"Enough," said the man who had been Horst Vessel. "Bring me the device. I do not have all night."
"Yes, yes, yes," said the fat man, then shuffled toward his desk across the room. The man who did not have all night stared down at a neatly drawn and quartered fetal pig without emotion. His hand moved behind his back to settle on a scalpel nearby. As he heard the fat man's labored breathing get nearer, he palmed the surgical knife and slipped it up his sleeve.
The man who was now Dr. Moishe Gavan held a small black box the size of a paperback book in his hands. He carried it as if he were bearing royalty, and his pudgy face was broken up in a proud grin. The fat man held the box up to the taller man.
"That is it?" asked the taller man.
"Yes," came the wheezing reply. "That is as small as I could get it, but still, once it is properly attached, it can detonate a nuclear bomb either by radio signal or by the timing device you see on the side there. It overrides all other safety controls. Turn it on. It cannot be turned off."
The man who had been Horst Vessel took the small device from the teacher's hands slowly.
"No need to be so gentle," said the fat man. "It is solid state."
"I am not gentle," the thin man flared. "I am careful." He looked at the box from all sides. "So this will do it, eh?"
"Yes," replied the fat man.
Thirty years of planning. Thirty years of oh-so-careful move and countermove. Thirty years of impersonation and lying. Now it all rushed together inside the man who had been Horst Vessel. Soon he could be Horst Vessel again. Even if only for a few minutes.
"Good," he said. "You have done well. Our plan can now go ahead without delay."
"Excuse me," the fat man began, coming up close, "but what shall I do until I receive my signal to go? I understand why the others had to be killed, but I have done my job. Both the others lost their resolve, but I have stayed until the end. I have done my work. I guarantee it. So, must I stay? Must I continue to teach this scum? Can I not go now?"
The man who had been Horst Vessel looked down, but he did not see the man who had been Fritz Barber. This was not Fritz Barber. Fritz had been clever, he had not been a whiner. He had not been a complainer. He had not been a coward, a runner. This fat man was no German. This man was Moishe Gavan. This man is a Jew.
The thin man smiled. "If you left now, it would create suspicion. Do not worry, old friend, once the final phase of our plan is put into action, you will receive the prearranged signal. Now I must go and prepare for that magnificent moment."
"I understand," mumbled the fat man.
The man who had been Horst Vessel snapped to attention and thrust out his arm in the Nazi salute. "Heil Hitler," he said.
The fat man tried to keep his eyes away from the dissections that lined the table as well as from the thin man's own gaze. He returned the salute. As Gavan's mouth opened to echo "Heil Hitler," the man who had been Horst Vessel slid the scalpel into his uprisen hand and brought it down across the fat man's chest.
The teacher's words stuck in his throat, blocking out any alarm he might have raised, and his eyes popped wide. His arm lowered to about eye level, his legs shook twice, and then he fell forward, blood already spreading across his front.
The man who had been Horst Vessel got down on one knee, then sank the blood-slick scalpel deep into the back of the fat man's neck. The teacher's body jerked one last time. The thin man rose.
The man who had been Fritz Barber had shown an ugly weakening tendency even back then, thought the thin man. I should have recognized it sooner. But no more trouble now. Soon, it will happen. Soon, Hitler's ghost will be satisfied. Soon, the Jews will be dead. All of them.
And if some Arabs had to die as well, then it would be so. It had to be. His purpose was too great to try to avoid destruction of others than the Jews.
The man who had been the youngest ranking officer in the S.S. began to slip on a pair of rubber gloves.
Before I can put the last part of the plan into action, he thought, I must get rid of the American agents.
The thin man then went to find a surgical saw among the laboratory equipment.
CHAPTER TEN
Zhava awoke to the most God-awful racket she had heard since a jet crashed next to her kibbutz when she was a child.
She shot up in the still moving jeep and cried, "What is it? Did we hit a sheep? Have you run over a turkey?"
Chiun turned to Remo. "What is it? Has your terrible driving, that is matched only by your terrible jumping ability, destroyed another living creature?"
"No, Little Father. She's talking about you."
Chiun turned to Zhava. "What was it that you heard, young lady?" he asked gently.
"A terrible high-pitched squealing. It sent shivers up my spine. Ooooh, it was awful."
"There, you see," declared Chiun. "It could not have been me, for I was singing a lovely Korean song that lulled you in your sleep, Tell the truth, now, were you not lulled?"
"Chiun," said Remo, "she is talking about your singing. I thought every Army patrol and wolf pack within twenty miles would be on us any minute."
"What do you know of lull?" asked Chiun. "Just drive, litterbug."
"Drive?" said Zhava. "Was I asleep? Oh, dear, where are we?"
"Be not afraid," said Chiun. "We are in the land of Herod the Wonderful, Israel, on the planet earth,"
''But where?" she insisted.
"The map says we have just entered Latrun," Remo said.
"Good," Zhava said. "I was afraid we had missed it. Watch for a turn-off toward Rehovat. I forgot to tell you that we managed to trace the men who tried to kill you. They worked at the Weizmann Institute of Science."
When the trio arrived, they managed to find the Palestinians' rooms without asking. The rooms themselves were unimpressive, unpopulated, and uncluttered by clues. Each was a small, square, cinder-block cell containing a wooden table, a portable wooden closet, a wooden chair, and a wooden canvas-covered cot.
"My people have already gone over the rooms carefully," said Zhava, "but they could find nothing that would lead us to a superior or higher-up."
Chiun had wandered out into the hall as Remo paced up and down the last room, finally stopping by the wooden desk. There he fingered a college textbook.
"Did these guys work here or go to classes?"
"Both, actually," Zhava replied. "Their custodial work limited their class time, but they did manage to sit in on several classes. Why?"
"Nothing, really. A biology textbook just wasn't my idea of an Arab best-seller, that's all. I guess that's what this book is."
Suddenly Chiun appeared in the doorway, in each of his hands a book.
"What are you doing?" Remo asked.
"Working," was the reply. "What are you doing?"
"Uh, nothing," said Remo.
"Exactly," said Chiun, dropping the two books to the floor. "While you two were comparing hamburgers you have eaten, I have done your work. Now, see."
Remo looked at the books on the floor. "Really neat, Little Father. They're very nice, but I don't think the institute will let you have them. Why not try the cafeteria? They might let you take something from there."
"You are blind," said Chiun. "You are but looking. I told you to see."
"Wait a moment,'' said Zhava, getting to her knees. "Did these books come from the other two rooms?"
"Exactly," said Chiun. "Are you sure you have no relatives in Korea?"
Remo looked around the room in confusion. "Somebody tell me what's going on?"
Zhava went to the desk. "Look, Remo," she said, picking up the biology book lying there. "It is the same as the others. See?"
"You, too, huh? Okay, I see already. So what?"
"It is a connection. All three Palestinians sat in on the same class each week with the same teacher."