‘Lost him?’ Bond asked sharply.
‘He did the vanishing trick, Jacko. But Smolin’s always been good at vanishing – he’s a proper Houdini. Talking of Houdini, Smolin’s probably not the only one that’s on the loose in the Republic.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost the Chairman of the Central Committee as well?’
‘It’s no time to be joking, Jacko. We’ve had a small tip off. Nothing elaborate, but a straw in the wind.’
‘A straw to clutch at?’
‘If it’s the truth, you wouldn’t be after clutching at this one, Jacko B.’
‘Well?’ Bond waited.
‘The word is that someone much higher up the ladder than Smolin is in the Republic. I’ve nothing firm but the word’s strong enough. There’s someone here from the top. Now that’s all I can give you. I’ll be saying goodnight to you both, then. And sweet dreams.’ He rose, walked to the corner of the room and retrieved his Walther.
‘Thanks, Norman. Thanks a whole bunch,’ said Bond, walking him to the door. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Ask away. There’s no charge.’
‘You’ve lost sight of Comrade Colonel Smolin . . .’
‘Yes. And we haven’t even had a sniff at the other one – if he’s here at all.’
‘Are you still looking for them?’
‘We are, in a way, of course. Manpower’s your problem, Jacko B.’
‘What would you do if you cornered either of them?’
‘Put him on an aeroplane to Berlin. But those fellas would complain and dodge into that den of iniquity in Orwell Road. You know, the one that’s got about six hundred pieces of aerial and electronic dishes on the roof. Bit of an irony, isn’t it? The Soviets having their Embassy in Orwell Road, and building a forest of communications hardware on top of it. That’s where your man would hide.’
‘And he’s not there at the moment?’
‘How would I know, so? I am not my brother’s keeper.’
They came into St Stephen’s Green from Grafton Street, with Heather clutching bulging carriers from Switzers and Brown Thomas. Bond walked two paces behind her and slightly to the left. He carried one small parcel and his gun hand hovered across the front of his unbuttoned jacket. Ever since Norman Murray had left the hotel he had been increasingly uncomfortable about the way things were turning out. Heather had been furious that he had not told her Ebbie was alive.
‘But why didn’t you tell me? You knew how I felt. You knew she was alive . . .’
‘I knew she was probably alive.’
‘Then why couldn’t you have the decency to tell me?’
‘Because I wasn’t certain, and because your precious Cream Cake strikes me as having been a lash-up operation from the start. It’s still a lash-up.’
He stopped himself from saying more, for his humour was rapidly fraying at the edges. In theory Cream Cake had been a good operation, but if Heather was typical of the five young people chosen to carry it out, the Operations Planners were criminally at fault. There would never have been time to train them properly. Yet the fact that their parents were in place was considered to be enough.
Their names ran repeatedly through Bond’s mind like a gramophone record stuck in a groove: Franzi Trauben and Elli Zuckermann, both dead, skulls crushed and tongues neatly removed; Franz Belzinger, who liked to be called Wald; Irma Wagen herself and Emilie Nikolas, who should be in Rosslare. He asked himself why Franz liked being nicknamed Wald. But no, he told himself, he must start thinking of them by their English names, though much good they had done them. He must think of the dead Bridget and Millicent and the living Heather and Ebbie; of the presumably living Jungle Baisley.
While he thought about these five characters, Bond was conscious of the other dark figures, especially Maxim Smolin, whom he had seen so many times in grainy surveillance photographs and jumpy films, distorted through fibre-optics lenses, and – only once – in the flesh, as he came out of Fouquet’s on the Champs Elysees. Bond had been sitting almost opposite at a pavement cafe with another officer and even at the distance provided by that wide street with the distractions of its traffic, the short, tough, military figure of Smolin had a profound effect on him. It may have been the way he carried himself like a professional soldier, but exaggeratedly so; or perhaps it was his look, the eyes never still, and his hands held with one fist clenched, the other flat making a tough cutting edge. Smolin appeared to radiate energy and a malevolent power.
The seventh protagonist, the ‘someone higher up the ladder than Smolin’, unnamed by Norman Murray, threw a much darker shadow over the entire business.
Bringing his mind back to the present, Bond noticed the rain had gone, yet there was a chill in the air and gunfire-smoke clouds raced each other over the rooftops. They paused for the traffic lights and Bond caught sight of the black-bearded, tousled-haired Big Mick Shean at the wheel of a maroon Volvo. The Irishman showed no sign of recognition but Bond knew he would have already identified the parked car and he and Heather as they waited for the lights to change. They crossed the road on the green light and began to walk slowly. He had told Heather not to rush.
‘It should be the same routine you use when lighting a fuse on an explosive charge. Walk away. Never run in case you trip.’
She had nodded. She obviously knew something about explosives, so there had been some field training, he supposed. During the journey to Rosslare he would go through it piece by piece.
They did not cut across the Green but sauntered along the north side, heading for the east side where the car was parked. As they drew level with the Shelbourne Hotel, Bond almost froze. Glancing across at the famous hotel, he saw for only the second time in the flesh the precise, compact figure of Colonel Maxim Smolin, accompanied by two short, heavily built men. The three were descending the steps, looking left and right as though expecting transport.
‘Don’t look towards the Shelbourne,’ Bond muttered under his breath. ‘No, Heather, don’t look,’ he repeated, quickening his pace as she reacted. ‘Keep walking. Your ex-lover just came out of his cave.’
7
ACCIDENT
There was no point in trying to run. Smolin knew Heather clothed and unclothed, and Bond reckoned that Smolin would know him on sight as well. After all, his photograph was in the files of probably every intelligence agency in the world. All he could hope was that in the traffic and with Smolin’s obvious concern over his own transport, he would not have spotted them. But he knew the chances were slim. Smolin was trained to single out the most unlikely faces among a crowd of thousands.
Gently taking Heather’s arm, Bond guided her around the corner, almost imperceptibly increasing their pace as they walked towards the car.
He felt the familiar, unpleasant tingling around the back of his neck – like a dozen small, deadly spiders unleashed in the nape hair. It was not one hundred per cent accurate, but Bond was realistic enough to know the odds were very high on Colonel Maxim Smolin’s eyes watching their retreating backs. He was also probably smiling at the coincidence of catching sight of his former lover in the middle of Dublin. Or, Bond wondered, was it simply coincidence? In this business coincidence was usually a dirty word. M always maintained there was no such thing, just as Freud had once said that, in conditions of stress and confusion, there was no such thing as an accident. Once inside, Bond scanned the mirror as he twisted the key in the ignition and clipped on his seat belt. The traffic was heavy, but he just caught the flash of a dun-coloured Cortina passing behind them with a dark blue Audi close on its bumper. Already he had seen Big Mick at the wheel of the maroon Volvo, so all the cars were circling the Green. The trick would be to get out successfully and on to the road to the outskirts of Dun Laoghaire, then along the coast. The route would take them through Bray and Arklow, Gorey and Wexford, then down to Rosslare. A trick it certainly would be, for they might have to circle the Green more than once to get into position, and that meant passing the Shelbourne again.
