Man From Barbarossa

At six thirty that evening she was at her most vulnerable. Almost naked, she stood in front of the closet in the dressing room of her suite at the Hampshire.

As she pondered the question of what she should wear, she looked at herself in the full-length mirror. What she saw almost pleased her. The copper hair tumbled over her bare shoulders, and the rest of her body, which was nearly entirely visible, looked good even to her exacting eye.

Her skin was marble-smooth, the stomach flat, breasts full but not overripe, with large pink-aureoled nipples. She did not need to tighten the muscles to keep her buttocks firm, and her legs were long and slender.

She adjusted the fastening of her right dark silk stocking, gave the lace suspender belt a minute adjustment and went back to choosing tonight’s outer shell.

She had put on a white silk shirt with a simple wrap-over tie prior to stepping into the full skirt of a slightly military navy two-piece by Geiger, when the telephone rang. Hurriedly pulling at the waistband of the skirt, which was rucked and drawn off centre, she moved in stockinged feet to the drawing room and picked up the telephone.

‘Yes,’ she answered in a calm snap, designed to put anyone off.

‘Mlle Hironde?’ James Bond spoke into the house phone in the foyer.

‘Who is this?’ Just the merest hint of an accent. There for a second, then gone like a whiff of Gauloise, Bond thought.

‘You won’t know me. James Boldman. I have to speak with you. It’s official, I’m afraid.’

‘Why are you official? What are you afraid about?’ Her voice retained just enough of Paris, but with a certain stiffness. No smiles.

‘Perhaps you could come down. I’m in the foyer.’

‘What sort of official business?’

‘I suggest you come down, Mlle Adore.’

At the use of her real name, Stephanie’s lips pursed. ‘Who are you?’ she spoke very quietly.

‘My job has a certain affinity with your own. I’ll be waiting by the elevators.’

‘Give me five minutes,’ she said a little throatily.

Bond put down the phone, glancing to his left where Natkowitz was hunched over a similar instrument, having dialled M. Henri Rideaux’s room. Finally the Israeli replaced the instrument and shook his head. ‘No reply,’ he said.

‘Could be taking a shower.’ Bond gave a small frown. There was one lonely watcher from MI5 on duty at the front of the hotel. When they had checked with him, the man swore that neither of his targets had left. He was prepared for Bond and Natkowitz; he had been friendly, even amicable, for the pair of officers from the SIS had authority to follow either of the targets. The watcher from MI5 was happy about that because it made his life a little easier.

‘Try him later,’ Bond suggested. ‘Just keep out of the way for now, the adorable one’s coming down.’

‘I’ll keep my eyes open.’ Natkowitz gave him a curt nod and retreated to a seat with a good view of the entire foyer and opened a copy of the Standard.

Upstairs, in her suite, Stephanie Adore raised an eyebrow. ‘They’re on to me.’ She spoke French to the tall, balding man who sat like a statue on the settee.

‘Who?’

‘I gather it’s MI5, their Security Service.’

‘Stephanie, I know what MI5 is. They’re here? They want to see you?’

‘I think only one of them. It was always a possibility. I said that coming here under a pseudo wasn’t wise. It never is with the Brits. They’ve been jumping at shadows for years. Give them a pseudonym and they’ll reply with a probe.’

Henri Rampart gave a thin smile and rose. He walked towards the window and pulled back the curtain to make a tiny peephole. He held the thick material delicately between thumb and forefinger, the other fingers outstretched. It was an odd gesture, dainty and out of character, for the man looked exactly what he was, a soldier – tall, broad and carrying himself with that confidence which comes only from men who have endured, not only the hardships of special forces training, but also the nightmare of action. His face also showed these things. There was nothing benign or genial about him. At first sight, his features seemed to be all angles – nose, cheekbones, even the sharpness of his jaw and the mouth which looked purpose-built for issuing orders, while the granite eyes had that hard, flinty look born of suspicion and a warrior’s caution.

He let the curtain drop and turned back into the room. The movement was precise with no unnecessary action of any part of his body. Major Henri Rampart was a strangely still person.

‘If they’re on to you, they could be watching for me also. How will you deal with this spook?’

A smile danced across her face. ‘It depends. If he is the usual dull, government servant, I will be at my most charming. If he has anything attractive about him, then I shall be even more charming. What d’you think I’ll do? I’ll give him the arranged story, and maybe, just possibly, I will have a small, how do the Brits say it? A small frivol.’ This last in English.

Rampart’s shrug was a tiny lifting of the shoulders, not the usual heavy Gallic movement using hands, arms and shoulders in a dramatic piece of body language. ‘Well, you have until midnight.’

‘That is plenty of time.’ As the dialogue had progressed, so Mlle Adore had moved between the drawing room and dressing room, putting on her shoes and the short jacket, decorated with gold trim and buttons. At the door she gave a tinkling giggle. ‘If he is in the least bit attractive, I shall tell him that I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.’

‘Be there,’ was Major Rampart’s only response.

Bond’s first reaction was that she appeared more attractive than her photograph. She was instantly recognisable coming out of the elevator, a raincoat, which could only be French, over her arm, and with the skirt of her suit flowing around her legs and thighs in a provocatively sensual movement. It was all liquid, drawing attention to the lower half of her body and what might lie beneath the skirt.

‘Mlle Adore?’ He took two steps towards her.

She gently took his hand, a simple touching, not a handshake. ‘Mr Bold . . . er . . .’

‘Boldman,’ Bond smiled, his eyes hardly leaving hers, yet taking in the whole picture, his brain developing it in Kodachrome with a soft filter. She was enough to cure impotence and make a happy man very old.

‘And are you?’ She smiled, the accent not quite coquettish, but full of the ruffled ‘rs’ and throatiness of an English-speaking Parisienne.

‘Am I what?’ Bond asked, pretending to be dense.

‘A bold man.’ The tinkling giggle forced a shade as though through muslin.

‘It depends.’

He could be very cruel, this one, she reflected. He had a way with his mouth, a barbarous smile. ‘Well, I’m here,’ she went on quickly. ‘What was it . . . ?’

Bond looked around. Natkowitz still sat reading his Standard. Touring Japanese and Germans prepared to go off to the National, or to catch Phantom or Cats. The groups were drifting out into the Leicester Square traffic, while the few people entering the hotel were being checked by the terrorist-conscious security men stationed close to the door. Women turned out their handbags, men opened briefcases, all with the resigned patience which came from the knowledge that death now stalked the world invisibly in the disguise of toothpaste tubes or pens which could spew death in seconds.

‘A drink?’ Bond suggested, gesturing lightly towards the bar, glancing around the panelled foyer and thinking it must be like living in a cigar box to be here for any length of time.

She said she would have champagne. ‘What else is there for a single girl these days?’ Bond gave the bartender explicit instructions for a champagne cocktail for himself. ‘Easy on the brandy, no orange and only show the Angostura to the glass, no sugar.’ As the bartender busied himself, he recalled one espionage novelist’s dictum: ‘Once you have made a champagne cocktail, you should give it to somebody else.’

‘So,’ she said brightly when they were at last seated, a little close to one another, ‘your health, Mr Boldman,’ raising her glass.

‘James, Mlle Adore. James, please.’

‘Your health then, James.’