Turning back again the other way, the Saint had a glimpse through the window of the General scraping gold coins into a leather purse which he jammed in his pocket as he jumped to his feet. Anton lunged into the room and pressed a button which set off muted alarm bells throughout the monastery.
Simon stooped low and dashed for the well. Sticking the guard’s automatic into his belt, he swung his legs over the waist-high circular wall, seized the doubled rope which hung from the pulley on the scaffolding above his head, and slid down so that he was just able to see what was happening around him.
He had already been asking himself if Tanya had followed alone, or if Ivan and Igor had arrived after he left and come up to the monastery with her. Then, as the Chinese were hurrying out of the refectory, he saw a shadowy figure dart from near the gate into the passage taken a few moments before by Anton.
He was sure it was Tanya. She had probably seen him in his borrowed cap and mistaken him for a guard. Seconds later he saw her through the lighted window holding a pistol on the General and Anton.
The alarm had roused the refectory, and an influx of shouting, confusedly milling people into the courtyard allowed the Saint no more time to watch Tanya’s progress. He slipped down about two feet, straddled the bucket which swung at one end of the rope, and held himself steady by grasping the other strand. Knocking the forage cap deliberately from his head, he heard it plop into water just a couple of yards underneath him, and then he listened closely in order to follow the events taking place above.
An authoritative voice was calling out in Chinese over the hubbub, and all activity seemed to come to an abrupt halt. The excited shouts died away, and the running feet were still. Simon raised himself so that he could see. The half-dozen civilians, joined by Anton and a pair of men in uniforms like that of the guard who had originally been at the gate, were standing frozen, watching Tanya holding her pistol near the General’s head in one of the archways.
She and her hostage had apparently already discovered that they had a common language in English.
“Tell them to be still and put their guns down, or I shoot you,” she said. “Also, my men are watching and will fire if they resist.”
“Yes,” said the General.
He called something in Chinese, and the guards dropped their weapons.
“Where is that pig, Templar?” Tanya asked.
The General shook his head.
“I do not understand.”
“A man came here before me. Where is he?”
“No man. We see no man.”
Simon might have spoken then, but the uncomplimentary epithet which Tanya had attached to his name made him reticent. Besides, just at that moment one of the Chinese civilians let out a yelp, pointing at the well. The Saint let the taut rope slip quickly through his hands, dropping him from the sight of those above ground. As he descended he could hear Tanya’s voice above the others.
“What is it?”
“Man in well,” the General translated.
Simon could not distinguish any more words in the confusion of sounds that echoed in the depths of the well. He did not particularly care; he was much more interested in avoiding being trapped and possibly shot like a fish in a barrel. He could only hope that a theory he had formed in the afternoon would turn out to be right: He believed that an underground stream ran under the monastery, passing through the well, under the kitchen, and directly beside the liqueur-making vault.
Letting go the rope entirely, he dropped down into the water and found footing on the slippery bottom, bracing himself against the curving wall. To his relief, he felt that the water, which reached above his waist, was flowing and not still. Though his pistol had been submerged and possibly put out of commission, his breast pocket flashlight was in working order.
No rain of bullets was yet descending upon his head, but he moved quickly anyway. His feeble light showed him that his hopes of a tunnel carrying the water were better than confirmed: the channel seemed to have been artificially enlarged, possibly centuries before, at its downstream exit from the well — the direction which led toward the kitchen and the basement he had seen in the afternoon.
Inside the narrow passage the water level was higher than in the well, but there was still room for a man’s head and shoulders above the surface. Undoubtedly the monks of older, more generally dangerous times had used the tunnel for some such purpose as the Saint was using it now, and it seemed likely that in their anxiety and eagerness to escape from irreverent barons or rampaging Protestants they would have provided a more private means of entrance and exit than the well in the middle of their courtyard.
Simon moved on with the flowing water until he saw a glimmer of light. It was not, however, the door he had hoped for. Putting his eye to the glowing chink in the wall he found that he was standing just outside the basement he had visited earlier in the day. He could see the rows of bottles and tiers of casks. Then he saw Tanya and the General coming into the basement from the foot of the steps, Tanya’s pistol still pointed at the nape of the General’s neck. The Saint postulated that either she was pulling a good bluff or that Igor and Ivan had shown themselves and taken control in the courtyard.
“And where are the real monks?” she was asking.
“In heaven, of course,” the General replied, with successful irony in spite of his bad pronunciation. “They were ready. Graves already dug.”
“Where are the devices made?”
The General was not so co-operative in response to that inquiry.
“Speak,” she said, “or I shoot.”
“They are made here,” he said.
“Where?”
The General made a resigned gesture of his shoulders and hands.
“I show you. You see. I push this first.”
Tanya aimed the pistol more carefully and tightened her finger on the trigger.
“Slowly,” she cautioned.
The General nodded and pressed something on which a wooden ladle was hanging. There was an electric humming, then a rumbling sound as the central sections of the two longest walls of the chamber began pivoting. The place was transformed, as the shelves of dusty bottles swung out of sight, into an entirely modern workshop. The newly revealed sides of the walls were lined with work benches and shelves covered with electronic components, chemicals, precision tools — and large numbers of the familiar exploding transistor radios and lighter-cameras.
“Give me samples of the micro-explosive and the formula for it before we destroy this place.”
The General did not move.
“I destroy you also unless you give me the formula,” Tanya said. “You have tried to kill me many times. It would not seem unfair for me to kill you once.”
“I give,” said the General.
He pointed to a large chest.
“There.”
“Get it,” Tanya told him.
As she turned to keep her gun on the General, arms reached suddenly from draperies and grabbed her, knocking aside the gun and throwing her onto the floor out of the Saint’s field of view.
He moved swiftly further down the tunnel, searching for a connection between the passage and the monastery vaults. Within twenty paces he found it: a small door with a circle of pocked iron which served as a handle.
Bracing his feet he put all his strength into the pull. The hinges seemed to be rusted solid, but their fastenings were so old that they gave way and bent soundlessly.
Simon stepped into the dryness and warmth of a small unlighted room crowded with crates and piles of cardboard cartons. He did not need his flashlight, for the door of the room was half open, letting through enough indirect illumination to allow him to find his way quietly around the heaps of boxes. There was a fire extinguisher and an ax on the wall by the door, and overhead like a tangle of snakes ran a thick bundle of electric cables. This was obviously not one of those rooms open to tourists.