“Eek,” squeaked Frankie, and she waved her flash-light wildly.
“Eek? I can’t believe you actually said ‘Eek.’ ”
Frankie sidestepped another enormous rodent.
“How these rats get so big! There’s nothing down here but dirt, rats, and bigger rats — well, and you and me.”
Simon smiled in the darkness, his steady flashlight beam shining on the three-inch square card onto which he had scanned a detailed multilevel Kremlin ground-plan.
“That gizmo should be right around here somewhere,” he remarked as he tucked the card into his breast pocket, “and it should be pretty obvious.”
“As obvious as that?” Frankie’s beam found a massive set of concrete slabs.
Templar examined the detection unit. It was encased in steel mesh and recessed in the concrete. He knelt down, unshouldered his backpack, and removed a Plexiglas box and cordless bolt-driver.
“Here’s where we play ‘fool the gizmo,’ Frankie. This box has two compartments — one empty and one with radon gas...”
He began bolting it over the radiation detector. With the box snugly in place, he turned a little knob, which opened the divider between the compartments.
Frankie strained to see every detail.
“The gas is released, the sensor will sense it, and you and I will pray that it can’t tell the difference between radon and plutonium,” said Templar.
“Oh.” Frankie was not sure she understood. “Well, I don’t know the difference, if that helps.”
The detector’s emergency light began blinking.
“The gizmo thinks it just survived a nuclear attack,” explained Templar happily as he used the bolt driver to loosen the box. “Now it thinks it’s several months later... Moscow is rebuilding from the rubble...” He pulled the box away, dissipating the gas. “... and the radiation is gone.”
The emergency light stopped blinking, there was a low rumble, and the concrete slab slid open. Behind it was a simple, old-fashioned padlocked door.
The Saint chuckled. “I could open this thing with a stickpin.”
He didn’t have a stickpin, but he did have his multipurpose penknife.
Templar and Frankie eased themselves into the dank, dusty compartment, unchanged since World War II. There was even an old strategic map tacked to the wall.
“Stalin’s bunker,” whispered Frankie in awe. “It sure is dirty.”
“Well, places like this are hard to keep up,” offered Templar. He squinted at his square card. “The stairs should be...”
“There,” said Frankie with finality. “The stairs leading to the artesian well are right there.”
A moment of uncomfortable silence passed between them.
“Thank you, Frankie. Honestly, I couldn’t have made it this far without you.”
“Don’t get killed, Mr. Famous Templar.”
He gave her a hug and it was awkward for both of them.
“With any luck,” joked the Saint, “I’ll never see you again. And if my luck is bad...”
Frankie laughed and touched his shoulder before she turned back toward the tunnel.
“I’ll be waiting on the edge of Red Square with a souped-up motorcycle — vintage 1953,” said Frankie with a laugh. “And you know what, Mr. Templar? You’re a sentimental fool after all.”
Her light disappeared.
Templar turned his attention to the stairs. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. He was in his element — the odds were against him, the stakes were high, and he was all confidence.
3
The Kremlin’s sooty basement contained a multitude of machines dating from the Industrial Revolution slaving away with more noise than efficiency, humming and throbbing like the bowels of some mechanical behemoth.
It was from between these gear-grinding, steam-emitting relics that Simon Templar emerged. He had scaled the stairs, pulled himself up through the well opening, and became fairly sooty himself in the process.
He stripped off his darkly stained overcoat, revealing a perfectly starched and gleaming Kremlin guard uniform.
“Just like in the movies,” said Templar to himself as he tossed the overcoat down the well. “Now it’s time to meet and mingle.”
If Templar was on schedule, so was the attempted coup. From a hastily acquired vantage point in an above-ground corridor, he saw Sklarov’s Special Forces penetrating the grounds without opposition — proof that Sklarov had allies within the Kremlin guard itself. Soon General Sklarov would enter the Presidential Residence unhindered.
Templar quickly oriented himself on his ground-plan card, and began marching toward Karpov’s apartments as if he were following orders. There would be authentic Kremlin guards to deal with, but he had come well prepared.
Approaching the apartments. Templar slid behind a baroque pillar and waited — he didn’t wait long.
A genuine Kremlin guard rounded the corner. As he passed the pillar, Templar quickly seized him from behind and pressed an ether-soaked rag over the man’s face. He collapsed, unconscious, as a second guard came into view.
Templar called out in Russian as he hurried farther down the hall. “He’s had a seizure! I’ll get help!”
It took the second guard a moment to realize that he had never seen Templar before. Once the realization hit, his sidearm was aimed at the Saint.
“Sdavaites!”
Templar paid no heed to the guard’s call for surrender, but whirled around brandishing a pistol of his own. He shot one perfectly aimed round at the chandelier above the guard’s head. It shattered in a barrage of falling crystal, and the guard ducked for cover.
Alerted by the shot, a squadron of guards ran toward the sound. By the time they arrived, Simon Templar had daringly thrown himself into President Karpov’s private bedroom.
Startled awake, Karpov shielded his terrified wife with his own body. His eyes strained to focus on the man barricading the door.
Simon switched on the lights and held up his open palms toward the shocked and agitated president.
“I’m here to warn you, Mr. President, not harm you. You’re in danger, but not from me.”
“Get out!” yelled Karpov. “I could have you killed!”
“Sklarov’s Special Forces have mounted a coup,” explained Templar. “He’s on his way here right now.”
The president sat bolt upright while his wife pulled the sheets back up under her chin.
“Why wasn’t I—”
“Warned? Because many of your own Kremlin guards take orders from Sklarov,” declared Templar.
Muffled orders could be heard from the hall outside.
“I’m unhurt,” shouted Karpov, fearing his intruder was telling the truth. “Back off and leave us alone. If I need you, I’ll call you. Go away.”
His guards, reluctantly obedient, complied.
The Saint moved closer. His voice was even and nonthreatening.
“It’s all Tretiak’s work, Mr. President. How do you think this heating crisis came to exist?”
Karpov hid his head in his hands; his wife hid under the covers.
“It’s a nightmare, a dreadful combination of natural disasters, worker rebellion, and treachery by Tretiak!”
Templar sat down pleasantly on the edge of the bed.
“Natural disasters? Worker rebellion? President Karpov, you and I both know that Russia is richer in natural resources than any other country on earth — the world’s largest coal fields are here, as are vast deposits of petroleum...”
“Our coal processing abilities were crippled by the severe damage of earthquakes, and that damn Tretiak sold off our oil reserves to the West! If I could only find proof...”