the distance between the edge of the tree limb and the top of the wall. If he could loop his leg as close to the end of the limb as possible, swing underneath, and brace himself with one hand against the ridge of the wall, his free hand could hold his lighter against the plastic tubes.
He pulled out his cigarette lighter-his American lighter, be reflected with a certain chagrin-and pushed the tiny butane lever to its maximum.
He tested it; the flame shot out and held steady; he lowered it slightly for the light was too bright. He took a deep breath, firmed the muscles of his right leg, and dropped to his left, his left hand making contact with the edge of the wall as he arched downward. He steadied himself and began breathing slowly, orienting his vision to the upside-down view.
Blood raced to his bead; he revolved his neck briefly to lessen the pressure, then snapped on the lighter, holding the flame against the first tube.
There was a crackling of electricity, then an expulsion of air as the tube turned black and melted. He reached the second in the immediate series; this one exploded like a small, wet firecracker, the sound no more than that of a low-gauge air gun. The third grew into a thin, outsized bubble. A bubble.
Pressure! Weight! He pushed the flame into it and it burst; he held his breath, waiting for the sound of an alarm. It did not come; he had punctured the tube in time, before the heat and the expansion had reached the weight tolerance. It taught him something: hold the flame closer at first contact.
He did so with the following two strands, each bursting on touch. There was a final tube.
Suddenly the flame receded, sinking back into its invisible source. He was out of fuel. He closed his eyes for a moment in frustration, and sheer anger. His leg ached furiously; the blood in his head made him dizzy. Then he thought of the obvious, annoyed with himself that he had not considered it immediately. The one remaining tube might well prevent a full-malfunction alarm; he was far better off leaving it intact. There were at least fifteen free inches on the surface of the concrete, more than enough to place a foot on and plunge over the wall to the other side.
He struggled back up to the limb and rested for a while, letting his head clear. Then slowly, carefully, he lowered his left foot to the wall, setting it securely on top of the burnt-out tubes. With equal caution he raised his right leg over the limb, sliding down until the limb was in the small of his back. He took a deep breath, tensed his muscles, and leaped forward, pressing his left foot into the stone, propelling himself over the wall. He fell to the ground, rolling to break his fall. He was inside the Verachten compound.
He got to his knees, listening for any sounds of an alert. There were none, so he rose to his feet and started threading his way through the dense woods toward what he presumed to be the central area of the property. The fact that he was half-walking, half-crawling in the right direction was confirmed in less than a minute. He could see the lights of the main house filtered through the trees, the beginning of a large expanse of lawn clearer with each step.
A glow of a cigarette! He dropped to the ground. Directly ahead, perhaps fifty feet, stood a man at the edge of the lawn. Instantly, Taleniekov was aware of the forest breezes; he listened for the sounds of an animal.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nothing. There were no dogs. Walther Verachten had confidence in his electronic gates and sophisticated alarm system; he needed only human patrols to make the darkness of his compound secure.
Vasili inched forward, his eyes on the guard ahead. The man was in uniform, a visored hat and a heavy winter jacket pinched at the waist by a thick belt that held a holstered gun. The guard checked his watch and stripped his cigarette, shaking the tobacco to the grass; he had been in the army.
He walked several paces to his left, stretched, yawned, proceeded another twenty feet, then strolled aimlessly back toward where he had been standing. That short stretch of ground was his post, other guards no doubt stationed every several hundred feet, ringing the main house like Caesar's Praetorian Guard. But these were neither Caesar's