Man From Barbarossa

Pravosudia. But something, experience and intuition he supposed, held him back.

Again he caught movement to his right and through the crack of the open door, saw Emerald and Nina slip quietly into the closet. Nina had retrieved her pistol and held it, two-handed, low, the butt hard into her crotch as she backed through the doorway.

‘General Yevgeny Yuskovich!’ Stepakov’s voice almost broke as he shouted the name, the pitch rising, caught on a dry spot in his larynx.

‘Marshal Yuskovich.’ Bond had listened to the voice declaiming for most of the day. Now it had taken on a new arrogance.

‘Marshal by whose jurisdiction?’ Stepakov sounded as though he had complete control of both himself and the situation.

‘My own,’ Yuskovich snapped. ‘Marshal of the Red Army and soon secretary of the CCPSU, President of the Soviet Union.’

Stepakov laughed. ‘Yevgeny, I fear you’re no longer even a general. My friend, General Berzin here, has supported me in this operation on the direct instructions of the President of the Soviet Union. The building has been secured by the October Battalion of Spetsnaz. You should consider yourself under arrest together with any other troops you have suborned. We are to take you back to Moscow. Further resistance is . . .’

‘Really? How interesting.’ Yuskovich began to laugh, and another voice, Bond presumed it was the officer called Berzin, punctuated the laugh with a strange, chilling bark which sounded like a hyena.

‘Oh, Bory, what a mistake you’ve made.’ Then the crack of a command. ‘Berzin, take that damned pistol from him, he could do a mischief with it.’

Bond drew in his breath as the sounds of a scuffle reached him.

‘What?’ He heard Boris explode. ‘What the . . .’

‘What indeed, Bory? I’m among friends. You, I fear, are alone. What about those two thugs he carts around with him?’

Berzin, Bond assumed it was he, made a sound like the ripping of cloth. ‘Both of them,’ he said. ‘My men snatched them as they came off the helicopter. Bory, don’t look so amazed. You know how these things work. You merely got yourself mixed up on the wrong side of a coup. You should have seen it coming. It’s business, comrade. The business of Russia. The business of the Party and the future.’

‘Yes,’ Yuskovich again. ‘You were an incredible subject, Boris. I’ve always said the way to deal with loyalty is through autosuggestion. You took the bait like a greedy fox instead of a shrewd one. I’d expected some doubts, but you gobbled up everything, even the stuff we fed to you through Lyko.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The overthrow of the present regime. A return to normal.’ There was a short pause before Yuskovich continued. ‘We have a full regiment of Spetsnaz at our command. Who did you think carried out the Chushi Pravosudia executions, Bory? If you had thought it through, there was only one answer. Trained men who had the means to get anywhere, go anywhere, hit any target. Did you never consider Lyko was planted on you?’

Some of the answers began to unravel in Bond’s head. Some, but not all. He would have to move in a moment. Slowly he put pressure on the door, opening it wider as Yuskovich continued to speak.

‘This trial, you knew we were taping this trial? Of course you did, you even took the lure suggested by Lyko and brought in people from the French and British intelligence services to help out. Where are the French and the British, by the way?’

Bond sucked in his breath and slid sideways through the door. The actors employed as witnesses, together with the technicians, were in a packed semicircle facing the sound stage. Bory Stepakov had his back to the crowd, as did the tall General Berzin. Yuskovich faced them, his lean ascetic face calm, the eyes fixed on Stepakov.

As Bond sidled out close to the wall, Yuskovich raised his head, his eyes scanning the crowd. Bond dropped to his knees, his pistol ready as the self-styled marshal repeated, ‘Where are the French and the British? I have guards on the French, but the two British spies should be . . .’ His eyes remained on the crowd and he did not raise them to look beyond.

Bond moved slowly to his right, edging along the wall. He could reach the front of the hotel through the main lobby, and he would kill if he had to. Kill or be killed, it did not seem to matter a great deal any more.

He heard somebody reply, telling the marshal that one of the British crew was there, on the sound stage. He began to move faster, sliding along the wall, keeping his body low. Another few feet and he would be out of Yuskovich’s sight.

As he reached comparative safety, he heard the chatter of the Spetsnaz R-350 radio, then another voice, unheard before, cut in. ‘Comrade General Berzin, sir. Message in from the President. He insists we report if this facility has been secured. He also orders that we provide information on two British agents he knows are here.’

Yuskovich swore loudly, then rasped out, overriding Berzin, ‘Report the facility secured and members of Chushi Pravosudia under armed arrest. As for the British, how in hell did he know they were here? Tell him we regret they were killed in an exchange of fire. Wait. Say they died bravely.’

M had been away for hours. When he returned, he looked grey and drawn. Bill Tanner, who was summoned to his office within minutes of his reappearance, had never seen the Old Man with such a pallor. It was as though he had suddenly aged a decade; his skin was drawn tightly against the facial bones, his hair seemed more grizzled and the look in his eyes was vacant, as if he had been injected with some drug which removed all life from his brain, leaving only a half-functional body.

M sat slumped behind the big glass-topped desk. When he spoke, Tanner was reminded of biblical stories of men rending their garments, pouring ashes on their heads and mourning for lost sons or daughters. His voice had an unearthly, terrible quality to it. The words seemed to be covered with gum, sticking in his larynx, almost refusing to come out.

Tanner felt the shock wave hit him as M slowly recounted his news. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, then repeated, ‘I don’t believe it. Are you sure, sir?’

‘I was there. Presumably it has to be confirmed, but the news from the Kremlin seemed definite enough. It’s the kind of thing you get in wartime. You know that. Worse when there’s not even a cold war. I’ve been through enough wars to know it’s wrong to harbour hopes. He’s dead, Bill. That’s what the Spetsnaz general on the spot says. Anything to the contrary would be a bonus, though I expect nothing.’

M told him the Prime Minister was just as shocked by the news. He had read the transcripts taken to Number Ten by M. Then, as expected, he called the President of the Soviet Union, only to be told that he already had knowledge of the Chushi Pravosudia’s hiding place in the Red Army Senior Officers’ Centre near the Finnish border. Troops would be on their way this night, and he would personally be in touch with the Prime Minister as soon as he had news.

‘I started to get a bad feeling about it, Bill.’ M stared at the glass top of his desk as though trying to summon up some vision which might mollify the news. ‘Couldn’t come back here. Phoned the duty officer. Said where I was if needed . . .’

‘Not like you, sir.’ Tanner knew that M had been toughened in the hardest school life offered. His byword was, ‘Life goes on. Work must continue.’

The Old Man sighed. ‘No, Bill – no, Chief of Staff. Not like me, but today’s not been an ordinary day. The PM was very good. Came back to Number Ten specially. Took the President’s call. Told me straight away.’ He gave another sigh and moved his shoulders like an aged dog shaking off rain. ‘At least they got the bastards. They’ll sweat ’em all right. It’ll be interesting to hear what their real objective was. I’ve never been happy with this business about compromising the Kremlin with this stupid trial.’

He was silent, staring again, then he looked up, his grey eyes still vacant as though he could not comprehend the full import of the news. ‘Better get Moneypenny in. It’s only right that I tell her, she was damned fond of James.’

‘Sir, if you like, I’ll . . .’

‘No. It’s my job. I’ll tell her James Bond is dead. You get in touch with the teams we’ve got monitoring along the Baltic and the ones on the Finnish border. I’m sure they can now be put to a better use.’ He clamped his mouth shut and Tanner stood for a second as though unable to leave. ‘Get out, Chief of Staff. Get out and send Moneypenny in. Damn it, she’s been my PA for more years than either of us likes to remember. I’ll tell her that