Лесли Чартерис - The Saint

“Where does this all lead, Simon. What if we can’t stop it?”

“I’ll tell you exactly where it leads — streets swarming with uniformed militia, neighbors betraying neighbors, midnight arrests, the third degree, secret tribunals, forced confessions, kangaroo courts, concentration camps, firing squads.”

Frankie sat down wearily. “Sounds familiar.”

“Too familiar,” agreed Templar. “It’s the description of a world gone mad — a world divided against itself.”

Frankie managed something resembling a hopeful smile.

“Hey, you sound like one of those one-world people Tretiak doesn’t like, either.”

Templar smiled back. “Well, if you don’t like the idea of one world, how many worlds do you want, and how would you like them divided? By race? By religion? By income? Unless you have a spare planet in your pocket, one world is all we have.”

“And you think you can save the world, Simon Templar?”

At that moment, had he answered in the affirmative, she would have believed him without question. There was a strange fire in his ice-blue eyes, and a rakish line to his features that bespoke confidence and victory.

“No. Not the world. Not today, Frankie,” said Templar, “but you and I together are going to do our best to save this one little part of it.”

“One frozen part of it,” added Frankie, pulling her collar up around her chin. She pointed up toward the ceiling. “Going to be pretty hot in Red Square tomorrow.”

Frankie’s prophetic utterance was based on simple logical deduction of available facts — the same facts reiterated less than twenty-four hours later to their respective audiences by CNN’s Jan Sharp and UPN’s Chet Rogers, both broadcasting from Red Square.

“As freezing temperatures and fuel shortages continue to take their lethal toll,” reported Sharp, “and rumors sweep Moscow that many more deaths are unreported — troops under the command of right-wing General Leo Sklarov have begun to ring the Russian capital.”

Rogers, situated more precariously amidst the throng than Sharp, spoke with an edge of self-concern in his manly baritone. “Angry, frightened citizens are flocking to Red Square at this hour, but this time they are not braving the bitter cold for another political rally turned riot — they’ve been drawn here by the promise of a ‘revelation’ to be displayed on these colossal video screens...”

The video screens to which the reporter referred were the same shimmering technological marvels utilized by Tretiak in all his previous rallies — screens that made him seem larger than life and transformed him into an enormous, electronically enhanced champion of the people.

“This has become a life-and-death struggle,” exclaimed the hyperbole-laced reporter, “an intense drama played out on a very large stage whose final curtain is yet to come!”

Accompanying the intense drama were equally intense sound effects. The thunderous roar of stomping feet on concrete rumbled through the ground and vibrated the earth above Templar and Frankie, who were making their way through the dark and dismal tunnels beneath Red Square.

“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.

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.