscles on Niemlur's neck.
The Gotha's huge wing-mounted machine guns with their stacks of ammunition burst to life.
The bullets caught the Messerschmitt square in the cockpit. The glass that didn't shatter was sprayed with the blood of the pilot as the projectiles ripped through the body of the plane.
The aircraft had been perched on its tail like a dolphin clearing the water. But now, with no one to guide it, gravity quickly took hold of it.
Spiraling out of control, it screamed back to earth. It crashed into the first cluster of rocks that stabbed out from Guernsey into the English Channel.
Remo was surprised that the island was so close. He had little time left to work.
Paul seemed relieved that the ordeal was nearly over. That relief turned to shock as Remo turned his attention away from the crashed Messerschmitt back to the Gotha.
"Auf Wiedersehen," Remo said to Paul, summoning up what little German he knew.
He reached into the cockpit and ripped out a handful of wires. For good measure he wrenched at the steering column.
It came free like a half-loose tooth. Tendrils of wires still connected it to the rest of the plane. Remo didn't have time to complete the job. The rock wall of Guernsey loomed larger before them. Hoping he had done enough, he dropped the broken steering column onto the pilot's knees. Turning, he leaped backward, off the wing of the plane.
At the point when his feet left the wing, the aircraft was only about fifty feet above the channel. Remo sliced into the cold waters a few seconds later. Kicking sharply, he broke through the surface just in time to see the crippled Gotha crash directly into the cliff face of the island.
The impact propelled the payload of six hundred-pound bombs forward into the rear of the cockpit. The explosion was massive. It blew up and back in a huge plume of fire and smoke. In slow motion the charred remnants of the aircraft broke away from the wall and fell to the sea. Minutes afterward huge slabs of loosened basalt rock continued to sheer away from the cliff wall, crashing down to the rocks below. Bobbing in the cold water, Remo didn't exult in the scene. A sick feeling clenched his belly. Chiun was out there somewhere. In what condition, Remo had no idea. However, he couldn't help but think the worst.
He was about to head back out to sea to begin his search for a body when a familiar squeaky voice called from the nearby rocks.
"Do you intend to splash about like a lazy walrus for the rest of the day?"
Remo turned his head in the direction of the voice. Relief had flooded his soul when he'd heard the first tones.
The Master of Sinanju stood on the strip of black rocks that jutted like a crooked finger from the unforgiving shore. The old Korean was dripping wet.
"You're okay!" Remo called over. His voice was a mixture of joy and relief.
"No thanks to you," Chiun clucked unhappily. "When I saw that you would be no help, I was forced to risk life and limb by jumping from that flying Hun contraption. First I made it so their aircraft would not gain altitude."
There was a hum of engines on the cliffs far above them.
Both men looked up.
Like angry wasps leaving their nest, a line of aircraft began launching into the air above the channel. There were eight of them in all. The swarm of planes collected into a tight flight formation and took off across the channel toward the English mainland. "It appears we were only partially successful," Chiun intoned gravely. "Hurry!"
As Remo swam to shore, the old Asian began picking his way across the uneven pile of rocks toward the main island.
WHILE REMO AND CHIUN were still clinging to their respective planes high above the English Channel, Helene Marie-Simone was racing on foot alongside the runway.
Her lungs burned from the long climb up the stairs. Though it was late summer, the air on the island was cold. Her throat was raw by the time she began gaining on the cluster of small airplanes.
Aside from a lone Fokker, the planes that remained were all Messerschmitt Me-262As. She recognized the early jet aircraft. Built during World War II, it could achieve a top speed of more than five hundred miles per hour. For these planes, it would be a short hop over the channel for London.
Helene couldn't allow that to happen.
The Fokker was much slower than the others. The runt of the litter, it lagged behind the rest of the pack, its engine humming with the manic intensity of a frantic puppy.
The bombs would be somewhere between the tail section and the cockpit. She was close enough now. Dropping to one knee in the high grass, Helene lifted her pistol and began firing into the fuselage of the taxiing plane.
No sooner had the second bullet struck its target than the entire Fokker erupted in a ball of fire. The pilot threw himself out the door, his clothes ablaze. Helene caught the screaming skinhead in the forehead with a carefully placed round.
Burning, the old plane continued rolling forward down the small runway.
Helene heard shouting behind her. With the explosion, someone had radioed the other aircraft to stop. One did not heed the order. It launched itself out over the channel after Remo and Chiun's fleeing planes.
Helene saw several men running from the open mouth of the small hangar. One remained near the door. An old man, he screamed orders in German to the group of men.
They were coming toward her!
Helene dropped into the grass and began crawling toward the rest of the planes. They were close together, their engines idling. If she could take just one of them out, she might succeed in starting a chain reaction that would destroy all of the remaining planes.
A heavy footfall dropped nearby.
Helene rolled onto her back. She saw the young skinhead running into sight above her. A pair of Nazi swastikas had been etched in blue in the flesh at his temples.
The man jumped back, as if startled to be the one to find the object of their search lying in the grass before him.
In that split second of hesitation, Helene fired. The bullet grabbed the young man in the throat, flinging him back into the grass in a violent spurt of blood.
The angry yelling increased.
She crawled faster now. With frantic purpose. But it was no use. She had given her position away. The next men to find her were not as timid as the first. They fell atop her from three different directions. A football tackle.
She tried to get off even a single shot, but a knee had dropped solidly onto her wrist. Something hard-perhaps a rock, perhaps a gun butt-slammed against her curled fingers. She dropped her weapon.
The group of skinheads dragged her roughly to her feet. Grabbing her arms and loose clothes, they hauled her back through the grass and onto the tarmac.
The lone figure was still waiting at the large door to the hangar. Even from this distance she could see that the old man's face was a mask of rage.
"Get her in here!" Hans Michtler screamed. Furious, he ducked back inside the hangar.
A minute later the engines of the planes whined back to life. The aircraft pulled farther down the runway in the direction of the building before wheeling back around. Two at a time, they began zipping once more down the strip of asphalt.
As Helene watched, the first pair launched out into the air over the channel.