The fuhrer of the Fourth Reich marched back and forth in front of the wide iron support column. Above him, illuminated by powerful floodlights, the latticework structure of the Eiffel Tower jutted almost one thousand feet into the postmidnight Paris sky.
There were two dozen men around him. A mixture of both old-time Nazis and modern skinheads. They formed a protective phalanx around their leader.
As he paced between them, Nils Schatz banged his cane against the ground, creating angry dents in the dull bronze tip. He noted with displeasure that the walking stick had lost its luster. He would have to have someone polish it when he returned to the palace. Perhaps the president of France himself. He whirled.
"Where are they?" Schatz demanded hotly, pacing up to a nearby subordinate.
"They radioed half an hour ago, mein Fuhrer," the skinhead said helplessly.
"I know that," Schatz snapped. He walked a few steps in the opposite direction before twirling back around.
They were awaiting the arrival of the first hundred French victims. Chosen at random, the civilians would be shot in retaliation for the murder of only one skinhead. Afterward, Schatz intended to destroy the tower in order to demonstrate to the world the seriousness of his purpose.
He could see the pile of rusted old ordnance stacked beneath the nearby column. There were crates of shells as well as loose aerial bombs and mines, the latter being too large to box. Schatz had been assured that this one blast would take out the supporting leg above it, after which the tower would topple like a three-legged horse. A small digital detonator glowed red from a shadowy spot between the pile of explosives. It was the same kind of manually set device that was on all of his cases of stored ordnance.
He would not allow his dream to slip away from him. Not now. Not when it was so close to becoming a reality.
Paris was only the beginning. Soon the rest of France would fall. Germany would certainly join him then. After that it would take only a push to force the rest of Europe into line. And afterward. .. ?
Schatz knew. This modern world wasn't like the one that had given birth to him. These people were weak. They were crying out for a leader. For him.
He turned again on the skinhead.
"Raise them!" he commanded, pointing at the portable radio set with his cane.
"As I told you before, I have been unable to, mein Fuhrer," the skinhead said.
"Do not make me angry, boy," Schatz sneered, striding over to the young man. He pushed the skinhead viciously in the chest with the end of his cane.
Schatz was distracted by the sudden rumble of an engine. It came from the Seine side of the tower. He rose to his full height, glaring unhappily at the approaching two trucks.
"At last," he snorted. He marched over between the line of men to meet the vehicles.
Coming in one after the other, the trucks were approaching fast.
Schatz saw as they barreled toward him that the cab of the lead truck was empty. His face puckered unhappily as his twisted brain attempted to understand the significance of two empty trucks.
The vehicles didn't slow.
Teeth clenched in a rictus of fury, Schatz jumped from the path of the oncoming vehicles just in time, landing in a heap on the ground. The nearest skinheads pulled him to his feet, brushing the dirt from his clothing. He pushed their hands aside, spinning around in time to see the speeding trucks slam into the Eiffel Tower.
The first truck crashed into the base of the column beneath which the ordnance was stored. Even as the lead truck's nose crumpled painfully, the second truck was slamming it from behind, twisting the first truck to one side and toppling it over onto the base. The engines of both vehicles hummed softly.
Schatz stormed over to the trucks. He saw immediately that the undamaged second vehicle was empty. The Parisian men, women and children who were to be an example to their fellow citizens not to challenge the glorious Nazi Reich were nowhere to be seen.
"What is this?" Schatz demanded, whirling on his men.
"It's goodbye, schnitzel face," said an American voice.
The fiihrer's blood turned to ice.
As Schatz watched in horror, the two of them appeared out of the shadows. Like avenging angels. It was them. The ones from Sinanju.
The young one who had threatened Schatz over the Guernsey video camera grabbed a pair of skinhead soldiers by their necks and slammed their heads sharply toward one another. The resulting sound was like two pots being banged together. When he was finished, two helmets were fused together as if by a welder's torch. The skulls beneath were pulverized to mush.
At the same time the Reigning Master of Sinanju had leaped in front of four startled German soldiers.
His arms shot back and forth like pistons, piercing the foreheads of the men with deadly talons. The men dropped like wet bags of potting soil to the damp ground.
Schatz stumbled backward as the two Masters of Sinanju fell on his remaining skinhead and Nazi guards.
This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not when he was so close to success.
A single gunshot exploded behind him. There was a shriek of pain as the Nazi who had fired the weapon fell, his neck spurting blood from a wound inflicted by a sharpened fingernail.
The firing weapon sparked an idea in the back of Nils Schatz's perverted mind.
Exploded.
There was still a chance.
"Protect your fuhrer!" Schatz ordered the portable-radio operator. He hurried past the idling trucks toward the stack of explosives.
REMO JERKED the barrel of the gun around, forcing it back into the face of the attacking Nazi. The old man's teeth cracked to splinters as the muzzle tore through his mouth, continuing on into the back of his throat. It exited the rear of his neck.
"You'd have thought some of these guys would have called it quits after the last world war," Remo commented as he went to work on another old Nazi.
"Madness does not admit defeat," Chiun said. He cracked the kneecaps of two nearby skinheads. "Remind me to embroider that on a pillow," Remo said, finishing off Chiun's wounded with two precise toe kicks.
The area around them was littered with the dead of the Fourth Reich. There was only one man left alive. It was the skinhead radio operator.
Remo grabbed him by the throat. "Where's that old guy that was here a minute ago?" he demanded. "Shits."
"Fuhrer Schatz...is...there," said the man, his face turning deep red beneath Remo's squeezing hand. He pointed beyond the trucks to the base of the Eiffel Tower.
"Thanks," said Remo.
A final squeeze snapped the skinhead's spine. Remo dropped him to the ground. Running, he and Chiun headed for the tower.
SCHATZ HAD SET the digital timer on the stack of explosives to go off in four minutes.
Luckily for him, he had insisted that the detonators they had purchased with stolen IV funds be modeled after the small digital alarm clock that sat beside his bed in the sleepy IV village in Argentina. Schatz wasn't good with many of these new contrivances, but he certainly knew how to operate an alarm clock.
He was running now in the direction opposite the men from Sinanju.
Schatz had no idea how far he could get in four minutes. He hoped it would be far enough. One thing was certain, though. There was no way the two Masters of Sinanju would be able to escape the blast.
He ran for half a minute before realizing that he had left his treasured walking stick behind. It was too late to return for it.
He would get another. When the bomb exploded and the tower fell. Once the world recognized that the Fourth Reich would not be trifled with. The fuhrer would have his choice of the finest walking sticks in the world.
His aged lungs burned as he ran. His arms and legs moved in pained, jerky motions.
How much farther would be safe?
He fixed his gaze on a tree far ahead. That would be the point. Surely if he reached that, he would be free of the blast zone. And he would most certainly reach it.