Tretiak halted his diatribe when a stooped old babushka from the cleaning crew shuffled in and waved a feather duster over an antique loveseat.
Ilya immediately asserted his illusory authority.
“Not now, old witch! We’re working! Git before I boot your ancient ass outa here!”
She turned and humbly scooted out, but not before dropping a subminiature microphone-transmitter not much bigger than a dust mote onto the bookshelf behind the conspirators.
With the mission accomplished, the stooped and disguised Simon Templar hurried down the hall, ducked into a doorway, and concealed himself in what was obviously Ilya’s room.
Hip-Hop CDs, porno magazines, and “white power” propaganda were scattered across the floor. In the corner, leaning against the wall, was Ilya’s walking stick.
Templar stared at it, remembering Tretiak’s pompous warning:
“We could kill you and stroll away, even here in this transit lounge...”
A quick, careful examination of the tapered tip revealed a retractable needle which, if augmented with poison, would be discreetly lethal.
“Walking death,” murmured the Saint.
Returning his concentration to the tasks at hand. Templar stole a peek out the doorway. He saw a newly delivered shipment of chemicals being carried upstairs by a liveried servant.
As for Ilya, he stood in the foyer sniffing the air like a dog. There was something about the old woman that unnerved him, something naggingly familiar.
Templar striped off his rags. Beneath them he wore a painter’s outfit. He stuffed the babushka disguise in a formerly concealed gallon paint can and reemerged into the main area of the mansion. When the servant descended the stairs and Ilya had moved on. Templar went up to Botvin’s lab.
The little scientist was dispiritedly hooking a length of palladium wire to a electrolyte cell when he heard the creak of the opening door.
“You’re not allowed in here,” Botvin told the painter in Russian. “All the work is out there.”
“The work could be in here, you know,” said Templar in English as he maneuvered to get a better look at Botvin’s setup.
“You better go quick, whoever you are,” advised the nervous physicist, attempting to block Templar’s view.
“You’re not really doing anything up here except playing with lightbulbs. This is a sham — a bad Tretiak joke on the same folks who’ve pinned their hopes on him. You know it and I know it.”
Botvin was close to tears. He didn’t know what to say, or to whom he would be saying it.
“Nothing but props,” continued Templar evenly. “But you wish they worked with all your heart, don’t you? Isn’t that what you really want?”
“My heart? No... with all my dusha, my soul... people are freezing to death, you know.”
“Not in this house, I notice,” remarked Templar. He held up the faxed printout of Emma’s cold fusion formula.
“Look at this and tell me if it means anything to you.”
Botvin squinted at the paper. His glasses began to fog.
He answered, and his voice was a constricted whisper.
“It clarifies Dr. Russell’s seven cards... How did you get this? Who are you?”
Templar’s eyes seemed to pierce Botvin’s lenses.
“A friend of Dr. Russell’s, which also means I’m no friend of your boss — and neither are you. In truth, you’re a man of science, not brute force.”
Botvin gingerly took the printout and began reading it carefully. When he spoke, it was in subdued, awed tones.
“For the first time, I think I understand what she was getting at...”
Botvin’s pure heart pounded in his chest. He thought not of fame or glory, but only of his freezing countrymen.
“Will you try to make it work?”
“Every hour of every day!” insisted the scientist. “To think, a future free from the tyranny of winter!” He quickly turned to his computer, his mind racing. “I’ll need some time alone...”
“Work well and work fast,” advised the Saint. “Your boss plans to discredit Karpov with cold fusion’s failure at a Red Square rally.”
Both men heard the noise of someone ascending the staircase.
Templar quickly handed Botvin a two-way transmitter-receiver not much larger than the bug he left on Tretiak’s bookshelf.
“Now that we’re friends,” asserted Templar, “let’s stay in touch.”
Botvin nodded and placed it in his pocket just as the door opened and Ilya entered. He barely noticed the busy painter slipping past, calling out details of paint requirements in a deep Russian baritone.
“Botvin, you useless intellectual,” snapped Ilya, “have you seen a filthy old babushka?”
“It is not my job to keep track of your women. Little Ilya,” remarked Botvin coldly. “Now, please, I have had enough interruptions for one day. I am doing important work for your father, for Russia.”
Ilya’s Doc Martens stomped out of the room and back down the stairs.
Tretiak continued his conspiratorial conversation in the library, unaware that every incriminating morsel of conversation was being clearly transmitted and recorded, including an unexpected telephone call from President Karpov.
Informed by Vereshagin that Karpov was on the line, Tretiak began to gloat.
“I can almost feel my bank account straining under the weight of all those billions,” he joked before picking up the receiver.
“Because you came to me with these cold fusion plans as a patriot,” began Karpov warmly, “and because you have the best interests of Russia at heart...”
Tretiak smiled broadly, cradled the phone against his shoulder, and spread himself a caviar-covered celebratory cracker.
“Yes, true, true,” agreed Tretiak before taking a bite.
“I propose, as a patriot, also,” continued the president, “that you sell your cold fusion to the Chinese — it would be good fun to watch those old farts lose eighty-two billion yen!”
Tretiak stopped chewing mid-bite.
“According to my experts who’ve reviewed your data,” continued Karpov in the same tone, “I’d do as well to buy blueprints for a perpetual-motion machine. Or better yet, a skyhook!”
Tretiak spit his mouthfull of cracker and caviar into a napkin.
“Your experts lead you down a path of weakness, of feminine submission,” countered Tretiak angrily. “Soon Mother Russia will be gang-raped by Western Europe while America looks on, giggling... her corpse picked cleaner than by Napoleon and Hitler combined!”
Karpov, unruffled, replied.
“You have a gift for the mixed malign metaphor, but as a salesman, you’re a failure.”
“History is littered with would-be leaders who failed to act at the decisive moment...” Tretiak ranted.
“Oh, I’m decisive,” interrupted President Karpov. “I’ve decided to terminate this conversation.”
Tretiak was left holding a silent telephone.
He hung up, shrugged, and poured himself a fresh drink.
“No matter,” he said with a smile. “After the coup, the billions will be ours anyway.”
Vereshagin, Sklarov, and Tretiak raised their glasses in a toast to their glorious, victorious future.
Simultaneously Templar, appearing no different than any number of painters and workmen swarming over the mansion, took the liberty of exploration. He cheerfully let himself into every room of Tretiak’s domicile, and contented himself that he had cased the joint with thoroughness and professionalism.