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afford even the small sound of a creaking oar lock. The boat responded, began
moving toward the left bank. He paused between strokes, letting it glide.
London Bridge passed overhead, and the stench of exhaust fumes temporarily
replaced the normal salt sea smell, the unique aroma of a river that felt the
ebb and flow of the ocean tides this far from the sea.
He glanced up as he emerged beyond the bridge. A young man and a young woman
were looking down at him from the rail, but they were interested, it seemed,
only in each other. The fog swallowed them up as Richard sculled and paused,
sculled and paused. Drops of water fell from the oar shaft, making clusters of
expanding circles that slid away behind.
For the hundredth time he reviewed his plan.
Oddly enough it was not a new, fresh scheme, hatched for this occasion, but an
old scheme, or a variation of an old scheme. For years Richard had amused
himself by working out ways for stealing the Crown Jewels, safely lodged-or so
everyone supposed-in the Wakefield Tower, directly behind the secret entrance
to Project Dimension X. He had never seriously considered putting these
larcenous plots into motion, but he had often wistfully reflected, England
lost a good cracksman the day J tipped me for MI6.
He knew, for example, the habits of the MI6 ops who did night duty at the
Tower of London, knew that they checked the actual Traitor's Gate only once
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every half-hour, knew that, though he had mentioned it several times, the
guards had not understood how vulnerable the Tower of
London was from the river side. To them the river was as good as a wall; to
Richard the river was as good as a wide-open entrance.
He knew also that, from their usual stations, the ops could not see Traitor's
Gate.
He frowned as the fog cleared slightly.
They could scan the river.
On the right bank the cruiser H.M.S. Belfast materialized, a floating museum
permanently moored to Symon's Warf. To his left appeared the Tower Pier, with
its tour boats. Beyond the
pier he could begin to see the floodlit central White Tower surrounded by the
darker lesser towers of the Tower of London complex.
And he could see, near what must be the Traitor's Gate, two moving lights.
Flashlights! They were moving away from the gate. The guards must have
completed their half-hourly inspection.
Richard congratulated himself on his timing.
He could see the guards. Could they see him?
Probably not. He could see only their lights, and he was carrying no lights.
The fog thickened again. He knew the boat could carry him no further without
attracting attention. The time had come for a little swim.
He took off his overcoat. Instantly his teeth began to chatter.
He put on the weighted belt, then the flippers, then the mask, which covered
his eyes and nose but not his mouth. He knotted the sack containing his
tranquilizer gun to his swimming trunks.
As he worked, he breathed deeply, again and again, building up the oxygen
content of his blood until he was slightly dizzy.
Then, steeling himself, he crept to the rear of the boat and slowly, carefully
lowered himself overboard. The Thames was cold with a bite that was actually
painful, but he forced himself to bear it.
The floodlighted White Tower was becoming visible again, closer than before.
He took his bearings on it, sucked one last gulp of air into his lungs, then
dove, bending at the waist, ducking his head downward, and raising his feet in
the air.
In the darkness under the surface there was no way to tell direction. He moved
like a programmed robot, following a prearranged course, trusting to memory to
supply what the senses could not. He had, he knew, slightly more than one
minute before he would have to surface. He swallowed, equalizing the pressure.
With vigorous kicks he set off in what he hoped was the right direction.
How would he know when he had gone far enough? Each of us has an inborn sense
of time, and
Richard Blade had developed his, learned to depend on it. If the time-sense
failed, there were his lungs. His lungs would tell him when he could go no
further.
There was a vague saltiness in the water.
He paid little attention to that, only to the cold.
The cold!
He had not realized that it would be so numbingly, horribly cold. Fragmentary
pictures flashed through his mind. Penguin Club swimmers diving through holes
cut in the ice. How long did they stay in the water? Nazi experiments with
cold during World War II. How long did the victims survive? These were things
Richard suddenly wished he had studied more carefully, wished he had added to
his vast store of trivia.
His sense of time said, "One minute." He unbuckled his weighted belt and let
it drop, then drifted, not moving a muscle, letting his natural buoyancy lift
him slowly, all too slowly, toward the surface.
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His head broke water!
He rolled onto his back and inhaled joyfully once, twice, three times, while
he took his bearings.
Yes, he was near the Tower embankment.
Yes, he was sheltered by that embankment from the view from the probable
location of the guards.
Thank God, he thought, and went on breathing.
In the distance he could see his boat, almost invisible in the darkness and
fog. The current would soon take it far downriver. He turned onto his belly,
breathing more normally, and treaded water.
He too was drifting, drifting beyond the place where he'd hoped to land. He
thrust his feet downward.
As he'd expected, there was sand down there.
Smiling, though he was shivering uncontrollably, he waded against the current.
There, exactly where he'd expected it, was the Queen's Stair leading up out of
the water. He sat on a step, just above the water level, and removed his
flippers and mask. He would need them no longer. He lowered them noiselessly
into the black water and let them go.
When he felt he had fully recovered his wind, he started up the stairs. At the
top, he knew, he would be exposed, but not for long.
At the head of the stairs he crouched, waiting for the fog to thicken,
listening for the guards.
There was nothing to be heard but the usual murmuring roar of the city and an
occasional auto horn. He raised his head and peered around.
The fog closed in.
He sprang up and ran, clutching his tranquilizer pistol so it wouldn't bang on
his thigh. He glimpsed a few leafless trees, an ancient cannon pointed
riverward, then he was over the rail and into the filled-in moat. Keeping low,
he padded toward St. Thomas's Tower, where he vaulted
another fence and found himself in the broad archway of the Traitor's Gate,
leaning against the massive grillwork.
He listened.
Nothing.
He looked around.
Nothing but slow-moving mist. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]