with her. It banged once, slightly, against the duct and she froze as she heard boot heels clicking down the corridor under her. A guard passed, not looking up. She held her breath, waiting.
He walked back, directly under her again, and stopped. She waited, coiled, ready to jump for him. If she were spotted coming out of the vent, if she were spotted at all ... She waited, and as the guard moved past her, she breathed again.
She continued to move the grill, then set it aside in the duct. She listened, hard, holding her breath. It would have been better to wait for nightfall, to wait for a later hour when the guards would be drowsy from lack of sleep.
She perched on the edge of the duct, then tucked her shoulders tight, Jetting her feet down and raising her arms as she dropped.
She hit the floor eight feet below, rolled forward into the fall, and came to light on her hands and knees. She pushed herself up, then went flat against the wall. No sound of a guard coming. She had made no sound when she'd left the duct.
She turned, glancing toward Rozhdestvenskiy's office.
then glanced back up the hall. The guards were still where they should be, by the mouth of the corridor.
She started toward Rozhdestvenskiy's door.
She took (he key from inside her glove, tried it, and the knob turned under her hand; the door opened. She dropped the backpack from her shoulders, and reached inside one of the outside pouches. She took a small leather pack, about twice as high as a package of cigarettes and half as thick. She opened it and pulled a pick from it. Taking the pick and scratching it against the lock surface, then breaking it against the lock surface, she left the small broken end piece on the floor, then reclosed the pack. She deposited thestemof the pick and the lock-pick set pack in her backpack, then closed the outer compartment and stepped inside the office.
Natalia closed the door behind her, quickly. To the best of her uncle's knowledge and to the best of her intelligence she had not aroused suspicion; no ultrasonic or photoelectric alarm systems had been installed. There would be the pressure-sensitive plates inside his office, but there should be nothing in the outer office. She stepped across the room, in darkness, taking the side chair, which sat next to the secretarial desk, and carrying it back toward the door into the corridor.
She opened the door halfway, listening at first; there was no sound. She opened it fully. A quick glance revealed no one in the corridor except the guards at the far end. They were not turning around. Moving rapidly, the chair in both hands, she started into the hallway, positioning the chair under the open duct vent. Pulling a third black scarf, like the two covering her face and hair, from her side pocket, she unfolded it into a square to cover the seat; then stood on it atop the chair seat. The magnetic screwdriver was in
her left side pocket and she got it out; then reaching up into the duct, she pulled the cover slightly closer and inserted it over the opening. She started tightening the screws.
Natalia froze at the voice of one of the guards—a remark about hearing something.
She shifted the screwdriver to her left hand to hold in place the screw on which she was working; her right hand reached for the Bali-Song knife in the hip pocket of her jump suit. The knife, unopened, in her right fist, she held her breath, listening.
To kill an innocent Soviet guard was anathema to her—but she would if she had to.
Natalia kept waiting.
There were no footsteps.
Dropping the knife back into her hip pocket, she resumed lightening the screws in the vent cover.
Quietly, she stepped down from the chair, snatching the black silk scarf and stuffing it into her pocket, the screwdriver having already been returned to her other pocket. Then she picked up the chair, which she set down to reopen Rozhdestvenskiy's outer office door. Having brought the chair inside, she replaced it exactly as it had been, that was crucial, she realized.
Natalia crossed the room to Rozhdestvenskiy's inner office door, her pack in her left hand, swinging by the straps. It would not be locked-She opened the door, snatching the Kel-Lite flashlight from her pack, scanning the floor, the walls—if additional alarms had been installed, they were not readily visible.
She closed her eyes, remembering the pattern of the pressure-sensitive plates, the way in which Karamatsov had walked when leaving his office for the night with her.
But it had to be the reverse. He was coining from the desk and the small safe behind it; she was going toward it.
She took a long-strided step to her left, shifted her weight and brought her right foot up, beside it. She waited. It was a silent alarm—but it would bring the guards almost instantly. She took the next step, again to her left, trying mentally to measure and match her dead husband's stride.
She brought her right foot over, waiting again.
She was a third of the way across the room.
She took a broad step to the right, losing her balance momentarily, her left foot almost touching the carpet in the wrong spot. She sucked in her breath hard, regaining her balance, waiting, settling her left foot beside the right.
Natalia took another step, then another and another.
She remembered how foolish Vladimir had looked, sitting on his desk, swinging his feet around to avoid the plates flanking his desk on both sides.
Now, she shifted her weight forward, onto her fingertips, then (hrew her pack onto the desk top. The Kel-Lite was in the black belt around her waist on which she carried a borrowed pistol. Had she lost one of her own guns, the ones given her by President Chambers, it would have meant instant recognition and arrest.
With the flashlight beam zigzagging at a bizarre angle with the rising and falling of her chest, she leaned toward the desk, throwing her weight forward and pushing herself up, jumping, tucking her knees up.
