“And where are the real monks?” she
was asking.
“In heaven, of course,” the General replied, with suc
cessful irony in spite of his bad pronunciation.
“They
were ready. Graves already
dug.”
“Where are the devices made?”
The General was not so co-operative in response to that
inquiry.
“Speak,” she said, “or I
shoot.”
“They are made here,” he said.
“Where?”
The General made a resigned gesture of his
shoulders
and hands.
“I
show you. You see. I push this
first.”
Tanya aimed the pistol more carefully and
tightened
her finger on the trigger.
“Slowly,” she cautioned.
The General nodded and pressed something on
which
a wooden ladle was hanging. There was an electric hum
ming, then a rumbling sound as
the central sections of the
two longest walls
of the chamber began pivoting. The
place
was transformed, as the shelves of dusty bottles
swung out of sight, into an entirely modern workshop. The newly revealed
sides of the walls were lined with
work benches and shelves covered with
electronic com
ponents, chemicals, precision
tools—and large numbers
of the
familiar exploding transistor radios and lighter-
cameras.
“Give me samples of the micro-explosive and the for
mula for it before we destroy this place.”
The General did not move.
“I destroy you also unless you give me
the formula,”
Tanya said. “You have tried to kill me many times. It
would not seem unfair for me to kill you once.”
“I give,” said the General.
He pointed to a large chest.
“There.”
“Get it,” Tanya told him.
As she turned to keep her gun on the General,
arms
reached suddenly from draperies and grabbed her, knock
ing aside
the gun and throwing her onto the floor out of
the Saint’s field of view.
He moved swiftly further down the tunnel,
searching
for a connection between the passage and the monastery
vaults.
Within twenty paces he found it: a small door
with a circle of
pocked iron which served as a handle.
Bracing his feet he put all his strength into
the pull. The
hinges seemed to be rusted solid, but their fastenings
were so
old that they gave way and bent soundlessly.
Simon stepped into the dryness and warmth of a small
unlighted room crowded with crates and piles of
card
board cartons. He did not need
his flashlight, for the door
of the
room was half open, letting through enough in
direct illumination to allow him to find his way quietly around the
heaps of boxes. There was a fire extinguisher
and an ax on the wall by the door, and overhead like a
tangle of snakes ran a thick bundle of electric
cables.
This was obviously not one of
those rooms open to tour
ists.
He realized immediately, as he got a look into the main
basement through dark curtains just slightly
parted at
the doorway, that he was
standing in the exact spot where
Tanya’s
captor had stood to grab her. The General and
two other uniformed Chinese, their backs toward the
Saint, held pistols on Tanya.
“Drop your guns,” Simon said, thinking it best to com
municate his wishes in the simplest possible
English.
At the same time, he stuck his automatic
through the
curtains. When the Chinese had dropped their pistols to
the floor he showed himself.
“If you think you’re surprised, Tanya, dear, you should
have seen my face when you showed up.”
Before she could reply, the General let out a
desperate
shout, and the two other men dove for Simon. It would
have been a suicidal move on their part except for one thing: when the Saint
pulled the trigger of his automatic
it emitted only a sodden click. He was hurled back against
the wall, his head glancing against the stones.
When his vision cleared a moment later the
Chinese
were once more in control, holding their dry pistols on
him and
Tanya.
“You are interested in our work, and you
have seen,”
the General said. “Now we take you back upstairs and
kill you.”
“Where are Ivan and Igor?” the
Saint asked Tanya.
“Quiet,” snapped the General.
But, looking at Tanya, Simon saw her give a
kind of
answer with an upward roll of her eyes.
The General opened a big refrigerator and
checked
the
contents—rows of small amber bottles.
“You not take anything from here?”
he asked Simon.
“No.”
The General went on counting. When he closed
the
door again he
looked satisfied.
“Explosive,” he said. “Fuses must be cold.” He
nodded
towards the wood-burning heater, which
showed orange flame through its grill. “Heat make explosion. Very
big.”
Then he set into operation the mechanism that
pivoted
the walls, and half a minute later the chamber had once
more become
the dusty home of Grand Abrouillac.
“Now,” the General said, pointing
into the side room
through which Simon had come. “This way.”
As they went through the curtains and passed
the
threshold, Simon whispered to Tanya, “Scream your head
off.
Now!”
She screamed with enough force to frighten a banshee,
furnishing an instant of confusion which was all
the Saint
needed. He toppled a pile
of cartons towards the guards,
snatched
the fire ax from the wall, and sank the heavy
blade into the mass of electric cables. The wooden handle
insulated
him from the spectacular multiplicity of short
circuits which resulted. Sparks exploded over the room
as the
light bulbs went off, and in the weird flashing brilliance Simon was able to
see enough to swing his medie
val weapon
again with deadly accuracy.
Both guards went down, and Tanya, who had
crouched
to escape the whistling blade, grabbed one of their pis
tols. The sparks were dying,
and the General had plunged back into the pitch darkness of the liqueur-making
vault.
The fine beam of Simon’s light caught
him as he felt his
way to the foot of
the stairs.
Tanya fired, and the General sprawled heavily
forward onto the stone floor. Instantly there was a tremendous fusillade of
gunfire at ground level outside.
“Ivan and Igor!” Tanya cried, and
bolted up the stairs. “They were guarding the Chinese upstairs.”
“Stay inside!” Simon called after her.
He had stooped by the General’s body. Now he
fol
lowed her up to the door and stopped her before she
could
unbolt it. But already the outburst of shots was
dwindling. As the
Saint pushed Tanya back and opened
the door himself he heard only three
scattered reports,
and then no more.
Igor leaned against the wall a few feet away,
clutching
a bloody arm. Ivan came running up, automatic in hand,
calling anxious questions in
Russian.
As Smolenko answered, Simon looked over the
moon
lit courtyard, where bodies lay scattered over the
ancient
ground like fallen puppets. It was fairly obvious
that Igor and Ivan
had been distracted momentarily by
Tanya’s shot, and their prisoners had
gone for their own guns. The Russians, sheltered by shadows and the stone
archways of the cloisters while
their enemies were caught
in the open, had
won the battle, and all the Chinese, with Anton, lay dead.
“
I never thought I’d be
glad to see you two,” Simon
said to Ivan and Igor.
I’m afraid this will change your mind.”
It was Tanya speaking, and she aimed her
pistol at his
chest. Calm but puzzled, he looked at her.
“I don’t understand,” he said
levelly.
“Moli
è
re
told them before they killed him—about your
real mission.”
“My real mission? I’m sincerely curious
to know what
that is.”
“To use me until you had found the
micro-explosive,
and then to dispose of us and steal the formula
yourself.”
Simon shook his head.
“Moli
è
re
was just trying to save his skin.”
Tanya’s voice was louder.
“You used me. Made me a fool. But now it no longer
matters. Ivan and Igor received orders from
higher—to
kill you. Now we shall have
the explosive and you shall
not have
even your life. Ivan, go below and bring up
samples. The formula may be in a chest beside the re
frigerator.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Colonel,”
Simon said, “but no
body gets the formula.”
“What do you mean?”
“No electricity. The movable walls are
jammed solid.”
“Ivan. Wait.” She thought for a
second. “We repair the
wires.”
“No time. Remember the refrigerator full of fuses and
explosives? The cooling has stopped, but that wood-
burning monster of a stove is still going full
blast. It
would take several hours to
untangle and match up and
reconnect
all those melted wires, and by that time this
place will have been transformed into picturesque ruins.”
“You planned this, so we could not get
the formula!”
“I must admit that the thought did pass
through my
mind. On the other hand, remember that I won’t get it
either.”
Tanya’s face twisted into an expression of hatred. She
lowered the pistol and slapped him again and
again. He
did not flinch, but his eyes
narrowed.
“I dare you to do that without your army
around.”
“You swine! You lied—cheated me.”
Igor raised his pistol.
“We have orders. I kill him.”
“No,” Tanya said. “He is mine.
Go.”
The men hesitated.
“Go, I say. Have Igor’s arm attended to.
Prepare the car
and my luggage.”
Ivan and Igor left the courtyard by the main
gates.
Simon leaned back against the wall and waited as Tanya
turned to
confront him. Even in the moonlight he could
not make out the
nuances of her expression.
“Isn’t the condemned man allowed a last
request?” he
asked
lightly.
Tanya did not answer, only waited, holding
the gun on
him as the ponderous footsteps of Ivan and Igor receded
down the
path.
“It’s usually a cigarette,” the
Saint said, “but since I’ve
given up smoking, how about a kiss? In memory of old
times.”
“I could never come so close,” she
said slowly. “I understand that it would be deadly to touch with my gun
anybody so
skilled in the arts of self-defence as you.”
“You never can tell,” he said.
For several seconds they faced one another
without
speaking as clouds scudded across the face of the moon,
and rising
winds gave a voice to the forest.
Then Tanya stepped forward and placed the
barrel of
her pistol against his chest.
He pushed the cold steel aside and pulled her
body
close,
kissing her deeply.
“You will have to make it seem
real,” she whispered.
“Hit me hard, and then run. They may be
waiting near. Can you go over the wall?”
“There’s a door from the kitchen to the
outside. I saw
it this afternoon. I’ll take your gun and shoot the lock
if
necessary.”
He took her face in his hands and forced her
to look
him in the eyes.
“The door’s big enough for two, and
there’s a big world
on the other side of it.”
“I
…
I’m
afraid that is quite impossible. Maybe …”