Red Templar by Paul Christopher Page A

began building outfall tunnels on the embankments. The war stopped the system, and when the war was over they began an entirely new system.”
    “Is there one of those embankment outfall tunnels near here?”
    “One was dug directly beneath Palace Square to connect the Neva with the outflow from the Moika Canal. It was built between the Hermitage Theatre and the Old Hermitage.”
    “Can we get to it from here?”
    “I expect so.” Genrikhovich nodded.
    “Then let’s get the hell out of here,” said Holliday, grabbing Genrikhovich by the arm and pushing him toward the door.
    “The file!” Genrikhovich wailed.
    “Bring it,
amigo
,” Holliday said to Eddie as he thrust Genrikhovich forward.
    “Sí, compañero,”
answered the Cuban, stuffing the transparencies into the pink accordion folder, along with any other documents on Genrikhovich’s desk. He followed Holliday’s back as he went through the door.
    “Left?” Holliday asked, still gripping Genrikhovich’s arm.
    The older man nodded mutely, his breath coming in short, unpleasant-sounding pants.
    Turning left, they headed down a narrow, linoleum-floored corridor. It was green to the wainscoting and yellowing dirty white above, like everything else Holliday had seen of the Hermitage. On the floors above him were the treasures of centuries, and all he could see was green-and-white walls and tangles of pipes and conduits overhead. They reached a stone wall about a hundred yards along, probably some sort of supporting buttress. A gouged hole had been hacked through the stonework and a tall metal door fitted, the masonry roughly patched around it. Holliday hauled it open and they stepped through into another blank, empty length of corridor. As they set foot in the passage, red lights in the ceiling every twenty-five feet or so began to blink furiously, and Holliday could hear the distant sound of a wailing siren.
    “They are locking the place down! We are trapped!” Genrikhovich moaned.
    “They haven’t caught us yet,” said Holliday. He grimaced, imagining what would happen if and when they did. In the old days it would have been a quick trip to the cellar of the Lubyanka at 19 Dzerzhinsky Square in Moscow and a single tap to the back of the head with a nine-millimeter Makarov. Now he wasn’t sure what the procedure would be. Certainly nothing pleasant.
    They reached a massive industrial boiler room, machinery already clanging and booming as the ancient furnaces began the long, ponderous chore of heating a building the length of a football field with a thousand drafts and leaks from a time when peasants, coal and entire forests of firewood were cheap and accessible.
    A dozen men in blue coveralls and wearing goggles and hard hats swarmed over a maze of interconnected up-and-down catwalks, tending the machinery like something out of
Metropolis
or
1984,
worker ants tending a series of fat, ancient and rusty brown queens. Steam rose everywhere, and the hot, wet air echoed with the sounds of men calling to one another above the clatter of the pipes. Nobody noticed Holliday, Eddie and Genrikhovich, or if they were noticed they were ignored.
    “There,” said Genrikhovich, pointing. Holliday looked. At first glance it appeared to be the remains of what once might have been a coal bin, but then he saw. Behind a bulbous electrical generator there was a man-high vent covered by a heavy mesh grille. Holliday herded Genrikhovich toward the opening with Eddie following, the Cuban’s sharp eyes watching the workers carefully.
    Holliday reached the grille, Genrikhovich crowding in behind him. “We must hurry, please,” he said, his voice whining, one hand clutching Holliday’s wrist. Holliday shook it off. He could feel warm air pushing on the back of his neck and knew, intentionally or not, that the big vent was exhausting the hot air out of the boiler room. Somewhere there’d be a big white plume of condensation riding the cool air outside.
    The vent was about