Lothar Holz, I have found something that might be significant.' He began tapping his fingers on the edge of his desk. The keyboard buried below the desk's surface lit up obediently beneath his nim-ble fingers. 'You said the warehouse to which he brought the ambassadors was within an hour or so of the Edison facility. That automatically eliminates most of their New York properties.'
'I wish I could narrow it down better,' Remo said, 'but my system was so out of whack I couldn't even tell north from south.'
'Alas, the even more powerful signal employed on me dulled my senses, as well, Emperor,' Chiun intoned.
'It might not matter,' Smith said. 'Given the time interval, there are not many places he could have reached by car. There is a warehouse in Jersey City that is owned by PlattDeutsche. It is both convenient to New York City and to Edison. I want you to begin there.'
'I hope this isn't just busy work,' Remo grumbled.
'It is a start.' As he spoke, Smith opened his desk drawer and removed two small, flat plastic disks. 'I want you each to carry one of these.'
Smelling a free gift, Chiun bullied his way in front of Remo. He snatched the small item from Smith's hand, examining it carefully.
'A talisman?' Chiun asked cagily.
'Something like that,' Smith admitted.
This seemed to satisfy Chiun. The small object disappeared inside the folds of his kimono.
Remo had taken one of the proffered items, as well. He flipped it over in his hand. Small wires extended from the body of the device.
He could feel the faint hum of a battery.
'What is it?' Remo asked, puzzled.
'Possibly nothing,' Smith said. 4'Consider it a good-luck charm.'
The words were uncharacteristically cryptic for Harold W. Smith. He turned away from his two operatives and began typing at his computer.
'Come, Remo,' Chiun insisted. 'With our emperor's talisman in hand, we cannot fail.'
Remo glanced skeptically from the small object to the CURE director. Smith looked absolutely exhausted. The strain of the past few days had drained him both physically and emotionally. Remo did not press him.
'Whatever,' Remo said. He sounded unconvinced. Slipping the object into the front pocket of his chinos, he and Chiun headed out the door.
25
Lothar Holz knew he was risking everything. By de-fying Adolf Kluge, he had made himself a powerful enemy. But even Kluge might change his mind—
albeit grudgingly—if Holz was able to turn the situation around. And he was convinced he could do just that.
He knew that those from Sinanju would eventually find this warehouse. It had been a public real-estate transaction made several years before. PlattDeutsche had no reason to keep it secret. They had intended to use it for storage but never had. It would only be a matter of time before Smith uncovered it. He would eventually send his enforcers here.
If Holz could obtain another complete copy of their neural files, either of the young one or the old one, he could claim a resounding victory. As it stood now, he had only been able to reclaim a small fraction of their capabilities.
He planned to download one of them and run before they had a chance to catch him. If he succeeded, even Kluge might come around.
Of course, Kluge had been upset by the abduc-tions. But the old ones in the village would savor the victory. And some of the old ones still had influence.
No, this was the answer. He would return to the village a hero instead of a bumbling clown. And his victory would put him back on the fast track.
Holz drove the white van behind the decrepit warehouse and circled around the building, negoti-ating the tricky path through the pothole-filled drive.
The rear lot was a shambles. Tufts of crabgrass and dandelions pushed up through sections of cracked asphalt.
Wet papers and crushed beer cans were strewed everywhere. At one time, a pile of sand had been dumped toward the rear of the lot, but over the years most of it had washed down over the remaining patches of faded tar. An abandoned car, stripped of doors and tires, lay in one corner, exposed to the elements like the bleached skeleton of some long-dead desert animal.
Holz tucked the interface van beneath the shadow of the abandoned warehouse. Where he parked, the main road was clearly visible around the far rear corner of the building. He turned off the engine.
Almost immediately von Breslau stuck his head through the door into the cab. He squinted at the brightness of the late-afternoon sun.
'Oh.' He seemed disappointed to find that they were back at the dismal warehouse site. Holz got the impression that the old man had been sleeping.
'Stay alert back there, Doctor,' Holz said from the driver's seat. 'We do not know how soon they will be here.'
'Or if at all,' von Breslau muttered in German.
He glanced at Holz's blond assistant. The young man sat silently in the passenger's seat. The bandage on his shoulder was stained a deep brown.
'They will come,' Holz said confidently. He placed the earpiece for his transceiver into his ear.
They had tested the device earlier to be certain it was in working order. He had no intention of being trapped inside the building with Remo and Chiun.
'We will make certain everything inside is ready, Doctor. Please prepare our present guests for the welcome.' He climbed down from the cab.
The instant Holz was not looking, von Breslau nodded slightly to the young blond man. In spite of his severe twitching—which had gotten worse on the trip from New York—Holz's assistant nodded back.
The young man climbed down from the cab. He trailed his master to the decrepit building.
The old Nazi doctor watched them go through hooded eyes.
'I will be prepared, Lothar,' von Breslau said quietly. 'But I fear you will not be.' The old doctor smiled wickedly and stepped up into the rear of the van.
Remo and Chiun took the Holland Tunnel beneath the Hudson River to Jersey City.
Chiun sat beside Remo in the front seat. He had removed the object Smith had given him and was examining it carefully.
'Stop looking at that thing as if it's going to do something,' Remo griped.
'Pray to your gods that Smith's talisman is strong enough to ward off the evils of the innerfaze,' Chiun said ominously.
'I wouldn't count on any hocus-pocus to save us,' Remo replied tensely. 'Smith didn't sound too sure that that whatever-it-is would work. All I can say is we'd better hit hard and fast.' His face was grim as they drove out of the tunnel up into the sunlight.
'We will prevail,' Chiun insisted as he secreted the strange object away once more.
Remo followed Smith's directions to the letter.
They found the building in a bombed-out section of town. An old, faded sign identified the place as the former home of Ingalls Meat Packing Distributors, Inc. The sign at one time had stretched the length of the building.
The place looked familiar to Remo. He did not know if it was because this was the same warehouse he and Chiun had been to the day before or if it merely provoked the same sorry desperation of all abandoned buildings.
