by Ian Fleming
Red Grant came in and closed the door softly behind him. He walked up to the desk and stood looking down, obediently, almost hungrily, into the eyes of his Commanding Officer. Kronsteen thought that he looked like a powerful mastiff, waiting to be fed.
Rosa Klebb surveyed him coldly. ‘Are you fit and ready for work?’
‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’
‘Let’s have a look at you. Take off your clothes.’
Red Grant showed no surprise. He took off his coat and, after looking around for somewhere to put it, dropped it on the floor. Then, unselfconsciously, he took off the rest of his clothes and kicked off his shoes. The great red-brown body with its golden hair lit up the drab room. Grant stood relaxed, his hands held loosely at his sides and one knee bent slightly forward, as if he was posing for an art class.
Rosa Klebb got to her feet and came round the desk. She studied the body minutely, prodding here, feeling there, as if she was buying a horse. She went behind the man and continued her minute inspection. Before she came back in front of him, Kronsteen saw her slip something out of her jacket pocket and fit it into her hand. There was a glint of metal.
The woman came round and stood close up to the man’s gleaming stomach, her right arm behind her back. She held his eyes in hers.
Suddenly, with terrific speed and the whole weight of her shoulder behind the blow, she whipped her right fist, loaded with a heavy brass knuckle-duster, round and exactly into the solar plexus of the man.
Whuck!
Grant let out a snort of surprise and pain. His knees gave slightly, and then straightened. For a flash the eyes closed tight with agony. Then they opened again and glared redly down into the cold yellow probing eyes behind the square glasses. Apart from an angry flush on the skin just below the breast bone, Grant showed no ill effects from a blow that would have sent any normal man writhing to the ground.
Rosa Klebb smiled grimly. She slipped the knuckleduster back in her pocket and walked to her desk and sat down. She looked across at Kronsteen with a hint of pride. ‘At least he is fit enough,’ she said.
Kronsteen grunted.
The naked man grinned with sly satisfaction. He brought up one hand and rubbed his stomach.
Rosa Klebb sat back in her chair and watched him thoughtfully. Finally she said, ‘Comrade Granitsky, there is work for you. An important task. More important than anything you have attempted. It is a task that will earn you a medal’– Grant’s eyes gleamed – ‘for the target is a difficult and dangerous one. You will be in a foreign country, and alone. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’ Grant was excited. Here was a chance for that big step forward. What would the medal be? The Order of Lenin? He listened carefully.
‘The target is an English spy. You would like to kill an English spy?’
‘Very much indeed, Comrade Colonel.’ Grant’s enthusiasm was genuine. He asked nothing better than to kill an Englishman. He had accounts to settle with the bastards.
‘You will need many weeks of training and preparation. On this assignment you will be operating in the guise of an English agent. Your manners and appearance are uncouth. You will have to learn at least some of the tricks,’ the voice sneered, ‘of a chentleman. You will be placed in the hands of a certain Englishman we have here. A former chentleman of the Foreign Office in London. It will be his task to make you pass as some sort of an English spy. They employ many different kinds of men. It should not be difficult. And you will have to learn many other things. The operation will be at the end of August, but you will start your training at once. There is much to be done. Put on your clothes and report back to the A.D.C. Understood?’
‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’ Grant knew not to ask any questions. He scrambled into his clothes, indifferent to the woman’s eyes on him, and walked over to the door, buttoning his jacket. He turned. ‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel.’
Rosa Klebb was writing up her note of the interview. She didn’t answer or look up and Grant went out and closed the door softly behind him.
The woman threw down her pen and sat back.
‘And now, Comrade Kronsteen. Are there any points to discuss before we put the full machinery in motion? I should mention that the Praesidium has approved the target and ratified the death warrant. I have reported the broad lines of your plan to Comrade General Grubozaboyschikov. He is in agreement. The detailed execution has been left entirely in my hands. The combined planning and operations staff has been selected and is waiting to begin work. Have you any last minute thoughts, Comrade?’
Kronsteen sat looking up at the ceiling, the tips of his fingers joined in front of him. He was indifferent to the condescension in the woman’s voice. The pulse of concentration beat in his temples.
‘This man Granitsky. He is reliable? You can trust him in a foreign country? He will not go private?’
‘He has been tested for nearly ten years. He has had many opportunities to escape. He has been watched for signs of itching feet. There has never been a breath of suspicion. The man is in the position of a drug addict. He would no more abandon the Soviet Union than a drugger would abandon the source of his cocaine. He is my top executioner. There is no one better.’
‘And this girl, Romanova. She was satisfactory?’
The woman said grudgingly, ‘She is very beautiful. She will serve our purpose. She is not a virgin, but she is prudish and sexually unawakened. She will receive instruction. Her English is excellent. I have given her a certain version of her task and its object. She is co-operative. If she should show signs of faltering, I have the addresses of certain relatives, including children. I shall also have the names of her previous lovers. If necessary, it would be explained to her that these people will be hostages until her task is completed. She has an affectionate nature. Such a hint would be sufficient. But I do not anticipate any trouble from her.’
‘Romanova. That is the name of a buivshi – of one of the former people. It seems odd to be using a Romanov for such a delicate task.’
‘Her grandparents were distantly related to the Imperial Family. But she does not frequent buivshi circles. Anyway, all our grandparents were former people. There is nothing one can do about it.’
‘Our grandparents were not called Romanov,’ said Kronsteen dryly. ‘However, so long as you are satisfied.’ He reflected a moment. ‘And this man Bond. Have we discovered his whereabouts?’
‘Yes. The M.G.B. English network reports him in London. During the day, he goes to his headquarters. At night he sleeps in his flat in a district of London called Chelsea.’
‘That is good. Let us hope he stays there for the next few weeks. That will mean that he is not engaged on some operation. He will be available to go after our bait when they get the scent. Meanwhile,’ Kronsteen’s dark, pensive eyes continued to examine a particular point on the ceiling, ‘I have been studying the suitability of centres abroad. I have decided on Istanbul for the first contact. We have a good apparat there. The Secret Service has only a small station. The head of the station is reported to be a good man. He will be liquidated. The centre is conveniently placed for us, with short lines of communication with Bulgaria and the Black Sea. It is relatively far from London. I am working out details of the point of assassination and the means of getting this Bond there, after he has contacted the girl. It will be either in France or very near it. We have excellent leverage on the French press. They will make the most of this kind of story, with its sensational disclosures of sex and espionage. It also remains to be decided when Granitsky shall enter the picture. These are minor details. We must choose the cameramen and the other operatives and move them quietly into Istanbul. There must be no crowding of our apparat there, no congestion, no unusual activity. We will warn all departments that wireless traffic with Turkey is to be kept absolutely normal before and during the operation. We don’t want the British interceptors smelling a rat. The Cipher Department has agreed that there is no Security objection to handing over the outer c
ase of a Spektor machine. That will be attractive. The machine will go to the Special Devices section. They will handle its preparation.’
Kronsteen stopped talking. His gaze slowly came down from the ceiling. He rose thoughtfully to his feet. He looked across and into the watchful, intent eyes of the woman.
‘I can think of nothing else at the moment, Comrade,’ he said. ‘Many details will come up and have to be settled from day to day. But I think the operation can safely begin.’
‘I agree, Comrade. The matter can now go forward. I will issue the necessary directives.’ The harsh, authoritative voice unbent. ‘I am grateful for your co-operation.’
Kronsteen lowered his head one inch in acknowledgment. He turned and walked softly out of the room.
In the silence, the Telekrypton gave a warning ping and started up its mechanical chatter. Rosa Klebb stirred in her chair and reached for one of the telephones. She dialled a number.
‘Operations Room,’ said a man’s voice.
Rosa Klebb’s pale eyes, gazing out across the room, lit on the pink shape on the wall-map that was England. Her wet lips parted.
‘Colonel Klebb speaking. The konspiratsia against the English spy Bond. The operation will commence forthwith.’
PART TWO
* * *
THE EXECUTION
11 ....... THE SOFT LIFE
THE BLUBBERY arms of the soft life had Bond round the neck and they were slowly strangling him. He was a man of war and when, for a long period, there was no war, his spirit went into a decline.
In his particular line of business, peace had reigned for nearly a year. And peace was killing him.
At 7.30 on the morning of Thursday, August 12th, Bond awoke in his comfortable flat in the plane-tree’d square off the King’s Road and was disgusted to find that he was thoroughly bored with the prospect of the day ahead. Just as, in at least one religion, accidie is the first of the cardinal sins, so boredom, and particularly the incredible circumstance of waking up bored, was the only vice Bond utterly condemned.
Bond reached out and gave two rings on the bell to show May, his treasured Scottish housekeeper, that he was ready for breakfast. Then he abruptly flung the single sheet off his naked body and swung his feet to the floor.
There was only one way to deal with boredom – kick oneself out of it. Bond went down on his hands and did twenty slow press-ups, lingering over each one so that his muscles had no rest. When his arms could stand the pain no longer, he rolled over on his back and, with his hands at his sides, did the straight leg-lift until his stomach muscles screamed. He got to his feet and, after touching his toes twenty times, went over to arm and chest exercises combined with deep breathing until he was dizzy. Panting with the exertion, he went into the big white-tiled bathroom and stood in the glass shower cabinet under very hot and then cold hissing water for five minutes.
At last, after shaving and putting on a sleeveless dark blue Sea Island cotton shirt and navy blue tropical worsted trousers, he slipped his bare feet into black leather sandals and went through the bedroom into the long big-windowed sitting-room with the satisfaction of having sweated his boredom, at any rate for the time being, out of his body.
May, an elderly Scotswoman with iron grey hair and a handsome closed face, came in with the tray and put it on the table in the bay window together with The Times, the only paper Bond ever read.
Bond wished her good morning and sat down to breakfast.
‘Good morning-s.’ (To Bond, one of May’s endearing qualities was that she would call no man ‘sir’ except – Bond had teased her about it years before – English kings and Winston Churchill. As a mark of exceptional regard, she accorded Bond an occasional hint of an ‘s’ at the end of a word.)
She stood by the table while Bond folded his paper to the centre news page.
‘Yon man was here again last night about the Televeesion.’
‘What man was that?’ Bond looked along the headlines.
‘Yon man that’s always coming. Six times he’s been here pestering me since June. After what I said to him the first time about the sinful thing, you’d think he’d give up trying to sell us one. By hire purchase, too, if you please!’
‘Persistent chaps these salesmen.’ Bond put down his paper and reached for the coffee pot.
‘I gave him a right piece of my mind last night. Disturbing folk at their supper. Asked him if he’d got any papers – anything to show who he was.’
‘I expect that fixed him.’ Bond filled his large coffee cup to the brim with black coffee.
‘Not a bit of it. Flourished his union card. Said he had every right to earn his living. Electricians Union it was too. They’re the Communist one, aren’t they-s?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Bond vaguely. His mind sharpened. Was it possible They could be keeping an eye on him? He took a sip of the coffee and put the cup down. ‘Exactly what did this man say, May?’ he asked, keeping his voice indifferent, but looking up at her.
‘He said he’s selling Televeesion sets on commission in his spare time. And are we sure we don’t want one. He says we’re one of the only folk in the square that haven’t got one. Sees there isn’t one of those aerial things on the house, I dare say. He’s always asking if you’re at home so that he can have a word with you about it. Fancy his cheek! I’m surprised he hasn’t thought to catch you coming in or going out. He’s always asking if I’m expecting you home. Naturally I don’t tell him anything about your movements. Respectable, quiet-spoken body, if he wasn’t so persistent.’
Could be, thought Bond. There are many ways of checking up whether the owner’s at home or away. A servant’s appearance and reactions – a glance through the open door. ‘Well, you’re wasting your time because he’s away,’ would be the obvious reception if the flat was empty. Should he tell the Security Section? Bond shrugged his shoulders irritably. What the hell. There was probably nothing in it. Why would They be interested in him? And, if there was something in it, Security was quite capable of making him change his flat. ‘I expect you’ve frightened him away this time.’ Bond smiled up at May. ‘I should think you’ve heard the last of him.’
‘Yes-s,’ said May doubtfully. At any rate she had carried out her orders to tell him if she saw anyone ‘hanging about the place’. She bustled off with a whisper of the old-fashioned black uniform she persisted in wearing even in the heat of August.
Bond went back to his breakfast. Normally it was little straws in the wind like this that would start a persistent intuitive ticking in his mind, and, on other days, he would not have been happy until he had solved the problem of the man from the Communist Union who kept on coming to the house. Now, from months of idleness and disuse, the sword was rusty in the scabbard and Bond’s mental guard was down.
Breakfast was Bond’s favourite meal of the day. When he was stationed in London it was always the same. It consisted of very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black and without sugar. The single egg, in the dark blue egg-cup with a gold ring round the top, was boiled for three and a third minutes.
It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg from French Marans hens owned by some friend of May in the country. (Bond disliked white eggs and, faddish as he was in many small things, it amused him to maintain that there was such a thing as the perfect boiled egg.) Then there were two thick slices of wholewheat toast, a large pat of deep yellow Jersey butter and three squat glass jars containing Tiptree ‘Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam; Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum’s. The coffee pot and the silver on the tray were Queen Anne, and the china was Minton, of the same dark blue and gold and white as the egg-cup.
That morning, while Bond finished his breakfast with honey, he pinpointed the immediate cause of his lethargy and of his low spirits. To begin with, Tiffany Case, his love for so many happy months, had left him and, after final painful weeks during
which she had withdrawn to an hotel, had sailed for America at the end of July. He missed her badly and his mind still sheered away from the thought of her. And it was August, and London was hot and stale. He was due for leave, but he had not the energy or the desire to go off alone, or to try and find some temporary replacement for Tiffany to go with him. So he had stayed on in the half-empty headquarters of the Secret Service grinding away at the old routines, snapping at his secretary and rasping his colleagues.
Even M. had finally got impatient with the surly caged tiger on the floor below, and, on Monday of this particular week, he had sent Bond a sharp note appointing him to a Committee of Inquiry under Paymaster Captain Troop. The note said that it was time Bond, as a senior officer in the Service, took a hand in major administrative problems. Anyway, there was no one else available. Headquarters were short-handed and the 00 Section was quiescent. Bond would pray report that afternoon, at 2.30, to Room 412.
It was Troop, reflected Bond, as he lit his first cigarette of the day, who was the most nagging and immediate cause of his discontent.
In every large business, there is one man who is the office tyrant and bugbear and who is cordially disliked by all the staff. This individual performs an unconsciously important role by acting as a kind of lightning conductor for the usual office hates and fears. In fact, he reduces their disruptive influence by providing them with a common target. The man is usually the general manager, or the Head of Admin. He is that indispensable man who is a watchdog over the small things – petty cash, heat and light, towels and soap in the lavatories, stationery supplies, the canteen, the holiday rota, the punctuality of the staff. He is the one man who has real impact on the office comforts and amenities and whose authority extends into the privacy and personal habits of the men and women of the organization. To want such a job, and to have the necessary qualifications for it, the man must have exactly those qualities which irritate and abrade. He must be parsimonious, observant, prying and meticulous. And he must be a strong disciplinarian and indifferent to opinion. He must be a little dictator. In all well-run businesses there is such a man. In the Secret Service, it is Paymaster Captain Troop, R.N. Retired, Head of Admin., whose job it is, in his own words, ‘to keep the place shipshape and Bristol fashion’.