scooter skidded and swerved, sometimes zig-zagging, then moving broadside on, then straight, with throttle wide open.
The first flare was dying, but the bullets still cracked around them, and twice Bond watched the long, almost lazy lines of tracer falling in front of them – reds and greens – first left, and then to their right.
They both automatically crouched low on the scooter, and Bond felt an odd sense of mingled anger and frustration. It took him a moment to detect the cause, then he realised his instincts had been to stay on the Russian side of the ridge and fight Kolya Mosolov instead of running. His head buzzed with the old jingle, ‘He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day’. But it was not natural to Bond’s character to run from a fight. Deep inside him, though, he was aware that it was necessary. Both Paula and he had a job to complete – to return safely – and this was their only chance.
The tracer still kept coming, even though the flare had gone out. Then another small explosion heralded a second flare, and this time the guns ceased firing. Instead came the terrifying noise of a fast-approaching express train: at least that was what it sounded like until the mortar bomb landed, well behind and to their left. It made a solid, ear-ringing crump, followed by a second and third: all behind them.
Paula was taking the Yamaha to its limit, still using avoiding action, but relying on the straight runs for speed. There were moments, as Bond clung to her, when he thought they would leave the ground completely.
The screech of mortar bombs came again; this time to their right and ahead – three violent orange flashes played havoc with the eyesight in the dark, the dazzling after-flash lingering on the retina.
The thing that worried Bond most, was the placing of the mortar bombs. First they had fallen behind; now they were in front. It meant only one thing: that Kolya’s men were bracketing their target. Chances were that the next bombs would fall at least level with them, unless Paula could outrun the range: she was certainly doing her best: throttle wide open, the Yamaha skimming ice and snow, flat out.
Through the white gloom, the far rise – into the trees and Finland – was already becoming visible.
There was one more nasty moment as they heard the distant thump, and the hiss of falling bombs for the last time. But Paula’s burst of speed had given them the lead. There were half a dozen explosions this time, but all were behind, and well off line. Unless the scooter hit a mine – and there had already been plenty of opportunity to do that – they would make it.
While Paula and Bond were making their desperate dash for the Finnish border, two men climbed from the rocks to the left of the flaming ruins of von Gloda’s Ice Palace. There was no one to observe them in the gathering dusk.
Since the horrors of that morning’s attack, the men had worked frantically in the only tiny fragment of the bunker that had remained, miraculously, intact – one steel and concrete pen housing a small, grey Cessna 150 Commuter, with ski attachments on its tricycle undercarriage. As the light failed, so they finally managed to swing the buckled doors free.
The aircraft seemed undamaged, though the runway ahead had been gutted and strewn with debris. The taller of the men gave a few friendly instructions to his companion, who had worked so hard. Willingly, the man trudged out on to the runway, shifting what he could, clearing a few hundred yards of makeshift pathway in front of the Cessna.
The plane’s engine started with a sporadic cough, then settled down to warm into its comfortable hum.
The other figure returned, climbed in beside the taller man, and the little aircraft gingerly moved forward, as though its pilot were testing the strength of the runway beneath him. Then the pilot turned to his companion, giving him the thumbs-up sign, and pushed down the flap control to give maximum lift. A second later, he gently opened the throttle. The engine rose to maximum revolutions, and the Cessna bumped forward, gathering speed, the pilot craning, slewing the aircraft from side to side to avoid the worst sections of the runway. With a bump, the Cessna hit a short, straight patch of ice, seemed to snatch at an extra few kph of ground speed, and began to skim the rough surface.
Trees loomed ahead of them, growing taller by the second. The pilot felt that moment of response from his craft as the weight transferred safely to the wings. Gently he eased back on the yoke. The Cessna’s nose came up. She seemed to hesitate for a second, then thrust forward, balanced only a short distance from the ground but gaining airspeed with every second. The pilot eased back a little more, his right hand pushing the throttle fully open, then winding back on the trim to give the aircraft a shade more weight in the tail. The propeller grabbed at the sky. The nose fell slightly, then the propeller grabbed again, clawed at the air and sent it barrelling back over the flying surfaces until the small plane was stable, nose up and climbing. They cleared the top of the fir trees by a matter of inches.
Count Konrad von Gloda smiled, set a course, and headed the Cessna towards his next goal. This day might have been a defeat, even a crushing one, but he was not through yet. There were men, legions of men, waiting to come under his command. But first, there was one score to be settled. Gratefully, he nodded at the craggy face of Hans Buchtman, whom Bond had known as ‘Bad’ Brad Tirpitz.
Paula and Bond reached the Hotel Revontuli at two o’clock in the morning, and Bond went straight to the Saab to send a carefully worded cipher back to M. When he got to Reception there was a note waiting for him. It read:
We are in suite No. 5, my darling James. Can we sleep in please, and not leave for Helsinki until the afternoon? All love, Paula.
P.S. I’m not really all that tired at the moment, and have ordered champagne and some of this hotel’s rather excellent smoked salmon.
With a certain amount of satisfaction, Bond remembered Paula’s hidden delights and particular expertise. Spryly he walked to the lift.
19
LOOSE ENDS
They talked almost the whole way back to Helsinki in the Saab.
‘There are a lot of things I still need to know,’ Bond, now fresh, showered and changed into clean clothing, had begun soon after they left Salla.
‘Such as?’ Paula was in one of those cat-who’s-licked-the-cream moods. Dressed in furs, looking more like a woman than what she had called ‘a bundle of thermal underwear’, she shook out her lovely blonde hair and snuggled her head against Bond’s shoulder.
‘When did your Service – SUPO – first suspect Aarne Tudeer, or Count von Gloda, as he likes to call himself?’
She smiled, looking very pleased with herself. ‘That was my doing. You know, James, I’ve never worked out why you didn’t cotton on to me years ago. I know my cover was good, but you didn’t even suspect?’
‘I was foolish enough to accept you at face value,’ Bond said, taking a deep breath. ‘I did have you checked out once. Nothing came back. It’s easy to say it now, but there were times when I wondered how we managed to bump into each other so often in far away places.’
‘Ah.’
‘And you haven’t answered my question,’ Bond persisted.
‘Well, we knew he was up to something. I mean, all that business about me being a schoolfriend of Anni Tudeer is absolutely true. Her mother
‘Why?’
For a second Bond’s mind drifted away from the road. Any mention of Anni Tudeer was bound to bring back unpleasant memories.
‘Why didn’t I believe she was a genuine Mossad agent?’ Paula did not hesitate. ‘I knew her too well. She was the apple of Aarne Tudeer’s eye. She also loved him dearly. I knew only as a woman can know. Partly it was some of the things she said; partly intuition. Everyone knew about her father – of course they did – there was never any secret. Anni’s secret was that she had been brainwashed by him. I think that, even as a child, he had mapped out what part she would play. Almost certainly he was in constant touch with her, advising and instructing her. He was
