He realized immediately, as he got a look into the main basement through dark curtains just slightly parted at the doorway, that he was standing in the exact spot where Tanya’s captor had stood to grab her. The General and two other uniformed Chinese, their backs toward the Saint, held pistols on Tanya.
“Drop your guns,” Simon said, thinking it best to communicate his wishes in the simplest possible English.
At the same time, he stuck his automatic through the curtains. When the Chinese had dropped their pistols to the floor he showed himself.
“If you think you’re surprised, Tanya, dear, you should have seen my face when you showed up.”
Before she could reply, the General let out a desperate shout, and the two other men dove for Simon. It would have been a suicidal move on their part except for one thing: when the Saint pulled the trigger of his automatic it emitted only a sodden click. He was hurled back against the wall, his head glancing against the stones.
When his vision cleared a moment later the Chinese were once more in control, holding their dry pistols on him and Tanya.
“You are interested in our work, and you have seen,” the General said. “Now we take you back upstairs and kill you.”
“Where are Ivan and Igor?” the Saint asked Tanya.
“Quiet,” snapped the General.
But, looking at Tanya, Simon saw her give a kind of answer with an upward roll of her eyes.
The General opened a big refrigerator and checked the contents — rows of small amber bottles.
“You not take anything from here?” he asked Simon.
“No.”
The General went on counting. When he closed the door again he looked satisfied.
“Explosive,” he said. “Fuses must be cold.” He nodded towards the wood-burning heater, which showed orange flame through its grill. “Heat make explosion. Very big.”
Then he set into operation the mechanism that pivoted the walls, and half a minute later the chamber had once more become the dusty home of Grand Abrouillac.
“Now,” the General said, pointing into the side room through which Simon had come. “This way.”
As they went through the curtains and passed the threshold, Simon whispered to Tanya, “Scream your head off. Now!”
She screamed with enough force to frighten a banshee, furnishing an instant of confusion which was all the Saint needed. He toppled a pile of cartons towards the guards, snatched the fire ax from the wall, and sank the heavy blade into the mass of electric cables. The wooden handle insulated him from the spectacular multiplicity of short circuits which resulted. Sparks exploded over the room as the light bulbs went off, and in the weird flashing brilliance Simon was able to see enough to swing his medieval weapon again with deadly accuracy.
Both guards went down, and Tanya, who had crouched to escape the whistling blade, grabbed one of their pistols. The sparks were dying, and the General had plunged back into the pitch darkness of the liqueur-making vault. The fine beam of Simon’s light caught him as he felt his way to the foot of the stairs.
Tanya fired, and the General sprawled heavily forward onto the stone floor. Instantly there was a tremendous fusillade of gunfire at ground level outside.
“Ivan and Igor!” Tanya cried, and bolted up the stairs. “They were guarding the Chinese upstairs.”
“Stay inside!” Simon called after her.
He had stooped by the General’s body. Now he followed her up to the door and stopped her before she could unbolt it. But already the outburst of shots was dwindling. As the Saint pushed Tanya back and opened the door himself he heard only three scattered reports, and then no more.
Igor leaned against the wall a few feet away, clutching a bloody arm. Ivan came running up, automatic in hand, calling anxious questions in Russian.
As Smolenko answered, Simon looked over the moonlit courtyard, where bodies lay scattered over the ancient ground like fallen puppets. It was fairly obvious that Igor and Ivan had been distracted momentarily by Tanya’s shot, and their prisoners had gone for their own guns. The Russians, sheltered by shadows and the stone archways of the cloisters while their enemies were caught in the open, had won the battle, and all the Chinese, with Anton, lay dead.
“I never thought I’d be glad to see you two,” Simon said to Ivan and Igor.
“I’m afraid this will change your mind.”
It was Tanya speaking, and she aimed her pistol at his chest. Calm but puzzled, he looked at her.
“I don’t understand,” he said levelly.
“Molière told them before they killed him — about your real mission.”
“My real mission? I’m sincerely curious to know what that is.”
“To use me until you had found the micro-explosive, and then to dispose of us and steal the formula yourself.”
Simon shook his head.
“Molière was just trying to save his skin.”
Tanya’s voice was louder.
“You used me. Made me a fool. But now it no longer matters. Ivan and Igor received orders from higher — to kill you. Now we shall have the explosive and you shall not have even your life. Ivan, go below and bring up samples. The formula may be in a chest beside the refrigerator.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Colonel,” Simon said, “but nobody gets the formula.”
“What do you mean?”
“No electricity. The movable walls are jammed solid.”
“Ivan. Wait.” She thought for a second. “We repair the wires.”
“No time. Remember the refrigerator full of fuses and explosives? The cooling has stopped, but that wood-burning monster of a stove is still going full blast. It would take several hours to untangle and match up and reconnect all those melted wires, and by that time this place will have been transformed into picturesque ruins.”
“You planned this, so we could not get the formula!”
“I must admit that the thought did pass through my mind. On the other hand, remember that I won’t get it either.”
Tanya’s face twisted into an expression of hatred. She lowered the pistol and slapped him again and again. He did not flinch, but his eyes narrowed.
“I dare you to do that without your army around.”
“You swine! You lied — cheated me.”
Igor raised his pistol.
“We have orders. I kill him.”
“No,” Tanya said. “He is mine. Go.”
The men hesitated.
“Go, I say. Have Igor’s arm attended to. Prepare the car and my luggage.”
Ivan and Igor left the courtyard by the main gates. Simon leaned back against the wall and waited as Tanya turned to confront him. Even in the moonlight he could not make out the nuances of her expression.
“Isn’t the condemned man allowed a last request?” he asked lightly.
Tanya did not answer, only waited, holding the gun on him as the ponderous footsteps of Ivan and Igor receded down the path.
“It’s usually a cigarette,” the Saint said, “but since I’ve given up smoking, how about a kiss? In memory of old times.”
“I could never come so close,” she said slowly. “I understand that it would be deadly to touch with my gun anybody so skilled in the arts of self-defence as you.”
“You never can tell,” he said.
For several seconds they faced one another without speaking as clouds scudded across the face of the moon, and rising winds gave a voice to the forest.