Destroyer - The Empire Dreams Part 15

"It was totally self-serving," Remo explained. "You see, with wars people go out and hire local help. Who needs a professional a.s.sa.s.sin when you can slap a uniform on the grocery boy and send him off to ?ght for you?"

"No one," Chiun lamented.

"Which is why Chiun offered the Allied powers. .h.i.tler's head on a post. He ?gured he'd take out the guy who was causing all the trouble in the world gratis. After that everyone would line up for our services."

"But the little fool robbed me of my prize," Chiun said bitterly.

"I a.s.sume the plan did not work out as he envisioned it would?" Helene asked blandly.

"Let's just say that after the little jerk shot himself, the House of Sinanju entered a bit of a dry spell."

Helene was losing interest in Chiun and Remo's fanciful take on history. It was not that she did not entirely disbelieve them-after all, she had seen what these two were capable of. But France and now England were faced with a very real crisis. The plane before them was a part of that threat.

"Why would someone use these out-of-date planes now?" she mused. The question was aimed at no one in particular.

"Because so far they're working," Remo suggested dryly.

"But not any longer, my dear boy," a cheery voice said from behind them.

Remo knew that voice. It was the same one that had spoken to Helene on her cellular phone in Paris. Remo closed his eyes patiently. He didn't think he had the will to deal with this right now.

When he looked back at the speaker, the ?rst thing he saw was that Helene Marie-Simone had grown dreamy eyed. Chiun's face held a look of utter disdain.

Before the three of them stood a man so handsome he made the average male model look as though his gene pool had been set on Puree. Remo knew him as Sir Guy Philliston. Head of the British intelligence agency known simply as Source. Their paths had crossed several times over the years. Remo had never been particularly impressed. The same, apparently, couldn't be said for Helene.

"Sir Guy," the French agent said in breathily accented English. Her face was ?ushed.

Remo frowned as he glanced at her. "Guy?" he asked. "I thought that was 'Gay.'"

"Quite," said Philliston. A look of minor displeasure sent the tiniest wrinkles up around his perfect aquiline nose. "Good to see you all again. Jolly good. Perhaps at your age you don't remember me, my old friend." He extended a perfectly manicured hand to Chiun. "Sir Guy Philliston," he said with a smile that ?ashed a row of ?awlessly capped white teeth that had never seen the interior of a British dentist's of?ce. The Phillistons imported their own personal D.D.S. from America.

Chiun looked ?rst at the hand, then at Sir Guy. Spurning both, he looked over at the crashed plane. "Yes, quite," droned Philliston, replacing his hand at his side with the gentlest of efforts. He had no desire to create a wrinkle in his impeccably tailored Savile Row suit. "Here to tour the scene of battle, eh?" he said to Remo and Helene. "Quite a matchup yesterday. Jolly good sport."

"Your team was a little late on the ?eld," Remo said.

"Utter c.o.c.k-up, that was," Philliston admitted. "It seems RAF and our boys were at cross-purposes. No bother. Everything is sorted out nicely now."

"Yes. Now that it's all over," said Remo.

"Rather," said Philliston affably. His expression as he sized up Remo bordered on a leer.

Remo glanced around. "Anyone know where there's a good bulletproof codpiece store around here?" he asked wearily.

SMTTH HAD BEEN UNABLE to ?nd out anything about IV. And that lack of knowledge frustrated him deeply.

As the night had worn on, he had become more and more convinced that he was dealing with a sinister shadow organization whose vile tendrils had its origins in the darkest days of the n.a.z.i in?uence in Europe.

The clues were there when CURE had ?rst encountered representatives of the group. The truth was, he had spent much of the night cursing himself for not seeing it before.

As his wife slept beside him, he had worked tirelessly, uplinking his portable computer with the CURE database. All he had to show for a night's worth of work was a sore neck and blank computer screen.

Nothing.

There was nothing that suggested the existence of IV. If not for the physical evidence Remo had uncovered, he would have concluded precisely what he had concluded before: there was no larger menace.

It made him feel a little better to ?nd out that he hadn't missed anything in his original search through neo-n.a.z.i ?les. But not much.

Now Smith knew better.

When morning came, his wife had wanted to go out sight-seeing. Smith ?rst made certain that the government of Great Britain was prepared to defend against a third attack. He learned through his computers that the British military was on high alert. Hoping that this meant a bit more than looking out an RAF window, Smith had sent her off on her own, promising to meet her at noon for lunch.

He continued working long after she had left. When the bombs had dropped the day before and his line to Remo was severed, Smith and his wife had been forced to spend much of their time in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the hotel. They had come through the attack unscathed. However, the phones still didn't work. It didn't matter. He had learned nothing that would aid Remo and Chiun's investigation.

At eleven-thirty Smith logged off his computer, storing it in his special briefcase. He closed the lid and carefully set the locks, sliding the case back under his bed.

He would resume work after lunch.

Leaving his work behind him, Smith left the hotel in order to meet his wife in Trafalgar Square.

HELENE MARIE-SIMONE continued to give Sir Guy Philliston the precise sort of look Sir Guy was giving to Remo.

"Have you any leads on who might be behind this?" she asked, sighing heavily.

"Not a bally one, I'm afraid," Guy replied, ignoring the l.u.s.t in her eyes. "Every last man jack of the blighters was killed in the new Battle of Britain. Shame, really. No idea who could have sent these Boche monkeys to the sh.o.r.es of old Albion."Remo raised a hand. "Excuse me, but could you please speak English?" he asked.

"Hear! Hear!" Chiun cheered. He was still watching the tail of the crashed plane.

"These were obviously German made," Guy said, indicating the plane. "But a lot of them are now in the hands of museums, private collectors. That sort of thing. We're looking into that angle."

"I saw where one of your papers this morning said they were dropped off by Martians from a UFO and are still ?ghting the war,"

Remo said ?atly. "Maybe you should look into that."

"There isn't any need to bring the popular press into this," Philliston said to Remo, as if mentioning the British tabloids were the height of rudeness. Helene sneered condescendingly at Remo. "He is like that," she con?ded in Sir Guy. "I have found him to be very American."

"Yes, very American," Philliston agreed. He licked his lips lightly as he eyed Remo's lean frame.

"Very, very American," Chiun piped in.

"Don't you start," Remo warned.

Sir Guy Philliston changed the direction of the conversation. "Has your government any idea where the balance of explosives has gone off to?" he asked Helene.

"They are investigating a minor explosion in a Paris Metro station," Helene replied. "My government believes the incident to be related to the thefts."

"Wait a d.a.m.ned minute," Remo interjected. "When did you get this piece of news?"

"Last night."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"Obviously not," she said in a superior tone. She turned and smiled warmly at Sir Guy Philliston, happy to be sharing this information with him ?rst. He had to tear his gaze away from Remo when he realized she was talking to him.

Remo rolled his eyes. "He's gay as a parade, Helene," he sighed.

Helene became indignant. "You say that because you ?nd your masculinity threatened in the presence of a true man." Her words were ?ung out as a challenge.

"Whatever," Remo replied indifferently. His tone made her even angrier.

"Well," Philliston said, clapping his hands together earnestly, "here we are. World War II renewed. The British and French along with their American cousins ?ghting the bally Jerry hordes."

"Yes, except if this was really a replay, you'd be begging for our help and she'd be surrendering to anything with a spike on its helmet."

As he spoke, Remo stared up at the pale blue London sky. Something wasn't right.

"I cannot imagine what it must be like to be American," Helene spit disdainfully.

"It's having drugstores with more than a hundred different kinds of deodorants," Remo said absently. "Do you hear that, Little Father?" he asked Chiun.

The Master of Sinanju had stopped watching the picture-taking crowds around the downed plane. He was staring up into the sky in the same direction as Remo.

"They are close," he said, nodding gravely. "This crowd should be dispersed at once."Remo spun on Philliston. "You've got to clear this street," he said, voice suddenly taut with urgency.

"Clear it?" Sir Guy laughed. "Why, in heaven's name?"

"There's another German squadron heading this way. At least thirty planes."

"Thirty?" Philliston scoffed, stepping forward.

"Thirty-seven," the Master of Sinanju announced.

"I am sorry, my good boy, but nothing can get through the net we have established. The RAF has the sh.o.r.es of Old Blighty locked down tighter than the Queen Mum's b.u.m."

"In that case I'd say it's about time to check the royal knickers," Remo suggested.

The ?rst of the planes came into view, a mere speck against the distant clouds.

Helene stepped forward, mouth open in shock. The head of Source moved in beside her, eyes trained on the sky.

"Impossible," Philliston said, eyes wide.

"Get them out of here!" Remo snapped.

The tone jarred Philliston from his initial shock. He obediently charged over to a uniformed bobby who was posing for photographs beside the crippled plane.

"Have they gotten the phones working yet?" Remo asked, spinning to Helene. He was hoping that Smith might have some rapid way of contacting the RAF.

She ?ddled with her cellular phone, stabbing out the number for London information. The line was dead.

"Not yet," she said, shaking her head.

By this time the planes were large enough to be seen for what they were. Some in the crowd began screaming and running for the Underground. Many more simply stood their ground, snapping endless pictures, as if they were partic.i.p.ating in some sort of overblown amus.e.m.e.nt-park ride.

The air-raid sirens around London began sounding their relentless blare. The ?rst dull thuds of distant impacting bombs reverberated through the pavement beneath their feet.

Sir Guy Philliston had convinced the bobbies that they should begin herding people to the Underground entrances. Those with cameras moved reluctantly.

"I vote we join them until this thing blows over, Little Father," Remo suggested.

"Agreed," said Chiun.

They had gone no more than a few paces toward the nearest Underground station when a familiar sound began emanating upward from the stairway. It was the pop-pop-pop of automatic-weapons ?re.

There was a collective scream of panic from the mob. People began rolling back out of the staircase, stampeding directly toward Remo, Chiun and Helene.

Remo and Chiun easily avoided the crush of people. Helene wasn't so lucky. Though she tried to resist, she found herself helplessly swept along with the crowd as it surged back out into the blinding sunlight of Trafalgar Square.

By now the German warplanes were high above the square. They began dropping whistling bombs on the teeming throng in the square far below. Sections of pavement exploded upward, mixed with limp, bloodied bodies. A hail of shattered stones pebbled the ground for half a mile around.At the Underground port, the sound of machinegun ?re had grown louder.

On the sidewalk Remo glanced from the black rectangular opening of the Underground to the carnage in the square.

"I'll take the square," he announced grimly.

The Master of Sinanju nodded his agreement. "Have a care, my son."

As Remo ran into the thick of the bombing run, Chiun ?ew to the mouth of the subway station from which the gun?re had come.

FIVE MINUTES EARLIER Harold W. Smith was meeting his wife at a bus stop a few doors down from a small restaurant on Bond Street around the corner from Trafalgar Square.

"Oh, Harold," Maude Smith called. She smiled as he walked up the busy sidewalk toward her. Mrs. Smith actually seemed surprised to see her husband. "I wasn't sure you'd make it."

"Did we not agree we would meet at twelve?" Smith asked. He took the heavy paper bundles she held in her hands.

"Yes, but with your work and all..." She shrugged her round shoulders. It wasn't an admonishment. Maude Smith would never complain that his work kept him away from her. She was merely stating an obvious truth about their life together. Nonetheless, Smith felt a twinge of too familiar guilt.

"Shall we have some lunch?" he said quickly, indicating the restaurant door with a bony elbow. The straps of the bags weighed heavily against his hands.

"Of course," Maude chimed. She talked excitedly as they walked. "I got some souvenirs today not too expensive, I know. But since it's our last day in London I thought we should get something for Vickie. And Gert has been such a good friend."

Smith bit his tongue. He had no objection to buying a gift for their only daughter, but the prospect of wasting perfectly good money on a nosy neighbor was utterly distasteful to him.

Maude seemed to sense his mild displeasure. It was no secret to her that Harold didn't like Gert Higgins. But the fact that he didn't object to buying the woman a gift spoke volumes about her husband's patience. And-though he didn't like to show it-his love.

She was beaming when they reached the door to the restaurant. Maude opened it, Smith balanced the door with his elbow in order to allow her to pa.s.s.

He was about to step inside the hallway after her when he heard a familiar noise. Very distant. Smith paused, half in, half out of the restaurant. It could not be. Not a third time.

He c.o.c.ked an ear.