Too Bad to Die

by Francine Mathews

“And the fellow’s too highly placed.” Churchill nodded. “Public embarrassment if you’re wrong. Rank pulled. I understand.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Father,” Sarah said, “you must protect yourself. You’re too vital to the war effort to play at being heroes.”

  “I never play, my dear. Winant, answer me this: We’ve agreed the Fencer fellow is one of us?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And thus privy to our most secret councils?”

  “He is.”

  “And if we run for the airstrips in the middle of the night, what do you regard as the most likely eventuality?”

  Winant glanced around the table. “We defeat his plan. We prevent an attack. We save the lives of the three men most critical to Allied victory.”

  “Perhaps,” Churchill temporized. “But we also leave the bugger free.”

  There was a silence.

  “Free to report back to Berlin on everything he’s learned here. Having failed in his primary task, he will want to buy favor with a gift of extraordinary value. What would you regard, Ambassador, as the most critical piece of intelligence the Fencer could carry to his Nazi masters?”

  Winant sighed heavily. “The date and location of the Allied invasion of Europe.”

  “Overlord.” Churchill thrust out his jaw and glared at all of them. “It is already a perilous undertaking. A Channel crossing toward a fortified landing, heavily defended by the Enemy. Countless thousands of lives will be sacrificed—we know this for a certainty—even with a measure of surprise. If we allow the precise details of Overlord to fall into Hitler’s hands, we lose more than that. We lose the war.”

  Sarah spoke up. “Couldn’t we arrest our suspect and detain him indefinitely?”

  “On what charge? Have you found a wireless in the man’s possession? Chloral in his pockets?”

  Winant cleared his throat. “The suspect in question, Prime Minister, has in fact disappeared.”

  “Well, then.” Churchill pushed back his chair. “We shall have to obtain proof of the fellow’s treason. I suspect there should be plenty of it tomorrow around 0900 hours. Sarah, my dear, would you have Thompson roused? Send him to me.”

  Walter Thompson, the PM’s bodyguard, had saved Churchill’s life more times than he liked to count.

  “And Winant—please inform Mr. Schwartz of our discussion. Tell him that we intend, as Englishmen always do, to stand firm.”

  THE FINAL DAY

  TEHRAN

  THURSDAY,

  DECEMBER 2, 1943

  CHAPTER 39

  0630 hours.

  He spent the night lying on the floor on his stomach, with a German bedroll unfurled beneath him. Siranoush had split his undershorts to expose his iodine-painted wounds to the air—impossible to place a blanket over them, anyway. Otto had taken the bedroom as a right of rank; Hudson had sat up in a chair all night, sleeplessly waiting.

  At around three p.m., Ian asked the question he’d saved for the wee hours.

  “When did it all change, Hudders? When did you leave us behind?”

  There was a silence. Perhaps Michael was asleep.

  After a few moments, Ian wondered if he’d even voiced the question out loud.

  But then Michael said: “I didn’t leave you. You let me go.”

  “Let you go?”

  “Like that day off Dancing Ledge. When I dropped down to the bottom. I could see you kick out for the surface. Away from me.”

  “I came back,” Ian said. “I came back and saved you.”

  “Not when it mattered,” Michael said. “Not when I was really drowning. Those years in New Haven. And after.”

  “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.” It was like Hudders, he thought, to make this his fault. He knew how Ian was driven by guilt.

  “You never bothered to ask.” In the dim light of the safe house, Michael’s head lifted. “You didn’t have to. You’ve always had a place in the world. Eve and Peter and the rest. You mattered. I was just extra.”

  Ian might have protested. Argued. But the self-pity behind Michael’s words seemed suddenly sick.

  “So you joined Hitler’s family?” he asked. “Seems a bit extreme.”

  “Hitler joined mine,” Michael retorted. “Make no mistake, Johnnie. I control this party. I have for years.”

  Poor fool, Ian thought. And asked him nothing more.

  Michael was gone when Ian woke at dawn. He was stiff from lying on the floor on his stomach. He felt nothing of the winter cold, however. He was sweating and shuddering at once as he thrust himself upright on his arms.

  Fever.

  His mouth was parched, and the outlines of the room dilated and contracted before his eyes. He saw the paratroopers begin to rouse, rolling monstrously from their bedrolls. And then a face loomed over him. Bloated and almost unrecognizable. He fell back heavily to the ground.

  “Too hot,” Siranoush whispered.

  He lifted an eyelid, but the bloated shape had gone. His entire pelvic area throbbed. He let out a groan.

  “Here.” She was back, pressing a cool cloth against his forehead and neck, what little of his face she could reach. “Take some water.”

  He struggled upward again. She dribbled some water between his lips.

  “Now. Two morphia pills.”

  “Where did you get those?”

  She smiled in the piratical way he loved. “They were in your uniform pocket. Zadiq gave them to me when you changed clothes, back in the bazaar.”

  He swallowed the pills with more water and then sank back onto the floor. His mind skittered away into feverish dreams.

  “The sod’ll die soon enough,” he heard Otto say from the bedroom doorway. His voice came to Ian amplified and distorted, a run-down gramophone.

  Siranoush did not answer.

  —

  0800 HOURS.

  When he awoke again, there was a strong smell of coffee. His fever was unabated, but his pain floated somewhere above him in a bubble of helium. The pain was a distraction like a persistent fly, but he could swat it aside from moment to moment and force himself to concentrate. To comprehend his hallucinations. The Germans were eating fresh bread—Michael must have fetched it—their jaws working stolidly as cows. They muttered jokes he could not hear or stared in an unfocused fashion at the floor in front of them. The light seeping through the shuttered windows was much stronger now.

  Coffee at his elbow.

  “Try to drink,” Siranoush whispered. “It may help.”

  “With what?”

  “You have to stand.”

  “I can’t,” he hissed back.

  “You must. He has plans.” She glanced over her shoulder; Ian followed the direction of her eyes.

  Otto. The Nazi colonel was in high spirits, slapping one of his boys on a meaty shoulder. Maybe it was the distortion in Ian’s head or the angle at which he lay, but each of the paratroopers looked gargantuan. Inflated. The sort of brawn generally reserved for sideshows, in England.

  “Is he going to hit me again?”

  “I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter anymore what you know.” She was half kneeling beside him; Ian cocked his head sideways.

  “Because the sod’ll die soon enough?”

  Her eyes met his, flicked away. “I have to go. Please—will you drink the coffee?”

  “Then I’ll have to pee.” He grimaced and hoped the effect was comic. “You have no idea how agonizing the thought seems.”

  “If you will try to stand,” she said patiently, “I’ll walk you to the WC now.”

  He nodded. She was right. He had to get off the floor. To die like a paralyzed animal would be humiliating.

  Very well, Mr. Bond. For England and His Majesty’s Secret Service—

  He thrust himself upward
on his hands. Then, more shakily, brought first one leg and then another to a kneeling position. He swayed, suspended there with his torn flesh dangling, but the morphia dulled the edge of the knife slicing through his groin and colored the stars exploding before his eyes. He drew a shuddering breath and reached for Siranoush’s arm.

  She helped him to a half crouch. He swore fluently. She eased him upright. He wrapped the blanket like a shroud around himself, and with one free hand, took the coffee.

  Siranoush slid her shoulder under his right arm—had he once found that knife scratch painful?—and helped him shuffle toward the water closet.

  “It’s today, isn’t it,” he said, as she stood with her back to his, blocking the doorway. “Long Jump.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s Michael gone?”

  “He didn’t tell me. I have only my orders.”

  “Which are?”

  “To kill Stalin, of course.”

  “And then? You run away to America with your Fencer hero?”

  She did not reply.

  “He didn’t give you an escape plan, did he?”

  Ian was stalling. He had to pee—but he was terrified of the searing pain he knew would come. “Do you still have that piece of wood?” he asked. “The one you gave me to bite?”

  “Of course.” She disappeared momentarily. When she returned, she murmured, “Reach behind you. Carefully.”

  He felt for the knife handle and clenched it between his teeth. It was pitted already from last night’s ordeal. He closed his eyes and emptied his bladder into the filthy bowl of the German safe house.

  “Bond,” she said urgently. “Bond!”

  He shook his head to clear it. He had crumpled by the base of the commode, clutching it for dear life. Probably blacked out momentarily. There was blood mixed with the urine in the bowl, and he did not think that was a good thing. Unless, of course, one expected to die in the next few hours. Then it was immaterial.

  He had dropped the knife in falling, and it was lying by his left hand on the floor. He palmed it.

  Siranoush grasped his shoulders. He forced himself to stand. Wrapped the blanket around himself, hiding the knife in the folds.

  “Could you possibly find my trousers?” he asked carefully. “If I must go to my execution, I bloody well won’t go debagged.”

  “What is this debagged, please?”

  “Without my pants.”

  She managed a smile. When she left him, he slid the knife into his right sock. He had a bad moment, bending over, when he thought he might not stand up again. It passed.

  “Siranoush,” he said, as she helped him into his trousers, “why are you so kind to your enemy?”

  “Because I do not love Hudson anymore. And we are both about to die, Bond.”

  —

  0830 HOURS.

  Franklin Roosevelt allowed himself to be shifted from his wheelchair to the backseat of the embassy car. When Schwartz had settled the President, Elliott stood for a moment by the open car door and peered at his father. When he grinned, there was something about his mouth that reminded Franklin of Eleanor.

  “That’s the most ridiculous fake mustache I’ve ever seen,” Elliott said.

  “You can have one if you like,” Franklin offered. “I’ve got three more in my pocket.”

  Elliott saluted his Commander in Chief. “Save them for Halloween, Pop.”

  Schwartz waited for the President to flash his grin, then slammed the car door. Elliott stepped back. Schwartz slid behind the wheel. Franklin waved to his son and tried to tamp down his excitement. Sneaking like a covert operator from the embassy compound made him feel like a boy again. It was as good as playing cowboys and Indians in the long grass, long ago, when he had never thought of such things as wheelchairs.

  Schwartz let in the clutch and the car rolled forward. They bucketed over the gravel drive and turned away from the compound’s front entrance, where already crowds were gathering beyond the guardhouses, across the street from the iron gate: Iranians from the provinces in tribal dress; impromptu bands playing the dulcimers, drums, and long-necked lutes of traditional Persian music; tumblers turning handsprings in the street; beggars with blighted eyes and tin cups. They had assembled because the Great Leaders of the West were leaving Iran today and they were happy to see the back of the Invaders. But they would not be seeing Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Only his Secret Service double.

  Schwartz came around the bend on the unpaved back drive and slowed as he approached the compound’s rear gate. A lanky figure was lounging against it, head down as he consulted his wristwatch.

  “There’s Hudson, by all that’s grand,” Roosevelt said, craning forward to look over the front seat.

  Schwartz grinned and waved at the OSS man.

  Hudson hurried to unbar the gate and swung it open.

  He lifted his hand to his hat as the car passed through. Then he closed the gate and ran up to where Schwartz waited, motor idling.

  “Good morning, Mr. President,” he said. “I’d never have known you in that mustache.”

  Roosevelt held a finger to his lips. “Call me Frank,” he said boisterously. “I’m nobody’s leader now.”

  —

  SIRANOUSH WAS GONE.

  Otto and his men were dressed in a miscellany of Persian tribal clothes that Hudson must have collected at the bazaar. The colonel ceremoniously returned Ian’s passport and wallet to him, tucking them himself into Ian’s suit pockets, since Ian’s hands were still bound. Then he ordered two of his men to drag Ian to the back door of the house, which was flung open. Two lorries were parked in the alley beyond: Ian recognized one as the NKVD vehicle he’d ridden in a few nights before. The other was Tehrani. A dozen goats were penned in the open back.

  Otto and two of his commandos jumped into the NKVD lorry. Ian was lifted, his teeth gritted at the careless manhandling of his body, and tossed into the rear with the goats. His wrists and ankles were still bound, but no one had thought to pat down his socks.

  He heard the remaining two paratroopers climb into the cab and start the engine.

  With a groan, he rolled to his stomach and then to his knees. The lorry lurched in and out of ruts, tossing him like a bale of hay. The goats were interested. They crowded against him, strong-smelling and inquisitive, their uncanny devil’s eyes staring through him. A few nibbled tentatively at his clothing and his hands tied behind his back. He knew goats from his boyhood at Arnisdale, and he did not fear them. But why bring them at all? Why two lorries, if it came to that? There was plenty of room for all of them in the NKVD one.

  Knees planted, ankles bound, Ian craned his head to peer over the roof of the cab. Otto was driving ahead of them, bowling along in his stolen vehicle and his peasant’s clothes. Although he might be the kind to die for the Führer, Ian thought, he was not likely to do so for Michael Hudson. Even if Hudson was the Fencer. Which meant that when the violence came, it would not come from Otto.

  Two lorries. Because the Nazis needed one for killing. And the other for escape.

  The situation is dire, Bond. The Kitten is under orders to assassinate Stalin. The Fencer means to get Roosevelt. And YOU, 007—you will take the fall for Churchill’s murder . . . When the shots ring out or the bomb goes off, it will be Ian Lancaster Fleming, deserter, whose body they find in the wreckage . . .

  It was a nice touch. Winston Churchill, killed by the son of one of his oldest friends. Hitler would love it.

  Get the knife, 007 . . .

  Arms still pinned behind his back, he began to wriggle his wrists. He swatted a goat’s nose in the process. Felt teeth beneath his fingers. The ropes were wet. They would be hemp in this part of the world. Edible. Inviting, even, to a local ungulate.

  Ian held himself as still as possible in the rolling lorry bed. The flutter of tongues and noses again
st his hands resumed. How much time did he have? How much rope would the goats eat? He tried not to calculate his chances.

  —

  0840 HOURS.

  When the guard at the compound gate challenged her, Siranoush barked a command at him in Russian. It was a phrase she had heard often in her NKVD camp. Shut up, pig. Don’t you know who I am?

  He had no idea who she was, but he took one look at the flowing blond hair, the glimpse of silk beneath her coat, her flawless skin—and came to attention. He held his gun on the girl and said, in a more tentative tone, “Identify yourself.”

  From the bodice of her dress she drew her papers. The boy—he was younger even than Siranoush herself—paled a little when he saw the special identification she carried.

  “SMERSH,” he whispered. “I have heard rumors. But never have I met . . .”

  “Be glad,” she said. SMERSH was the counterintelligence section of the NKVD. Few Russians knew it existed, but those who did were terrified by the name. The acronym stood for Death to Spies. SMERSH operatives had one job: to kill those who betrayed Stalin. “May you never have reason to meet us, Comrade.”

  He swallowed hard. “You wish to speak to . . .”

  “Lavrentiy Pavlovich,” she said clearly.

  He let her pass.

  It never occurred to him to search her.

  Siranoush kept her hands in her coat pockets as she strode up the embassy drive. It was a cold morning, this second of December, and her fingers were chilled. Her right hand gripped the butt of her gun. It was Arev’s old Nagant M1895.

  —

  ONCE OUTSIDE the center of Tehran, the idea of civilization vanished abruptly and gave way to a treeless plain, barren at this time of year, the road to Gale Morghe airstrip spooling out in front of Schwartz. There were no other cars. A vague suggestion of hills, dark on the horizon. The occasional herd of Persian gazelle. Schwartz kept the sedan at a steady forty-five-mile-per-hour clip, the noise from the engine loud enough to make conversation difficult. When he glanced in his mirror, he saw Roosevelt dozing, his hat off and his head lolling. In the passenger seat beside him, Hudson was more alert, glancing through his window from time to time like a tourist confounded by lack of subject.