Templar eyed her bosom as best he could.
“Yeah, but you’ve had things in your brassiere they could never dream of.”
She kissed him, held him to her as if they were one, and they both became conscious of his nakedness.
“There’s nothing wrong with you now, that’s for sure. As long as you’re up,” quipped Emma, “you might as well get dressed.”
She handed him the oddball selection of Russian fashion from the kitchen clothesline and pressed her ear against the false wall to listen for sounds of danger. She heard nothing.
“Maybe we won’t be in here long,” she said hopefully. “Sofiya said we were safe. If the coast is clear...”
The coast was far from clear.
Ilya and his men worked their way through the building, sniffing out the trail of the teenage trollop named Sofiya. The welcome afforded him by the lower floors’ residents was cold and unconcerned. They suggested he try one floor up.
He did. And the next floor above that as well. Each successive floor held more people, and more contradictory advice as to Sofiya’s whereabouts.
Between the fifth and sixth floor, Ilya made an astonishing discovery — a small puddle of water similar to other puddles of water he’d encountered on the stairs. Without giving it serious consideration, he assumed the roof leaked.
He now gave it serious consideration, and a sly grin crept across his face.
“Oh, we’ve got you now,” he said, and they followed the wet trail to the ninth floor. Within minutes Ilya was holding court in the communal apartment’s crowded kitchen. In one hand was his Smith & Wesson, in the other, a large wad of American bills.
“Five hundred bucks reward, all in American currency, to whoever hands over the two foreigners. I don’t care about the little slut who brought ’em here,” declared Ilya offensively, “I just want the damn foreigners.”
He turned to the potbellied man who held a mop in one hand and his bottle of kvass in the other.
“How ’bout you. Tubby, seen any Americans or Brits?”
“No, but I did see one polar bear. Do I get two-fifty?”
The foot soldiers snickered.
Ilya smiled. Then he calmly shot the old man through the heart. The foot soldiers stopped snickering. Sofiya’s mother sobbed uncontrollably.
The gunshot echoed through the ninth floor, awaking the huddled residents and penetrating the false wall. Emma and Templar pulled each other tight in silence.
Ilya crossed over to the old woman, took her hand, and kissed it. She looked as if she wanted to vomit. She abruptly turned and ran out of the room.
“Was it something I said?” called out Ilya mockingly.
Templar and Emma pressed their ears against the wall. They heard one person’s rapidly approaching footsteps.
“Maybe it’s Sofiya,” whispered Emma hopefully.
“Don’t count on it,” said Templar. He stood with determination, bracing himself for whatever came next.
“Here! Here! The foreigners are here! Help! Help!”
It was the old crone turned traitor, cawing out a summons to Ilya and his militia. Her nostrils flared and her lips twitched as she cried out.
For an instant Templar and Emma were too stupefied to move. Then, as if launched by a rocket, the Saint threw himself against the false wall. The plaster smashed to a thousand dusty pieces; the highboy slammed against the floor. The woman screamed and flailed her arms like a human pinwheel.
They were out.
Templar and Emma raced down the narrow corridor toward the short flight to the roof.
“The stairs! The stairs!” screeched the old woman.
Ilya and his men crashed out of the kitchen, and Vlad momentarily became entangled in the makeshift clothesline.
“C’mon, dammit!” barked Ilya. He stumbled through the apartment to the only stairs he knew — the winding concrete stairwell reaching from lobby to rooftop.
Templar and Emma quickly ascended the narrow wooden stairs. At the top of the short flight was a trapdoor. Emma pushed it, but its ice-encrusted frame wouldn’t budge.
“No!” she cried out in anguish. She was becoming desperate.
Templar added his muscle to her efforts, and the ice around the wooden trap broke free with a loud snap. He pushed Emma out ahead of him onto the broad, flat rooftop and scrambled after her.
They desperately scanned the wind-whipped roof, seeking an avenue of escape.
“Can we jump to the next building?” Emma asked, astonished that she would even think of doing it.
There was a building within jumping distance, but the roof was a sheet of ice beneath their feet.
Templar’s mind raced; his eyes seeking another solution. “There!”
“Where?”
Templar grabbed her under the elbow and yanked her toward a sheet-metal utility shed in the middle of the roof. A swift kick to the door shattered away all ice around the frame and gave them entry.
“We can’t hide in there,” objected Emma incredulously.
“Who’s hiding?” Templar pulled her inside. “We’re leaving!”
He pushed past random tools and tar paper to the cluster of utility pipes arising from a wide shaft.
“Oh, God,” exclaimed Emma, “you’re not think-mg of...”
He was.
When Ilya and his cadre of thugs charged up the concrete stairwell and banged out through the metal fire door onto the roof, he should have expected what he saw. Nothing. Again. Almost nothing — a utility shed with ice broken around the doorframe.
“There!” yelled Ilya, slapping Igor on the arm and pointing. “The shed!”
Igor impulsively pumped several shells into either side before kicking open the door. Vlad, his shoes devoid of his compatriots’ off-road tread, slid stupidly around in a circle before falling on his rear.
Templar and Emma had not cowered in the shed awaiting inevitable perforation. They had wrapped their coats around the utility pipes and slid down the hundred-foot shaft.
Had it been a carnival ride, Emma might have enjoyed it. Probably not; she was not the carnival type. Fearing for her life every inch of the speedy, perilous descent, she was too terrified to scream.
Igor, better intentioned than bred, sprayed a deafening hail of hot lead down the shaft just as Emma and Simon touched bottom and exploded out into the basement.
Fuming with anger and frustration, Ilya whacked the automatic off target. Then he whacked Igor.
“We want her alive! Him you can kill; her you can wound. But don’t kill her! Idyot!”
Ten floors below, Emma, overwhelmed, leaned against the dark basement’s empty oil tank. She gulped air and popped a heart pill. “I can’t believe I did that,” she gasped.
Templar, finding the adrenaline rush curative, had already found the light switch. A yellow bulb on a long cord dangled above them, providing minimal illumination.
“No time to relax now,” he said seriously. “The American Embassy is east of here. They can’t touch us there.”
“East? How can you tell which way is east?”
He held up his penknife. “There’s a compass built in.”
“Do you have a blowtorch in that thing, too?”
“I’ve told you too many secrets already,” said the Saint, and he began searching the basement for direct access to Moscow’s extensive underground.
The American Embassy’s location was no secret, and Ilya could see the Stars and Stripes proudly waving from his position on the rooftop.
“Damn! They’ll be heading for the embassy! Let’s go!”
Heading for the embassy, indeed, but not by the most direct route. Instead of emerging at street level and attempting to outrun and outwit Tretiak’s team. Templar sought out the dank basement’s sewer outlet and service tunnel — primary indicators of access to the underground world of black market deal making, clandestine retail outlets, and dissident hideouts.