“Yes, I want you to be Mrs. Martin de Porres.” He showed her a passport featuring a photo of him in disguise as de Porres.
“Are you Martin?”
“I was named for a Saint who could cure the sick by the laying on of hands.”
He touched her cheek.
“You’re not Martin?”
“No.”
“Who are you?”
“I don’t have a name.” Templar turned back toward his locker.
“Will you have one when we get home?”
“I don’t have a home. You do the science, Emma, and I’ll do the math. We’ll sell the formula to the highest bidder and get rich. Then we’ll see...”
Simon Templar, a man who was already $50 million to the good, suddenly felt poverty stricken — when he looked back, Emma was gone.
His eyes frantically searched the crowd. There she was — racing across the ticket office, pushing through the morning travelers.
He ran.
Emma sprinted into the foyer toward the open door. As she passed a pillar, Vlad grabbed her by the neck. Her feet kicked at the air, Vlad’s strong fingers gripping her white windpipe. Her heart pounded wildly, and a red mist surrounded her eyes.
Vlad pulled out his flick knife and twirled it toward her face. His thin lips pulled back to reveal several rotting yellow teeth. Emma was amazed to see those same teeth explode out of Vlad’s mouth from the impact of Simon Templar’s fist.
The force of the blow sent Vlad sprawling like a stunned rat, his knife clattering across the floor.
“Never leave my side again, Emma,” insisted the Saint. She nodded dutifully, popped another nitro, and ran with him toward the side door as Ilya and Igor jumped from their Range Rover and stormed through the front.
The chase was on.
Emma and Templar smashed their way out the side door, veered left, and discovered they were on a dead-end street that terminated at a canal. In moments Ilya and Igor would be joining them.
“Oh, God!” cried Emma. “There’s nowhere to go!”
“Yes, there is, and if you don’t see it, neither will they!”
When the two Russian henchmen hit the street, the fugitives had vanished.
Igor and Ilya prowled up and down the sidewalk, peering into alcoves and alleyways. Nothing. Ilya stopped and sniffed the air as if he were a dog.
Directly beneath his feet, on a foot-wide ledge of ice, Emma and Simon perched precariously above the rushing arctic water. They inched along carefully, silently, dangerously.
The couple’s movements were tentative, awkward, and each sliding step was fraught with fear. Emma’s hand trembled, and her little brown bottle of heart pills slipped from her grip and rolled toward the water.
Templar snatched it, retrieved it, and tossed it to her. Then, in a moment’s fraction, the traction disappeared beneath him. He fought for balance, but the effort was doomed.
Emma watched in terror as Simon Templar vanished into the ice-filled water. It took massive willpower to keep from screaming.
Ilya stopped when he heard the splash, hastened to the ledge, and looked over the side. All he saw was water and ice.
Emma jammed herself into a crevice where the old stone had eroded away. Her body shivered with cold terror. Her left ankle seemed clutched by death itself, and a quick glance confirmed Simon’s deathly white hand wrapped around her like a strange claw.
The Saint, using Emma as anchor, stayed submerged in the frigid canal. With each passing second, his body seemed to fade away in terminal numbness. The only sensation he had of his chest was that of his lungs about to burst. Looking up through the murky water, he could make out Ilya’s distorted features.
Ilya saw nothing, but noticed his foot soldiers in the distance. They were across a bridge, scouring the far side of the canal.
“They must have run in the other direction,” growled Igor. “I’ll get the Range Rover.”
The Russian swore in English and hastened after Igor. No one was going to drive that car but him.
Emma moved out of the crevice, giving herself enough footing to bend down and help Templar get his head above water.
Breathless and blue. Templar gulped air and tried to send signals to his unresponsive body. With great effort Emma maneuvered him toward the canal ladder. He took each rung as if he weighed a thousand pounds, agonizing over each movement.
Out of the water. Templar shivered. Waves of delirium swept over him, and he fought to remain conscious.
“C’mon, gotta get you warm.”
Emma watched Ilya’s Range Rover cross the vehicular bridge. There was no way she and Templar could be seen from the bridge. She piloted her wet and wobbly companion toward an apartment house across the road.
“I know it’s hard to move... but try, quickly, before they circle back.”
The Range Rover was beginning to circle back.
Emma hustled Templar into the building’s grimy lobby. Lime-green paint smeared over concrete and sparse remnants of wallpaper established the decor, while the thick odor of mold and mildew attested to a history of benign neglect.
The front door, on a cheap, heavy spring, slammed loudly behind them.
Emma jumped.
Outside, Ilya’s head snapped to attention: What was that noise? He squinted through the driver’s side window at the row of dilapidated buildings, allowing a presumptive sneer to crawl across his lips.
Templar, shivering and dripping ice water, waited with Emma in front of the elevator.
“You’ll wait till Christ comes to Moscow,” said a voice behind them.
The bedraggled couple turned and stared at a teenage tenant outfitted in miniskirt and heels. Her makeup was excessive, garish, and ill-applied. She looked fourteen at best.
“Elevator was made of mahogany. We used it for firewood. This was a nice place once, before I was born,” she explained.
Templar forced himself to speak.
“We need to hide. We’re not criminals...”
Emma attempted to clarify the situation.
“Just people who...”
The girl shook her head. “You’re not just people, you’re Americans. He’s soaked.”
The squeal of brakes added a sense of urgency, and the young girl saw desperation in Emma’s eyes.
“Mafiya trouble, right? They must have seen you come inside...”
Shivering, Templar pulled a handful of soaked dollars from his pocket. “Money, I have money. I Please...”
Her eyes darted from the forlorn pair to the front door. She battled her instincts for survival and made a gut-level decision.
“I’m Sofiya,” she said, and her tone was considerably kinder. “Follow me. Forget about the money... at least for now.”
She herded them to the stairwell and encouraged them to start climbing. She and Emma helped Simon navigate the nine tiring flights to Sofiya’s huge communal apartment.
One massive room, it had been cheaply subdivided with thin plasterboard to accommodate several separate families.
Despite his mounting delirium, or perhaps because of it, Templar could clearly discern the distinctive smell of stale coal smoke, the residual redolence of burned wood, and the pungent scent of laundry soap.
Sofiya tiptoed inside, trying to sneak the two Americans through the door unnoticed. No such luck.
A haggard woman with sharp features, deep-set eyes, and long dark hair tied back in a bun confronted the trio.
Emma quickly extended her hand in a polite gesture, but the woman ignored her. Her attention was focused solely on Sofiya, the immediate recipient of an emotional outburst.
Templar, trembling in his soaked clothing, understood every word. Emma, although not fluent in Russian, sensed the essence of the diatribe.
“Meet my mother,” said the teenager, ignoring the woman’s verbal barrage and expressive hand gestures. “She doesn’t approve of what I do, but she eats the bread it buys. Too bad it can’t buy more heat.”