Man From Barbarossa

Now, she took a long strand of hair and pulled it down, holding it under her nose. ‘Jawohl, Herr Oberst,’ she muttered, and Bond began to laugh.

She stood and opened her arms to him. ‘Come here,’ she said, and her voice sounded as loving as any newlywed.

They held each other close. Then she guided him to the bed where he stripped her of the flimsy garments. It was a time of great passion, with Nina’s legs wrapped around him, crying out for him to be harder as they rode towards their climax.

Bond felt she needed him for some purpose of her own. A release, perhaps, from dark fears, or a way to bolster her confidence. She had, after all, told him what she really wanted – ‘. . . to be with my parents.’

She cried out as she reached fulfilment, the cry of someone who might be looking towards the last uncharted land beyond the grave.

When it was over, they were silent for some time. Bond got up at last, glancing at his watch, to see that it was almost time for their guide, as the waiter had called him, to arrive. He washed again, and dressed, still worrying at the view from the window and, at the same time, trying to arrange his thoughts.

The priorities, as he saw them, were to find out the exact location of this so-called Hotel de la Justice, to be certain members of the inner circle, the leaders of Chushi Pravosudia, were there, then to extract, by direct observation or clandestine methods, the reasons for their presence. Lastly, armed with all this information, to get away, warn, bring down the wrath of Stepakov’s Banda upon this strange and divergent terrorist group. Maybe that would also entail calling in the secret power of his own Service.

He still stood gazing down at the high wooden structures which formed four sides of the frozen garden when Nina came up behind him, dressed now, like himself, in heavy jeans, rubber-soled boots and a thick, enveloping cable-knit pullover which threatened to swamp her. He wore one of his favourite heavy-duty sea-island cotton rollnecks under a thick denim jacket, reinforced with leather at shoulders and elbows. It was a jacket he had chosen especially before leaving London, for it carried a few surprises he was certain would not have been detected in even the most rigorous search.

‘Thank you, Guy,’ she said, one hand on his arm. He wondered for a second if the lovely Nina had any devious reason for seducing him as she had done – last night, under the influence of drugs, or this morning when all defences were down. It was too late to worry about the possible consequences now, and as he looked into her eyes, he thought he could see some great sadness lurking like a tiny, dangerous, quiescent dragon behind her irises.

Then there was a firm knock at the door, a sound as commanding as that of a drill sergeant.

Bond opened up to find Pete Natkowitz, looking very fit and bright, standing next to a tall young woman with exceptionally long legs encased in tight jeans. She had short blonde hair which had been teased into a row of curls above her forehead and he knew that this was one of the giggling trio who had pressed them into the car near the Dom Knigi on the previous night.

‘Hi, Guy.’ Natkowitz’s face was filled with a kind of devilish glee, and his short stature, topped by the unruly red hair, made him look like an errant teenager out for roguery. He nodded at Nina. ‘Morning, Helen, this is Natasha. She’s in charge of us. Going to show us where all the goodies are.’

‘We’ve already met,’ Natasha also looked as though she shared some secret with the Israeli, ‘though neither of you probably remember. George certainly didn’t.’ She looked down at Natkowitz’s perky face and her hand drifted, like a feather, tracing fingers down his jawline. ‘I think we should go.’ The hand made a small gesture towards the corridor. ‘They’ll probably be waiting for us. Clive said ten forty-five and, as a director, Clive is a martinet where time’s concerned.’

As they walked down the passageway, Bond wondered at the normality of the place. It appeared to be like any other hotel. Doors were open while maids worked inside, and you could peep into suites and rooms like the one they had just vacated – all in the same condition, the woodwork smooth and unfinished.

At the end of the corridor they came to a bank of three elevators. Three other people waited – two elderly women and a man, talking in voluble Russian.

‘I have no doubt, as I said to Rebecca,’ one of the women said. ‘He was the man. I saw him every day for almost two years. You think I could forget that one? He killed my sister. Little Zarah he killed. Shot her there in the mud because she laughed.’ Tears welled in the old eyes which seemed to look back with loathing to another place and another hated time.

‘I wish to hear him speak,’ the man replied. He was stooped, a short person who seemed bowed now with a terrible weight. ‘I am not certain, not until I hear his voice. They will let us hear his voice, surely?’

‘Most certainly,’ the other woman said, more calmly than her companions. ‘You’re both well in character. You’ve worked hard and that is good. Stay in character. Remain there the whole time, for the camera will be on your faces. It will use your expressions, eyes, mouths, to gauge the truth.’

‘I could never forget Zarah,’ the first woman said.

They did not speak again as they rode down in the elevator cage, to find themselves emerging into a large room filled with people. Most of them elderly, some of them very old. The conversation rose and fell, a babble of languages swarming around the ears.

Natasha motioned them to follow her, and Bond soon realised they were walking along the inside of the wooden well, the part which looked like a cloister. He tried to make a ground plan in his head, so he could work out exactly which way they were heading. With concentration, he divined they had traversed one wall of the four when they reached another large room, like the foyer of a hotel. This time, though, the wall furthest from them was not a wall, but two vast metal doors. There was a small entrance, set into the doors to the right of where the doors met, and next to it, a pair of lights, red and green. The green was on and Natasha went straight for the smallest door, ushering them through.

‘Ah, here, I sincerely hope, come our blessed camera crew, and about time too, ’Tasha darling. What’ve you been doing with them? Doesn’t anybody realise we’re on the tightest of schedules here. Tighter than your little backside, ’Tasha.’ He was a tall and willowy man in dark pants and a shirt. Long hair flowed to his shoulders, his hands danced, playing invisible arpeggios on the air, and he was accompanied by three smaller men who seemed to hang on every word. They looked, Bond thought, like trained whippets ready to streak away the moment their master commanded them.

‘Come along, then, let’s all get moving. You’re Guy, I suppose.’ His small eyes looked up over a pair of granny glasses straight at Bond. ‘See, I’m right. I’m always right. I can spot a cameraman at fifty paces in me high heels. So you,’ to Natkowitz, ‘must be the sound tech.’ His head whipped round to settle his eyes on Nina. ‘Oh, but Lord knows what we’re going to do with the pretty lady, and she won’t tell, will she?’

‘Clive,’ Natasha muttered by way of introduction.

But Bond was hardly listening to this stream of words which seemed unstoppable. Instead, he was taking in the sight which had greeted them on passing through the door. The area was vast and hot from the huge lighting gantries which ran above them. Cables snaked across the floors and at the far end there was a massive set which was immediately recognisable as an immaculate replica of a real courtroom.

‘Now, Guy,’ the tone was high, peevish and irritable. ‘I hope to goodness you’ve worked with Ikegami equipment before, because if you haven’t you’re going to be no use to me.’

They stood on a very real sound stage which was almost certainly an exact copy of one of the major Hollywood studio sound stages. The only thing missing was the mass of technicians and assistants usually associated with sound stages during the shooting of movies. Only Clive, his three stooges and a handful of assorted men and women – Bond counted six – who fiddled with cables and were doing things to the lighting gantries.

Clive saw the look and plunged straight in. ‘Yes, I know, Guy dear. I do know what you’re thinking. There aren’t nearly enough people here to shoot a major movie, but it’s make do and mend time as they used to say in the navy, and I had plenty of experience both making do and mending. We just have to go with what we’ve got, and I only hope, in the name of Ossie Morris, that you’re at least competent with a camera.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Bond looked round, still taken aback by the scale of the sound stage. ‘Oh, I’m competent. Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’

‘Ah,’ Clive gave a little dance, two steps forward and two back. ‘Ah, so we have a pro. Thank heaven for small mercies as my old mother used to say. Now, perhaps we can get on with the bloody picture.’

‘What’s it called and have you got a shooting script?’ Bond asked.