by John Gardner
‘A real night on the town, eh?’ Natkowitz was behind the wheel of a souped-up London taxicab which had remained last in the small rank near the hotel all evening. He had covered his red hair with a cloth cap and looked quite the part.
‘Paid a damned great bill and got her phone number. What about the boyfriend?’
‘Henri hasn’t stirred all night. Not a peep.’
‘Well, hang around, Pete, I still don’t trust them.’ He was not going to say anything about the DGSE running a test on British security. In any case he did not altogether go along with the delicious Mlle Adoré’s story. Too pat, too devious and too unlikely.
They exchanged a couple of words before Bond crossed the street to where the battered grey van was illegally parked. Any passing policeman or traffic warden was supposed to leave it alone because of the official sticker just below the licence disc, but it was not always so. Bond recalled one occasion when a vehicle from the motor pool had been towed away by an overzealous beat policeman, endangering a highly important surveillance. But that was in the Cold War which was now officially over. James Bond thought about this for a while, pondering the reasons for still monitoring the Soviet Embassy and running people in the former Eastern Bloc countries. A bellicose M had recently said ‘The Kraken of Communism sleeps, but it will awake again, stronger and more rarefied from the succour we in the West have given it.’
Bond sat quietly in the van with the engine idling, his eyes moving the whole time while his hand loosely held the microphone of a two-way radio tuned to a scrambled channel. He saw the young man from MI5 trying to look either like a lamppost or a man waiting for a bus, though there was no bus stop.
At exactly five minutes to midnight Stephanie Adoré came out of the hotel. She now wore a dark greatcoat and her hair was tucked up under a fur hat. The doorman waved at the three taxis standing idle and waiting. One came to life, its For Hire sign extinguished as it stopped for the doorman to see the young woman into the squat, black vehicle.
‘Here we go.’ Bond waited until the girl was in the cab before pulling out and overtaking it. He allowed Adoré’s cab to overtake him just as they reached the bottleneck of traffic in Cranbourne Street, turning into the Charing Cross Road. Glancing in the mirror, he saw no activity behind him. If friend Rampart appeared, it was Natkowitz’s job to follow him in the cab. In the meantime, Bond clicked the switch on his hand mike and muttered, ‘Predator. We’re off and running.’ Every few seconds he continued to give their position, hoping that at least one back-up team from the office was on the way.
Stephanie Adoré’s cabbie was good, showing courtesy to other members of the fraternity and cutting up ‘civilian’ drivers unmercifully. Bond had the feeling that he was taking instructions from his fare, which was good tradecraft – give the cabbie a rough destination, then change your mind and navigate for him. The cabbie must have been very happy if that was what she was doing, for the cabbies of London pride themselves on being the best worldwide, and they do not like directions from the paying customer. Bond could almost hear the conversation, ‘Wake up, darling, either you know where you want me to go or you don’t. Just give me an address. I’m like a bloody homing pigeon once you give me an address.’
Mlle Adoré certainly knew London if she indeed was navigating, for she ran all the possible back doubles, eventually setting a course for Knightsbridge.
Bond continued to monitor the radio and watch his mirror. No sign of Natkowitz, though a little black VW seemed to latch on to them for about half a mile as they negotiated Kensington Road. But it had gone by the time they swept past the Albert Hall, with Prince Albert to their right, standing under his Gothic canopy, uninspired by the open book in his hands.
He had put some three to four cars between him and Stephanie’s cab and, though the traffic was light, there was enough of it to give reasonable protection. The VW appeared again halfway up Kensington High Street and overtook him just west of the library. Two minutes later, Bond saw Adoré’s cab turn left into the Earl’s Court Road with the VW close behind.
He shot the lights amidst a blare of illegal and furious motor horns and just caught sight of the VW making a turn into Scarsdale Villas, once a late-Victorian bastion of the upper-middle classes, now a road of tall elegant houses gone to seed, given over to bed-sitter land, doctors’ surgeries and pre-school kindergartens.
Glancing left as he overshot the turn, Bond saw the cab and the little car had both pulled up about sixty yards into the street, in front of one of the big terraced houses which run all the way through to Marloes Road at the far end.
He pulled over, parked and leaped from the van, walking quickly back to the Scarsdale junction just in time to see Stephanie Adoré finish paying off the cab, then turn and hurry towards the house. Above her, on the steps, a tall figure was already fumbling with the lock, and for a moment as he turned the key, his face was illuminated by the street lights. At fifty yards Bond had no difficulty recognising him. He continued to walk, but two paces on, both of the targets had disappeared through the door, while the VW remained parked, oblivious to the operational ground rules of the trade, left in an almost arrogant manner for all to see.
It had startled to drizzle, and a sharp cold wind suddenly choreographed the detritus of the gutters into tiny ritual flurries. Bond felt the cold and dampness, turned, hunched his shoulders and headed back to the van to radio in.
Ahead were the comparative bustle and street lights of the Earl’s Court Road. To his left the big old houses that made up Scarsdale Villas stood back from the pavement. About forty yards from the junction the houses gave way, putting him against a wall.
He had been conscious of the headlights of a car coming from the far Marloes Road end of Scarsdale Villas, but now, a few paces from the turn into the Earl’s Court Road, the sound of its engine was all but blotted out by a tall red bus passing the T-junction ahead of him.
He sensed the danger, swivelling back towards it, and saw the headlights bearing down on him, the wheels of a big old Rover mounting the pavement, aiming to crush him against the wall.
There were other noises – a shout, the scream of brakes from the Earl’s Court Road end behind him – but his concentration was on the car barrelling towards him. Seconds before it hit, Bond launched himself towards the bonnet, rolling it like a movie stunt man, then breaking his fall into the road on the far side by going down, his right arm flung flat and his shoulder taking the full force of the fall, just as they had taught him long ago.
As he rolled past the driver, he glimpsed a hand and the dull metal of a weapon, but when the shots came, they were far away. The road leaped up and he felt the jar of pain down his right side as he continued to roll. Then there was the sound of the car crunching against the wall, the crackle of bodywork being mashed against brick and the revving of the motor.
In the final seconds of the roll, he lost control. The momentum of the car and the force of his own spring across the bonnet had made for a clumsy landing, for he was travelling very fast. His head snapped back and hit the road. A million stars were flung bright and exploding against the darkness and the world seemed to spin.
Far away, he heard Natkowitz’s voice shouting, asking if he was okay. Then the word ‘Peradventure’ scuttled through his mind and in the wink between consciousness and oblivion he laughed, for the memory was of an old joke – the elderly lady who always refused to say ‘Peradventure’ because of the quotation from the Book of Common Prayer – ‘If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me.’
The darkness covered him, lifted him up and spat him out over two hours later.
6
FINAL BRIEFING
He came back to consciousness for a brief moment and saw Natkowitz’s face floating over him, the Israeli’s head circled by a halo from the street lighting. There were police all over the place and a lot of noise. ‘I’m okay, give me a minute.’ He recognised the kneeling figure who was pushing up his sleeve. He felt the slight stin
g, then the calm darkness washed over him again.
When next Bond opened his eyes, he knew exactly where he was, even though he had only set foot in the place a couple of times in his entire career. As his eyelids fluttered and he got his first slanted view of three walls and part of a ceiling, a picture of the safe house’s exterior flashed into the back of his mind, as vivid as if he had been standing outside. Essex Villas, he thought, knowing the exact location of the place, tucked among the affluent houses north of Kensington High Street.
‘All right, James?’ It was one of the Service doctors. A Harley Street man who was on the P4 list of professional men and women, doctors, lawyers, accountants and the like on call for use by both MI5 and the SIS. His was the last face Bond had seen near him in the street. He thought to himself that the doctor had got there damned quickly.
He sat up, rubbed his right shoulder which was sore but not uncomfortable. Then he blinked, doing his own damage assessment. He felt bruised, a little nauseous, slightly giddy. As the doctor made a careful examination, concentrating on eyes and ears, the giddiness and sickness passed off, leaving him feeling much more in control.
‘Twenty-four hours,’ the doctor pronounced. ‘No concussion as far as I can see, but you were out for a little while.’
‘And you finished the job, eh?’ Bond’s mouth and throat were very dry and he recognised the effects of some anaesthetic.
The doctor looked at his watch. ‘For about two hours. Trust me, James. It was necessary.’ He turned to Bill Tanner who sat quietly in an armchair on the far side of the room. ‘Can you do without him running around for twenty-four hours?’
Tanner gave a grim smile, and Bond noticed that he cut his eyes away from the doctor. ‘Not really, Doc. But if it has to be a day . . . well.’ He made a gesture of capitulation.
‘What the hell happened?’ Bond asked, now sitting on the edge of the bed once the doctor had left. ‘And why the hell did he put me out?’
Tanner took a deep breath. ‘Someone used common sense for a change. When things started to roll, they sent the doc and one of the private ambulances in that direction – the doc was on duty. He was briefed to make sure that, if either you or Pete were injured, you were to be taken out of it for a while. As it turned out, the initiative was correct. A lot of cops and civilians were about. You just might have said something we didn’t want broadcast.’
Bond thought for a minute. ‘Okay. So what actually happened before I went down?’
‘Hope you can fill in some of the blanks, James. M’s waiting for me to talk with you. How much did you see?’
He told his story, leaving nothing out. When he got to the Scarsdale Villas incident, he shook his head as though blaming himself for what had happened. ‘I recognised the Volks from the plates. It wasn’t difficult because I’ve been bringing myself up to scratch on most things. It was on a list of secondary vehicles tied to embassy staffs and I’d seen it only a couple of days ago. It belonged to Krysim – Oleg Ivanovich, if I remember correctly. Second Secretary Soviet Embassy. Moscow Centre’s third man in London. It was him. After all he’s been here for three years and I’ve come across him a number of times.’
‘You’re certain he was there?’
‘Absolutely. Positive. Saw him quite clearly going into the house with the Adoré woman. I was going straight back to the van to radio in. I know a car tried to swat me, but . . .’
‘You did some little tricks,’ Tanner supplied. ‘Proper stunt-man games. Could’ve broken your neck . . .’
‘Better than being smashed to bits against that wall. Who was it? Rampart?’
‘The same. Major Henri Rampart. He was out to shut you up. Made a mess of the Rover he was driving . . .’
‘There was shooting,’ Bond recalled.
‘There was indeed. Causing us no end of a panic. Pete Natkowitz was behind Henri. We didn’t even know he was carrying. He put three rounds into the rear tyres of the Rover.’
‘So you got them all?’
Tanner shrugged, a rather hopeless gesture. ‘Not one. Henri slewed the car away from the wall and took off on the rims of his rear wheels. Made it into Lexham Gardens which is what? Couple of blocks south? Quite a long way, and nobody on his tail, though there were plenty of witnesses. The local law are still questioning people, and we’ve got the Branch to do some PR – gangland violence, that kind of thing. In fact, M was still working on them a few minutes ago when I checked. The law have Natkowitz in the local nick.’ He paused, his eyes making a God-imploring movement which suggested they had been through an all-time cock-up of Olympic standards. ‘But, with luck, we’ll have him out quickly. Also, with luck, the morning papers’ll carry a story about rival criminals shooting it out in Kensington. No terrorist connections, no questions.’ He wrinkled his nose, then again added, ‘With luck.’
‘That’ll please the local residents of snooty W8.’ Bond frowned. ‘You didn’t get anybody?’
Bill Tanner gave another sigh. His eyes lost contact with Bond’s and he shook his head.
‘You lost them? You lost the adorable Adoré and the Russian as well?’
‘I’m afraid so. We had people there, with the law, pretty fast. Birds had all flown by the look of things. They’d also cleared out their hotel rooms. Bills paid, all that kind of thing.’
Bond cursed. Then, ‘Make any sense of it, Bill?’
‘None at all; and we have the problem of what to do about the Soviet Embassy. A senior French lady spook and a notable member of their counterterrorist unit slide into the country waving false flags, then set up a meet with the Russians’ number three legal. What do we make of it? Even with the prevailing goodwill, O.I. Krysim will swear he sold the VW weeks ago and his suffering brothers’ll say he was at home all night playing billiards. I should imagine M’ll have something to say to his opposite number in Paris, but . . .’
‘Maybe I can give him a cause.’ Bond got to his feet and took a couple of exploratory steps, like a man testing the water on a sea shore, but it seemed the giddiness and nausea had gone altogether. His jacket was slung over the back of a chair and he reached inside for the stat of Mlle Adoré’s official, and impertinent, card. Explaining the story about a French test of British security, he handed the paper to Tanner.
The Chief of Staff grunted and shook his head. ‘Never seen anything like this before, and I’ll bet my pension that’s rubbish, but we can try. How y’feeling, James?’
‘I’ll live. Shoulder’s bruised. That’s my own stupid fault, but there wasn’t much of an option.’ He blinked and moved his head around. ‘Don’t think there’s any concussion. Bit annoyed at the doc putting me out. I’d have kept quiet, and you should all have known that.’ Then, as though the thought had just come into his head, ‘I suppose the Old Man’s pretty furious. He wanted us to be up up and away tomorrow.’
Tanner nodded. ‘You might still be off tomorrow night. He considers it important. Even sent you some private reading. I’m to sit here until you’ve done with this.’ He had reached into his briefcase on the floor beside him and pulled out a slim buff-coloured file. ‘You read, James, and I then destroy. M’s playing whatever this is very close to his chest.’
Bond opened the folder. It was headed General Yevgeny Andreavich Yuskovich: Profile. Below the heading was a photograph of a man who looked more like a stereotype scientist than a Red Army general. A slim, almost ascetic, certainly scholarly, face. Clear eyes looked into the camera from behind heavy-rimmed spectacles. Below the picture was a physical description.
Bond frowned, then remembered how M had cautioned him. General Yuskovich was a direct first cousin to Josif Vorontsov through the latter’s mother. The lineage was detailed on the next page where a small note had been added, dated that day, January 2nd, 1991.
To all subscribers, reference Operation Fallen Timbers. Given the initial claims that the Chushi Pravosudia (Scales of Justice) have snatched Josif Vorontsov and are insisting the Soviet government accept him as a w
ar criminal, the knowledge of Vorontsov’s blood relationship with General Yuskovich must be taken into account. Bearing in mind that Yuskovich is a very powerful military leader, who has shown himself to be highly critical of the current leadership and its aims and objects, we cannot rule out attempts by this officer to undermine any positive action taken by the Kremlin. It should be noted that he has retained his place within the military hierarchy because of his undoubted expertise in his field: namely, nuclear ordnance and delivery systems.
The note was written in M’s familiar hand and the green ink he invariably used. Bond turned the page to read the brief, but succinct details of Yuskovich’s career, which was impressive.
Born in 1924, Yuskovich had joined the Red Army in 1942 where he passed the short junior commander’s course and went straight to the front as an artillery battery commander. Following the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets refer to World War II, he attended the famed Frunze Military Academy, graduating in 1950. From there his career had been meteoric. First, as a major, he commanded a rocket battery becoming Chief of Staff only a decade later, when the Soviets had begun to make significant strides in delivery systems and rocketry in general.
From 1963 to 1965, Yuskovich attended the General Staff Academy, graduating with the coveted Gold Medal and obtaining the rank of major general serving in Turkestan, at the Ministry of Defence, and, later, as Commander-in-Chief, Southern Theatre Forces. He became C-in-C Rocket Forces in 1985 and had remained in that command ever since.
His military writings included learned papers on strategic matters, ranging from titles such as ‘The Mighty Guard over the achievements of Socialism’ to his most recent paper, published in the autumn of 1989, ‘In Constant Combat Readiness.’
There were further notes which made it clear that, while he had clashed with the Kremlin leadership on many occasions, he remained the most experienced officer on rocketry, missiles, nuclear weapons and a whole range of delivery systems.