The party entered the small elevator. Pierre reached up to grab the gate.
"In that case I invite you to dinner. I will prepare the meal myself."
He pulled the old-fashioned metal gate down with a resounding clank.
SMITH HEARD THEM coming down the hallway. They were stopping at each room in turn.
It had become obvious to the people staying there what was going on in the hotel. The objections tapered into a dull acceptance. Guests submitted their rooms and their personal belongings to the indignity of a search at the hands of the brutish skinhead soldiers.
When they at last came to his door, Smith had been sitting patiently for more than an hour.
He heard the footfalls on the old carpeted floor. There was not a rattle of keys as he expected. Just the sound of a single key sliding into the lock.
Smith got hastily up from the chair and reached for the briefcase on the bed.
The door sprang open into the room. Smith was caught like a deer in headlights. He was leaning over the bed, his frozen hand extended over the battered briefcase with its portable computer. He glanced at the door with a look of desperation.
Coming in from the dingy hallway, the neo-Nazis immediately sensed they had stumbled onto something valuable.
"Move away from there!" one of the soldiers ordered in French.
"Non!" Smith said. He lowered his hand farther. The briefcase was enticingly in reach.
Three machine guns raised threateningly.
"I will not tell you again," the skinhead in command said with sneering coldness.
Defeated, Smith withdrew his hand. Shoulders hunched, he stepped obediently over to the far side of the bed.
The three men hurried across the room. At the door Pierre LePotage looked mournfully at Harold Smith. This was terrible for business. He apologized to his guest with a wordless shrug.
Smith responded with an odd look. He was edging farther to the wall. He glanced down at the floor. It was the subtlest of gestures, but Pierre somehow caught the meaning in Smith's eyes at once. With a casualness that would have impressed the greatest living actor, the desk clerk eased himself back out into the hallway. He disappeared beyond the wall. "What do you suppose it is?" one of the skinheads said to his fellow soldiers, intrigue and greed in his voice.
"Probably more junk," said the lead soldier, studying the metal hasps. He glanced at Smith. "How do you open these?" he demanded.
"They are on a spring. You simply have to twist them," Smith explained.
The soldier placed his thumbs against the pair of locks. He pressed against them, hard. The split second he did so, Smith threw himself to the floor.
Only one of the men saw Smith go down. He watched the American drop from sight behind the bed the instant a wall of flame erupted around all three storm troopers.
The sound was no greater than that of a loud firecracker, but the result was far more violent. Behind the protective shield of the bed, Smith was safe from the brunt of the explosion.
He came up off his stomach a moment later, moving rapidly around the bed.
Pierre came in from the hallway. On the bed a small fire burned atop the charred comforter. The Frenchman expertly pulled the ends of the bedcovers up over the fire, extinguishing the flames.
Coldly rational now, Smith went over to the German soldiers. Only the one who had opened the briefcase was dead. His face and hands were reddish black masses of gore. The other two had been severely wounded. They lay dying on the old hotel rug.
Smith detested killing. But he also was a man who didn't shy away from doing what was necessary. Smith didn't know if he would have to ration bullets. He drew a knife from a scabbard at the waist of one soldier. With the dispassion of someone carving a Thanksgiving turkey, Smith plunged the knife into the hearts of the dying men.
Gathering up the soldiers' Walther MPL German submachine guns from the floor, he dropped them to the bed. Smith stripped the guns of their ammunition. He was about to damage them beyond use when Pierre stopped him.
"I believe I will have need for them," the Frenchman said levelly.
Smith glanced at the concierge. Quickly he handed over two of the guns. Dividing the ammunition into two equal amounts, he gave half to the desk clerk. "Merci," Pierre said. "Now we must get you to a safe place."
"I will be fine," Smith insisted.
Pierre glanced down at the three dead skinheads. When he looked back up, he wore a faint smile. "I have no doubt," said the desk clerk. Carrying his two submachine guns, the Frenchman left the room.
Smith hurried to the bathroom door.
"It is safe, Maude," Smith said. "Please close your eyes before you come out."
Mrs. Smith did as she was told. The door crept cautiously open, and Maude stepped back into the hotel room. She appeared shell-shocked.
"I heard an explosion, Harold." She trembled, eyes screwed tightly shut.
He knew that any lie he might come up with would be pointless. After all, his wife wasn't stupid. "We must hurry," he urged firmly.
Taking her by the arm, Smith led her hastily past the bodies and out into the hall. She didn't ask to bring her luggage.
Chapter 25
Remo hot-wired a Mercedes on Oxford Street and drove maniacally through the empty streets of London, finally flagging down the first British Army jeep he encountered.
After a brief discussion with the lieutenant in the army vehicle, during which the officer relinquished two front teeth and his sense of smell for the next six months, the soldier agreed to escort Remo and Chiun to the English end of the Channel Tunnel.
They flew at speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour down the M20, turning off in Folkestone five miles inland from the famed cliffs of Dover. Remo and Chiun left the stolen car and gap-toothed soldier behind, hurrying aboard the first Le Shuttle train.
Thirty-one miles and fifty-seven minutes later, the train emerged into the dwindling yellow sunlight in the French terminal at Coquelles near Calais, two miles inland.
Remo liberated a car from an English businessman who had brought the vehicle over on the train and tore out onto the A26 motorway. He pointed the car toward Paris.
A LONG SECTION of Boulevard Mortier had been closed down during the occupation. DGSE headquarters was in the hands of the enemy. Helene Marie-Simone skulked through the streets of Paris, alone.
A light drizzle had erupted shortly after nightfall. She held the collar of her leather jacket tight at her neck. Though it didn't provide much in the way of warmth, it kept out most of the rainwater.
Alone.
Helene hadn't set foot in her apartment since returning to France. If DGSE was in the hands of the neo-Nazi occupying army, there was no telling how much secure information they had gotten hold of. If her superiors had no time to destroy all that was sensitive before relinquishing command of France's premier espionage service, they would have an alphabetical listing of all DGSE agents.
She cursed herself for not informing Remo of the telephone call.
It had been from Director Remy Renard himself. He told her in hushed tones of what appeared to be a coup attempt at the Palais de l'Elysee. Agents who had been sent to liberate the palace had never returned. There was no word from the president, but he was believed to be inside.
Of course, all of this was hours before news broke of the fall of Paris. Helene had blundered back into the city at the worst moment of crisis. The capital had been locked down tightly before she had a chance to flee.
She was trapped. A prisoner in her own city. Helene had been wandering the streets for hours, waiting for nightfall. Now that it had finally come, her stride became more purposeful. Keeping to the shadows, she walked down the damp sidewalk along the Champs-Elysees toward the presidential palace. Barricades had been placed before the gates. Bags filled with sand were stacked atop one another. Before them, huge concrete slabs had been dumped in order to prevent suicide runs by explosives-laden trucks.