John Gardner - Man From Barbarossa

In the bathroom once more, he checked the ammunition, then began to strip down the pistol. Nina’s weapon was lethal, the firing pin in place and the mechanism lightly oiled. So there you have it, he thought. Nina was armed, he was not, and he could but presume Natkowitz had been left in the same position. He went back to stretch out beside Nina, knowing, as he had discerned during the night, that all was far from well with Michael and Emerald.

How in heaven’s name could that be? he questioned. He had seen the files; he was one of the chosen few who were, as they said, ‘Sensation Cleared’. These two were legends in the secret community – the Huscarl , the Service’s two-handed axe sent to avenge those famous KGB penetration agents the Press called moles.

He frowned in the darkness, searching for any hint from the files he had examined, which might explain that the Huscarl had been tainted – tripled – because that was where logic took him. Once more, the picture of the elderly spies skulking round the building, operating like a pair of agents in some comic book, filled his mind. It was foolish, not just unlikely but damned near impossible to believe.

Never discount the impossible. He heard M’s chilly voice in his ear. Dry old spies, he thought. Dry, slack with their years. Obsessed by methods now obsolete. Could they possibly have been taken in? Could they themselves have become unwitting agents? Even that was not likely, for the proof lay beside Nina on the floor. One weapon spiked, ready for Bond’s own use or misuse. He realised that his thoughts spun in circles, and that he really did not want to accept Michael Brooks’ and Emerald Lacy’s guilt, for their condemnation would be Nina’s also, and his heart wanted Nina to be on the side of the angels. But she was not, and he had to accept that, unpalatable as it might be.

Then what of the silent Natasha? She was, she said, a member of Chushi Pravosudia , yet she gave them no answers and Pete had vouched for her. ‘She’s with me, if you understand,’ he had said, or something of that nature. Had she also been doubled? If so, nobody was safe. He recalled someone else saying the only true way to freedom is through paranoia. Was he now drowning in his own doubts and uncertainties?

An old song came into his head. ‘Blues in the Night’. He recalled some of the lyrics. ‘A worrisome thing that leads you to sing the blues in the night.’ Then another voice crept into his ear, Nina’s. Nina murmuring to him, ‘Trust nobody. Please trust none of them, not even Bory . . .’ she had whispered as they came out of Dom Knigi after buying Crime and Punishment . Bluff? Double-bluff? Truth? He fell into a shallow doze, wakening as Nina stirred. The darkness outside never altered, but their watches said it was time to start a new day.

In London, M was closeted with Bill Tanner, examining the transcripts. They had Bond’s map reference and had pinpointed the place. ‘The Red Army Senior Officers’ Centre,’ Tanner mused. ‘The place they built on the site of the old Orthodox monastery, St Kyril of Antioch, or some such.’

M nodded, grabbing at the other flimsies, the radio traffic of the Red Army, monitored from a hundred outposts. Certain types of transmission had increased, notably signals between the place where Bond was located and October Battalion, Spetsnaz, the equivalent of one of 22nd SAS squadrons, always held in readiness in Hereford. The October Battalion consisted of some forty-five men. They were at constant alert, separated from other troops on a base near Leningrad.

M read the translated and decrypted signals carefully. ‘Only a spit and a stride from Blessed St Kyril’s,’ he muttered. ‘That is a Russian spit and a stride. Six or seven hundred miles. Looks like they mean business. Do we know who these people take their orders from?’

The Chief of Staff riffled through an annotated copy of the Russian High Command. ‘Direct authority is Berzin,’ he said, ‘Gleb Yakovlevich Berzin, General. A hawk. Member of the old guard. A thorn in the side of the new Kremlin. But he commands the Spetsnaz Training Base near Kirovograd. That’s the hell of a way from Leningrad.’

‘Heard about jet aircraft, Chief of Staff?’ M did not even pause as he read the signal. Then, ‘I think it’s probably time to speak with the PM.’ He rose. ‘It’ll be up to the Prime Minister, of course, but I would imagine he’d want a quiet word on the hush-hush line with the President of the Soviet Union. I’ll take all copies of that traffic.’

They were not to know, even at this hour, that as they spoke, Boris Stepakov was still on his way to meet and pass on instructions to General Berzin. In advance of his arrival at the training base, the fuse had been lit.

Before Natasha came with Pete Natkowitz to conduct them all down to breakfast and the day’s work, James Bond dressed more carefully than usual and took time to make sure Nina thought she was also prepared. The only other point Michael and Emerald had indicated was that something would happen quickly. Sooner rather than later. Whatever the truth about the Huscarl , he could not set the possibility to one side.

At the bottom of his backpack was a roll of wide duct tape and, standing naked in the bathroom with Nina, he carefully taped the useless P6 automatic pistol to her stomach and the extra magazines hard under her breasts. She winced, but silently assured him, with hands and eyes, that she could manage to move and keep the weapon well hidden under a heavy sweater.

When she had gone into the bedroom, Bond taped his automatic very low down on his stomach, the weapon at an angle so that he would be able to reach inside either his waistband or his fly and wrench the pistol out. Ripping the tape away would be painful, though not as painful as the idea of facing armed men with no means of protection.

He taped one of the spare magazines onto the small of his back. He then pulled on the long thermal underwear, in case he was called upon to leave the relatively warm, comfortable interior of the hotel.

He put on thick jeans, a heavy rollneck and the favourite denim jacket reinforced with leather patches. The very fact that he chose to put it on this morning was an indication of how seriously he took the impending threat. The leather patches hid a multitude of small items which might help him in any escape or survival situation, and the concealed objects would be very hard to detect, even in a close body and clothing search.

He was going to be warm under the hot lights on the sound stage, but he would at least be ready. Just before leaving, Bond rechecked his parka, winding back the tape and replacing it in the notebook computer against the possibility of having to make a rush transmission. He put both the transmitter and notebook computer back into their hiding places and was ready to meet the day head on. These preparations he did in secret, so that Nina saw neither computer nor transmitter.

While they were making ready, Bond and Nina carried on a flow of small talk – the weather, the video, how working for Chushi Pravosudia had proved to be more interesting and rewarding than they had ever thought possible. Most of this chat was vacuous and on several occasions they almost ruined things by breaking into laughter at the banal sentences they were able to produce. It was, Bond thought, the Guy and Helen show, and his stomach turned over when he thought of how his Helen had most probably betrayed him.

As Natasha walked them down the corridor, she lowered her voice, muttering that she had heard they would be working late into the night. ‘They want to get the actual taping completed today,’ she said. ‘Looks like something’s in the wind.’

Natkowitz made a puerile remark about it probably having something to do with the stew, and Natasha giggled. Bond frowned, realising this was a sign of increased stress. Pete Natkowitz’s remark would normally have been met with either a sharp reprimand or groans.