Лесли Чартерис - The Saint

Frankie stomped a small boot and shook her curly hair in agitation and mock anger.

“That’s authentic. Everything here is authentic.”

Simon set the glass decorated chalice down as if it were valuable and grabbed Emma by the hand. “Let’s go.”

Frankie swiftly interposed herself in the doorway.

“Five thousand for the icon. Final offer. Not including cost to smuggle it through tunnels out of town.”

Templar’s eyes lit up when he realized she was gesturing at maps which detailed Moscow’s extensive underground.

He was about to speak when they heard the pounding of boots in the distance.

“Bastards!” hissed Frankie. “You’ve brought the police!”

“No, they’re not police,” countered Templar emphatically. “They’re ‘comrade criminals’ — Tretiak’s goon squad.”

Frankie’s eyes widened at the sound of Tretiak’s name. She unleashed a stream of Russian expletives and grabbed an oil lamp off the wall as Toli extinguished the rest. Frankie then gestured Templar and Emma back into the labyrinth, and Toli expertly sealed up the relic-packed depot.

“Please help us,” entreated Emma. “We’re just trying to get to the American Embassy.”

They all saw the faint glow of approaching firelight. They didn’t need to know exactly who was coming — the phrase Tretiak’s goons said it all.

It was Vlad, sans teeth, and several Tretiak Security stalking through the maze, armed with torches and guns like a lynch mob.

If Frankie and Toli consulted on an agreed course of action, they did it telepathically.

“Follow me,” ordered Frankie. “We’ll have to go the long way, but we won’t let them get you. There is exit hatch just under Embassy bomb shelter.”

The Saint was skeptical; Emma was impressed.

“How do you know the underground of Moscow so well?”

“We are the underground of Moscow,” answered Frankie dryly.

It seemed like hours, and perhaps it was, as the tired and filthy foursome stumbled around another bend. Frankie, much to Templar’s consternation, seemed to be having trouble getting her bearings.

“Are we lost?”

“You’re in Russia, sir,” explained the gregarious Frankie. “Its tunnels are mysterious and illogical as... well... the Motherland herself!”

Templar’s eyes narrowed. “But you do know the way...”

“Of course,” insisted Frankie, “like I know the face of a stainless-steel Bulgari Chronograph.”

She was staring at Templar’s five-thousand dollar wristwatch.

He pulled it off with a faint growl and handed it over.

Frankie, infatuated with her new timepiece, had a sudden refreshment of memory. “This way!”

Hunched low. Templar and Emma followed Frankie and Toli to a walkway leading to a compression hatchwheel.

“The water main,” explained their energetic guide, “because of rationing, they shut it down each afternoon.”

“And they turn it back on...?” asked Templar.

Frankie checked her new Chronograph.

“Hmmm, ’bout five minutes, plus or minus.”

No time to lose.

Templar was already at the hatch, melting the rusted lock mechanism with a tiny-but-mighty blowtorch attachment to his penknife. Emma, surprised by technological breakthrough, shook her head.

“That damn thing does have a blowtorch!”

Frankie offered Simon a few nuggets of further guidance.

“The third hatchwheel is under your embassy. Make it to number three and you’re home free.”

She gave poor distraught Emma a good-luck embrace. Then, seized with transports of conscience, she took off Templar’s watch and handed it to Emma.

“Here. Take it. Honest. I’ve got one just like it at home.”

Frankie and Toli hurried off as the hatchwheel opened. Templar climbed in and extended a hand to Emma.

The tunnels of Moscow’s underground labyrinth were as fun as Chutes & Ladders compared to the pitch-black metallic universe of the large pipe in which Emma and Templar now found themselves.

The Saint pulled out his penknife — the one that had been a blowtorch only moments before — and stuck it between his teeth. A powerful high-intensity bulb burned at its tip, shining a shaft of light ahead of them.

“I’m an idiot, Simon,” noted Dr. Emma Russell. “I’m wasting my time with cold fusion.”

“Huh?” Templar couldn’t articulate too well with a light in his teeth.

“I should market that penknife of yours and retire.”

At least Emma was loosening up.

“I hate to think what you do with that thing when you’re alone,” she muttered.

The two fugitives crawled as quickly as they could along the cold pathway of pipe. Progress was tedious but constant.

Templar shone his penknife light at an exit hatch above them.

“ ‘Hatch Number Two,’ ” he read the attached tag. “Novinsky Street. I figure we have two more minutes, unless our plus is a minus.”

Plus or minus. Emma shuddered at the implications.

Soon his penlight found the embassy exit hatch. No hatchwheel; no exit.

“Oh, my God...” Emma gasped. “We’ve got to go all the way back! We’ve been three minutes, ten seconds...”

Templar gaped at the sight of his watch.

“You stole that back from her?”

“No. I’m not a thief,” snapped Emma testily. “She returned it.”

Templar, astounded, grabbed the watch back and strapped it on.

“Crawl backward,” he commanded, “till we get to that second hatch. Hurry!”

In the distance the sound of whooshing water signaled the oncoming rush of wet death.

They scurried for their lives, scraping their hands and knees on the pipe’s rough metal. Soon they reached the Novinsky Street hatch. Simon attempted spinning the hatchwheel. It wouldn’t budge.

The whooshing increased in volume, and the pipe began to vibrate. Simon put his ear to the hatchwheel.

“What are you doing?” demanded Emma.

“Pretending I’m George Sanders,” he murmured.

He listened, he felt, he hauled off and whacked the hatchwheel as hard as he could. It spun beneath his grip.

The hatch opened and he pulled himself up into the service vent, then he reached down for Emma. She grasped his strong grip and he yanked her up just as water roared through the pipe below. It geysered through the hatch, soaking them both.

Templar slammed the hatch shut, but the pressure was too intense. The water erupted into the vent, rising rapidly to waist level.

“Help me!” he shouted. “Stand on it!”

Emma added her efforts to his, forcing the hatch against the mounting pressure. It closed, and he spun the wheel shut

They stood there, stressed but safe, wet and momentarily silent.

At length, perhaps it was a few seconds, Emma spoke.

“I’d have heart failure, but it would take too much effort.”

Templar kissed her cheek impulsively, gestured for her to stay put, and clambered up the ladder to the manhole lid.

He popped his head up, and out of the darkness came the headlights of Ilya’s Range Rover searing straight toward him. He ducked back down as the 4X4 parked directly over the manhole cover.

The Saint, flashing an optimistic grin, scurried down the ladder.

“Uh-oh,” remarked Emma. “When a man smiles in a sewer, I get worried.”

“They’re right above us,” announced Templar pleasantly.

Emma coughed out a jittery laugh.

Templar began tapping a pipe running through the service vent.

“You know why it’s not cold in the American Embassy?” he asked.

She looked at the pipe and understood. It was a gas line. A gas line into which Simon Templar was plunging the blade of his versatile penknife. When he pulled it free, she heard the distinctive hiss of escaping gas.