'Why were you excommunicated?' Arthur asked.

Sfret looked up to the ceiling and the hole from which the golf ball had dropped; the light from above made a small patch of light on the floor. 'I'd never seen the stars before... all I wanted to do was to see the sun rise from below the... err... the... thing.

'?' said Arthur.

'Horizon?' suggested Anna.

'Yes, that's it!' exclaimed Sfret, looking excited.

'So why?' said Arthur, trying to tease out of Sfret some of the promising information he'd hinted at. It was like trying to get a small child to sit still.

'The Guards found me... on the floor near the upper chamber by the door that led... outside. I remember I couldn't move and... I...' Sfret tailed off.

'What? What happened?' asked Anna, full of empathy.

'I'd rather not talk about it.'

'What, were you captured?'

'No, I'm... not well in my head... I can't.' The others all fell silent. 'Mr Vandeveer knows what it is... has a name for it — my... condition. Ag-er-o-f-oo-bee-ah,' Sfret said, struggling to remember the word. It's why he keeps me in here.... I don't like staying in here all the time, I'd love to stretch my legs now and again, but he says it's for my own safety but I couldn't go outside... no. He knows I like it underground. It's where I was brought up — I can't get to sleep without the drip-drip-drip of stalactite formation. It's oddly comforting.'

'So why do you stay here?' Arthur asked, struggling to piece together all the disparate pieces of this man's story.

'I don't have a choice.'

Arthur didn't have time to get a follow-up question, as a sweet-smelling pink gas came funnelling down the golf hole.

'It smells like strawberries,' observed X as he passed out.

Arthur awoke hanging upside down, the pressure ringing in his ears. 'X?' he cried out.

'I'm right here,' said a voice directly behind him, 'Where are you?'

'Can you move?' Arthur said, straining against his own bonds.

'I'm not sure... hang on,' said X. 'Maybe I can try - woooah!'

The metal table, which was suspended in a gyroscope-like construction that allowed it to revolve around an axis, suddenly flipped vertical, bringing Arthur upright before falling forward and sending X upside-down to the floor, his face suspended a few inches above a white tiled surface. All that prevented him smacking his head down onto the floor was the equilibrium of Arthur's weight on the reverse side. X let out a determined sigh of relief.

'That's a lot better,' gasped Arthur, now facing upwards in an identical position to the one X had been in.

The table suddenly reversed again, bringing X, flushed and agitated, back round again. A stainless-steel door that, from their disadvantageous point of view, neither X nor Arthur had been able to see, slipped noisily open. Von Trapp walked in.

'You have meddled in my affairs for the last time, Agency fools!'

Daltmooreby lingered in the background and sniggered; next to him, looming in the same manner as a giant sequoia, was Andrei Sreka.

'Sfret, I am sorry to loose your services, but your usefulness has expired. You can die a swift death along with these wretches!'

'Very good, Lord von Trapp,' said Sfret, radiating an inner calm.

'This room can be hermetically sealed,' von Trapp continued. 'As you can see, this air vent' he indicated to Sreka, who closed it from the outside and tore the catch off the wall, 'no longer works. When we leave, we will be locking the door behind us and sealing the bunker shut. I estimate, judging by the three of you and the cubic area of this room, you will probably have a little under seven minutes to die. Notice I don't say escape. Your failure is inevitable and your doom certain,' von Trapp gloated.

'Bu-uuuuu -' began X, when suddenly he was wheeled round as the table was flipped over and Arthur emerged again on top.

'You're going after that diamond, aren't you, von Trapp?' he spat.

Von Trapp snorted a disdaining riposte. 'Don't let that concern you. Of more immediate worry, I should imagine, is the fate of your girl.'

'Just met her.'

Von Trapp scoffed. 'Are you telling me the fate of this one is of no concern to you at all?'

Arthur was resolutely silent.

Von Trapp looked over at Daltmooreby. 'I am assured that, in your profession, 'brief liaisons' present no significant impediment for... romantic entanglements.' Arthur grimaced at von Trapp's crassness. 'The girl comes with us,' von Trapp declared.

Daltmooreby gave Arthur one last hateful look, stepped out of the glare of the white room, pressed something on the wall and the door slid home and sealed with a definite and final clunk.

Arthur counted to 10,000 like all spies do and then rotated his hands so that he dislocated both his wrists and, with a grunt, slipped his arms out of the buckles that held him bound to the table. With a flick, he snapped them back into place and, with a light curse, performed the world's tightest stomach crunch to reach down and begin undoing the screws that held his ankles to the table, using a special edge he'd filed onto the housing of his watch for just such an occasion. When he'd get enough leverage, he kicked them off and slipped down off the table and onto the floor. The table was still carrying the weight of X underneath it, so very quickly spun round, catching X a nasty blow on the head and knocking him out cold.

'Oh damn,' said Arthur. 'Sfret?'

'Yes,' said Sfret, appearing at his left elbow.

Arthur performed the most ungracious and unprofessional double-take of his career. 'But the - How did you? With the?'

'There's a reason Vandeveer hired me to help him brake into the bank - no lock has ever been built that could hold Sfretelanimousopocatepetl the Ninth.'

Arthur turned, and the latches that had been holding the monk securely in place were indeed hanging limply open. Sfret leaned in close against the door and began pressing his fingertips into the flat surface of the metal. '...mmmm yes ...vertical grain. mmmmm mmmm feels hollow - most likely four-way mechanism on a central barrel....' He began to feel his way into the edges, running his finger up the seal. '...mmmm silicon very good - yes yes.' Then, as dramatically as he'd started, the monk indicated a spot on the door about two-thirds of the way up the door, off-centre to the left. 'Mr Agent man?'

'Yes,' said Arthur.

'Kick the door here as hard as you can.'

Arthur got as best a run up as he could and planted a boot in the spot Sfret had indicated. Nothing much followed, except that Arthur swiftly concluded he may have dislocated three toes. Sheets of pain washing over his fevered brow, Arthur was feeling a bit flustered and was breathing heavily. Through all this it dawned on him this was a fundamentally stupid thing to do when they were running out of oxygen and the fact that he was beginning to feel a bit light-headed wasn't an encouraging sign. Containing his rage, he whispered: 'We've got... to get out of here - now!'

'Just a moment,' said Sfret with an infinite calm. There was a sound like 'clunk' 'clunk' 'clunk' 'clunk' ping as the bearing holding the bolts in place finally sheared off its mount, retracting the locking mechanism and releasing the seal. With a little effort, Sfret pushed the door aside enough for him to squeeze out into the corridor. True to their word, the underground base had been abandoned and Sfret stepped out into pitch blackness.

'We must hurry,' he urged Arthur, who ran back to the unconscious form of his partner, undid the latches and, dragging his partner behind him, pulled him out of the death-chamber. Arthur regained a healthy oxygen level in his blood and ceased panting. Heaving his partner onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry, Arthur followed Sfret's footsteps through the complex, turning whenever the short, sharp scrapes from the monk's footwear indicated a corner.

'They couldn't have gotten far...' said Arthur, walking into the back of Sfret, who had apparently stopped.

'There is,' replied Sfret, who was looking around, 'a unique lock-down system in operation.... Ah!' Sfret padded forwards with excitement and turned a corner. Arthur listened. There was a light whistling noise in the distance. Following, Arthur hit Sfret again. 'Look!' whispered Sfret.

'Where? It's pitch black. I can't see anything.'

'There! Where my finger is pointing.'

'I can't see your bloody finger!' hissed Arthur, but his eyes caught a small ammount of light in the distance, which clicked off. The whistling continued, now with a rolling noise. The spy and monk moved forward to where the light had been. Their heads moved to the left,where a long corridor was illuminated. There were five exits. The pair ran to the middle of the passage.

'Which door is the right one?' Arthur asked, looking down the set of openings.

Sfret held up his hand. 'Wait for it...'

The corridor's lights blinked out, leaving only one passageway that wasn't plunged into darkness. They followed. The system continued: entering a lit room and waiting for it to switch off before following another lit exit. Skidding to a stop, the two ducked into an alcove as a silhouette in overalls, swinging keys, walked away from them, whistling and pulling a mop cart with him. It stopped and looked behind before continuing flicking a switch off. The light went out.

'That's the system?' spat Arthur in disbelief.

'Yes, what were you expecting?' Sfret answered.

'Well, not a janitor! When we were captured and brought down to the cells by Daltmooreby, the lair Vandeveer had at the golf club was quite small. There were none of these long passageways and certainly no janitors!'

'You're quite perceptive, Mr Robinson.'

'Famed for it. This can only mean one thing,' Arthur ruminated.

'What is that?'

'We were unconscious longer than I thought - they must have moved us to a different location - we could be anywhere!'

'Agreed,' said Sfret.

'We'll have to follow him and hope he leads us to an exit - just be prepared, he may not be friendly,' Arthur cautioned.

'Let's go,' said Sfret, relishing the excitement - and got smacked by a damp mop in the face for his efforts.

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