Лесли Чартерис - The Saint

“Hey, Sklarov!” yelled Templar as he fanned the air with a friendly wave. “When do I get my epaulets back?”

From his vantage point on the scaffold, Simon could see the tanks begin to roll backward out of Red Square, the drivers hoping their anonymity would remain intact until they got back to the barracks. None of them would ever admit to being in Red Square the night the coup failed.

The amazing turn of events generated a maelstrom of chaos. The crowd, caught up in the energy of the moment, could have either torn Tretiak to shreds or ignored him completely.

Fearing the former, Tretiak slid from the tank, discarded his microphone, and was immediately shielded by Ilya and a phalanx of thugs.

“Get me the hell out of here,” barked Tretiak, and made for his awaiting limo before the crowd could take action.

Ilya waved his Smith & Wesson, intimidating the locals and aggravating the loyal military. As for the Saint, he was already off the scaffold and pushing his way through the throng.

The crowd backed off in fear at the sight of Ilya’s weapon, but the military and Sklarov’s Special Forces took a threatening stance. Ilya impulsively opened fire, blasting away at anyone in uniform, and three men fell dead in the street.

Panic and pandemonium. The military launched a close-range firefight with Tretiak’s goons. Parents threw themselves atop their children, and the air was filled with screams and gunfire.

Flack-jacketed reporters and fearless journalists continued their five converge, detailing the action for an entranced worldwide audience.

“In an unexpected reversal of fortune, the Tretiak coup has suddenly collapsed,” explained a breathless Jan Sharp. “It is not clear what role General Sklarov is playing in this media event turned violent — his Special Forces first seized the president. Now they are freeing him and turning on Tretiak!”

Back at Tretiak’s mansion, Vereshagin watched Sklarov’s reversal on television. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Everything had gone wrong. He had envisioned himself riding a rocket named Tretiak to power and influence in the New Russia. His self-aggrandizing hopes were now as shattered as the broken bottles in Red Square.

He quickly drank three glasses of vodka, smoked as many cigarettes, and began to shiver as if all the doors and windows were thrown wide to the winter cold.

He pondered fact upon fact, formed and reviewed and discarded plan after plan, until his weary brain shaped a plot with which he could find no fault.

It was, of course, a rather wild and desperate scheme, the kind a man such as Vereshagin forms after too many drinks taken in fear, but it was the only answer he could devise.

He stood as if in a stupor and scuffed his way across the mezzanine’s highly polished floor. All around him was conspicuous luxury and grotesque overstatement. Above him hung the elaborate dual-tiered chandelier, suspended between twin towers as if it were a hangman suspended from a gallows.

“Gallows,” whispered Vereshagin.

He pulled a black Berreta from the holster on his hip, placed the barrel against his temple, and watched the mansion slowly spin around him. He was the center of a dying universe.

His finger jerked the trigger.

The room stopped spinning.

In Red Square, Ilya and Tretiak dived into the limo. Hot lead slammed into the bulletproof windshield.

“Drive! Drive!” Ilya was yelling, his voice cracking with desperation.

The limo’s tires screamed on pavement, the car careened wildly down the street, arid Tretiak’s foot soldiers were left stranded to fend for themselves.

Templar, disregarding the mayhem swirling around him, watched the limo’s taillights disappear in the distance. There was only one place Tretiak could go — back to his mansion for the cold fusion formula.

A microphone was suddenly thrust into Templar’s face, and he found himself staring into a camera lens.

“Simon Templar, ahas the Saint, wanted by Scotland Yard!” It was Chet Rogers, angling for an exclusive. “Mr. Templar, what’s your involvement with Karpov, Tretiak, cold fusion, and this failed coup?”

Templar’s piratical visage filled television screens around the globe. One such TV set was situated in the communal living room of a large boardinghouse in the Gloucester Road area of London where three floors had been converted for that purpose. A motherly landlady provided breakfast and an occasional supper for her residents, among them being Inspector Teal of Scotland Yard.

He had not caught the earlier portions of the broadcast, but joined the coverage about the moment the camera first focused on the tanned and devilish features of Simon Templar.

Teal almost swallowed his gum, and soon his rotund nose was virtually pressed against the television screen.

Intimidated neither by Tretiak’s plot nor uneven odds. Templar was even less cowed by electronic media. He felt much as he did re-entering London at Heathrow Airport, sensing that Teal himself was on the other side of the glass — which, of course, he was.

“Tretiak is a power-mad criminal attempting to kill democracy and establish a new dictatorship in Russia.”

Rogers, thrilled with these sound bites, felt a rush of professional adrenaline.

“But what about you — why are you here? Are you a criminal or a hero?”

Teal yelped at his television. “Criminal, dammit!”

The Saint’s eyes scanned the crowd’s perimeter, searching for signs of Frankie.

“If I can stop Tretiak and rescue cold fusion, let the world decide if I deserve praise or punishment.”

“Simon!”

It was Frankie piloting a Zhiguli motorcycle, complete with vintage sidecar.

“Excuse me; time to play hero,” said Templar to the reporter as he climbed in. “Oh. One more thing.” The Saint could not resist an admirable addendum, intoned in his most authentic and unquestionably sincere British accent: “God Save the Queen!”

Across the U.K., the cheers and acclaim were, with a singular exception, unanimous. Claude Eustace Teal, had he not been so reserved, would have wept.

Frankie negotiated through the chaos with breathtaking confidence.

“Nice to see you again!” exclaimed Templar. “You’re right, this is a classic.”

“Yeah, and my timing’s good, too!” yelled Frankie over the cycle’s roar. “How’d you pull off that stunt in Red Square?”

“Botvin and I have been in close communication ever since I visited his lab and wired him up. It was a close call, but Karpov, Botvin, and I cooked up that little miracle before Sklarov came crashing in.”

Frankie shook her helmeted head in amazement. “That was quite a miracle, even for a Saint.”

“I’ll need a couple more before this is over, Frankie. All hell is going to break loose at Tretiak’s.”

Simon should have used the present tense. The gates of Tretiak’s estate were already flung wide open, and the staff was fleeing like proverbial rats.

Ilya and Tretiak, out of the limo and into the mansion, were racing about wildly. The younger was yelping orders at Igor and Vlad.

“Clean out the safes! Jewels, cash, passports! Hurry!”

Ilya dashed into his room, retrieved a gram vial of Methadrine, and grabbed his walking stick.

Tretiak almost stumbled over the body of Vereshagin at the foot of the winding staircase. The chief operating officer lay dead. Half his head was missing, but the weapon responsible was easily found in Vereshagin’s hand.

“Suicide! You damned coward!”

Tretiak kicked the corpse before continuing up the stairs.

Frankie’s motorbike-and-sidecar combination raced over the icy road to Tretiak’s mansion, slush and snow spraying from the spinning tread. Above them, Simon heard the distinctive sound of helicopters — an airborne armada of news choppers en route to document the adventure’s climax.