Though von Breslau had the determination, it was unlikely he had the strength to follow through on his threat. He never found out. For at the precise moment his palms brushed Chiun's Adam's apple, Lothar Holz entered the lab, Remo in tow.
"Doctor, stop!" Holz raced across the room and grabbed von Breslau's wrists. His hands had just encircled Chiun's throat. Curt Newton, who until that moment was a spectator in the exchange between the pair, joined Holz. Together they pulled von Breslau away from Chiun.
"He will die!" von Breslau barked.
"That is not the plan!" Holz said.
"It is my plan!" von Breslau was furious. Spittle sprayed from his mouth as he spoke. His eyes were daggers of hatred aimed at Chiun.
"Curt, please see that this one is transferred down here." Holz nodded to Remo.
Newton reluctantly pulled himself away from von Breslau. He called to the regular interface labs to have the signal controlling Remo switched over to the subordinate mainframe in the current lab.
When Newton was out of earshot, Holz lowered his voice. "Four wants both Sinanju masters."
"Those of Four do not understand," von Breslau said.
"They understand," Holz whispered harshly.
"This has been a costly investment. The Americans were not likely to buy into the interface technology anytime in the near future. With the abilities of these men at our disposal, we can recoup our investment a thousandfold. Immediately."
"We don't need them. Your machines can give us what they have. I can make an army like them long after they are gone."
"We don't know that yet. Are you willing to risk the fury of those in command on a single test?"
Von Breslau considered. At long last he nodded.
"Agreed. For now," he whispered. To Chiun, he said loudly, "Remember. You live at my convenience, Korean."
"You die at mine," the Master of Sinanju responded levelly.
Holz smiled warmly. "Doctor?" he said to Newton. He pointed to Remo. He indicated the floor near Chiun with a nod.
Understanding, the scientist punched a few rapid commands into his computer. The interface signal brought Remo from his place near the door, over to Chiun.
The two men stood side by side, motionless. Neither was able to gain comfort from even a sideward glance at the other. They were blocks of deep-frozen ice. Holz clapped his hands together warmly. "Imagine. I have the only two living Masters of Sinanju under my control. Yours is a tradition which spreads back, what, thousands of years?"
"You seem to know a fat lot about us," Remo said. His words were thick with loathing.
Holz beamed. "Actually I probably never would have heard of you," he admitted, "if not for my grandfather."
17
Lothar Holz remembered being sickened when his father revealed to him what his family had been during the Second World War.
He was eight years old and attending a private academy in Bonn.
While the public perception was one of danger for unrepentant Nazis still residing in Germany after the war, the reality was quite different. During the 1950s, in the little enclave where Holz spent his formative years, there was safety. The authorities tended to look the other way when Lothar's father and friends were about.
Young Lothar knew some of what had happened.
Hushed words. Furtive whispers.
Oftentimes his father would drink to excess. Deep in drunken melancholia, he would curse those forces that had conspired to thwart his dreams. They had crushed all hope of the promised, glorious Reich.
It was only when Lothar had seen pictures of the atrocities committed by his countrymen that he confronted his father. He was a brave boy, in short pants and cuffed felt jacket, standing up to the world-weary drunkard.
He told of the photographs from the book of a boy he had met, the son of an American serviceman who was part of the occupying force in postwar Germany.
He told of the half-naked, emaciated men and women standing in the snow. Of the bodies.
He had expected his father to be furious, but instead the elder Holz grew deathly quiet.
Leadenly he sat down on their gaily printed sofa.
He beckoned his son to sit next to him.
"You have heard of the so-called atrocities before, have you not?" his father had said softly.
Lothar admitted that he had.
"How long ago did you first hear?"
"I do not remember, Father. All my life."
"And why did you wait until now to question me?"
"The pictures," young Lothar had said desperately. He remembered one of a group of German ci-vilians being led past a row of corpses. They were Jewish women who had died on a forced march. Des-iccation had made their faces chillingly deformed.
They almost appeared to have been mummified.
"The pictures were horrible." Lothar shivered at the recent memory.
"And why was that?"
"Well.. .these people were dead. Murdered."
His father stroked his chin pensively. "Would it This was what she said to her young husband—a camp guard who saw his marriage as an opportunity to move up—many times over.
But the person she had the hardest time convinc-ing, apparently, was herself. She had climbed into a bathtub of warm water one sunny afternoon when Lothar was four. With her she had brought her husband's straight razor.
After that, Lothar and his father were alone. The year was 1951.
And from that day forward, not an hour went by in his young life where Lothar did not remember his mother fondly. But the day his father hinted to him what his mother had been during the war would alter his perceptions of right and wrong forever.
Lothar had received a fine education. English, Spanish and French were all taught at his exclusive school, in addition to his native German. He learned each language fluently. Mathematics was never his forte, nor any of the sciences. But he was persuasive and well liked, by students and instructors alike.
However, this early acceptance by his peers was short-lived. Once he had learned the truth about his mother, his grades began to fail.
His father was called, but he didn't seem interested in his son's problems. The elder Holz's drinking had grown worse with each passing day, and though he was still a relatively young man, he looked older and more haggard as his advanced alcoholism ravaged his system.
He died nearly a year to the day he had first told his son the truth about his mother.
At nine years of age, Lothar Holz was an orphan.
He had no other family. The only relative his father had ever spoken of was his father-in-law, but the man had died during the war, a victim of the Russian and American advance in the death throes of the old power system.
He thought he was completely alone.
Lothar was in the small flat where he and his father lived. It was the day after his father's death. There would be a service of some sort, someone had told him, but he didn't wish to attend. Lothar didn't love his father, although he missed his presence in the shabby little apartment. It was a strange feeling for a nine-year-old to have, and with no one to share it with, Lothar had sat in a dusty corner of his father's bedroom and cried for hours.
He was sniffling quietly when he heard a knock at the door.
He assumed it was another woman from the apartment building with a plate of pastries. When he went to answer it, he found a reed-thin old man in a black topcoat and gloves. The man asked if he could come in. Lothar assumed he was a mortician, such were his gaunt features and pallor. He let him inside.
The man had stepped through the apartment carefully, as if he did not want the grimy carpet to soil the soles of his shoes. He seemed displeased at the stack of empty liquor bottles piled on the floor.
Lothar felt ashamed. He wished he had thought to throw out the bottles. Quickly he tried to pick up a few items of clothing that were draped over the backs of chairs.