however, they were facing another metal door that stood open to reveal a narrow stone spiral staircase.
`The tower,' Bond whispered, going straight towards the door and up the steps. He almost ran, using the balls of his feet, to deaden the sound, and he was only aware of Fredericka behind him because of her breathing, light but just audible.
The stone steps twisted upwards, finally coming to a bare flagged landing and yet another metal door. This time it was in two sections, a plain steel, hinged slab which contained two very serviceable locks.
In turn, this was hinged to an insert of solid bars which had its own lock, the whole forming a secure entrance into a very safe area, in which items, even a person, could be easily confined.
On the far side of this door a small lobby led to yet another set of bars. These were also equipped with a locking device, and the entire section was designed to slide to one side. It was half open, and they went through into a large chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. Great cathedral windows were set in two sides of the room, the glass very thick and clearly unbreakable, but it was the decor which stunned them. A large and comfortable bed occupied one corner.
There were a couple of leather easy chairs, and a very large rough working table, upon which papers were piled and scattered.
The wall directly opposite the entrance was completely taken up by a tall metal filing cabinet, the uppermost part of which could be reached from a ladder, anchored to the top section, and fitted on to a slider. Small wheels at the base of the ladder would allow it to be pushed easily to the required place, and it stood in a central position with one of the higher drawers open, as though the previous occupant had only just retrieved some required file.
Bond went straight to the table, bending and starting to look carefully through the papers. There were charts, drawings, photographs and even maps.
`Looks like the master plan for the museum.' He gestured to Fredericka with his hand, calling her over.
Indeed, the topmost showed a view of the area they had just traversed. A quick glance showed they had missed seeing a performance at the Moscow Arts Theatre; one at a London theatre in the 1920s; the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-uponAvon in the late 1960s; part of a performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle at Bayreuth; a modern musical in a Broadway theatre, together with about another six exhibits.
`This man's a genius.' Bond began to thumb through another pile of papers which seemed to be the working drawings of the large scale electronics used in the museum.
`A genius, but I think a genius at murder also.' Fredericka had lifted the larger plans from the table and was rummaging under them. `These look as though they've been thrown here to hide something else.' She moved several more large plans until a series of maps, drawings and notes emerged. `Look here...
But Bond had already been distracted, walking over to the right of one of the high windows, where he stood looking in horror at a bookcase which was anchored to the wall above a deep glass-fronted cabinet.
`No, you look here.She went to him, and began to study the spines of the books, and the lower section of the cabinet, which contained various items marked with small cards. The books beautifully leather bound, with the symbol DD at the bottom of each spine were all works on the same subject political assassination. Here, there were volumes dealing with practically every famous public murder, from Caesar to JFK.
The objects in the cabinet mirrored the same subject. Fredericka caught her breath when she saw items neatly labelled, `Jacket belonging to Graf Claus von Stauffenberg, and worn on the day of his attempted assassination of Adolph Hitler July 20, 1944.' Another claimed to be, `The pistol used to kill Mrs Ghandi'.
`He's into the assassination business with a vengeance,' she said quietly. `Come and look at what I've found over here.' They returned to the table where, from under the other papers, Fredericka had retrieved several maps, street plans, and sheets of paper upon which were scribbled notes. The street plans were of Milan, Athens and Paris.
There was also a plan of the interior of Milan's famous La Scala Opera House; one of the Acropolis and the Parthenon, in Athens, and several jottings which appeared to depict a certain route leading from the centre of Paris to an unknown point near the city.
Among the scrawled notes, the words Milan, Athens and Paris were neatly underlined with initials next to each city. Milan equalled KTK; Athens showed the initials YA; while Paris had no less than three separate series of letters PD; H;W.
`Targets?' Bond looked at her, raising his eyebrows.
`Could be. Most certainly could be. I think we should get out and...' She stopped abruptly, and they both turned towards the door, sensing another presence near by.
It was only a slight scraping. The sound of leather against the stone outside, but it was enough to send Bond, pistol in hand, to the door.
`No!' he yelled. Then again, `Don't do it or I'll kill you where you stand.' William moved, very fast, twirling backwards out of sight.
Bond squeezed the trigger twice, hearing the bullets ricochet off the walls. The outer steel door clanged and the locks clicked shut.
`Damn!' Bond cursed, running forward. The outer door was secure and it would take more than a simple lockpick to get them out.
`I rather think we should see if there's another way out of here.' Fredericka calmly began to examine the wall of metal filing cabinets.
`We've outstayed our welcome and I don't particularly want to be here when they come back for us.' `The windows?' He went over to the high arches and took a closer look at the glass. `We'd need an armour-piercing weapon to break this stuff, otherwise we could have abseiled down..
`If we had rope, James. Come on, let's be practical, there's some kind of space here around the filing cabinets.' She was right. The entire wall of metal files appeared very solid, but, as Fredericka banged on them with her hand, there appeared to be some give, as though they made up a false wall protecting space on the far side.
Bond stood back, his eyes searching for any possible concealed opening.
For ten minutes Fredericka moved up and down the wall, while Bond sought a clue from the way the large cabinets were arranged. `It's no good, I can't see any weaknesses,' he said at last.
`Change places,' Fredericka commanded.
`Sometimes new eyes...' She stepped back and saw the answer immediately. `Yes. Look. This centre area here.' As she pointed he saw what she meant. In the middle of the wall one section of the cabinets appeared to be surrounded by a darker line, the size and oblong shape of a door.
`The ladder.' He went across and drew the sliding ladder over until it was level with the right-hand section of the darker outline.
`No. No, that's not it.' Fredericka stepped to the files on the left of the now obvious door, and began to move the sliding metal drawers in and out. `I'm sure there's a simple way.' As she spoke they both heard a click from the file she was pulling out.
`That's it...' She pushed and pulled and the drawer seemed to click into some hidden position, but nothing else happened. She tried the drawers above and below. They also clicked and stuck in place.
`I'm sure...' she began, then Bond leaned against the oblong of cabinets and they moved, swinging inwards.
`Open Sesame,' he whispered, as they walked through into a cold and clinically white chamber, one side of which was given over to a long console with an array of inlaid computer monitors, controls, a switchboard and two large TV monitors. The wall facing this large control panel contained row upon row of large mainframe computer tape machines, while in the wall in front of them was a door marked `Gantry.
Danger High Voltage.' Conversation was superfluous. It was obvious that they stood in the main control room for Dragonpol's theatre museum. In the centre of the long console a glass panel covered a detailed electronic map of the exhibits, with winking lights to show exactly where the various sections lay in relation to the entire display. It was now clear that each of the many spectacles was activated by heat and movement sensors, so that the approach of visitors immediately turned on the various projections, holograms, sound, smell and the lifelike automata. At the moment the master switch was in the `off' position and the two large TV monitors gave a panoramic view of what seemed like a jumble of small theatres, cycloramas and lighting battens, all joined together by the walkway over which the unhappy Charles had been pushed.
