Seafire

11 – Trish Nuzzi

"Just wait while I open the door." Cathy, in her new role, slid the oblong plastic security key into its slot, waited until the light changed from red to green, then opened the door to 510, walked in, and called,

"Trish, we're back, and we've brought some nice old playmates to see you."

Anna came in behind them, closing the door, calling, "Trish, where are you? We've got a lovely surprise."

She came out of the bathroom, and even the usually sanguine Flicka gave an audible gasp. They had both seen many photographs of Trish Nuzzi's dazzling face and figure – indeed, who had not? – from the days when she was a top model before her marriage to Sir Max Tarn. To see this gorgeous creature in the flesh was a different matter altogether, as both Bond and Flicka could affirm from Cambridge.

She wore a silver evening minidress with a diamond choker, but at first sight all they took in were the famous legs, long and incredible, reaching up forever and a day, for she was around six feet tall, Though enviously slim, she was beautifully proportioned, with a nut-brown tan, and that other great attribute, the thick long black hair that had been a trademark in the old days.

Then they saw her face.

What had once been called both elfin and gamine by a hundred fashion journalists must still have been there under the livid bruises, and the obviously broken nose, for it was as though someone had used her features as a punching bag. When she spoke, there were traces of nasality, and a slight tremor.

"So?" She glanced from Anna to Cathy and back again, not even trying to meet Bond's or Flicka's eyes.

"This is the Mr. Bond, and Fredericka von Grüsse. We told you about them. They're friends. In fact, I think Mr. Bond's probably a knight in shining armor."

Trish gave a kind of lopsided smile. "Mr. Bond I have already met and talked with. Fräulein von Grüsse I've only seen from a distance. It's nice to see you again, Mr. Bond, and good to meet you…" She nodded in Flicka's direction. "Forgive my state of physical dishabille, and please call me Trish."

"You've talked to…?" Anna began, then lapsed into silence.

"Just a minute." Bond had stepped over to Anna, his hand taking her undamaged wrist, gripping like a steel trap. "The last time I saw you – dressed as a very unpleasant thug – you were arguing with this lady's husband outside Hall's Manor. You wanted to come up to the room in which you'd left Fräulein von Grüsse and myself. You were very clear about your intentions. You wanted to come up to finish us off. You made bizarre men, the pair of you, and I do prefer you as women – if that's what you are?"

"Of course we're women," Cathy almost spat at him. "We did the other thing for Trish here."

"Including trying to kill us?"

Under his tight hold, with her arm strained behind her back, Anna let out a little groan. "We were trying to let you go," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Cathy was coming back to tell you what was really going on. We had the handcuff keys. Tarn would only have let us come up to you if we said it was to kill you. You've no -"

"She's telling the truth." Trish Nuzzi nodded, and he saw that it even hurt her to speak. There was some wiring on her jaw on the inside of her mouth. "She's being honest with you. It was all done for me. They persuaded Max that it would be a good idea to get you both out of the way. He was reluctant, but finally allowed them to stay behind in Cambridge. Please, they're telling the truth."

Unwillingly, Bond let go of the wrist. "Why should I trust you? Any of you?"

"Sit down. Please." Trish Nuzzi gestured to the chairs and a long sofa. "Cath, get a bottle of champagne and we'll have a drink. I'm in need of it, the painkillers are wearing off, and I can't take any more for a couple of hours." The grimace on her face was evidence enough that she was not acting.

"Who did this to you?" he asked, one hand rising to indicate her face.

"Who do you think?" She gave a cynical little laugh and patted the place next to her on the sofa. Flicka gave a long sound, as though clearing her throat, and indicated one of the comfortable easy chairs. Bond raised one eyebrow at her as she cut in front of him and seated herself next to Trish.

As he sat down, his eyes caught Anna's; she had been glowering at him. Now she gave a little knowledgeable smile, then glowered again, touching her hair. "Wigs," she snapped. "Wigs for us both until our hair grows again."

"I prefer you with real eyebrows as well," Bond said, straight-faced.

"And you." Anna made an obscene gesture as Cathy came back into the room with an ice bucket in which rested a bottle of Dom Perignon, and glasses.

"Who?" He turned to Trish again.

"I asked who do you think?"

"Your husband?"

"Part of it. Max likes to inflict pain, but he leaves the real bone breaking to that bastard Connie Spicer."

"Then this isn't something new? Sir Max has a penchant for battering you?"

"It's one of the reasons I brought Cathy and Anna into the marriage."

"You brought…?"

"I am right in saying you are with the British authorities, and that you want to put Max Tarn into a high-security prison for a thousand years, aren't I?"

"A thousand and one, actually."

"Make that two thousand," said Flicka.

"Good." Trish accepted a glass of the Dom Perignon from Cathy, who had waved away Bond's offer of help. She took a long sip. "I need this. If I have to talk for a while, I need help at the moment."

"Take your time." Flicka patted her arm.

"You said that you brought Cathy and Anna into the marriage?"

"Look, Mr. Bond. I know I've been an idiot. I had the pick of the field. I could have married anyone. Max could be amusing, and he had other things to offer – like money. I married him for his money, that's plain and simple. I knew he got some of his kicks through hurting women, but before we married, I thought it wasn't all that dangerous. Games. You know the kind of thing. Then, well, he suggested that once we were married, I should have a couple of bodyguards. He said he'd arrange it. I said that I would arrange it. That's where Cathy and Anna come in."

"We offered a service for lots of people in the business," Cathy joined in. "We're trained in the martial arts, and we know how to shoot." She pirouetted and a small automatic pistol appeared from under her jacket. As Bond moved, she gave a small laugh and returned the weapon to its hiding place. "We can be a right pair of dangerous bitches when we want. Also, we got on well with Trish. She came to us with a proposition, and we ran with it."

"Max wouldn't have taken them seriously as women," Trish began.

"Max is still your average male chauvinist." Cathy shook her head, as though male chauvinists were an endangered species.

"It meant disguising them," Trish continued, "and they looked bizarre enough for Max to take them seriously as men. He has some odd tastes in bodyguards."

"You knew he could be violent. Did you also know anything about his business affairs?" Flicka again.

"Not until much later. The girls knew before I did, because Max gave them a couple of jobs to do. They weren't that happy about it, but they did try and shield me from the worst."

"Until it was too late." Anna sat in a good upright posture on one of the easy chairs.

"What is the worst?" Flicka asked. "The scope of his illegal arms dealing, or the contempt he shows by constantly abusing you physically?"

"Oh." She frowned and looked a little bewildered. "Then you don't really know Max at all. I can normally put up with his bouts of sadism, but about five years ago I discovered the end product of his deals and intrigues." She took another sip of her drink. "At first I couldn't understand when he became angry every time I visited Israel – I make a couple of trips here each year." She explained that some ten years before she had undergone treatment for a slight eye problem. "My doctor – Julius Hartman – did the procedure and follow-ups in Harley Street. Then, being a good Jew, he finally decided to leave London and live here, in Israel. So I had my six-monthly checkups with him. Here in Jerusalem. Anna and Cathy always came with me."

"Funny." Bond looked first at Anna and then at Cathy. "I thought I chased you two all over Seville on motorcycles. I thought I had killed the pair of you."

"You did what?" Anna sat up even straighter.

"If you left with Trish, you missed a little unpleasantness. I killed two of his toughs, and a man called Peter Dolmech got murdered."

"Oh, no." Trish Tarn put her hands to her face. "Peter? He was one of the nicest men around Max."

"He was also providing us with information and his luck ran out, I'm afraid."

"You probably did in Pixie and Dixie," Cathy supplied.

"Pixie and…?"

"That's what everyone called them. They had been stunt drivers at one time. Stunts with cars and motorcycles. Very nasty gentlemen. Did a lot of unpleasant jobs for Max. Their real names were never mentioned, and I got the impression they were wanted by the police in about seven different countries." Trish held out her glass for more champagne and took a deep breath. "But to get back to Max, I really laid into him when we got to Seville. I knew a lot more by then, but I was out of my mind with anger and grief. It would've been more prudent to keep quiet, but I told him the truth and this is the result. He was so furious that he did most of it. Connie Spicer broke my nose and jaw. Max, as you must know, suffers from a kind of folie de grandeur. He's done nothing but spread death and destruction for most of his adult life, but he thinks he can, in some way, make amends. When he does, he reckons that everyone's going to forget about the weapons and people – because he also deals in people, mercenaries mostly – and hail him as a hero. As the true hero. I shouldn't have told him on that last day in Seville."

"What was this horrific thing you told him, Trish?"

"You can't guess?" She gave a bitter little laugh. "I told him the truth, knowing that it would explode his mind. The truth. You see, I'm a quarter Jewish, on my mother's side, and me a good Catholic girl. My father was Italian, and my mother English. When I was coming up to my First Communion they told me. It was a big family secret. A quarter Jewish, and that was enough to spark off my dear husband when I threw it in his face."

"He just beat you up and then let you walk away?" Bond still only had an inkling of what she really meant.

"Not quite." Again the bitter laugh. "He lost control. Said he would have to bathe four times a day for the rest of his life, to get the Jewish filth from his body. He shouted at me. Said nobody must ever know; said he loathed himself. Did some damage to my face and ribs. I said I was going, so he put Connie in. I think the idea was to disable me so that I couldn't leave, but Connie hadn't banked on the girls."

"You took Connie out?" Bond's tone was one of admiration.

"We kind of incapacitated him." Cathy did her roguish smile.

"Let's say he won't be satisfying any ladies for a while. Yet, knowing Connie, he's probably able to hobble around by now."

"Trish, I'm sorry." Bond was searching for the right words, not quite certain that he understood the complete subtext of what she had told him. "Are you saying that Max has Fascist tendencies?"

This time her laugh was not bitter, but one of genuine amusement, and it was echoed by chuckles from Anna and Cathy.

"James," she said finally. "No, Max does not have Fascist tendencies. I thought you'd already know. In fact, I really believed that was why you're after him. Max Tarn is not just another Fascist. Max Tarn thinks of himself as the Nazi Messiah. He's the reincarnation of Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels – you name them, he is it. The whole arms-dealing thing has been a means to an end. Stage one in his comeback. Weapons poured into the wrong hands over the past couple of decades have been for one reason: the complete destablization of Europe – if not the world. He danced – really danced – with joy when the Berlin Wall came down. When the news came through he actually said, 'My time is now near. The destruction of the Wall will bring all true Nazis into the open. By the time I am ready, they'll respond to me just as those in the 1930s responded to the Führer.'"

He tried to disguise his horror and fascination. "And he let you walk away when you told him about your Jewish blood?"

There was a pause before Trish said, "It's not quite as easy as that, James. Like the Nazi leaders of old, he has that uncanny knack of being able to double-think. After the first few years of our marriage I realized that he really regarded me as a showpiece. He just may be able to ignore the tiny bit of Jewish blood in my veins. Max has a terribly long reach. He can probably find me and have me hauled back, though I think his hands're pretty full at the moment."

"Like the Nazis who turned a blind eye to Jews they needed in order to function?"

"Exactly. Do you know that Hitler was always aware that the gravediggers within the Nazi kingdom were Jews? They didn't touch them because they were necessary. Certain people are necessary to Max, and I might be one of them." She gave her head a little shake, as though trying to get rid of some nightmare. "Let me give you another instance. He owns – that's the right word, owns – an African-American girl who happens to be a junkie. He talks to her using the most appallingly racist language. That is when he's forced to go anywhere near her. But he tolerates her because she is an assassin who takes a pride in her work. Orders are given to her by either Connie or Goodwin, because, while they're loyal to Max, they do not really have the same scruples about being near her. When he's around, he makes certain she keeps to her own quarters. If she has to be in the entourage, he makes sure she travels in a different car."

"What's her name?"

"Beth. I don't know any other name for her. Everyone calls her Beth. That's it."

"But, Trish, I gather he claims lineage with the von Tarn family -"

"I don't think he needs to just claim lineage. I think it's genuine. But…"

"But the Nazis are supposed to have murdered his family."

"A family that, over the years, he's come to despise."

"I see." The shock of these latest revelations was just starting to bite home.

"Max is powerful, James. Don't ever doubt that. He is a very dangerous beast."

"You wouldn't happen to know where he is now?" Bond made it sound so casual that it almost went unnoticed, but he saw Anna stir and flash a look toward Cathy.

"He could be checking in downstairs, for all I know."

Trish's hand went up to her hair for the first time since they had been in the room, fingers splayed, raking deeply into the thick soft forest. "But I don't think so. What you're really asking me is where you can go and pick him up, yes?"

Bond leaned forward. "I can offer you safety, Trish."

"Oh, please." She laughed. "You cannot offer me safety until you have him six feet under. He has an army out there."

"Trish," Flicka took over, "we can give you some safety. We can get you out of Jerusalem first thing in the morning. Once we have you in England we're certain we can keep you safe. You and the girls."

"The girls can always look after themselves, but, yes, I'd like them around for a while."

"Then you'll come with us?"

"I've nowhere else to go, and Max will know I'm here. Even Connie will have it figured out. Yes. Okay, take me to London and squirrel me away where none of Max's people can get their hands on me. What's in it for you?"

"Your safety, Trish," from Bond. "Your safety, and cooperation."

"You have my cooperation in any case. You want to know where Max is? Okay, I can tell you where I think he'll be, if he's not on the way here to take me back by force."

"Is that a possibility?"

"Always, but I don't think he has much time to come chasing me at the moment."

"So if he's not on his way here…?"

"Well, maybe not yet, but eventually he'll end up in the Caribbean."

"Playing with his toy cruise ships?"

She gave a tired smile, and the pain showed through again. "He has two main operating bases, both of them really sewn up. Seville is one. Being an inland port, it's useful. He paid a lot of people not to ask too many awkward questions, so many of his container ships pass through Seville. The other port he uses is San Juan."

"And he has that one closed up as well?"

"Pretty much. He also owns some property there. We have a suspicion that he stashes cargo away on Puerto Rico and that is where he plans to become a world hero." That "we" included the girls, for she waved her arm in their direction, and both Cathy and Anna nodded in agreement. "We think he owns warehouses, and other little bits of real estate, and he's spread money around the place as though cash is going out of fashion."

"So he runs a complex operation from two distinct bases. One in Europe, the other in the Caribbean, where he has some kind of ace up his sleeve?"

"That's about the size of it. His merchant bank launders the money, I should imagine."

"You imagine correctly. We're getting that sorted out. There's a great deal of evidence, and we're putting the financial side together now."

"He said that part could never be broken." Cathy had gone back into one of me other rooms and brought another bottle of Dom Perignon. "In Seville, I heard him say that his banks were a hundred percent foolproof."

"It would've taken until doomsday if it hadn't been for Peter Dolmech."

Anna stirred. "You said he was dead."

"He left us a little legacy. A map of the laundry, so to speak."

There was a short pause, during which Trish and the girls did not look at each other. Then Trish broke the silence. "Poor Peter. At least he did something worthwhile before he died. Max trusted him absolutely, and I would never have thought he was the spy in the camp."

"You suspected a spy?"

"No, but Max did. He was paranoid about it. Always changing procedures, and playing games to trap people. Though he never did – trap anyone, that is."

"Well, he did more than trap Dolmech, and he almost destroyed the information." He went on to describe what had happened in Seville, leaving out the most gory of the details.

Again there was a silence. A pause that went on a shade too long. Trish Nuzzi once more put a hand to her hair, then quietly said that she was sorry but she really had to lie down. "Doctor Hartman saw to it that my nose and jaw were fixed," she added as a kind of afterthought.

"So Max'll eventually end up in the Caribbean. Where else might he be?"

"He could be in Germany. Wasserburg. He's quietly restoring Tarnenwerder – the old family seat – to its former glory."

"He is?" Bond asked of nobody in particular.

"Then tomorrow we'll take you back to London and some safety?" Flicka asked.

"Yes. Yes, of course. It's all I want now: to be out of it all and in some normal kind of life."

"What time?" Cathy asked, sounding businesslike.

"We'll give you a call first thing." Bond had already decided to book seats on the first possible flight back to Heathrow. "I think there's a flight at around noon. Now, are you going to be all right tonight?"

"If we're not, we'll give you a call." Anna sounded smug and, if anything, overconfident.

"So what do you think?" Bond asked when they were back in their own suite.

"You mean the amazing sex change, the distraught Lady Tarn, or the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler?" Flicka had started to undress.

"All three, I suppose. You happy with them, Flick? Trust them?"

"The dedicated-crazy-Nazi thing shook me, but I can see it's probably true enough, and the time is ripe in Germany. There are so many dedicated Nazi organizations coming out of the woodwork now. The skinhead groups, the Neo-Nazis toughs, but that's the wrong name for them. They're not neo anything. They are Nazis plain and simple: Germany for the Germans, and then only the purebred Germans. Out with any foreigners. Even people who, up to a couple of years ago, said it could never happen twice are now having doubts. As for the rest, right up until we mentioned Dolmech, I trusted them. Then things came apart slightly."

"Could be that Lady T was having a ride around the park with Dolmech."

"The thought had crossed my mind. Either her or… No, they wouldn't have let their guard down – the girls, I mean."

"To be perfectly honest with you." Bond raised his voice as she passed through into the bathroom. "To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't trust those two with anyone – except La Nuzzi, of course. They're obviously devoted to her."

"And I'll be perfectly honest with you, my darling, I wouldn't trust any of them with you. Even with the bashed-up face, Trish was drooling, and the two terrors would have kept you busy for hours."

"I didn't notice anything unusual. I think you're exaggerating, Flicka."

She did not reply, so he smiled to himself and went over to the telephone to call both El Al and BA. There was an El Al flight from Ben Gurion International to Heathrow at noon, and they had seats. He booked five, giving their names and saying that he would get back to them with the information on the other three passengers first thing in the morning. As ever, El Al were tight-lipped.

They both slept well, spooned close together in the big double bed. The telephone dragged them up through a few layers of unconsciousness. Bond looked at his watch and saw that this was not his wake-up call requested for seven, as the time showed ten minutes past six. Groggily, he croaked into the phone and Pete Natkowitz came on strong and clear at the other end, telling him that this was a secure line.

"I think you might have a small problem." The Mossad man dived straight in.

Bond was immediately wide awake. "What kind of problem?"

"I don't know how you got on last night, but I've just had a call from BG International. It appears that Trish Nuzzi and her entourage left on the six o'clock to Paris."

Bond replied with a single oath. "Shit!" he said.