Combat Part 11

Without looking up, Hand nodded.

"Follow me, slowly."

No one from the Progressive Tours group was in sight. Hank wandered after the guard, looking into display cases as he went. Finally the other turned a corner into an empty and comparatively narrow corridor.

He stopped and waited for the American.

"You're Kuran?" he asked anxiously in Russian.

"That's right."

"You're not afraid?"

"No. Let's go." Inwardly Hank growled, _Of course I'm afraid. Do I look like a confounded hero?_ What was it Sheridan Hennessey had said?

This was combat, combat cold-war style, but still combat. Of course he was afraid. Had there ever in the history of combat been a partic.i.p.ant who had gone into it unafraid?

They walked briskly along the corridor. The guard said, "You have studied your maps?"

"Yes."

"I can take you only so far without exposing myself. Then you are on your own. You must know your maps or you are lost. These old palaces ramble--"

"I know," Hank said impatiently. "Brief me as we go along. Just for luck."

"Very well. We leave Orushezhnaya Palace by this minor doorway. Across there, to our right, is the _Bolshoi Kremlevski Dvorets_, the Great Kremlin Palace. It's there the Central Executive Committee meets, and the a.s.sembly. The same hall used to be the czar's throne room in the old days. On the nearer side, on the ground floor, are the _Sobstvennaya Plovina_, the former private apartments of Nicholas First. The extraterrestrials are there."

"You're sure? The others weren't sure."

"That's where they are."

"How can we get to them?"

"_We_ can't. Possibly _you_ can. I can take you only so far. The front entrance is strongly guarded, we are going to have to enter the Great Palace from the rear, through the Teremni Palace. You remember your maps?"

"I think so."

They strode rapidly from the museum through a major courtyard. Hank to the right and a step behind the uniformed guard.

The other was saying, "The Teremni preceded the Great Palace. One of its walls was used to become the rear of the later structure. We can enter it fairly freely."

They entered through another smaller doorway a hundred feet or more from the main entrance, climbed a short marble stairway and turned right down an ornate corridor, tapestry hung. They pa.s.sed occasionally other uniformed guards, none of whom paid them any attention.

They pa.s.sed through three joined rooms, each heavily furnished in Seventeenth Century style, each thick with icons. The guide brought them up abruptly at a small door.

He said, an air almost of defiance in his tone, "I go no further.

Through this door and you are in the Great Palace, in the bathroom of the apartments of Catherine Second. You remember your maps?"

"Yes," Hank said.

"I hope so." The guard hesitated. "You are armed?"

"No. We were afraid that my things might be thoroughly searched. Had a gun been found on me, my mission would have been over then and there."

The guard produced a heavy military revolver, offered it b.u.t.t foremost.

But Hank shook his head. "Thanks. But if it comes to the point where I'd need a gun--I've already failed. I'm here to talk, not to shoot."

The guard nodded. "Perhaps you're right. Now, I repeat. On the other side of this door is the bathroom of the Czarina's apartments. Beyond it is her _paradnaya divannaya_, her dressing room and beyond that the _Ekaterininskaya sala_, the throne room of Catherine Second. It is probable that there will be n.o.body in any of these rooms. Beyond that, I do not know."

He ended abruptly with "Good luck," turned and scurried away.

"Thanks," Hank Kuran said after him. He turned and tried the door-k.n.o.b. Inwardly he thought, _All right Henry Kuran. Hennessey said you had a reputation for being able to think on your feet. Start thinking. Thus far all you've been called on to do is exchange low-level banter with a bevy of pro-commie critics of the United States. Now the chips are down._

The apartments of the long dead czarina were empty. He pushed through them and into the corridor beyond.

And came to a quick halt.

Halfway down the hall, Loo Motlamelle crouched over a uniformed, crumpled body. He looked up at Hank Kuran's approach, startled, a fighting man at bay. His lips thinned back over his teeth. A black thumb did something to the weapon he held in his hand.

Hank said throatily, "Is he dead?"

Loo shook his head, his eyes coldly wary. "No. I slugged him."

Hank said, "What are you doing here?"

Loo came erect. "It occurs to me that I'm evidently doing the same thing you are."

But the dull metal gun in his hand was negligently at the ready and his eyes were cold, cold. It came to Hank that banjos on the levee were very far away.

This lithe fighting man said tightly, "You know where we are? Exactly where we are? I'm not sure."

Hank said, "In the hall outside the _Sobstvennaya Plovina_ of the _Bolshoi Kremlevski Dvorets_. The czar's private apartments. And how did you get here?"

"The hard way," Loo said softly. His eyes darted up and down the corridor. "I can't figure out why there aren't more guards. I don't like this. You're armed?"

"No," Hank said.

Loo grinned down at his own weapon. "One of us is probably making a mistake but we both seem to have gotten this far. By the way, I'm Inter-Commonwealth Security. You're C.I.A., aren't you? Talk fast, Hank, we're either a team from now on, or I've got to do something about you."

"Special mission for the President," Hank said. "Why didn't we spot each other sooner?"

Loo grinned again in deprecation. "Evidently because we're both good operatives. If I've got this right, the extraterrestrials are somewhere in here."

Hank started down the corridor. There was no time to go into the whys and wherefores of Loo's mission. It must be approximately the same as his own. "There are some private apartments in this direction," he said over his shoulder. "They must be quartered--"

A door off the corridor opened and a tall, thin, ludicrously garbed man--

Hank pulled himself up quickly, both mentally and physically. It was no man. It was almost a man--but no.