John Gardner - Seafire

"I told you so, Max," from Goodwin. "Couldn't be anyone else'd make such a foul-up."

"Yes, you mentioned that." Max Tarn had gone slightly pale under the ruddy and tan cheeks. "What exactly are they arresting me for, Mr. Bus – Oh, to hell with it, why don't we all come clean, Mr. Bond? It is Bond, isn't it, not Busby? Why? How? I want it all or you'll end up with your wife in a neat little plastic body bag. I didn't mention to you that some of Connie's people are with your wife at this very moment. One's the young gentleman whose wrist you almost broke on Friday night. He thinks your wife's a dish – his words not mine. I wouldn't presume. But I would presume to order your mutual demise if I don't get the right answers. So let's have a little party, Mr. Bond. Let's play Truth or Dare, just like I used to play it in my nursery with my dear old nanny."

"She's not my wife." Bond juggled several complex problems in his head, calculating on the fly. He had not even discussed this possible scenario with Flicka, yet from the outset Max Tarn had known his identity. Now it was up to him to lie. Cover every possible permutation. Lie convincingly, and pray that Flicka's story jigsawed with his own. Tarn was obviously shaken by the very idea of the arrest and search-and-seizure warrants. It was probably the last thing he expected, just as Bond had not foreseen the exposure of his name. What else did Tarn know? he wondered in the split second between sentences.

"She's not my wife," he repeated, pleased and a little surprised that he sounded so casual. Deep within him, metal butterflies stirred and sent their anxiety cannoning around his guts.

"Of course she isn't, Mr. Bond." Tarn's voice was silkily smooth. "She's a former officer of Swiss Intelligence. A discredited officer at that. So tell me exactly what this arrest business is all about, and why you, of all people, would wish to warn me in advance."

"I haven't the slightest idea what it's about. All I can tell you is that I've seen the warrants. As for warning you, I've already told you. I've always held you in great regard. Any man who has the intelligence and flair to emerge from practically nothing to become a multibillionaire has my respect -"

"But I didn't come up from nothing, my friend. I came from one of the oldest and most proud families in Germany. I don't use the 'von,' but I am really Sir Max von Tarn. My grandfather was a general who fought bravely in the first war, his father was a field marshal, and my great-great-grandfather held one of the highest positions in the Prussian Empire, with blood ties to the Hohenzollern family. Look…" His voice rose as he spoke, and he pulled his elegant cardigan to one side, revealing a small crest embroidered on his shirt. A shield, surmounted with scrollwork, two crossed spears on a field of gold, and below it a motto: In Familia Vir . In Family Lies Strength.

So Max Tarn did claim a direct link with the old family. "I didn't realize." Bond tried to sound genuinely astounded. "Sir Max, if you have such a respected and aristocratic background, why do you never use it?"

"Because I prefer things to look as though I came from nowhere, and in some ways I did come onto the scene out of the blue. After all, the Nazis murdered all my relatives, apart from my mother, and stole our family estates. My mother kept very quiet about our background. Officially, I'm dead." A friendly charming smile that caused a flash of pleasure deep in the brown eyes; the twinkling of his irises gave out a strange uncanny impression, as though they were water and a breeze came rippling across them. "Though, of course, many of my close friends and business associates do know from whom I am descended. They're very good about it." He paused, chin lifted and face set in a smile that was, at once, paradoxically condescending and welcoming.

"Well, I have even more respect for you now, Sir Max," Bond lied. "I came from a pretty middle-class background, and I've had to drag myself up by my bootstraps. I thought I'd done quite well until the Cold War ended. If you know my real name, then you probably know what I did to serve my Queen and Country."

"Spy. Agent provocateur. Assassin. Saboteur. Right? All those unpleasant things people do in 'The Secret World.'"

"I was a field agent with British Intelligence, yes."

"Oh, I think something more than just a field agent, Mr. Bond. Don't be modest. You were a star, a leader; decorated many times – in secret, of course. A legend within your service." A pause as he looked Bond over from head to toe. "I could always use a man like you. Think about it."

"Well." He blinked quickly, then looked away in mock modesty. "Well, I was lucky. My problem, Sir Max, was that I thought it would go on forever. In some ways I suppose I'm well off. At least they've found me a job – at about a third of my old salary, and with a pension that drops accordingly. That's the way people like me are treated. When we are no longer needed to do the dirty work, the powers that be don't want to know. We're turned out into a life they neither understand nor wish to live."

"And that's the kind of life you live nowadays, Mr. Bond? Come, come, you could afford to take Fraulein von Grüsse on one of my cruises – not a cheap item. Only a hundred and twenty of your colleagues have been put on the retired list – that's public knowledge. You don't appear to stint yourself. I understand you have a good London address."

"Bit of a final fling, Sir Max. The cruise, I mean. The job they've given me is a dead end; it's as boring as watching sand in an egg timer. I even have a little sign on my desk that says, "Beware, the End is Nigh." Yes, I had a little private money, but that's been eroded over the years, and now I'm as good as being put out to grass."

"Yes, I wanted to ask you what actually goes on in that house in Bedford Square."

"Nothing exciting, I fear. We're a kind of repository for documents. Mainly the declassified stuff. It's a sort of research center for old Cold Warriors who want to write their memoirs. Seems to be the coming thing, writing the story of your supposedly secret life. They're all at it." Tarn could dig as deeply as he wanted, for Bond had just described the cover given to the new Two Zeros Section. There were even people in the Home and Foreign Offices, not to mention the Intelligence and Security Services, who thought that was exactly what was going on in Bedford Square.

"Yes." Tarn nodded. "I had heard that's what you were doing there. But tell me, Mr. Bond, why did you find it necessary to use a pseudonym to cruise on my ship, and book in at this hotel?"

"I would have thought it was obvious. Fredericka – Fraulein von Grüsse – and I are having an affair."

"Which seems to be common knowledge. You are living together, after all,"

"There's a kind of double standard about that, as far as my old outfit's concerned." Bond gave a small shrug. "Things have changed a little recently, but we used the Mr. and Mrs. Busby names on the cruise because our relationship was frowned on at the time. It's out in the open now, but in the last few months we've stayed here on a number of occasions and used the other names. That's how the staff know us, so we decided not to embarrass them by using proper names for this weekend -"

"Which you claim is a coincidence?"

"I've said so, and you can check with reservations."

"So you've already told me." He gave a little chuckle, "And I've already checked."

Bond nodded, as though Tarn was simply showing common sense. "I might also ask you, Sir Max, how you know all about me . You appear to have gone out of your way to burrow into my past, and I'm sure that wasn't done just over this weekend."