"No."
"Keep acting stupid and we'll remedy that."
"Keep threating me and I might get mad."
"Don't mouth off. This is the IRS you're talking to."
"What about my constitutional rights?"
"IRS regulations supercede the Fourth Amendment protecting against search and seizure without due process."
"Since when?"
"Since the Civil War."
Just then the agent came back with a fistful of keys.
"This is everything I could find," he said.
Koldstad focused his too-small eyes on Remo. "Last chance to tell us what we need to know."
"I don't know what you want to know," Remo said.
"Okay, open that door."
They tried every key twice. None fit.
"Damn," Koldstad said. "Okay, get the ram. We're battering it down."
Remo tried to keep the worry off his face. The way they were going, it was just a matter of time. And Chiun might be back at any minute, or not for hours yet.
Mouth thinning, Remo decided to let things play out a little while longer. There were only eight of them. Not too many to handle if it came down to that.
The ram was a solid slug of steel weighing maybe fifty pounds with two handles welded to each side. The nose looked as if ball-peen hammers had gone at it.
"Okay, let her rip."
Two of the beefiest agents took up the ram and swung it back and forth until it built up momentum. They sent it crashing into the door on a dead run.
The door was chilled steel painted gray to blend in with the gray-painted concrete wall. The first hit didn't even mark the paint. The second cracked a paint chip loose. The third hit bounced off.
"What's wrong with you milk balls! Hit it harder!"
This time they backed up a dozen yards, got a clumsy running start and slammed the door dead center. The door shuddered on its heavy hinges. The ram bounced back, taking the agents with it. They ended up on their asses on the dusty concrete, the ram cracking the concrete floor with a loud bang.
"There's something behind that door," Koldstad said, pacing like a caged tiger. "I know there is."
"We could shoot the locks off," an agent suggested.
"They only do that in movies," Remo said quickly.
"It's worth a try," said Koldstad.
"If there is something, then you could wreck it with bullets," Remo pointed out.
Koldstad whirled. "Then you do know something!" he crowed.
"Not me," Remo said grudgingly.
"Blow it open," Koldstad said, one eye on Remo.
Remo stood there, rotating his thick wrists anxiously. He wasn't worried about Smith's computers. They were a lost cause. But Chiun's gold was not bulletproof.
A man brought a MAC-11 up to the padlock, testing the angle of fire a couple of times, and fired once. The padlock combination became a smear. The hasp held.
"I'll try again, sir."
This time he fired a short burst. The hasp broke clean, and the padlock fell to the floor with a dusty clank.
"Great. Now the other locks."
Another agent came up with a .357 Magnum and put five shots into the remaining key lock. Each shot made a bigger dent.
Then they brought up the ram and finished the job.
Remo held his breath.
Koldstad turned to Remo. "By the way," he said smugly, "you're fired."
"You can't fire me. I work for Dr. Smith."
"And the IRS owns Smith's illegal ass. Now clear yours out."
Without waiting for Remo's reply, Jack Koldstad strode up to the battered steel door and used both hands to pull it open.
And his jaw dropped at the sight of stacks and stacks of gleaming yellow ingots that reached to the ceiling. They were packed together so tightly there was only one narrow walkway between the ingots. Even under the weak overhead lights, they shed a warm golden radiance that picked out yellowish details on every face turned toward them.
There was a collective intake of breath. In that crucial moment no eyes were upon Remo Williams. Everyone was gaping at the tall stacks of gleaming yellow ingots, realizing what they had to be.
"We hit the mother lode," someone whispered.
"Our careers are saved," another murmured.
And from the corrugated door came a fierce screech, followed by a burst of raw sunlight, and a voice boomed, "Stand back from the gold of Sinanju or face the wrath of its awesome protector!"
Chapter 14
The voice of the Master of Sinanju was still echoing off the concrete walls when Remo faded back and took out the two IRS agents directly at his back with his elbows. He brought them back and up and nailed the agents on the point of their chins too fast for their dull senses to see him coming.
They dropped like wet oatmeal poured into off-the-rack suits.
From a standing position, Remo pivoted and took out a MAC-11 that was swiveling toward the corrugated door. The machine pistol lost its barrel, and the agent clutching the grip lost his weapon to the sudden fury of Remo's side kick. He was clutching his gun hand when something that felt like a ball-peen hammer knocked him flat.
Remo began weaving among the others, tapping them on their skulls with a steel-hard forefinger. Nobody got off a shot. Everybody went down hard.
"Take them out clean," Remo called.
"They have profaned my gold," Chiun squeaked.
"They only just found it. Now, do as I say."
The Master of Sinanju leaped into the basement like a great monarch butterly taking wing. But he landed on Jack Koldstad with the ferocity of a pouncing tiger.
Koldstad threw up his arms to shield himself, but his arms were forced aside so that the raking fingernails scored vertical lines in his surprised face. His mouth opened in a frozen scream, and two thumbs found the indentations on either side of his narrow forehead.
Jack Koldstad never felt the long thumbnails plunge into his brain. He just rolled his eyes up and made a pile of clothes-covered meat on the floor where he had been standing.
Remo saw all this out of the corner of his eye as he finished his sweep of the IRS. He went for knees and, when collapsing legs brought agents' heads down, he slapped the consciousness out of them with the flat of his hands.
Smack smack smack.
The last agent collapsed onto the one just before him, and Remo turned toward the Master of Sinanju, who was shaking the dust from his wide kimono sleeves like a flustered black-and-orange bat.
"I said not to kill anyone," Remo complained.
"I did not."
"I saw you drive your nails into the head guy's skull."
"I drove them into the part of the brain he obviously did not use. He will live."
"I'll believe it when I see it," grumbled Remo, joining the Master of Sinanju at the open door to the computer room.
"Well, the cat's out of the bag now," said Remo, surveying the scattering of unconscious IRS agents.
"They must all die. It is Smith's edict that any who trespass upon his kingly preserves forefeit their lives."
"We'll check with Smith first."
"I will not leave my gold unattended, for obviously you are not equal to the task."
"So sue me. I didn't think they'd get the door broken down."
"You should have broken their empty skulls."
"Look, I'll take this up with Smith, I said."
"I do not trust you to return with the correct answer. We will both take this up with Smith."
"Fine with me."
HAROLD SMITH would have groaned had his body been his to command.
But the Master of Sinanju hadn't restored his bodily functions. It was a terrible feeling because it was the second day, and even though they had hooked up an IV tube and were feeding him intravenously, his bowels felt like sausages filled with cold, soggy bran meal. But his body refused to release the inert matter that made him feel as constipated as an elephant in tall sugarcane.
He forgot his inner distress as the Master of Sinanju tried to explain the situation. "The tax terrorists have breached your holy of holies, your sanctum sanctorum, O Smith."