Colonel Bexton bristled. "Not, I'm afraid," he said haughtily. "You see, Sir Guy, after the success of the ?rst run and the, um, miscalculation on my part during the second, Her Majesty's Royal Air Force has beefed up alertness to a point greater than any other time since the Falkland crisis. We have a web along our sh.o.r.es that cannot possibly be penetrated. There is absolutely no conceivable way an enemy plane could enter sovereign British airs.p.a.ce without my knowing it. Therefore, no matter what you may personally believe to be happening in the greater London area at this particular time, I a.s.sure you that it is not another bombing attack. Now, if there is nothing else, I have many duties to attend to, so you will please forgive me if I ask you to take your fanciful notions elsewhere and kindly p.i.s.s off. Good day, sir."

He hung up the phone, not realizing that his connection with Sir Guy had been severed midway through what he considered a well- deserved tirade.

Colonel Bexton did manage to do a little more light paperwork in the ensuing two minutes after Philliston's phone call. His peace was disrupted when an aide raced into the room with an urgent message from London. It had come not from RAF sources, but rather from the radio. The BBC World Service was reporting that London was, indeed, in the process of being heavily blitzed by hostile forces.

Colonel Bexton took the news with a choice of words that would be recalled for years to come among those aspiring to become of?cers of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force and who had no desire to follow the colonel's lead in reaction to a crisis.

"Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," said the soon-to-be-retired Colonel E. C. T. Bexton.

Chapter 19.

Smith caught up to the last SS-uniformed soldier on the top few steps of the lower staircase.

The rest of the band had just rounded the corner and was heading up into the daylight. They weren't paying attention to their rear.

Smith ?ung himself at the legs of the escaping soldier, wrapping his arms around the man's knees. The man let out a startled yelp as he toppled forward against the stairs.

The heel of the young soldier kicked up as he ran, catching Smith in the jaw. The impact cut a small gash in the CURE director's jaw and shifted his rimless gla.s.ses. Smith barely noticed.

The image was ridiculous. A man in his seventies tackling a ?t twenty-?ve-year-old man.

But Smith had not only the element of surprise on his side. He had training. These so-called soldiers, no matter their pretension of identifying themselves with the formidable n.a.z.is of ages past, were exceedingly sloppy.

The man fell and turned, kicking at his still unseen attacker as he tried to grab for his machine gun. His hat dropped off, revealing a pale, tattoo-painted scalp.

Smith had already rolled away from the ?ailing legs. Grabbing the soldier by the belt, Smith dragged him down the stairs with a mighty tug.

The skinhead bounced roughly down the wellworn steps, the back of his shaved head slamming against the concrete. He had just located his gun. It slipped from his ?ngers, rattling down the stairs beyond Smith.

When the young man was within reach, Smith lashed out with his free hand-?ngers curled, palm extended. His hand smashed into the bridge of the skinhead's nose with a sickeningly loud crunch.

Blood gushed from the man's nostrils. He wriggled woozily, trying to pull himself back away on elbows and heels.Smith repeated the blow, more vicious this time. The crunch was louder, the effect lethal. The young skinhead's eyes rolled back in their sockets. His head lolled to one side. He didn't stir again.

Kneeling next to the body, Smith didn't take time to catch his breath. He scrambled down the stairs, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the skinhead's dropped machine gun in his gnarled hands.

It was set to ?re.

His bones creaked as he climbed to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his jaw, Smith ran up to the landing.

The group of SS-clad skinheads had no idea what had just happened behind them. They were higher up the second landing, stuck in a bottleneck. The ?rst men in line were waiting for a lull in the ?ghting at street level before racing into the smoke and ?ames in the road outside.

Not that there was much resistance from above. Even though some bobbies were allowed to carry guns in modern London, the police in the square were no match for the heavily armed IV troops. What the soldiers were avoiding were the bombs and occasional machine-gun bursts from their own attacking air force.

Smith braced his back against the wall as he stole a quick look up at the neo-n.a.z.i troops.

Cl.u.s.tered together. An inviting target.

Smith twisted into the landing. His gray face a steel mask, he began ?ring carefully and methodically at the troops jammed tightly on the stairwell.

The gun rattled a relentless staccato in his steady hands. Bullet wounds erupted on the nearest startled troops. There were screams and shouts.

Caught off guard, the soldiers didn't know how to react. There were too many of them packed together to maneuver well. Those who did manage to wheel around succeeded only in ?ring on their own troops.

Bodies fell in crumpled ma.s.ses, toppling atop one another in an avalanche of twisted limbs.

In a matter of seconds the subway staircase was transformed into a blood-drenched abattoir.

For several long moments Smith was forced to duck and hide behind the wall. For short stints he would pop out and ?re on the dwindling German forces.

Eventually all that was left in the staircase was Smith. And the bodies of the men he had killed. He peeked around the corner.

The others had ?ed.

A rectangle of daylight that appeared to have been cut out of the concrete around him opened into the street. He could hear the angry pop-pop-pop of machine-gun ?re echoing down the now silent stairwell.

Dropping the weapon in his hands, Smith scooped up two others from a pair of nearby corpses. Slinging one gun over his shoulder, he held the other ?rmly in his hands.

Ignoring the pains that screamed from every joint, Smith hurried up through the scattered dead to the street above.

THE CHAOS of Trafalgar Square was far below. Remo had just reached the top of the nearly two-hundred-foot-tall granite pedestal.

He was standing next to the legs of the sixteen-foot-tall statue of Lord Nelson, and he still didn't know what to do about the huge German bomber.

The Heinkel moved with a plodding remorselessness across the smoke-choked sky.

Remo saw that its bay doors were open. Brie?y a broad face came into view. It disappeared into the cavernous interior of the large aircraft.What could Remo do?

Remo patted his pockets. He had nothing but his phony ID, a few credit cards and a roll of cash. Desperation.

There was nothing he could use. Nothing he- The Heinkel was directly above him. It was like the Shadow of Death had pa.s.sed over London.

All at once Remo became aware of something new in the air above him. Something small had fallen from the plane.

He looked up.

The bomb-the ?rst of many, Remo was certain-was whistling angrily toward his head.

He glanced around frantically. He could rip one of the legs off Lord Nelson and use it to bat the bomb harmlessly away.

Bad plan. That wasn't how bombs worked. They waited until they hit something and then blew up. This wasn't a game of tag.

He'd never win a contest with a bomb by striking it ?rst.

It was closer now...twenty feet ...ten feet... There was not much choice. Remo steeled himself. Five feet...

It would have been easier if the bomb hadn't been sitting in a French farmer's ?eld for thirty-seven years and then in a deminage depot for another eighteen.

Two feet...

No choice.

One foot...

Remo slapped his hand out.

The whistling bomb was at chest level now. He caught the nose of the 75 mm sh.e.l.l with carefully cupped ?ngers.

Slow the descent. Turn the bomb around.

Remo felt the rough, corroded surface of the unexploded sh.e.l.l through every nerve ending in his hand. Fingertips became suction cups. A variation of the technique that allowed him to climb sheer faces. Using the coa.r.s.e bomb exterior for leverage, Remo whipped the explosive device back in the direction it had come.

The entire sequence took a split second to perform. The sh.e.l.l soared back up through the open bay doors of the Heinkel just as the aircraft began to drop another small handful of bombs.

There was a muf?ed explosion deep within the belly of the plane. Another distant sound of a single detonating sh.e.l.l was followed by an eerie second of silence.

All at once the huge aircraft erupted in a ma.s.sive ball of ?ame. Smoking metal fragments exploded in every direction as ?re tore down the length of the fatally wounded plane.

Lord Nelson became a shield. Remo ducked behind the statue as it was pelted with hundreds of chunks of jagged steel.

The Heinkel tore out of the sky with a pained scream, crashing solidly against the seventh ?oor of a ten-story building on the far side of the square. The nose buckled; the wings snapped forward into the brick walls and then sheared loose. Another explosion followed, after which the Heinkel's tail section ripped away and plummeted in a ?aming ma.s.s to the street below.

What remained of the plane jutted out above the square. A burning hulk.

"Now, that was a plan," Remo announced to Lord Nelson.

Brushing the rusted metal fragments from his hand, he climbed swiftly back down to the ground.RAF JETS INTERCEPTED the German warplanes above London at 12:25, Greenwich mean time. By most estimates, that was precisely twenty-?ve minutes after the attack had begun.

Rockets blazed into the sides of the woefully outmatched IV air force. Crippled and burning planes ?ew nose ?rst from the hazy afternoon sky.

Most buildings and tourist attractions from Oxford Street to Const.i.tution Hill and from Shaftesbury Avenue to Park Lane had sustained some kind of damage.

Some police were on the scene in riot gear. More were arriving every minute. Sirens sounded in every direction.

Fires raged in several ravaged buildings as Remo made his way around the periphery of the neo-n.a.z.i defenses.

Many of the skinheads he dispatched were clearly in some altered state of mind. The bodies of their innocent victims lay everywhere around the smoke-?lled square. For this reason alone, Remo continued to battle his way through the thinning troops.

A trio of men in an alley was ?ring against an unseen a.s.sailant near a burned-out car. Remo leaped into the middle of the dazed group of skinheads. His presence had barely registered to them before he was spinning on one heel.

With a triple crack, Remo brought both forearms and one knee against each man simultaneously. They were dead before they hit the ground. Remo slipped out of the alley.

Whoever had been ?ring on the three skinheads from behind the car had changed direction. The machine gun was now shooting at a group of men in SS uniforms ?eeing for the nearest Tube entrance. Several of them dropped to the street, mortally wounded.

Remo a.s.sumed the shooter was with the police. He was trotting past the car when he was startled by something familiar about the ?gure crouching at its charred rear b.u.mper. He stopped dead.

"Smitty?" Remo asked, shocked.

Harold Smith glanced once at Remo, his expression cross. Looking back to the ?eeing German troops, Smith resumed ?ring.

At that moment the Master of Sinanju came racing into sight from the opposite direction. Seeing his pupil, he ran over to join him.

Chiun nodded. "You have found Emperor Smith."

"Sort of," Remo answered uncertainly. "Okay, Smitty, let me have it," he said gently.

Remo tugged the gun from Smith's hands, tossing it to the sidewalk. Smith immediately grabbed for the gun slung over his shoulder. Remo took that one, too.

"They're getting away!" Smith snapped. He started to give chase to the ?eeing troops, but powerful hands restrained him. When he turned, he found the Master of Sinanju holding ?rmly on to his biceps.

"You are a valiant warrior, O Emperor. But the pinheads are undone."

"They're not getting away," Remo promised. "Not dressed like that. It's over."

Smith glanced from Remo to Chiun. All at once the ?ght seemed to drain out of him.

"Yes," he exhaled. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Remo looked around the area. The street was a littered mess. Several bodies-both skinhead and civilian-lay about the roadway.

Bullet holes riddled the walls. Shattered gla.s.s lay everywhere. Nearby, the wreckage of an Me-109E burned freely. Plumes of black smoke rose into the gray sky.

"Is this what it was like before?" Remo wondered aloud."No." Smith was in the midst of adjusting his tie. "It was far worse," he said tartly, brushing dirt from his sleeve.

"We've got to get these guys, Smitty," Remo said softly.

No one seemed to hear him. A thought had suddenly occurred to Smith.

"Maude! I left her in the Underground." He started across the street.

"I will accompany you," Chiun announced. He trailed Smith back to the subway entrance.

Remo stood for a few moments longer, staring at the wreckage around him. Smoke and ?re raged, sirens wailed.

Before leaving home a few short days before, he had been struggling internally with his life as CURE's enforcement arm. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Maybe he couldn't stamp out every last bit of evil in the world, but that didn't mean he should stop trying.

Smith was right. Conrad MacCleary had been right.

"One man can make a difference," Remo declared ?rmly. He resolved at that moment, looking at the grisly results of a reviled, decades-old evil, that-in this case-one man would do just that.

There was no way these people were going to get away with this. No way at all.