Man From Barbarossa

Questions?’

As James Bond opened his mouth to frame his initial concern, he knew they were in over their heads.

‘What if you lose us?’ He wanted to let Stepakov know he was not happy with the small amount of information. He wanted the Russian to feel he was anxious, if only to make the man more fearful, to pause and reflect. He repeated. ‘What if you lose us?’

‘Then you will be – what is the English slang? You will be in dead lumber? Is this correct?’

Bond nodded. ‘I’m not ecstatic about the dead part. And what of our two French friends?’

‘What indeed?’ Stepakov made his clownish features go blank.

Then Natkowitz spoke, leaning back, looking lazy and unperturbed. ‘Before we take this on, can you tell us your own assessment of the situation? The general objective of the Scales of Justice? What they expect to accomplish?’

There was a long pause during which Bond counted to ten.

‘Yes,’ Stepakov’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. ‘Operation Daniel might hold a clue. I think Chushi Pravosudia are planning what terrorists nowadays call a world- shattering spectacular, and I think you, and Captain Bond, and Nina here are going to be at the vortex of that spectacular. It might be that they know exactly what we’re doing. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re pulling our strings. Does that help you, Mr Peter Natkowitz? Please let’s dispense with the Newman rubbish.’

10

DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT

It started to snow as they reached Kalinina Prospect, taking the slip road off Suvorovsky Boulevard. Flakes the size of silver dollars drifted sluggishly through the night air. Some hung motionless, for there was hardly any wind. Within a few minutes it began to thicken. The traffic moved slowly and bundled-up people trudged along the pavements, badly wrapped parcels silhouetted against the lighted shop windows. The scene had all the makings of a Christmas card.

Lyko drove. He said the snow would not last long. ‘The blizzards are over for now. This means it’s a little warmer, so it probably won’t freeze again until the early hours. The city soon gets back to normal once the blizzards are gone.’

Hard dirty snow packed the gutters and was piled against buildings, leaving only two-thirds of the pavements clear.

Sitting in the back of the old, souped-up Zil, James Bond tried to make sense of the day. Since they left the dacha, he had immersed himself in everything he had seen and heard, his mind circling, buzzard-like, trying to pounce on one fact that made sense. The windshield wipers lazily pushed away the buildup of snow while the inside of the windows started to steam. Lyko swept his open hand across the glass, clearing a view for a few seconds. The road ahead looked bleak, rather than romantic. To Bond, everything looked bleak. He could make no sense of any part of the operation in which he and Natkowitz were engulfed. There was no shape, no form, no logic whichever way he looked at it.

When Stepakov had revealed that Natkowitz was an Israeli and an officer of the Mossad, Pete simply sat back and laughed at him, his face looking even more like that of a gentleman farmer in an English pub. You could almost see the phoney horse-brasses hanging around imitation Tudor beams.

Nicki had moved, blocking the door, his dark face threatening. Alex pushed his Tweedledum figure from the wall against which he had been leaning. Henri Rampart looked at his shoes as if displeased with their shine. The lovely Stephanie Adore seemed to be posed for a glamorous photograph, her head cocked and one jewelled hand poised under her chin, while Nina Bibikova sat very still, her dark eyes fixed on Boris Stepakov.

‘Look, Bory, I’ve always had great respect for KGB. What makes you think, because my true name is Natkowitz, I’m the Mossad?’

Stepakov guffawed. ‘Because, Pete Natkowitz, your handwriting has been on a hundred operations carried out by the Mossad, some of them against KGB. I know you. I have your dossier. In the Mossad you’re as famous as Bond in his Service. Come on now. We know who you are, and I’m not going to become difficult about it. If the Israelis want to be in bed with the Brits, that’s none of my business. My business is splitting open the Chushi Pravosudia, finding out what makes it tick. I needed two agents from British SIS. I now find I really need three, two men and a woman, but we can provide the woman. I’m not concerned if SIS send us one officer and a member of the Mossad. It’ll be a neat trio – SIS, Mossad, KGB.’

‘If you could provide a woman officer, why not the two men, Bory?’ Bond asked, a whole chain of questions forming in his head.

Stepakov sighed, put one large hand on the chair against which he had earlier leaned, turned it around and sat down, straddling it, his thick arms resting along the back.

‘James,’ his face looked pained, ‘do I have to explain the concerns we have about Chushi Pravosudia? It should be obvious to you that they are very well-organised. It doesn’t take a huge intellect to see them for what they are – hardline, old-guard extremists with a lot of pull. We look over our shoulders all the time. These people have admission through doors we can barely open these days. Have you not yet worked out what Russia is really like now, poised over the abyss of ruin, economically scuppered and with the Neo-Stalinists fighting to regain control? A year ago they said the Revolution had failed, now they tell us perestroika has failed. It’s chaos. The hardliners have agents within KGB, within the Central Committee, they have friends at court. I truly believe they’re everywhere.’

‘So you’re saying they probably hack into the computers at Dzerzhinsky Square and out in the Yasenevo complex . . .’

‘Exactly. I . . .’

‘So they will have all-relevant details of your department, the Stepakov Banda. This means they probably know about this dacha, they have names, dates, photographs, personalities . . .’

‘No!’ Stepakov whip-cracked. ‘No, not quite all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the important aspects of what insiders call the Stepakov Banda are just not in the computer systems. We made it that way. We organised it in that manner because we consider ourself an elitist force. At the end of 1989 all our records were removed from the data bases. We regrouped, we reorganised . . .’

‘Then why no men? Why nobody who can successfully pose as a British camera crew?’

‘Because we have very few new agents available, James. People like Alex and Nicki, here, were never listed. They were never field agents. We’re long on executive personnel, but very, very short on field people. Those I have are men and women trained since November ’89, and they’re at full stretch. It took eight people to babysit Lyko in London and that was only one fragment of an operation. It hasn’t been easy. I have no spare male bodies, James. I do happen to have one, and only one, female who can do the job off the top of her head. I have Nina because she doesn’t appear on any lists. Nowhere. I told you about that. Even Washington doesn’t list her and as far as current KGB data’s concerned, she doesn’t show because . . .’ he paused, looking towards Nina Bibikova as though awaiting her permission to reveal something about which there was great secrecy. Bond just caught the small nod, the almost imperceptible jerk of her head, allowing Stepakov to continue.

‘She doesn’t show,’ he paused again, swallowing. ‘She doesn’t show . . . because she is dead.’ He was not smiling as he said it.

‘Shall I explain, Bory?’ Nina had the kind of voice that made Bond think of velvet and honey. A voice smooth and deep as a cello. The brief words they had exchanged above ground in the dining room had not prepared him for the instrument that was released now as Boris Stepakov nodded.

‘My father,’ she began, standing unselfconsciously and looking at each person in turn, ‘my father was Mikhail Bibikov, and that probably means nothing to any of you, for you all knew him under another name. Michael