“Look at those two women,” Trumbler muttered. “They look as if they are about to drop their bundles any moment.”
“I hope to God not!”
Below in the lobby, Chick Hurley, the guard on the entrance gates, was also staring at the two pretty Vietnamese girls, big with child.
Hurley, young, a little overweight, not over-bright, had opted to join the museum’s security guards, knowing it would be a steady pensionable job that would suit his lack of ambition and his pace in life. Ten months ago, feeling his position secure and with no extravagant tastes, he had got married. His wife was like him: without ambition, but desperately anxious to raise a family. They both loved children. His wife was also big with child, and the birth was expected any day. Hurley who doted on his fat wife was horrified by the way her body had expanded. He had seen a number of TV films depicting childbirth and they had so upset him that during the past week he had been in torture, visualizing what his wife was about to face. When he saw the two flower-like Vietnamese girls, he felt a chill run up his spine.
As the fat clergyman handed in the book of tickets, then moved to his group, Hurley left the entrance doors and approached him.
“There’s an elevator, sir,” he said to the clergyman. “These two ladies shouldn’t climb those steps.”
The clergyman beamed at him.
“How kind! How very thoughtful!”
Hurley smirked.
“Well, sir, I’m expecting my own any day now.”
“Congratulations! Splendid!”
Hurley indicated the elevator and hurried back to his post at the entrance.
While the rest of the Vietnamese climbed the steps, the clergyman and the two pregnant girls entered the elevator. They waited for the others, then the clergyman said, “Follow me, please and do not stray,” and he set off into the first room of the exhibition.
“Some of these Viets are attractive,” Trumbler said. “I wouldn’t mind giving one or two of them a ride.”
“Keep your mind on the job,” Scooner snapped. “You take the right wing. I’ll take the left. We’ll circulate.”
As the Vietnamese group moved from exhibit to exhibit, pausing to listen to the clergyman’s remarks, Trumbler walked on, past the special alcove that housed the Catherine the Great icon which was not attracting much attention, and into the vast hall that housed some of the finest oil paintings in the world. Here, the crowd was dense, and he noted that all five members of the KGB were mingling with the crowd, and two of his own men were also watching.
The clergyman paused at one of the windows and looking down, he saw a small blue van leaving the grounds of the museum. He glanced at his watch, then he moved on to another exhibit. Ten minutes later, he paused in his talk and gave a slight nod of his head to one of the pregnant girls. She moved away from the group and approached a guard who was stifling a yawn. He had been on night duty and was anxiously waiting to be relieved.
“A toilet, sir?”
He eyed her and her inflated belly, then gave her a friendly smile.
“That door over there, miss.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The girl walked to a door on the far side of the icon’s alcove as the fat clergyman led his group into the alcove.
“Now, here, my friends,” he said, “is the first icon known and used by Catherine the Great of Russia.”
The group made a complete circle around the roped off glass case.
A guard moved forward.
“Please keep clear of the ropes,” he said curtly.
“Of course; of course,” the clergyman said and opened the illustrated catalogue he was carrying. As the guard moved back, he went on, “The artist is unknown, but, as you can see, considering the vast age...”
There came a loud hissing sound and thick, black smoke billowed out from behind a large exhibit near the door of the lady’s toilet.
The Vietnamese immediately panicked. The girls screamed and jostled each other. The men shouted and the children wailed.
The guard rushed in the direction of the smoke, but the smoke now was so dense, he staggered back, choking and coughing.
People in the hall of paintings also panicked. Cries of “FIRE!” resounded through the rooms. There was a concerted rush for the various exits.
Scooner, hearing the uproar, ran from the right wing and into dense, black smoke. This was no fire, he told himself: this was a powerful smoke bomb. He ran to the head of the steps and bawled down to Hurley who was gaping up at him.
“Shut the doors! No one in; no one out!”
The other guard on the entrance doors with Hurley took the steps three at a time and joined Scooner. They were nearly knocked down the steps by the screaming Vietnamese who were trying to rush down to the exit, but Scooner and the guard blocked them off.
“Stay right where you are!” Scooner barked. “There’s no danger!”
Alone in the lobby, Hurley set his fat back against the closed entrance doors and gaped up the steps at the confusion going on above.
“My friend.”
He started and turned to find the fat clergyman at his side. The elevator doors stood open, and one of the pregnant Vietnamese girls lay on the floor.
“I fear this disturbance has brought her to labour,” the clergyman said. “Mr Scooner has been kind enough to telephone for an ambulance. Ah! I hear it coming. Please help!”
Had Hurley been less dim-witted, he would have realized that Scooner, battling with the Vietnamese at the head of the steps couldn’t possibly have had time to telephone for an ambulance, but the dreadful moaning coming from the Vietnamese girl, and the shrill note of the siren of the approaching ambulance paralysed what wits he had. God! he thought, this could be happening to Meg in a day or so! He hurried with the clergyman to the girl, and together they both lifted her. Her face, glistening with sweat, was contorted with pain.
“Let the ambulance people in,” The clergyman said sharply.
In a complete dither, Hurley ran to the doors, slid back the bolts and let in two black men, carrying a stretcher. He was not to know that these two men had but a quarter of an hour ago, been in the uniforms of the Washington City Electricity Corporation.
“We’ll take care of her,” the tallest of the blacks said. They scooped the girl on to the stretcher as she gave a wail of pain. Before Hurley, shuddering at the sound, had time to think, the two stretcher bearers were out, loading the stretcher into the ambulance, which went roaring down the drive with the siren at full blast.
“Splendid!” the clergyman exclaimed. “Thank you. Now, I must return to my flock. I can’t think what is happening up there.” He moved swiftly to the elevator and pressing the button to the second floor, waited until the elevator came to rest. People, and they were few, who had been looking at other exhibits on the second floor were gathered at the head of the steps. The clergyman entered one of the men’s toilets and shut the door. Three minutes later, the door opened and a young, thin man, in a white sports shirt and black trousers, his hair ruffled, joined the crowd that was now being held back by a guard.
It said much for the muscles and authority of the guards that the panic was quickly controlled. Every window was opened and the dense smoke slowly dispersed.
Scooner, using a bull-horn, kept shouting, “There is no fire. This is a hoax! Everyone is to remain still!”
Like sheep, the crowd obeyed.
Trumbler came up to Scooner.
“Look!” He showed Scooner a plastic container. “A sophisticated smoke bomb, and read...”
Scooner read the label stuck on the bomb:
TO HELL WITH RUSSIA! The Anti-Soviet League.
“The sonofabitch is still here,” Scooner snarled. “We’ll find him!”