Saint and the Fiction Makers (22 page)

Unfortunately that door was not included in S.W.O.R.D.‘s plans, but Simon decided he would find a way to see that it was included. He would have to act, though, before the men who were entering the vault through one of the ventilation ducts had managed to seize the control room and shut off all the electronic defence mechanisms.

A few yards past the doorway, like the roaring heads of subterranean monsters, were the ventilator ducts. The extractor duct was marked by the great bulge of the fan in its throat. The fan which drew in air through the other duct was below ground, incorporated into a filter system which prevented gas being used to knock out Hermetico’s human defences.

‘Here,’ Warlock said. ‘Gather around. Quickly! Get that torch going.’

Monk and Bishop assembled the acetylene apparatus with silent efficiency. Warlock knelt by the extractor duct and drew his finger across the metal a few inches above the concrete base.

‘Cut here,’ he said. ‘The wires run down just below that part of the fan. Be sure you leave them intact.’

‘Huddle round now, would you?’ Monk said. ‘Cut down the glare.’

He was referrring to the light of the acetylene torch. The other men stood close by as the point of Monk’s flame cut into the duct at the place Warlock had indicated. The metal was thick, and the work went slowly. Simon relaxed his muscles by deliberate effort and thought the situation over. It would be two o’clock before the duct was open, and even if everything went well down below for the raiders it would be two-thirty before the loading of the van could get well under way. Warlock undoubtedly would see that the loading was completed as rapidly as possible, and that his patrol car got back to his headquarters in time to stop the killing of Amity … if he really intended to stop it.

The irony was that by disrupting S.W.O.R.D.‘s operation Simon might cause such delays—to himself included—that Amity might die directly because of him. On the other hand, the Saint did not believe that his or Amity’s chances of a long and happy life would be particularly improved if they depended on Warlock’s mercy, which, he was now convinced, did not drop as the gentle rain from heaven. The Saint would have to act, and sooner than he had hoped. He had orginally thought he would wait until the loading was under way, assuming the theft got that far; now he decided it would be more sensible to bring confusion to S.W.O.R.D.‘s ranks while one was outside the fence, two were below ground with no way of getting out, and only two were with Simon on the surface.

Warlock was perspiring heavily as the cutting of the duct continued, even though he was involved in none of the labour.

‘Can’t you hurry it up?’ he snapped.

‘The thing’s made of bloody armour plate,’ Monk grunted. ‘I’ll be done in a minute.’

The last part of the cutting was the most delicate. A small part had to be untouched, so that the wiring which led up from below to the huge fan would not be severed. The instant Monk gave the go-ahead, the whole group joined in carefully lifting the head of the duct and laying it back on the concrete, where the fan continued to roar.

Frug had already strapped a leather harness around his waist and chest. One end of the nylon rope was attached to the harness. Bishop was clamping a frictionless roller to the jagged edge of raw metal on the lip of the duct.

‘All right, Frug, over you go,’ said Warlock. ‘Let him down gently, boys. Have those sleep-darts ready, Frug.’

Simon peered down into the duct as he took a hold on the rope. Three hundred feet below he could make out a smudge of light: the illumination of the vault coming through the outlet grille.

Frug disappeared down the great dark throat like a fly descending into a bassoon.

‘Easy does it,’ Warlock mumbled. ‘Don’t bounce him about down there. Mustn’t have any noise.’

After some time a section of the taut rope marked with red tape passed through Simon’s hands.

‘There’s the warning,’ whispered Bishop. ‘He’s almost there.’ ‘Steady now.’

Warlock let the other three men support the weight on the rope while he felt the strand like a doctor testing a patient’s pulse.

‘Now, lower away a fraction of an inch at a time. Stop immediately when I feel the tug … A bit more … Now, stop!’

Frug had signalled that he was in position behind the grille, which gave his sight and his dart gun access to the vault. Motionless, the men at the surface waited. They could hear nothing but the roar of the fan beside them, and like fishermen they poured all their consciousness into their sense of touch to judge by slight pulls on the line what was happening far below.

At last there were three definite jerks on the rope, which meant that Frug had knocked out the vault guards and would be removing the grille while the rope and harness were drawn back up for use in Bishop’s descent. The line went slack and as Bishop and Monk hauled it up Simon took one last look around through his coated glasses and inconspicuously removed them. He was going to try to make use of the infra-red beam across the recessed doorway after all, and he did not want the glasses to arouse suspicion.

A moment later, Bishop was in harness and ready for his descent. Simon was ready too. The next few minutes would contain that precise instant in which he alone would take fate in his hand and twist it to his own will… or else find that fate was not so flexible, and that its revenge for such a challenge was death.

3

The Saint estimated the amount of rope being fed down into the duct with Bishop dangling at the end of it. This time there was less tense caution in the operation and more haste. Frug would not quite have taken the grille off the mouth of the duct by now. Bishop was about a hundred feet from the bottom.

‘Wait!’ Simon whispered suddenly.

He froze, looking towards the rear of the building. Monk and Warlock froze too, their eyes wide. Bishop was left temporarily suspended in the duct.

‘What is it?’ Warlock breathed.

‘Somebody there?’ asked Monk.

‘I thought I saw somebody,’ the Saint answered.

‘If you’re trying to …’ Warlock began.

‘I’m not trying to do anything, but I don’t fancy getting shot standing here like a goat on a tether. Shall I go look?’

‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Warlock growled. ‘You and Monk hang on here.’

Simon smiled underneath the grim expression he had to keep like a mask on his face. He felt like a chess player who has just set up his unsuspecting opponent for an inescapable forking trap: in denying Simon the chance to leave the rope, a chance Simon would gladly have accepted, Warlock had opened himself to an equally catastrophic possibility.

‘Stick close to the wall,’ Simon cautioned.

Warlock had drawn his pistol. He edged along the side of the dome, keeping his back close against it. The recessed doorway was only a few feet ahead of him. He stopped and looked back, shaking his head as if ready to call off his search. Simon urged him on with desperate motions of his own head. Warlock moved further along the wall. When he was directly outside the recessed door, the Saint struck.

‘Look out!’ he shouted.

Warlock stumbled back into the doorway in a panic-stricken dive for cover. Instantly there was a tumultuous clamour of bells and sirens. Even Simon, who was expecting the uproar, and possibly worse, felt something like a galvanic shock from the tip of his tongue to his toes. Monk very nearly jumped straight in the air, though his fingers automatically clung to the rope.

Warlock was staggering from the doorway, coughing, rubbing his eyes wildly with one hand as he waved his pistol with the other. A thin mist was spraying from around the locked steel door, apparently a gas meant to blind and otherwise incapacitate a would-be intruder temporarily.

‘Help me!’ was the most Warlock could manage to cry as he stumbled against the railing, almost into the mine field, and then back towards the wall of the building.

Monk’s eyes were gigantic with surprise and fear, and he stood as if he had suddenly been frozen solid, his huge hands clinging numbly to the rope.

‘What is it? What is it?’ he croaked.

‘Time you were left holding the bag,’ Simon answered.

He released his own grip on the rope and threw himself towards Warlock. The fat man, still blinded and having lost all sense of direction, was standing with his broad back towards the ventilation ducts. The target was too tempting to resist, particularly when every second was vital. The Saint hurled himself like a wrestler catapulting the full weight of his body off the ropes at his opponent. His right shoulder smashed into the centre of Warlock’s back and sent him sprawling on his face. The pistol which was Simon’s main goal scooted from Warlock’s hand across the concrete walk and three feet out on to the grass at the edge of the mine field. Since it touched no infra-red beams it set off no explosion, but in order to get it Simon would have had to prostrate himself on the walkway and stretch his arm carefully under the low beams.

He did not have time even to consider that possibility, for within a second or two after Warlock hit the pavement a new and chilling sound joined the howl of sirens and clanging of bells. It was Bishop’s shriek of helpless horror as he plummeted down the duct like a stone.

Simon whirled from Warlock’s floundering form to see Monk, his hands free, lurch towards him from the beheaded extractor vent. The tail end of the rope was uncoiling rapidly from the ground and disappearing over the edge of the vent’s mouth. Bishop’s agonized cry, just before it was suddenly cut short, was joined by a brief and quickly truncated squawk from Frug, who had apparently been unable to get out into the vault in time to avoid breaking his comrade’s fall.

The Saint dodged and ducked as Monk’s arm swung at him with all the weight of an oak log. He chopped the huge man in the kidneys and sent him reeling against the wall of the building. But Monk, however much like a clumsy gorilla he might look at other times, proved surprisingly agile when fighting for his life. Without a second’s delay he rebounded from the wall and got off a left and a right jab at Simon, either of which could have taken off the head of a marble statue if it had landed squarely. But the Saint managed to counter the left and take the right on his shoulder. Now he was knocked back to the wall, and Monk dived at him. Simon rolled aside, yanked Monk’s wrist, and swung him heavily against the concrete dome.

Even that failed to slow down Monk, who lunged at Simon, withstood a tremendous smash to his jaw, and lifted the Saint completely from the ground with a crushing bear hug. Monk’s aim was clear: he intended using the momentum of his charge to carry the Saint to the mouth of the extractor vent and hurl him down the hole. The Saint, however, had no intention of being thrown down the hole. Monk’s dependence on his own brute strength made him forget to guard himself against more subtle forms of attack. Simon slashed out with his forearm, slicing so hard into Monk’s larynx that the grip of the huge arms was loosened immediately as Monk fell choking and gagging to his knees.

In the instant which passed as he drew back his foot to swing the toe of his shoe against Monk’s jaw, the Saint had time to realize consciously what the new sound was which had joined the general cacophony. Nero Jones’s machine gun had opened up out beyond the fences with a chattering blast. Simon assumed at first that Jones was firing at guards who were trying to make a foray out of Hermetico’s front door, but then he realized that the machine gun was aimed at him. The next staccato of explosions sent lead gnawing into the cement wall not six inches above his head.

He had to forego the pleasure of kicking Simeon Monk in the face, and instead drop to his own knees. Monk lunged at him, knocking him on to his back with the sheer force of his weight. But the impetus of Monk’s weight served another purpose: it enabled the Saint to catch the gigantic man in the pelvis with both feet and flip him completely over his own body. Monk landed with the small of his back on the rough metal edge of the open extractor vent down which he had dropped Bishop. His legs were in the three-hundred-foot-deep shaft before he could catch himself. For an instant the back of his sweater, snagged on the jagged metal, delayed his complete disappearance down the duct.

‘Stop me!’ he screamed.

But the sweater ripped free, Monk’s head dropped suddenly from sight, and the prolonged sound of his wild howl echoed from far down inside the earth.

Nero Jones’s machine gun ripped into the wall by Simon’s shoulder. Stony chips and dust shattered from the face of the dome, stinging his eyes and nostrils. The Saint had hoped the Hermetico guards would have opened the side door by now, but obviously their strategy did not involve exposing themselves to bullets when they could remain safely inside their fortress. There was a roar of gunfire from high up in the dome as they began to answer Jones’s fusillades.

There was absolutely no shelter along the side of the dome. Simon knew that his only chance to avoid being cut down was to get back across the aluminium bridge. He picked up his glasses, which had been knocked to the ground, and tensed himself low on his knees for the dash. In his path was Warlock, who had thrown himself on his stomach and was groping out over the edge of the mine field to recover his pistol. He obviously had regained most of his sight.

He screeched to the Saint, ‘You bloody fool! You’ve ruined everything! It was working! It was perfect!’

Simon ran, leaping over Warlock, racing for the bridge. Lead barked at his heels and whistled around his head. A glance over his shoulder told him that Warlock had retrieved his pistol and was staggering to his feet. He was crazed beyond all caution, screaming incoherent curses as he pitched forward into a stumbling, weaving pursuit of the Saint.

Simon reached the bridge. At least for the moment he was beyond Nero Jones’s angle of fire, but he knew the respite was only momentary. He had glimpsed Jones’s white face bobbing in the darkness of the field. The machine-gunner was on the run himself. He too was heading for the escape car, and in a few seconds he would again be in a position to fire at the Saint. Luckily, the guards in the dome were still concentrating on Jones, giving Simon at least some chance of getting across the bridge to shelter without being noticed immediately.