John Gardner - Man From Barbarossa

After eating they made their way to the sound stage. The big wall made of the sliding metal doors was wide open though people were preparing for shooting. Clive stood near the camera talking to Yuskovich who looked ready to give the performance of his life.

‘Guy,’ Clive shouted, ‘be an angel and do hurry up, please. We really must get this opera started or the day will just disappear. We’re in the land that time forgot already.’

At a hint from Bond, Natkowitz excused himself, heading for the men’s room with Bond following. They both glanced towards the third door through which they had been taken on the previous night. It now seemed like a surreal dream.

The men’s room was empty, but the walls probably had ears. Bond grabbed at a bar of the rough soap supplied at the handbasins, broke a piece free and wrote quickly on the mirror, Natasha? How sure?

Natkowitz ran one of the taps and rubbed the soap from the glass. He then spoke in clipped, disjointed sentences, ‘Is it a plane? Is it a bird? I do not know.’ Then ‘Never seen anyone like her. Amazing. She knows all the tricks, but I wouldn’t trust her with money.’

It was enough for Bond. He gave Pete Natkowitz a half-minute of mime, to let him know the P6 automatic was probably useless.

‘It is,’ Natkowitz sang, tunelessly as he washed his hands, then broke into an equally discordant, ‘There is nothing like a dame; there’s not anything like a dame.’

Bond made some unrepeatable comments about his singing and the two emerged from the men’s room. As they crossed the floor towards the sound stage, Natkowitz grinned his gentleman farmer grin and said casually, ‘Been wanting to talk to you about the lady. A no-no if I ever saw one. Didn’t work it out for at least six hours.’

They both realised that, as long as they kept the conversation suitably cryptic, nobody was likely to pick up on it. ‘Would’ve been happier if you’d told me before, George old boy,’ Bond replied.

‘I didn’t think you cared.’

They passed onto the sound stage, the sliding doors rolled shut and the previous night’s labour and worry were almost forgotten in the long stint of work that followed.

They spent the morning doing reverses, the shots of people’s reactions – shock, sadness, anger – concentrating on the three officers who made up the panel of the tribunal; then the prosecuting and defending officers, followed by Yuskovich whose hammy performance was modified by the truly sinister aura which surrounded him. Last of all, they did Penderek, who obeyed every instruction.

Bond, watching him in close-up through the large viewfinder, would have sworn that nobody could have detected the influence of drugs, but the man’s reactions could only have been guaranteed by chemical persuasion. Unless they had managed to talk him into being an unwitting victim.

After the lunch break they went back to it and by late afternoon they had done the summing-up speeches of both prosecuting and defending officers. They took a break around five, then went to work again, taping a long, carefully prepared speech by Yuskovich, who proved to be as temperamental as any starlet. Again and again they had to retake pieces of the speech because he was not satisfied with his own delivery. Everyone, including Clive up in his control room, became edgy. ‘You could cut the air with a piece of old rope,’ Natkowitz whispered, but it went out through his mike into the control room, and Clive blew up, commanding everyone to keep quiet unless they had anything really important to say. ‘I’ll come down there personally and sort you all out if there’s any more chitter-chatter.’

‘Slap on the wrist,’ Nina murmured, standing by Bond, working as his focus-puller.

Yuskovich’s speech was a clever mixture of political harangue and humanitarian plea. He spoke of the Russian leadership as ‘those who haven’t the spine to bring this terrible matter out into the open. They promised a new order with freedom and fairness for all. It should now be obvious that the freedom did not include the minorities.’ They had been afraid to act. Afraid because they had no intention of taking the Motherland into a new era. The current regime was bent solely on becoming another dictatorship. He went on, his voice calm and rarely raised, and all the more malign for that.

At last, it seemed they had got it right, but Clive, speaking through the headphones, told Bond that the accused would be coming back. He had to prepare to do a short question and answer between Yuskovich and the supposed Vorontsov.

Later, Bond thought he should not have been surprised, but as the short exchange was being taped, he was shocked by the duplicity.

Standing directly in front of the dock, Yuskovich stared straight at the prisoner.

‘You know who I am?’ he asked.

‘I know only that you are General Yevgeny Yuskovich. That’s who I’ve been told you are.’

‘Do you imagine you should know me from the past? From your childhood, perhaps?’

‘I don’t see how I should know you.’ Penderek’s Russian was suspiciously good. He even spoke with a Ukrainian accent.

‘Your parents. They were Alexander Vorontsov and Reyna Vorontsov?’

‘Correct.’

‘And you were born and raised in the city of Kharkov, where your father was a doctor? It was a good family?’

‘My father practised and taught anaesthesiology at the University Hospital, yes. My mother was a nurse. They were good people.’

‘And your mother’s maiden name – the name she was known by before she married your father?’

‘Muzykin. Reyna Illyena Muzykin.’

‘So. Do you recall any members of her family? Your maternal grandfather, grandmother, your mother’s sisters?’

‘Yes, very well. I remember my grandfather Muzykin, also my three aunts.’

‘Did any of the aunts marry?’

‘Yes, two were married.’

‘You recall their married names?’

‘One married a doctor called Rostovsky. The other took a husband by name Sidak. He was a soldier. An army officer.’

‘Good. Did they have children? Did you have cousins?’

‘Yes, my cousins Valdik and Konstantin. They were by my Aunt Valentina Rostovsky. My other aunt’s husband was killed. They said it was an accident. In the thirties. I always wondered . . .’

‘You do not recall any cousin named Yevgeny?’

‘No, I had only two cousins.’

‘And you had no relatives who bore the name Yuskovich?’

‘That is your name.’

‘And that is why I ask you. I shall ask again. Did you know of any relatives by name Yuskovich?’

‘Never. No. None by that name.’

‘Good.’ He turned to the tribunal. ‘I have put these questions to the accused because it has been suggested by unscrupulous persons who do not hold the future of our beloved Mother Russia as something sacred, that, in some way, I am related to the accused. I would like the accused’s answers placed on the record so that, at no time in the future, can it be claimed I have any blood kinship with this wretched man.’

They broke immediately after this. The big doors were rolled back and Clive came on to the floor. He told them they only had one more long session to tape and it would amount to the accused’s confession and plea for mercy. ‘I really think we should try for a wrap tonight, dears. Go and get coffee, or whatever else you want. No wasting time or poodlefaking. We’ll start in three-quarters of an hour. Take forty-five, after that I want all the witnesses on the set. Understand? Every last one of them.’

‘Mind if I get some air?’ Bond asked.

‘You can take a balloon ride, go sledding, whatever, love, as long as you’re back in three-quarters of an hour.’ The director turned on his heel. ‘I’ll brook no arguments,’ he shouted over his shoulder.