John Gardner - Seafire

"With the money he's making by dealing in death, he can afford to be a bit lavish."

"Yes." Harvey raised his eyes and gave Bond a withering look. "Yes, I was told that you preferred luxury to a more suburban way of life."

He ignored the remark. "So what're we waiting for now?"

A short pause was followed by a nod from the Chairman toward the head of the Security Service. "I'm told, Captain Bond, that you seem to have a way with our own personal penetration agent, the former Junior Minister."

"I spoke with him yesterday."

"Yes, to great effect. You made him some very unauthorized promises, though."

"They were based on the realities of life. You know as well as I do, ma'am, that nobody in this room wants to see the little rat in court, with every newspaper and television reporter at his heels. Put the ex-Minister in front of a judge and some of you become laughingstocks. A few decades ago he would have probably caught the measles – I think that was the term we used in those days. We'd have a little suicide on our hands, and someone in high places would trot out evidence that he had been under incredible strain. Nowadays we don't do things like that, so we have to offer him a deal. After all, very few people know what's been going on."

"I, for one, cannot comment on any deals, Captain Bond. We do have to consider the law. None of us is above it."

"Or below it."

"If you say so. Now, Captain, we have a deal to offer you. We feel that, whatever the final outcome and its effect on our former lord and master's life, he does appear to trust you. Nobody in Tarn's camp can have any idea that we've turned him, so we want you to arrange that he passes on a little information to his former master."

"What kind of information, ma'am?"

"Oh, simple stuff. The fact that our search continues in the U.K. and in Germany where he was last spotted, plus anything else that comes from your fertile imagination. I'm sure you'll give him the right words. Incidentally, he's being kept in one of our few remaining safe flats not fifteen minutes' drive from here."

"You said you had a deal to offer me."

"Certainly. You get him to say the right words, hold his hand, stay with him while he passes on the information, and we'll let you and Fräulein von Grüsse leave for Puerto Rico first thing tomorrow morning."

"Done." He glanced at Flicka, who nodded back. "I presume Fräulein von Grüsse can be present?"

"We'll all be present, Captain Bond. You won't see us, but we'll be there." She gave him a knowing look. "Oh, by the way, they're all on first-name terms. Our former Minister is called Christopher."

The safe flat was known to him, high on the fourth floor of a block of service apartments on the corner of Marylebone High Street and New Cavendish Street. They had made the Minister very comfortable.

"Got everything you want, Christopher?" Bond greeted him. "Hot and cold running security, good takeaway Chinese and Indian?"

"I hate Chinese food, but the curry's good." He looked much better than when they had last seen him during the interrogation at the Home Office. "You come to give me a pardon?"

Bond shook his head, and Flicka said she was sorry but they couldn't do that just yet.

"I've told them that I'll give evidence against Tarn in camera. Time we had a good witness-protection program over here, like they do in the States."

"We can't have everything, Christopher." He turned to the two Security Service officers who were minding the prisoner, asked them if they could leave them alone with him. "Man talk, you know the kind of thing."

With a somewhat hammy reluctance – for they already had orders – the two men withdrew.

"So what's the deal?" Not unnaturally, the man could only think about himself and his future.

"Nothing's been decided yet, Christopher. We've talked to a lot of people and, as I told you yesterday, I don't for a minute think you're going to see the inside of a courtroom. Mind you, it's possible that you'll spend the rest of your life in some godforsaken part of the world with a pair of minders who'll be changed every three months. If you want total freedom you'll have to cooperate."

"I've already told them I'll -!"

"Yes, yes, Christopher, we know what you've promised. Believe me we know, and as far as that goes, everyone's going to show gratitude. However, there is gratitude and gratitude. It comes in many disguises, and in different packages. Now, there is one thing you might be able to do for us that will move you up a few notches."

"Anything."

Christopher, Bond considered, was a pushover.

"Tell me, the telephone number in Wasserburg, was that your only method of contact with Max Tarn and his unsavory friends?"

"Took a leaf out of your book. Bond. We used various dead drops and false telephone codes."

"Nothing else direct?"

"Only the telephone you managed to spike. Tarn's end has been ultra-secure, until that last time. I suspect it's some kind of patch through electronics, because sometimes I get a pickup and talk with that piece of rubbish, Maurice Goodwin. We're even on first-name terms. I was able to use it when I wanted to set up a proper meeting with one of them."

"So you sometimes used it when you wanted a meeting with some intermediary who handed you money, right?"

"Well, occasionally."

"Usually."

"Not always, no."

"Would you care to make a call on that line for us?"

"I said I'd do anything."

"Your end would be scripted."

"I'm not absolutely stupid. I understand that."

"We can even do it from here, Christopher, Mind you, any deviation from the script and I'll put a bullet through your head. We can do that kind of thing, you know."

"I believe you. What's in the script?"

"We'll work on it together."

Christopher waited for at least fifteen seconds before he asked if they could get on with it.

What they worked out in the end was aimed at putting Tarn into an even higher state of folie de grandeur , and it was an hour later that Christopher dialed the number. They had taken the extra precaution of attaching a speaker to the instrument, linked to headphones so that Bond could hear everything. Flicka passed the time by playing solitaire, and her future husband noticed that she handled a pack of cards rather like an experienced gambler.

"Yes," came from the distant end, and he immediately recognized the voice of Tarn's fixer, Maurice Goodwin. So the instrument in the offices of Saal, Saal u. Rollen was capable of patching in to another line.

"Maurice, it's Christopher," the ex-Minister read from the pad on which his script was jotted down in his own clear, and rather schoolboyish, handwriting.

"So what can we do for you, Christopher? Don't expect any money for the time being. We're a shade busy."

"I'm sorry to trouble you, but I thought I'd better pass on the latest. It is rather important."

"Shoot."

"They were pretty angry about your little disappearing act in London. Now Sir Max is wanted for murder, though they're not issuing anything to the press. As far as they're concerned, Lady Tarn died in the car accident, so the authorities are keeping quiet. In fact, there's still a search going on for Sir Max in Germany as well as here. The agent, Bond, went missing as well."

Goodwin chuckled. "He ended up dead. Very nasty. Bad business about Lady T, but it had to be done. Poor Trish went right off her rocker. Threatened the Chief, and she wasn't joking. Anyway, good to know that she won't make the funny pages again. Anything else?"

"Yes, the man Bond isn't dead. He pulled a fast one on you and turned up back here yesterday."

Goodwin cursed violently. "What about him, then? What's happening?"