No Deals, Mr. Bond

19

MEET THE ROBINSONS

Like many a safe house in Europe, this villa, set on its promontory with its incomparably beautiful view, was spartan inside. There were the usual signs of soundproofing. Heavy unnatural-looking wallpaper decorated the main living room, which they entered through the large sliding windows. The furniture was functional, the chairs made of bamboo, one table of heavy wood. No pictures adorned the walls; there were no ornaments on the mantelshelf.

Bond had dropped the revolver as soon as he knew the odds and turned to Ebbie, signalling with his eyes that she should keep silent. When he spoke at last, it was to Ebbie.

‘Ms Heritage, the gentleman pointing the gun at us has what we call star quality. May I introduce you to General Konstantin Nikolaevich Chernov, Hero of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin. The list of his decorations is very long, but he is at present Chief Investigating Officer of Department 8, Directorate S of the KGB. The Department that was, at one time, known as SMERSH. I suspect the General would prefer it to be still called by that emotive name.’

Chernov gave him a pleasant smile, then, nodding to Ebbie, he instructed the men to take them into the villa. Inside, he spoke to Bond.

‘I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you again. I’ve also been looking forward to meeting your companion. By some stupid oversight we missed you in Ireland, Miss Heritage – or should I more correctly call you Fräulein Nikolas?’

‘Heritage,’ she answered calmly.

Chernov shrugged. ‘As you like. In any case, I am very pleased to see you too. This completes the ludicrous Cream Cake business. All the chickens have come home to roost – and make their final payments, eh?’

Bond had already decided on his strategy. He cleared his throat, coughed and said, ‘General, I am empowered to negotiate.’

‘Really?’ The shrewd eyes met Bond’s with an amused glitter. ‘You have bargaining powers?’

‘Within certain parameters, yes,’ he lied. ‘Certain exchanges can be offered for those you hold here, for Ms Dare, Ms Heritage, Maxim Smolin, Mr Baisley, and Fräulein Dietrich. I’m sure you would like some of your own people back. We have quite a number in stock.’

Mischa laughed quietly, while Chernov gave a throaty chuckle.

‘Everyone connected with Cream Cake, eh? All of those under sentence of death.’

‘Yes.’

Mischa laughed again. ‘So, what do we do first, Comrade General? Deal with the traitors and spies or put your tame puppets to the test?’

‘Well, there’s plenty of time, Mischa. Relax. This is a pleasant place. Today will be hot. When the sun goes down we’ll put the puppets to work. When that is finished, we can perform the little ritual you seem to long for. With all of them confined here we can take our time. They deserve to go slowly. They wanted us to take Smolin and Dietrich back to Moscow but that could be a little difficult.’ He sighed, then looked slyly at Ebbie. ‘Now the Nikolas girl here could provide me with a morsel of pleasure before we extract her tongue and dispatch her.’ He turned to Bond. ‘Don’t you agree?’

‘I wouldn’t know what I’m agreeing to.’

‘Really? Let’s have some coffee and rolls and I’ll explain. Mischa, has the amah arrived with today’s provisions?’

‘Yes, but I’ve sent her away again. Today I felt we had no need of outsiders.’

‘Quite right, Mischa. Some coffee, then, and rolls with preserves?’

‘You should have brought your servant, General.’

‘Perhaps. One of these fellows will help you.’

He nodded to the man who stood impassive by the door and at another who had materialised near the window. Both held machine pistols at the ready. Mischa tapped the arm of the one by the door, and spoke to him in Russian. He shouldered his pistol by its strap, and was about to follow Mischa out when Chernov intervened.

‘He can help you, but first I think the young lady should be escorted to join her companions. They probably have a lot to talk about. You should make the most of it,’ he said, smiling at Ebbie. This time there was an unmistakable chill in his eyes.

Mischa called her over, and the guard prodded her with his pistol. Ebbie nodded and uncurled herself from her chair. She looked first at Bond and then at Chernov. Then she went up close to Chernov and spat full into his face. He reeled back in disgust, but reacted so quickly that even Bond did not see his hand come up to slap Ebbie’s left cheek and backhand her right. Ebbie hardly made a sound, taking the blows without even putting her hand to her face. Both guards sprang forward, but she merely turned and meekly followed the frowning Mischa from the room. One guard was behind her, the other returned to his place by the window. Chernov was wiping the spittle from his face.

‘Foolish girl,’ he muttered. ‘I could have made the inevitable a little easier for her.’

‘For all your veneer of sophistication, you’re really a coldblooded bastard, Chernov, aren’t you?’

His dossier at the Regent’s Park Headquarters adequately described his devious ruthlessness but could not reflect his degenerate nature. Chernov could clearly be equated with the most callous and perverted KGB head of all time, the infamous Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria.

‘Me?’ Chernov’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Me, cold-blooded? Don’t be stupid, Bond. These little girls were used by your own coldblooded operations planners. Presumably it was explained to them what risk they were taking.’ He gave a snort. ‘You and I know that Cream Cake was about securing the defection of the highly trained and experienced officers, Smolin and Dietrich. To muddy the waters your people added two extra targets. Well, that worked. But KGB and GRU could not leave the matter there. Two of the girls have been disposed of. It would be unfair to let the rest off with a caution. The intelligence communities of the world must see that we retaliate to such treatment.’ He gave another shrug. ‘In any case, I have orders from my Chairman to carry out summary executions. The bodies are to be left as a warning, with special marks: a kind of ritual. You understand?’

Chernov spoke calmly, as though the murders of Heather, Ebbie, Jungle, Dietrich and Smolin were of as much consequence as the imposition of a speeding fine.

‘We cannot negotiate, then?’

‘You cannot negotiate with dead people.’

‘And what of me, General?’

‘Ah!’

He turned, the finger of his right hand pointing at Bond, but before he spoke there was a tap on the door and the guard came in carrying a large tray with a coffee pot, cups, a basket of rolls and jars of preserves. He was followed by Mischa who held the man’s machine pistol. Clearly he would not act as butler for anybody, not even General Chernov.

Chernov’s finger came down. ‘Ah!’ he repeated. ‘Breakfast.’

Mischa left with the other guard. Bond noticed that the big man at the window eyed the food with some envy.

‘You were saying, General?’

‘Oh, after we’ve eaten, my dear Bond. Enjoy my hospitality while you can.’

And with that, he refused to enter into any further conversation. In fact, it was the last he was to say about Bond’s future for many hours, for as soon as they had eaten, Chernov issued a series of commands. The other guard came back into the room and with no warning both men took Bond by the arms and hauled him outside and down two flights of stone steps. They opened a stout door and threw him into a small cell, which was completely bare but for a light covered by a metal grille recessed in the ceiling. There were no windows or furniture and only enough space for a man to stand and spread out his arms. Mischa appeared in the doorway.

‘Mr Bond,’ he said, displaying for the first time an effeminate lisp. He held a bundle of clothes, which he threw on to the cell floor. There were dark blue overalls, nylon socks, underwear and a pair of cheap moccasins. ‘They’re your size, Mr Bond. We checked with Moscow. The General would like you to strip and put these on.’ He gave a toothy smile. ‘You have a reputation as a bit of a magician – tricks up your sleeves and so on. The General felt it would be safer this way. Change now, please.’

He had no option. As slowly as possible, Bond discarded his own clothes, together with the precious concealed equipment. He climbed into the overalls, feeling foolish. Mischa took his clothes and slammed the door. Bond heard a heavy deadlock fall into place.

For a while he took stock. There was a tiny hole no larger than a pencil set over the door. He was almost certainly being observed by a monitoring system using minute fibre optic lenses. The cell was obviously located deep in the ground, under the villa. There was no way of escape. His only chance was to get to the back-up equipment hidden in the earth outside the house. Knowing that it might nevertheless be of no use to him he crossed his legs and sat impassively, emptying his mind of all thoughts and anxieties, preparing himself by centring his whole being on a kind of nothingness.

He did not know how much time passed before the two guards came again with more food, which he refused. The men accepted this with ill grace but withdrew.

As time passed Bond controlled both body and mind, knowing that whatever trial the General had in store for him he would need all his experience and mental and physical courage to combat it and even turn it to his advantage, if he was to save the Cream Cake team and himself from death.

Instinctively he felt the waning of the day and at last the door was unlocked and the same men dragged him out and up the stairs to the main room where he had last sat with Chernov. This time the place appeared smaller and it was full of people. He saw outside the long slash of white sand turning blood red in the sunset.

Looking around him, Bond saw Chernov sitting on a bamboo chair in the centre of the room. The others were chained together and he realised there were two new faces. He recognised the man as Franz ‘Wald’ Belzinger – otherwise Jungle Baisley. The face was certainly the one he had studied on photographs during that first afternoon, following the lunch with M at Blades. The surprise came when he saw that Baisley was a huge man. He must have been well over six feet tall and broad in proportion. He looked even younger than his twenty-seven years, possibly because of his shock of unruly red hair. He grinned broadly at Bond, as though welcoming him.

‘I think you know everybody except Fräulein Dietrich and Mr Baisley, as he likes to be called,’ said Chernov.

Susanne Dietrich was a slim woman, older than he expected and with light-coloured, untidy hair. She gave him a frightened look, as Jungle tried to rise grinning an American college boy grin.

‘Hi, Mr Bond. I have been hearing much about you.’

The voice had German undertones, but more in the syntax than the accent, and he certainly was not going to let anyone know he had an ounce of fear in him.

Bond nodded and smiled, trying to be reassuring. He looked along the line at Maxim Smolin, Heather and Ebbie. Heather smiled back, Smolin winked and Ebbie blew him a kiss. It was good to know they were going to face their fate with dignity. He asked if they were okay. They said nothing but nodded firmly.

‘So, I call this meeting to order,’ said Chernov, laughing as though he had cracked the joke of the century. ‘Or should I call it a court rather than a meeting?’ he asked.

No one spoke, so with a wry smile Chernov continued, ‘The five prisoners here already know what is to happen to them. They have been informed of their guilt and the reason they are to die. They know too the method of their deaths, which will take place at dawn tomorrow.’ He paused, as though savouring the thought. ‘As for Commander James Bond, Royal Navy, Secret Intelligence Service – as for him – well, the Department I represent has had an execution order hanging over him for many years now. Are you aware of that, Commander Bond?’

Bond nodded, thinking of the many times he had outwitted and damaged the black heart of the KGB, once known as SMERSH.

‘Let us not underestimate Commander Bond,’ said Chernov, his face becoming serious. ‘He has proved himself a valiant enemy: resourceful, highly efficient and brave. It would not be in keeping with my department’s practice simply to dispatch him with a bullet, a knife or an injection of racin, the drug our Bulgarian cousins favour. Like the bullfighter, Commander Bond should be given a fighting chance.’ He turned with a sinister smile to Bond. ‘Commander Bond, do you know what a “puppet” is? In an operational sense, I mean?’

‘One who is easy to control?’ asked Bond.

Chernov laughed aloud. ‘I am not being fair to you, James Bond. It is the Red Army’s Special Forces, the Spetsnaz, which we believe to be the equivalent to your SAS, who use the word “puppet”. “Puppets” are of great assistance during their training. They have been used in the USSR for more than fifty years now. Our noble ancestors, the Cheka, called them “gladiators”; then the NKVD spoke of them as “volunteers”, though they are hardly that. SMERSH, under all its different guises, has always called them by an English name, which is strange, eh? We call them “Robinsons”, Commander Bond. You may be familiar with them under that appellation. So, I ask you again, do you know what “Robinsons” are?’

‘I’ve heard rumours.’ He felt a tightening of his stomach at the word.

‘And you. believed the rumours?’

‘Probably.’

‘You would be right to believe them. Let me explain. When someone is sentenced to death in the Soviet Union, it depends upon his place in the community whether he dies quickly or whether his death will be used to serve the state.’ Again the grim and chilling smile lit Chernov’s eyes like black ice. ‘Unlike the decadent British, who are so neatly delivering themselves into our hands by their self-indulgence, their laxity, their failure to see how we will finally take complete control of their politics . . .’ his voice rose to a slightly higher pitch, ‘. . . unlike the British who are too squeamish to use the death penalty any more, we use it to advantage. True, old men and women are executed almost immediately. Others go to medical centres; some to assist in the building and running of our nuclear reactors – to do the dangerous jobs. The stronger, fitter and younger men become “puppets” or come to us as “Robinsons”. It provides good training for our men. Until a soldier has proved he can kill another human being, one cannot be certain of him.’

‘That’s what I’d heard.’ Bond’s face felt paralysed, as though injected by a dentist. ‘We are told that they provide living targets on exercises . . .’

‘Not simply targets, Commander Bond. They can fight back, though naturally within limits. They know that should they try and escape or turn their weapons on the wrong people, they will be cut down like wheat. They are, for one exercise, real live opponents. They kill and get killed. If they are really good, they can survive for some time.’

‘Three exercises and they are reprieved?’

Chernov smiled. ‘An old wives’ tale, I am afraid. “Robinsons” never survive in the end. They know they are under sentence so they fight harder if they think a reprieve will come after three ordeals.’

Chernov inspected his fingernails. The room seemed charged with tension. Chernov turned and nodded to the pair of guards, who went out, carefully closing the door behind them.

‘When we heard that you, a man on our death list, had been assigned to the clearing up of Cream Cake, I made a request to Moscow Centre. I asked for some “Robinsons”, some very good men who had lasted for two exercises and thought they had only one more to win before reprieve. I asked for young men. Mr Bond, you should feel honoured. This is the first time our people have allowed “Robinsons” to operate outside the Soviet Union. Tonight, from midnight until dawn, you will be out on this little island with our four best “Robinsons” intent on killing you. They will be armed and we are allowing you to carry a small weapon as well. But for six hours, in the dark and on ground which you do not know and they do, you will be hunted. James Bond, I would like you to meet your “Robinsons”.’

He shouted a command and the door was opened by one of the men outside.