Man From Barbarossa

5

PERADVENTURE

Stephanie Adoré looked like a professional woman – a banker or corporate lawyer – and her dress sense was so in keeping with the image of a power-woman that men, though attracted by her undoubted beauty, were often intimidated by her, closing their minds before she even opened her mouth.

Mlle Adoré’s hair was the colour of well-preserved copper. When she let it down, women in crowded rooms often gazed at her with jealousy, for it was the kind of hair that could go through a hurricane and yet, after the event, fall neatly into place without assistance. Usually she wore it in a somewhat mannish style, pulled straight back and tied in a great knot at the nape of her neck. When her mood was frivolous she decorated the knot with a velvet bow which always matched the tailored suits she wore with elegance.

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 Adoré.’

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 Adoré 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 Adoré 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 Adoré?’ 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 Adoré. James, please.’

‘Your health then, James.’

‘A votre santé.’

‘Oh, how quaint, you speak a little French.’ She gave her trademark giggle, and Bond tamped down any slight rise of irritation he might have felt.

‘Now,’ she hardly paused for breath, ‘you wanted to talk to me. Official you said it was, yes?’

‘I have to ask you what your business is in London.’

Her eyebrows arched just for a millisecond, a blink of a twitch. ‘I thought we were all in it together now, James. The EC against the rest of the world. The frontiers all but disposed of.’

‘In our world, as you well know, Mlle Adoré, no frontiers have been set aside.’

‘Stephanie.’ She looked at him over the wide champagne glass which was quickly dissipating the bubbles. ‘Please, Stephanie.’

‘Okay. Stephanie. Frontiers have not been set aside for people such as ourselves.’

‘And what is our business, James?’

‘Yours is intelligence outside the not insignificant borders of France. Mine is the defence of the realm; the security of Great Britain.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘Certainly.’ He reached into his jacket and produced the excellent piece of work provided by the Scrivener which said he was a security officer attached to the Home Office.

‘And me? Can you prove it about me?’ She played with him, dividing the two short questions by dipping her mouth to the glass and sliding her delicious pink tongue into the liquid.

‘Yes, if you insist, I can prove it, though it wouldn’t make a very interesting evening. You would have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room while some disinterested duty officer goes through the files. Personally, I prefer dinner, but . . .’

‘You know any nice little French places?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Perhaps after we’ve seen my file.’

Bond shook his head. ‘Don’t even think about it. There wouldn’t be time. Not even if you were aiming for lunch tomorrow. Let me tell you what I know. Your real name is Stephanie Annie Adoré; you are an officer of Direction Général de Securité Extérieur. You’ve seen active duty in Moscow and Beirut; you are, at present, on attachment to the Soviet section at La Piscine. You are thirty-three years of age and have your own apartment above a bar-tabac on rue de Buci. You live alone and, last year, June through October, you had a lover who worked at the German Embassy – we suspect that was work, but I’m not even going to ask. Enough?’

‘Very good, and between us, no, it wasn’t work. It was fun, and very sad when it ended.’ She poked her tongue into her champagne again, then sipped it. ‘Your people are very good. We were most discreet. I don’t think my own office knew about it.’

‘We had someone in the embassy. Your friend had a motormouth. He talked.’ Bond thought he sounded a shade smug and almost instantly regretted it as he caught, for one tiny moment, a hint of pain in her eyes.

‘You’ve convinced me.’ She did not look at him. ‘You want to know why I’m here? What I’m doing in your ugly city? London is so foreign to a Parisian, did you know that?’

‘It’s not hard to guess it. So, Stephanie, why are you here?’

‘Because you’re here.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the powers that be asked me to come into London under a pseudo, stay for one night and see if anybody caught on. It is like a small test. Here.’ She opened her handbag, extracting a four-by-three card which she placed on the table next to his glass.

It carried the DGSE logo at the top and a short legend in French and English to the effect that Mlle Stephanie Adoré held the rank of major in the above service and was travelling, without any forward clearance, under the name of Charlotte Hironde. At the bottom there were two questions to be asked and signed by a member of the British Intelligence or Security Services. First, had Mlle Adoré been detected as a member of another EC country’s intelligence service immediately on arrival in that country. Second, had she been approached by any member of that country’s intelligence or security service. Under the line which demanded a date and signature there was a small note which said, in effect, that this was part of a routine training exercise being carried out by DGSE in all other member countries of the European Community.

Bond tried not to look either angry or shocked. Inside he boiled at the presumption of the French in testing another country’s service in this manner. His fury would go back to M, and from thence, he would bet on it, to the Prime Minister who would, in turn, raise merry hell in Paris, or maybe Brussels.

He smiled and answered the questions, then excused himself, walking out into the panelled foyer in search of a duty manager and the use of one of the hotel’s photocopy machines.

Mlle Adoré was looking startled when he returned and handed back the card. The copy was folded and inside his breast pocket. ‘It isn’t your fault, Stephanie, that your superiors are stupid enough to waste the time of well-trained agents on both sides of the Channel.’ Then he whisked her up, helped her into her raincoat and led her outside. Flagging down a taxi he asked for the Café Royal.

They ate very simply: a potage Longchamps, followed by mounds of smoked salmon, the meal topped off with a very good chocolate mousse laced with brandy on Bond’s special pleading. They talked constantly, discussing mutually interesting topics which ranged from the current status of known terrorist groups in Europe to the latest best-selling fiction, to the fact that Communism was alive and well and flourishing in the Kremlin in spite of rumours to the contrary. They touched on matters of grave importance, in particular the developing crisis in the Persian Gulf. Following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the massive United States’ arms deployment, together with her allies, all eyes were on Iraq. The United Nations Security Council had given the coalition of countries, siding with the US, a mandate to liberate Kuwait by force at any time after January 15th. There were now only thirteen days to go and the world waited, knowing what might follow. Stephanie was vociferous about possible Arab terrorism which would be a major fall-out if war broke out. Bond noted that she spoke with a complete and clear understanding of the situation.

It was eleven thirty by the time he got her back to the hotel and walked her to the elevators.

‘James, this has been wonderful. We must do it again sometime. I’ll give you my phone number. If you’re ever in Paris . . .’

‘The night’s young, Stephanie . . .’

‘Maybe, but I, my dear James, turn into a large marron glacé at midnight.’ She scribbled an eight digit number on a business card, kissed him lightly on the cheek and waved as she walked into the waiting elevator.

‘A real night on the town, eh?’ Natkowitz was behind the wheel of a souped-up London taxicab which had remained last in the small rank near the hotel all evening. He had covered his red hair with a cloth cap and looked quite the part.

‘Paid a damned great bill and got her phone number. What about the boyfriend?’

‘Henri hasn’t stirred all night. Not a peep.’

‘Well, hang around, Pete, I still don’t trust them.’ He was not going to say anything about the DGSE running a test on British security. In any case he did not altogether go along with the delicious Mlle Adoré’s story. Too pat, too devious and too unlikely.

They exchanged a couple of words before Bond crossed the street to where the battered grey van was illegally parked. Any passing policeman or traffic warden was supposed to leave it alone because of the official sticker just below the licence disc, but it was not always so. Bond recalled one occasion when a vehicle from the motor pool had been towed away by an overzealous beat policeman, endangering a highly important surveillance. But that was in the Cold War which was now officially over. James Bond thought about this for a while, pondering the reasons for still monitoring the Soviet Embassy and running people in the former Eastern Bloc countries. A bellicose M had recently said ‘The Kraken of Communism sleeps, but it will awake again, stronger and more rarefied from the succour we in the West have given it.’

Bond sat quietly in the van with the engine idling, his eyes moving the whole time while his hand loosely held the microphone of a two-way radio tuned to a scrambled channel. He saw the young man from MI5 trying to look either like a lamppost or a man waiting for a bus, though there was no bus stop.

At exactly five minutes to midnight Stephanie Adoré came out of the hotel. She now wore a dark greatcoat and her hair was tucked up under a fur hat. The doorman waved at the three taxis standing idle and waiting. One came to life, its For Hire sign extinguished as it stopped for the doorman to see the young woman into the squat, black vehicle.

‘Here we go.’ Bond waited until the girl was in the cab before pulling out and overtaking it. He allowed Adoré’s cab to overtake him just as they reached the bottleneck of traffic in Cranbourne Street, turning into the Charing Cross Road. Glancing in the mirror, he saw no activity behind him. If friend Rampart appeared, it was Natkowitz’s job to follow him in the cab. In the meantime, Bond clicked the switch on his hand mike and muttered, ‘Predator. We’re off and running.’ Every few seconds he continued to give their position, hoping that at least one back-up team from the office was on the way.

Stephanie Adoré’s cabbie was good, showing courtesy to other members of the fraternity and cutting up ‘civilian’ drivers unmercifully. Bond had the feeling that he was taking instructions from his fare, which was good tradecraft – give the cabbie a rough destination, then change your mind and navigate for him. The cabbie must have been very happy if that was what she was doing, for the cabbies of London pride themselves on being the best worldwide, and they do not like directions from the paying customer. Bond could almost hear the conversation, ‘Wake up, darling, either you know where you want me to go or you don’t. Just give me an address. I’m like a bloody homing pigeon once you give me an address.’

Mlle Adoré certainly knew London if she indeed was navigating, for she ran all the possible back doubles, eventually setting a course for Knightsbridge.

Bond continued to monitor the radio and watch his mirror. No sign of Natkowitz, though a little black VW seemed to latch on to them for about half a mile as they negotiated Kensington Road. But it had gone by the time they swept past the Albert Hall, with Prince Albert to their right, standing under his Gothic canopy, uninspired by the open book in his hands.

He had put some three to four cars between him and Stephanie’s cab and, though the traffic was light, there was enough of it to give reasonable protection. The VW appeared again halfway up Kensington High Street and overtook him just west of the library. Two minutes later, Bond saw Adoré’s cab turn left into the Earl’s Court Road with the VW close behind.

He shot the lights amidst a blare of illegal and furious motor horns and just caught sight of the VW making a turn into Scarsdale Villas, once a late-Victorian bastion of the upper-middle classes, now a road of tall elegant houses gone to seed, given over to bed-sitter land, doctors’ surgeries and pre-school kindergartens.

Glancing left as he overshot the turn, Bond saw the cab and the little car had both pulled up about sixty yards into the street, in front of one of the big terraced houses which run all the way through to Marloes Road at the far end.

He pulled over, parked and leaped from the van, walking quickly back to the Scarsdale junction just in time to see Stephanie Adoré finish paying off the cab, then turn and hurry towards the house. Above her, on the steps, a tall figure was already fumbling with the lock, and for a moment as he turned the key, his face was illuminated by the street lights. At fifty yards Bond had no difficulty recognising him. He continued to walk, but two paces on, both of the targets had disappeared through the door, while the VW remained parked, oblivious to the operational ground rules of the trade, left in an almost arrogant manner for all to see.

It had startled to drizzle, and a sharp cold wind suddenly choreographed the detritus of the gutters into tiny ritual flurries. Bond felt the cold and dampness, turned, hunched his shoulders and headed back to the van to radio in.

Ahead were the comparative bustle and street lights of the Earl’s Court Road. To his left the big old houses that made up Scarsdale Villas stood back from the pavement. About forty yards from the junction the houses gave way, putting him against a wall.

He had been conscious of the headlights of a car coming from the far Marloes Road end of Scarsdale Villas, but now, a few paces from the turn into the Earl’s Court Road, the sound of its engine was all but blotted out by a tall red bus passing the T-junction ahead of him.

He sensed the danger, swivelling back towards it, and saw the headlights bearing down on him, the wheels of a big old Rover mounting the pavement, aiming to crush him against the wall.

There were other noises – a shout, the scream of brakes from the Earl’s Court Road end behind him – but his concentration was on the car barrelling towards him. Seconds before it hit, Bond launched himself towards the bonnet, rolling it like a movie stunt man, then breaking his fall into the road on the far side by going down, his right arm flung flat and his shoulder taking the full force of the fall, just as they had taught him long ago.

As he rolled past the driver, he glimpsed a hand and the dull metal of a weapon, but when the shots came, they were far away. The road leaped up and he felt the jar of pain down his right side as he continued to roll. Then there was the sound of the car crunching against the wall, the crackle of bodywork being mashed against brick and the revving of the motor.

In the final seconds of the roll, he lost control. The momentum of the car and the force of his own spring across the bonnet had made for a clumsy landing, for he was travelling very fast. His head snapped back and hit the road. A million stars were flung bright and exploding against the darkness and the world seemed to spin.

Far away, he heard Natkowitz’s voice shouting, asking if he was okay. Then the word ‘Peradventure’ scuttled through his mind and in the wink between consciousness and oblivion he laughed, for the memory was of an old joke – the elderly lady who always refused to say ‘Peradventure’ because of the quotation from the Book of Common Prayer – ‘If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me.’

The darkness covered him, lifted him up and spat him out over two hours later.