Holz eyed Remo and Chiun. The color drained from his face. 'So you can't control them?' he hissed.
Newton ignored him. He banged furiously away at the keyboard. 'Satellite's gone, too,' he announced anxiously.
Chiun lay motionless on the floor. He would not be an immediate problem. But as Holz watched in growing horror, he saw Remo's legs begin to kick feebly. A second later, the young Sinanju Master lifted himself to his elbows.
'Get them back up!' Holz screamed.
'The interface signal is jammed!' Newton cried.
'Reestablish it!'
'I can't!'
Across the room, Remo was pulling himself to his feet. His shoulders and arms twitched spastically as the residual effects of his prolonged exposure to the interface signal began to slowly wear off. He got as far as his knees. But like a toddler taking its first uncertain steps, he fell roughly backward. He immediately began trying again.
Holz's eyes were wild. 'What's wrong with the satellite!' he screamed.
'I don't know!'
There was only one option. The men from Sinanju were loose. The life of Lothar Holz was at risk.
It was time to flee. Holz spun to the door. He was shocked by what greeted him.
'No one move.' The words came from the laboratory entrance. It was a voice Lothar Holz recognized. He blinked away his disbelief.
Harold W. Smith was framed in the doorway. In his hand was a heavy automatic pistol. He held the gun levelly, near his hip. Smith had positioned himself so that from where he stood he could take out any of the men in the lab.
'Remo?' Smith called evenly. He didn't take his eyes off Holz.
'I'm okay, Smitty,' Remo said, voice uncertain.
Chiun's tiny inert form lay nearby.
'The Master of Sinanju?' Smith asked tightly.
'Checking.'
Remo couldn't stand. He had been exposed to the radio signal far too long. As quickly as possible—
though his every nerve ending protested the punish-ment—he crawled on hands and knees over to Chiun's prone form. The Master of Sinanju still hadn't moved.
'How—?' Holz didn't have time to get his question out. All at once the building began to shake.
It was like an earthquake.
The computers and mainframe rattled visibly.
Clipboards, coffee cups, pens and floppy disks trem-bled, then tumbled from their perches on tables and computer terminals. A stack of papers fell from a desk near the door and fluttered like autumn leaves to the floor.
Holz was first to see it. Out the high window of the lab, the low black figure seemed to drag through the air. It was so close, he could make it out in spite of the lights of the lab.
It was an odd shape. Silhouetted against the pale blue night sky he spied something that looked like a giant Frisbee balanced atop the back of the massive aircraft
'A signal jammer!' Newton shouted over the roar of the plane.
The E-3A Sentry banked north and circled out of sight. But a low, angry rumble could be heard in the distance as the plane circled back around. As it flew, it continued blanketing the area with its broadcast-damping signal.
Remo had to drag himself across the floor to Chiun. His eyes were hot with nervous tears as he rolled the Master of Sinanju over onto his back.
Chiun was as still as death. Remo watched impotently. The lips didn't move, nor did the eyes flutter behind their papery lids.
Then all at once, Chiun's narrow chest expanded and deflated. He was breathing. Chiun was still alive.
Remo released his own breath. He had not even realized he was holding it. Above him, the others were talking. Until now, he had shut out their voices.
'I should have killed you immediately,' Holz said to Smith.
'A tactical error,' Smith agreed, 'but not uncommon. Someone else made the same mistake years ago. On the island of Usedom.'
A ripple of confusion. 'You were on Usedom?'
Remo noticed that the tone of Holz's voice had changed.
Smith's voice became brusque. 'It's over, Holz,'
Remo heard Smith say.
Remo didn't even care. Chiun was all right.
'All three of you, move out where I can see you,'
Smith ordered.
Somehow the thought registered in Remo's mind.
Three?
'Smitty, there's—'
He looked up in time to see Holz's assistant attack.
Smith couldn't react. There was no time. The man sprang from out of the shadows beside the door like a panther. His hand flew down toward Smith's arm.
It cracked audibly against the barrel of the gun.
A single shot exploded in the room. Curt Newton was caught square in the chest. He toppled backward off his stool, crashing with a fatal thud to the laboratory floor.
Smith's gun rattled off into a corner.
Lothar Holz's response was immediate. 'Kill him,' he growled.
Smith stood his ground, awaiting the inevitable end. On the floor, Remo was helpless. He still couldn't move adequately, certainly not quickly enough to help Smith. Desperately Remo searched the area for something, anything he could use against Holz and his accomplices.
The blond man drew back his arm, Angers splayed, in an all too familiar Sinanju move. It was basic but effective. Arms lashed forward in a killer lunge...but they weren't fast enough.
A single projectile rocketed up from the floor of the lab.
The pen tore through the man's shoulder. His mouth opened in pain, but no sound came out. Where there should have been a scream, there was only gasping silence. Smith dropped down and rolled away from the younger man.
Holz wheeled in the direction from which the pen had come. Remo was already crawling across the floor to where one of the other pens had fallen during the Sentry's first pass.
Holz was lost. Frantic. He barked a command in German to his assistant before racing into the hall.
The young man, still bleeding from the shoulder, hustled von Breslau from the lab. Another pen flew after them but, like the first, it missed its mark. It embedded itself up to the PlattDeutsche logo in the door frame.
Smith ran to retrieve his gun. Finding it under a small metal bookcase, he ran out into the hallway, after the fleeing trio.
Several seconds later, Remo heard a single muffled shot accompanied by the squealing of tires. Another noise—this time a distant crash—followed the gunfire. The roar of a truck engine faded into the night.
A minute later Smith returned, panting and shaking his head.
'They got away in the van,' he said breathlessly.
'Forget them. Help me with Chiun.'
Smith nodded crisply. By now some mobility had returned to Remo's legs. Though he hobbled as Smith puffed, they managed to get the Master of Sinanju up onto the hospital gurney.
As Remo ministered to Chiun, Smith crouched to check on Newton.
The scientist was wheezing irregularly. A frothy foam of pink encircled his mouth. The wound in his chest had stained the front of his dress shirt a deep crimson.
