Such a move would accomplish nothing but the salvation of Hermetico’s treasures for Hermetico’s management and depositors — none of whom were uppermost in Simon’s mind at the moment. He was considerably more interested in squaring accounts with Warlock and his friends, and in the process saving himself and Amity Little. He would have to wait. In the meantime, he surreptitiously tried to weaken the stance of one of the bridge’s supporting legs by kicking it with his foot as he moved away from it. If the bridge should fall down while he was nowhere near it, who could blame him?
But unfortunately the support moved only a fraction of an inch. Bishop’s weight was already on the bridge. With a long canvas pack ahead of him on the rollers, he was inching out over the mine field.
“Elbows in,” Warlock said hoarsely. “Don’t raise your head.”
Whatever Bishop’s qualifications as an extra-legal professional man, he was obviously not very good at or very fond of crossing shaky aluminium bridges over highly explosive strips of earth. When he finally had both feet planted on the ground beside the Saint his face gleamed with sweat in the starlight and his hands were trembling visibly.
“Come on now,” he said condescendingly to the ones who still had the crossing to make, “there’s nothing to it.”
Across the bridge in slow procession came Monk, then Warlock, and finally Frug. With them they brought more canvas packs, the metal tanks which would fuel the acetylene torch, and a great coil of nylon rope.
“Legs together,” Warlock grated to Frug. “Easy does it, you idiot! Don’t drop the rope!”
Frug’s reaction to the crossing was more vehement than Bishop’s had been. He mopped his face with his sweater and swore.
“I wasn’t half an inch from one of those beams at the end! Will I be glad to see those bloody things shut off!”
“The sooner we get below, the sooner they’ll be shut off,” Warlock said. “Move out now — around to the ventilation ducts.”
There was a muffled clanking as Monk shouldered the metal tanks.
“Quiet, you fool!” Frug squeaked.
“Who d’you think you’re calling a fool!” Monk rumbled.
“Shut up, both of you!” Warlock said. “Do your jobs and don’t think about anything else.” He faced back towards the outer fence and whispered to Nero Jones as they passed his position. “Get to your post now. Don’t fire unless you’re absolutely sure something is wrong.”
Jones waved acknowledgement and headed off across the field, circling the outer fence parallel to the circle the rest of the group was making around the dome. He would post himself a hundred feet beyond the fence at a spot from which he could fire either on the side door or the front door of the Hermetico building. His pale face was an eerie circle of white when he glanced back over the shoulder of his black sweater. It had not occurred to anyone except the Saint that Jones should smear his face with blacking in order to camouflage it, and the Saint had somehow neglected to mention the idea.
“Get a move on,” Warlock said. “You can’t see anything with those glasses over your eyes now, Frug. All of you, get them off.”
Only Simon kept his glasses on. He pushed them down on his nose so that he could have a choice of seeing over them or through them. It was one of his more optimistic hopes that there were uncharted and unexpected infra-red beams within the confines of Hermetico itself. If that turned out to be the case, he would be the only one to see them. The S.W.O.R.D. group was so engrossed in its work that none of its members gave the least thought to the spectacles propped on the end of Simon’s nose.
Bishop and Frug led the way. Simon came next, with Monk and Warlock behind. They walked swiftly but quietly in single file around the featureless sloping wall of the building. The only sounds were the night breeze, the muffled clanking of the equipment the men carried, and the cautious scuff of their feet. Then there was a new noise which grew louder as they continued — a low buzzing roar.
“Those are the ducts up ahead,” Warlock said. “Easy does it.”
They had circled far enough around the building for the van to be out of sight. Then, as the roaring of the ventilation ducts grew louder, Simon discovered that his infra-red sensitive glasses served their purpose sooner than he had hoped. The S.W.O.R.D group was passing the side door of the Hermetico building, the only door beside the main entrance: it was made of riveted steel plate, undoubtedly bomb-proof, and it was recessed into the concrete wall of the dome. What interested the Saint about it was that he saw — and was the only one of the party who could see — a single beam of infra-red light crossing the threshold six inches above the ground. It was like a rope stretched across the entrance to trip an intruder who might step into the recess in an effort to open the door — except of course that instead of tripping anybody it would set off an explosion or an alarm or something equally inhospitable to an unsuspecting trespasser.
Unfortunately that door was not included in S.W.O.R.D.’s plans, but Simon decided he would find a way to see that it was included. He would have to act, though, before the men who were entering the vault through one of the ventilation ducts had managed to seize the control room and shut off all the electronic defence mechanisms.
A few yards past the doorway, like the roaring heads of subterranean monsters, were the ventilator ducts. The extractor duct was marked by the great bulge of the fan in its throat. The fan which drew in air through the other duct was below ground, incorporated into a filter system which prevented gas being used to knock out Hermetico’s human defences.
“Here,” Warlock said. “Gather around. Quickly! Get that torch going.”
Monk and Bishop assembled the acetylene apparatus with silent efficiency. Warlock knelt by the extractor duct and drew his finger across the metal a few inches above the concrete base.
“Cut here,” he said. “The wires run down just below that part of the fan. Be sure you leave them intact.”
“Huddle round now, would you?” Monk said. “Cut down the glare.”
He was referring to the light of the acetylene torch. The other men stood close by as the point of Monk’s flame cut into the duct at the place Warlock had indicated. The metal was thick, and the work went slowly. Simon relaxed his muscles by deliberate effort and thought the situation over. It would be two o’clock before the duct was open, and even if everything went well down below for the raiders it would be two-thirty before the loading of the van could get well under way. Warlock undoubtedly would see that the loading was completed as rapidly as possible, and that his patrol car got back to his headquarters in time to stop the killing of Amity... if he really intended to stop it.
The irony was that by disrupting S.W.O.R.D.’s operation Simon might cause such delays — to himself included — that Amity might die directly because of him. On the other hand, the Saint did not believe that his or Amity’s chances of a long and happy life would be particularly improved if they depended on Warlock’s mercy, which, he was now convinced, did not drop as the gentle rain from heaven. The Saint would have to act, and sooner than he had hoped. He had originally thought he would wait until the loading was under way, assuming the theft got that far; now he decided it would be more sensible to bring confusion to S.W.O.R.D.’s ranks while one was outside the fence, two were below ground with no way of getting out, and only two were with Simon on the surface.
Warlock was perspiring heavily as the cutting of the duct continued, even though he was involved in none of the labour.
“Can’t you hurry it up?” he snapped.
“The thing’s made of bloody armour plate,” Monk grunted. “I’ll be done in a minute.”