by Steve Cole
‘Karachan cracked my skull against the wall and out I sparked.’ Elmhirst grimaced. ‘Reckon I’m getting old.’
‘I can’t believe he’s come all this way after us,’ James said.
‘He was after that translation of your old man’s code. Question is, how did he know about it?’
James nodded slowly. ‘And how did he know where we were staying, right down to the floor?’
‘SIS sent the telegram with the translation via the British Embassy here in Moscow.’ Elmhirst’s eyes were flint. ‘Someone there must have passed on the information. It’s the only answer.’
‘The Russians have an agent in our embassy?’ James felt his eyes widen. ‘So if we do need assistance over here—’
‘We can’t risk it. Can’t have the enemy knowing what we’re up to. The Embassy is off-limits – as of now.’
‘Then . . . we’re on our own.’ James felt an uneasy excitement. ‘Let’s look at the telegram, see what it says?’
‘Not out here, conspicuous as hell.’ Elmhirst nodded towards an oak door. ‘Casually, together with a couple of large drinks at the American Bar.’
‘I suppose it’s safer to stay in public sight,’ James said grudgingly.
‘Well, yes. But why d’you think we’re staying at the National, Bond?’ Elmhirst brushed down his ruined jacket. ‘It’s one of only two places in the whole of Moscow where you can get French vermouth, Scotch whisky and Gordon’s gin, even if you have to pay through the nose. And the old girl from Odessa who runs the bar knows the night manager pretty well, if you know what I mean. She’ll be able to get us into a new room without going through official channels.’ He looked at James again, and his demeanour softened a touch. ‘It’s all about who you know, Bond. Who you know, what they can do for you, and how you can get them on your side.’
James raised an eyebrow and almost smiled despite himself. ‘And the large drink?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Elmhirst clapped him on the back. ‘Yes, Bond, it’s definitely all about the large drink.’
10
Riddles Within Riddles
JAMES SAT IMPATIENTLY on a couch in the National’s American Bar while Elmhirst worked his charms on Elizaveta, the lady from Odessa: a buxom woman in late middle-age squeezed into a cocktail dress of silks and chiffon in midnight blue. The same colour had been daubed about her eyes, which peeped out with forced gaiety through a straggle of blonde curls. Elmhirst reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed her a neat stack of banknotes, which she counted with the casual skill of a croupier.
The bar, half filled with hard-bitten men in suits, was just how James pictured an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. There were lots of high-backed leather armchairs, ornamental tables with crystal ashtrays, an enormous marble fireplace gaping from scarlet wallpaper. But the opulence was faded, there was a smell of cabbage behind the expensive cigar smoke, the ashtrays were chipped, the chairs had buttons missing from the upholstery.
‘Come on, Elmhirst,’ James muttered. He had wound the straps of his father’s backpack around his forearm, glancing about to make sure no one was taking undue notice, wary of anyone walking through the door. He was itching to know what the telegram had said before anything else could happen.
Finally Elmhirst joined him with two drinks: a Scotch on the rocks for himself, and a brandy for James. ‘There. You’ve had a shock. Get some of that down you.’
James sipped, wincing at the fiery taste but grateful for the steadying warmth in his chest.
‘It’s cost me enough, but I’ve sorted out accommodation,’ Elmhirst said quietly. ‘Our room won’t be on the public record.’
‘Can’t we just find a different hotel?’ James asked.
‘If we check out of the National, Intourist will get to hear and we’ll have the NKVD taking an interest.’
‘The secret police . . .’ James trailed off as Elmhirst pulled the torn and crumpled envelope out of his pocket. ‘My father’s coded message.’
‘Part of that “further correspondence” he mentioned in his postcard back in 1932,’ said Elmhirst, pulling the telegram from the envelope and scanning its contents. ‘Only Max never got the message because, with the letter buried in the backpack in the Aiguilles Rouges, he had no clue which book to use to transcribe it.’ Elmhirst drained his Scotch and slid the paper across to James. He signalled to a waiter for another drink. ‘Seems that for every riddle we solve, we get another.’
A slow shiver prickled along James’s spine as he read:
LADY WITH VEIL RISING THROUGH RANKS. KNOWS WAY TO SMUGGLE LIVE BODIES AND MATERIALS TO ENGLAND IN TIMBER CARGO. SLEEPERS. WORKFORCE. FOUR POINTS AROUND LONDON. SUSPICIOUS SIS I LEFT CHAPTER AND VERSE MOSCOW BURIED IN JAMES. YOUR EYES ONLY.
James read it over and over. ‘The lady with the veil. No prizes for guessing who that is.’
‘I’ve read the Corps of Intelligence Police files.’ Elmhirst welcomed his second Scotch with an appreciative sip. ‘This case really is personal for you, eh?’
James nodded absently, dwelling now on dark memories of the Russian agent he’d come up against last summer: La Velada, the woman working to bring Great Britain to her knees, and who’d come closer to killing him than anyone alive. He’d last seen her disappearing across the ocean off Cuba in a motor yacht, but to think that his father had known her too, years before . . . Had she realized the connection in Cuba? James pictured the bony, gloating figure, her face in darkness behind her veil, watching him like a cat watches prey: The NKVD have agents all over the world. I thought you’d be aware of that, Bond . . .
‘I don’t know about live bodies and materials,’ James managed finally, ‘but she had the means to send weapons to England hidden in shipments of timber.’
Elmhirst drank some more of his Scotch. ‘Suspicious SIS. Sounds like La Velada realized your dad had made contact with a mole in their organization, and was feeding the intelligence to Max.’
‘Four points – could that be a reference to the four buildings around Millbank that Kalashnikov designed: Mechta Academy and the others?’
‘It could.’ Elmhirst nodded slowly. ‘Yes, it definitely could.’
James tapped a finger on the telegram. ‘What does Sleepers mean here?’
‘Agents in long-term deep cover. Moles. Men and women given false identities so they can live ordinary lives in another country, securing useful positions of power, ready to act for the motherland when the call comes.’ Elmhirst leaned forward suddenly. ‘Know what I reckon, Bond? I reckon your father left some very sensitive info in Russia because he believed it would be found if he tried to take it out with him.’ He took a large slug of his drink and smacked his lips. ‘He wasn’t a pro in the spying game – Lord knows, a pro wouldn’t use three or four different codes in one report – so he needed a real agent, Max, to come and pick up the stuff and smuggle it out.’
‘So now all we have to do is find it,’ James agreed. ‘You must be right about Karachan: if he’s come after us in person, he must really be worried about what we’ll find. A way to bring it all down . . .’
‘So, if chapter and verse really are buried in James, James needs to unearth ’em, and fast.’
‘He does.’ James decided he needed another nip of brandy, though he grimaced at the taste. ‘Why does Russia want to attack Britain, anyway? I thought they were trying to arrange peace treaties.’
‘All governments try to arrange peace treaties – gives them longer to get ready for war, doesn’t it?’ Elmhirst signalled to Elizaveta for a third drink, and she smiled and nodded. ‘Right then, “nephew”, here’s a quick introduction to Anglo-Soviet relations. You know that communism is the opposite of capitalism? Well, in the late 1920s we caught the Soviets trying to foment a communist revolution in Britain. We broke off diplomatic relations before they could overthrow our decadent way of life.’ As if to illustrate, he drained the last of his second glass. ‘Thing is, now, in the ’30s, the biggest threats to the Soviet Union are Nazi Germa
ny and Japan – both powerful, both aggressive and both eyeing up her territory. Russia needs allies if she’s going to stand a chance of keeping her enemies’ paws off – only most of the British cabinet would sooner see the Soviet Union taken down than help her stand. Stalin’s convinced we’ll sign a treaty with France and Germany that’ll let Hitler expand the Nazi empire to the east without objection.’
James shuddered at the idea; he’d seen at first hand the kind of atrocities the Nazis were capable of. ‘So the way to be sure that Britain won’t sign that treaty is to weaken her, attack her capital city . . .?’
‘And invade her,’ Elmhirst agreed. ‘Establishing a Soviet satellite state in the west of Europe, so that Russia has power enough to stand up to anyone.’
‘And the key to stopping this . . . comes down to . . . me?’ James stared at his half-empty glass, and wondered if it might ever seem half full again. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’
‘With good, hard, positive thinking, James.’ Elmhirst smiled as the waiter brought his third glass of whisky. ‘Or good, hard, positive drinking, for a start. We’ll get some dinner down our necks, a bottle of something strong, and snore the night away till it’s time for our trip to Red Square – or until someone else comes after us, whichever’s first.’ He snatched up the telegram and stuffed it in his pocket, then clapped James on the shoulder. ‘Welcome to the job, Bond.’
Half an hour later, James found that an air of weary resignation hung over the National’s dining room, despite the apparent grandeur of the buffet on offer. Upon entering, he was confronted with an ornate arrangement of fancy dishes: sturgeon on a silver platter, omelette served between lobster tails with fresh caviar, little ramekins holding oeufs en cocotte with a chanterelle mushroom purée. Ranged behind them James noted quail, grouse and woodcock on serving plates dressed with neat salad garnishes. And yet behind the extravagant concoctions the room held an odour of disinfectant, and dead cockroaches made indents in the thick pile carpet like black bulletholes. A parade of wines in red, white and palest rose queued across the long table, but after his chest-warming brandy, James satisfied himself with a glass of Narzhan mineral water.
Just past midnight, after a dinner eaten largely in silence, Elmhirst led the way to their unofficial room on the fifth floor. Whatever leverage he’d used on the lady from Odessa, it had worked: the room held a view to brag about, straight down the street to Red Square – the heart of Moscow, of the whole country. And just beyond, the neighbouring Kremlin, the ‘fortress within a city’ that was the seat of Soviet power, its defensive towers crowned with great red metal stars that dwarfed the golden pinpricks in the sky above.
James pulled out his father’s little statuette of St Basil’s Cathedral, which, after its rough ride in the stolen backpack, now had a crack zigzagging up its middle. James traced the faultline with a finger, and found that in any case his souvenir did the true structure no justice. There it stood, unearthly and majestic, with the smoke cloud from a power plant blooming through the moonlight behind it, an outrageous, truly beautiful building.
‘Built by Ivan the Terrible,’ Elmhirst remarked. ‘Legend has it that he ordered the architect to be blinded afterwards, so he could never build another like it.’
James snorted softly. ‘I suppose Ivan didn’t get his nickname from pressing wild flowers.’
‘Not unless he was really bad at it.’
Elmhirst decreed that an oil lamp in the bathroom should be their only source of light at night, so that to any watching eyes outside, the room would appear uninhabited. While Elmhirst prepared for bed, James lit the lamp with matches from a half-empty book he found by the ashtray. He lay down on the chaise longue and, by the light of the summer night sky, peered at the fragments of his father’s past, trying to imagine the intent behind the words. He wished he had some way of getting hold of Pritpal, an old friend from Eton who was a genius when it came to complex word puzzles like this. But who knew where Pritpal was now? And besides, his father was stating clearly that James himself held the key to the mystery.
So why don’t I know what the hell it is?
Henson, the old Latin master . . . a mole . . . ‘French memory’ . . . He shuddered as he thought of La Velada, turned his thoughts from her to the souvenir of St Basil’s Cathedral. Why that landmark in particular? Had it simply been meant as a gift? In which case, why had it not been given to him? Then there was the Mechta Academy building, and the three others designed by Kalashnikov that could make up the four points around London. James remembered the high explosives stashed in the bunker beneath the school . . . where might they have been taken now?
Still turning over the tangle in his mind, James fell asleep, fully clothed.
Spears of sunlight pricked through the windows as the sputter of traffic on Gorky Street below rose to a steady drone. James parted his grit-filled eyes, wondering where the hell he was. When he remembered, he closed them again and offered a silent prayer to anyone listening that he might do what they’d come here to do as quickly as possible, and get back to England.
Agent Elmhirst was lying on the bed, also still fully dressed, right down to his boots. His breathing was hoarse, just edging on a snore. James got up from the couch slowly, quietly, to use the bathroom. In one smooth movement, Elmhirst rolled over, snatched a handgun from the bedside table and brought it to bear on James.
11
A Short Tour of Carnage
WITH A JOLT of fear James threw his hands in the air. ‘It’s me! It’s me!’
‘Holy hell, Bond.’ Elmhirst lowered his Colt New Service Revolver and took a shaky breath. ‘Don’t sneak around like that. After the attack last night, I might’ve blown your head off.’
James put down his hands, trembling with relief. ‘Where’d you find the gun? You never smuggled it past customs?’
‘Nah. Came with the room, didn’t it?’ Elmhirst sat down, replaced the revolver on the table and rubbed his eyes. ‘Our lady from Odessa downstairs. Generous with her favours.’
‘I’m glad you weren’t as generous with your trigger finger.’
‘Me?’ With trembling hands Elmhirst took a small flask from under his pillow and swigged whatever was inside. ‘I’ll only murder someone if they really deserve it.’
James looked away, a little disquieted by Elmhirst’s drinking; it could hardly be healthy, but then, neither was the man’s profession. ‘Does that include me if I can’t work out where my father hid his information?’
‘Don’t try me.’
Turning to his trunk, James picked out fresh clothes: dark-blue DAKS trousers with pleated fronts, and a light-blue Oxford shirt with short sleeves. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing St Basil’s Cathedral for real this morning.’
Elmhirst yawned and stretched. ‘The Intourist car will probably be late, or break down, or take us to Leningrad instead, but still . . .’
‘A ride’s a ride.’ James joined in the forced joviality, but ached with the scars of the struggle last night, especially his raw palms. ‘When is it coming?’
‘Seven thirty, according to the itinerary. We’ve got time for breakfast first.’
After last night’s late dinner James didn’t feel hungry, but as he got dressed he reflected that this could be a long day. The DAKS that Elmhirst had picked up for him were a new and expensive design with an adjustable waistband; no need for belt or braces, and small rubber pads sewn inside held his shirt comfortably in place. He looked himself over in a mirror on the wall; the tailored fit and fine material made James feel older and more confident.
After slipping on his leather brogues and stowing his passport and visa in the backpack – in Soviet Russia it was a serious offence not to carry these at all times – James joined Elmhirst at the door, ready to leave. Elmhirst drew his gun and covered James surreptitiously as he moved slowly, alertly, outside. The corridor was quiet and gloomy, as well it might be at this hour of the morning. With no assassins in the laundry cupboard and no thieves
set to pounce from the stairwell, James and his unorthodox guardian left their room and proceeded down to breakfast.
The spread in the dining room had been replaced, but the dead cockroaches had not. James and Elmhirst were among the first to peruse the offerings: black bread; huge, stodgy bowls of porridge; open sandwiches thick with butter and cheese or sausage; a tray of small cottage-cheese dumplings called syrniki and, James’s eventual choice, scrambled eggs with Bologna sausage and dill. Accompanying the food was thick treacly coffee or black tea taken with lemon and sugar. James stuck to the former.
‘Almost seven thirty.’ Elmhirst rose to his feet. ‘Suppose we should wait in the lobby for our driver to show.’ He led the way through to the cavernous marble space. ‘Whatever you do, don’t mention our little troubles last night. Act like nothing’s happened—’ He stopped, gripped James’s arm and pulled him back behind a floral display on a marble pedestal. ‘Uh-oh. Looks like trouble.’
Two men had entered the hotel. One had a long rodent-like face and a pronounced overbite, while his companion was hard-faced with a broken nose and short black hair, pulling smoke from a cheroot. They were gazing around, as if looking for someone.
James felt a shiver of dread anticipation. ‘Who are they?’
‘No one you want to meet.’ Elmhirst stuffed the telegram into his hand. ‘I’ll distract them – you slip past and get outside. Lose yourself.’
‘But I can help you—’
‘Take an order for once in your life, Bond.’ Elmhirst was calm, stony-faced. ‘No heroics, all right? If the things we’ve found out fall into their hands . . .’
‘I understand.’ James held himself ready for flight as Elmhirst broke cover and strolled airily across the lobby towards the men. At the same time, gripping his father’s pack, James circled round behind them, back to the wall. Elmhirst greeted both men in Russian, shaking their hands. What was he up to?