“Not far. Fifty yards.”
“Back up and give them room, Bishop,” Warlock said.
The van grunted laboriously to and fro among the trees, and then moved very slowly in reverse in the direction it had originally been travelling.
“We’ll stop here,” Warlock said when the police car had followed another hundred feet. “Come along, Mr. Templar, and no tricks. I don’t need to remind you...”
“No,” Simon interrupted. “You don’t.”
“Bishop, hurry on up and help them,” Warlock ordered. “We’ll follow. Do you have your dart gun, Frug?”
“Check,” said Frug, crisply, slapping a bulge in his jacket.
“It is just like a movie, isn’t it?” Simon commented.
Bishop had already disappeared ahead. Warlock and Frug got out of the car and waited for the Saint to precede them.”
“Hurry it up,” Warlock said, “and no more comments.”
Monk and Nero Jones were already at work on Hermetico’s outer fence when Simon, Warlock and Frug came around the van to join them. Bishop was inside the van adjusting the exact height of the aluminiun bridge to match that of the hole his colleagues were making in the fence. For the first time since his involuntary joining of S.W.O.R.D., Simon was impressed with the professionalism of Warlock’s group. They went about their assigned tasks as quickly, quietly and efficiently as those automatic electrical devices of which Warlock was so fond. It was as if real ability lay coiled inside their unimpressive personalities, to be released only in the rare moments when it was needed for a specific job.
“Careful,” Warlock said unnecessarily to Jones. “One slip with those jumper leads and all hell will break loose.”
Monk grunted and went on clipping through the fence as Jones bridged the gaps with wires which would prevent circuits from being broken and setting off an alarm. Simon scanned the scene around them. The big pale dome of the building itself, like the upper third of a monstrous tennis ball, rose not thirty feet away. From this rear view it was unlighted and almost completely featureless. It might have been made of solid rock, a fallen moon dimly reflecting the light of the night sky. Around the outside of the fence were signs illuminated by hooded bulbs; they warned in unspecific but emphatic terms of the dreadful fate which awaited anyone attempting to transgress on Hermetico’s premises.
The hole in the fence was complete. It was over three feet in diameter and about three feet above the ground level at its lower edge. Frug was passing around spectacles coated with the chemical that Warlock had provided. Simon put on his pair. Instantly the dark area between fence and white building was alive with bars of light, crisscrossing one another from earth to the top of the fence.
“Good work,” said Warlock.
He was looking through the hole in the fence along the tunnel which his men had found in the network of rays. It was not a very spacious tunnel, and it was not of uniform dimensions all the way through, but it was big enough for a prone man.
“The bridge,” Warlock grunted.
He motioned to Monk, who went into the cab of the van and backed it up until the open rear doors were within a foot of the fence. The engine of the van, which had been muffled by every means Warlock could contrive, still seemed as loud as the racket of a sawmill.
“What if somebody looks out here?” Frug muttered.
“We’re all dead,” Simon assured him.
“Shut up!” Warlock hissed. “Nobody’s going to look out. There aren’t any windows.”
Simon glanced hopefully at the tiny apertures around the upper part of the dome — scarcely visible except to one who was looking for them — and said nothing.
“Now,” Jones whispered, and Bishop pushed the lever which moved the bridge out from the rear of the van.
“Easy,” Warlock said. “Slowly. Easy does it now.”
The metal projection crept from the cavity of the van and nosed through the hole in the fence. It inched its way down the tunnel, precariously close to the irregularly spaced bands of light which formed the channel. Simon, like the others, felt compelled to stand as close to the bridge as he could and sight along it as it moved out across the deadly mine field. No one breathed. The night wind rustled the trees behind them. The sound of the electric motor which moved the vibrating bridge was a low whine in the background.
“Stop!” Warlock barked suddenly.
The head of the bridge had almost touched one of the beams. There was an adjustment within the van. The bridge crept on. Simon was almost touching it. With a sudden shove he could have set off explosions all across the green strip, but his chances of standing up to or even just escaping Warlock and his men, single-handedly and without a weapon, were infinitesimal. He would have to wait until the group had split up inside Hermetico’s grounds before he could make his move.
As the far end of the bridge reached the other side of the ray field there was a general intake of breath. A switch was thrown inside the van, and the two legs which were to support the suspended end of the bridge eased towards the ground just next to the concrete walk which surrounded the outside of the dome.
“Are you sure it’s steady on those supports?” Warlock whispered.
The others were sighting along the aluminium frame.
“I can’t see a bloody thing,” Monk grumbled.
“What if it’s not steady?” Frug asked. “It’ll swing over or something and blow us all to pieces.”
“Not all of us,” Warlock said shrewdly. “Just one of us. Let’s see the famous Saint demonstrate his talents. You go across first, Mr. Templar, and make certain that the bridge is in good shape. And please notice that when you get to the other side there’s absolutely nowhere for you to run in case you should have any lingering ideas about causing trouble. Nero and Frug will both have guns trained on you the whole time. They could finish you in two seconds. Now, go ahead. If anything feels wrong to you, stop.”
“Everything feels wrong to me,” Simon replied. “Is that all the information you need?”
“Get on the bridge, Mr. Templar.”
The Saint mounted the rear of the van, looked down the narrow tunnel of darkness among the web of light rays, and lowered his body onto the track of metal rollers.
2
He felt the aluminium bridge shudder slightly, almost touching one of the light beams. But then there was a scraping creak as one of the legs on the far end adjusted its contact with the ground, and the whole frail structure steadied itself.
“Go on, Templar,” Warlock urged. “Remember what happens to your girl friend if we’re not finished here on time.”
Simon held his legs close together, extended his arms straight before him, and without further hesitation used the full strength of his fingers to pull himself quickly along the rollers. He slipped smoothly past the fence and out through the silent unwavering network of infra-red beams. A few seconds later his head and shoulders emerged from the wall of rays, and the rest of his body followed. He gratefully lowered himself back to solid support in the form of the cement walk which circled Hermetico’s dome.
Looking back, he saw that Bishop was ready to follow, making himself prone on the aluminium rollers at the edge of the truck bed. Down to the right about thirty feet was Nero Jones with a submachine gun strapped to his back and an automatic rifle aimed directly at the Saint. Frug, a few yards along the fence from the other side of the truck, covered Simon with a smaller automatic weapon. Even if he should make the bridge collapse by kicking away the supports with his feet, getting rid of a man or two with the resultant explosions, the Saint knew that he would be instantly cut down by Frug’s and Jones’s interlocking fire.