Seafire

16 – Dead or Alive

He stayed where he was, lying on the ground hidden by the little mound of rocks. His body was bruised and sore, while the bite on his arm began to throb. Tarn's men left fairly quickly, and the local police and rescue team arrived within minutes of their jubilant departure. Several townspeople, alerted by the crash and explosion of the car, followed, milling around anxious to see what had happened.

He used the sudden influx of people to get to his feet, mingle for a few minutes, trying to ease the aches in his body, and think of ways and means to get out of Wasserburg as quickly as possible.

Finally he slipped away, walking back to the hotel across a deserted Marienplatz. There was nobody about in the hotel entrance, so he was able to get to his room unseen. Once there he took a quick very hot shower, cleaned off the lacerations in his arm, which looked slightly red and swollen, and made a more permanent bandage from a couple of handkerchiefs. He dressed in blazer and slacks and then returned downstairs again.

The elderly waiter was nodding off behind the small reception desk.

"You work long hours, my friend." Bond shook him by the shoulder.

"Ach." The waiter slowly opened his eyes. "I don't sleep much these days. You get older, you don't need so much sleep. What can I do for you?"

Bond asked if he knew a reliable taxi service, "I want to get to Munich as quickly as possible."

"How quickly?"

"Now. Straightaway."

"My brother. He's stupid enough to go anywhere at any time. Wait." He dialed a number and proceeded to have an agitated conversation with somebody he called Wolfie. Putting a hand over the mouthpiece, he grinned. "He'll do it, but you'll have to make it worth his while."

After a little haggling they settled on a price. Bond paid his hotel bill and went back to finish his packing. Fifteen minutes later he carried the garment bag and the briefcase, repacked with the weapons in the safe compartment, downstairs and found the waiter's brother chatting in the small foyer.

The brother turned out to be older than the waiter, and wore thick-tensed glasses, but he grabbed the bags and set off toward his car. Before following him, Bond pushed a handful of notes into the waiter's hand and half whispered, "You've never seen me, okay?"

"I never see anybody. That's how you get from being a teenager in Hitler's Germany. It always pays never to see or hear anything."

Wolfie appeared to be under the impression that he was a Formula One driver, but he still took well over an hour and a half to get to Munich Airport. There were only four really frightening incidents during the drive, and Bond paid up, hurrying into the almost deserted airport to find that he had a very long wait, as there were no flights to London until a British Airways departure at seven-thirty in the morning. There were seats on the flight, so he managed to exchange his Lufthansa ticket, to the delight of the young woman at the BA desk.

Speed was essential, he thought, once he arrived in London, so he did not check in any luggage. His next step was to use a telephone carefully enough not to give any prior warnings to the person whose voice he carried on the tape in his pocket.

Using a credit card, he called Bill Tanner at his home number and very quickly laid the news on him, covering both Max Tarn's bid for a Fourth Reich in Germany and the name of the person who had betrayed MicroGlobe One and the entire country.

"You're certain?" Tanner was as shaken as Bond had been.

"One hundred percent proof positive, Bill. Here's what I want you to do." He outlined the exact steps that needed to be taken in the morning. "I'll call Flicka just before the flight departure," he ended. "You can both meet me; but for heaven's sake have everything else fixed."

"It'll all be done." Tanner was about to close the line when Bond asked if they still employed Burke and Hare.

"We certainly do."

"Better have them on hand as well."

Burke and Hare were nicknames for Bill Burkeshaw and Tony Hairman, the two most experienced inquisitors who worked for the Intelligence Service. They would certainly be needing them if things were to run to a smooth climax.

He found a seat in front of one of the airport television sets where you could watch CNN in English. It was positioned so that he had an uninterrupted view of the whole concourse, and he remained there until the British Airways flight was called. Only then did he use the telephone again to call Fredericka von Grüsse, who answered brightly.

He gave her the flight number and time of arrival at Heathrow, tersely telling her to meet him, closing the line quickly.

The BA Airbus 360 landed at exactly eight-thirty local time – a two-hour trip with a time difference of one hour between Munich and London.

Flicka embraced him as though he had been away for a month, not just a couple of days. Bill Tanner stood to one side, then clasped his hand.

"Everything done?" Bond asked, and Tanner nodded without speaking.

"What the hell's going on?" Flicka looked confused.

"You'll see." He gave her a mischievous smile. "Hope you didn't do anything rash, like bringing a rental car and driver out, because we're heading straight for the Home Office in Bill's car."

She gave a resigned sigh. "Might as well talk to a brick wall."

Everyone except M was gathered in the reading room at the Home Office, and two members of the Security Service loitered in the passageway outside the door.

"Ah, our wanderer returns." The Minister spoke with a little surprise. "Tanner, you didn't tell us that Captain Bond was back."

"He wasn't, sir. Not when I spoke with you early this morning."

"With your permission, Minister, I'd like to tell you exactly what I've been doing in Germany."

"Of course. Go ahead. Nobody's going to stop you."

So Bond gave what he later called his "recital," particularly stressing the facts concerning Tarn's German citizenship and the scene he had witnessed on the previous evening. When he came to the end, the Minister asked if he could be excused for a moment. "I have someone coming over from the Foreign Office." He made toward the door and had almost reached it when Bond stopped him.

"Minister, I'm afraid I am the bearer of even worse news."

"Oh?"

"I suggest you stay and hear me out."

Reluctantly, the Minister returned to his seat, grumbling that he hoped this would not take long.

"I've made no secret of the fact that I've been unhappy with MicroGlobe One from the outset," Bond began, and Wimsey made an exasperated noise.

"We're not going into all that again, surely."

"I'm afraid we have to, Commissioner. My feeling is that Tarn has been leading us a merry dance from the beginning. For instance, who actually suggested that Fräulein von Grüsse and myself should tip him off about the impending search-and-seizure warrants?"

"Not me," Wimsey proclaimed loudly.

"No." Bond looked at him, steely-eyed. "No, Claude, I'm now sure it wasn't you. The whole of that idea was rather cleverly arranged. You voiced the idea, but someone else put it into your mind. Have any of you really thought deeply about how Tarn could have faked his death at such short notice? That business on the way to Duxford wasn't organized on the fly. It had been set up long before Fredericka and I even arrived in Cambridge." He made a gesture toward Tanner, who nodded and left the room.

"There are other matters, which I touched on very briefly when we were last gathered here. How in blazes could your people, Wimsey – the police – and the Security Service have been so left-footed when Tarn and company came back into England? How did the timing work when Fredericka and I went up to Hall's Manor and found Lady Tarn's body? There are too many coincidences, and Tarn had just too much luck. He and his partners knew I would be in Wasserburg well before my arrival. I very nearly lost my life in Germany, and there's a possibility that Tarn actually thinks I am dead." He turned to Flicka. "That's why I didn't talk to you very much when I got back this morning, my dear. I'm covered in bruises and my right arm's giving me a little trouble, but I'm sure the dog that bit me wasn't rabid. As the Führer elect, I am certain Tarn would have made certain that his stable of guard dogs is free from any infection."

"Where are we actually going with this?" asked the Minister.

"Bear with me, Minister."

Tanner came back into the room carrying the tape recorder they had used on the previous occasion.

"You see, ladies and gentlemen." Bond indicated that the machine should be put on the table. "Max Tarn could not have pulled off his various little dodges unless he had a very special kind of help. Help from inside this room."

"Oh." Wimsey sighed. "Who the hell do you think…?"

"I don't think, Claude. I know. I know because our mole – as they say in the spy novels – left his voice behind in Germany."

"What're you talking about, Bond? How much more of this -"

Tanner, who had inserted the tape, pressed the Play button.

"This is most urgent," said the Minister's voice on the tape. "An agent from the British Intelligence Service is on his way to Wasserburg. His mission is to run a check on Max and on the current Tarnenwerder situation…"

There was an audible gasp, even from the Director General of the Security Service, and the Minister tried to make for the door.

"No good, sir." A pistol had appeared, like some smart conjuring trick, in Tanner's hand. "There are people waiting for you there."

"This is… That's a fake… Someone's…" the Minister blustered, stood, sat down, and then stood again. His manner now was of defeat.

Tanner suggested that he surrender to the Security Service people outside, and as the door opened. Bond caught a glimpse of the two interrogators nicknamed Burke and Hare, loitering in the background.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Tanner addressed the DG of MI5. "I'm afraid I've probably overstepped my authority in bringing in a pair of your people."

"Not at all." She waved the apology away. "Well, I suppose I'm the senior member of The Committee for the present, so I'd better take the chair."

"Sorry again, ma'am. After James – er, Captain Bond – telephoned me from Munich almost in the middle of the night, I spoke at length with the Prime Minister. He's appointed a new chairman of MicroGlobe One. A friend of yours, I think. Lord Harvey of Danehill. He's a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee."

"Yes. A very fine man." The DG looked a shade put out.

"He'll take the chair very shortly. He didn't want to come in until this whole business had been dealt with. It is a touchy matter, so the Prime Minister's office has asked that nobody talks about it to anyone outside this room." He turned to Bond. "There wasn't much doubt, even without my hearing the tape. I checked as you asked. He's known Tarn for a long time. Same school. Same house at school also. They've been cronies for years."

"I think," the DG interrupted them, "this would be a good opportunity to take some coffee. We've all been up for quite a long time."

"Want to take a look-see before you face The Committee again?" Tanner asked. "He went to pieces as soon as they took him out."

Bond nodded, reaching for Flicka's hand, and Tanner led them to a small room within shouting distance of the reading room.

He knew this pair of interrogators rarely failed to extract whatever information was held by the target – the "subject," as they called all of their unhappy clients.

The Minister was in his shirtsleeves and seemed to have aged by at least ten years in just over ten minutes.

"Hallo, Minister," Bond greeted him brightly. "Treating you well, then?"

The Minister did not reply, so he looked at the interrogators, raising an eyebrow.

"Coughing like a man smoking seventy a day," Burke smiled.

"Singing arias like Pavarotti." Hare nodded.

"He's admitted complicity?"

"Friend of Max Tarn's for years, he says. He also says that he didn't realize the extent to which the man went. He just helped oil the wheels from time to time, but we know he did more than that."

"May I ask him a couple of things?"

"Be our guest." Hare turned back to the Minister. "You'll have no objection to this gentleman's questions?"

"Depends what he asks." The Minister had that look, deep in his eyes, that said he knew his career had ended and his only chance was to be completely candid.

"I can promise you," Bond began, "that if you come clean, I'll personally do my best to see that we keep all this out of the comic papers. Also, I don't expect anyone will want to shout about your activities from the rooftops. Be really cooperative and you'll not even see the inside of a courtroom."

"I've heard all that before." The Minister did not even look at him.

"I just want information about Tarn's associates. Did you know Lady Tarn's bodyguards? A pair of grotesques called Cuthbert and Archibald?"

"You mean the pair of cross-dressers? Cathy and Anna?"

"Oh, you did know them."

"Saw them around. His fixer, Maurice Goodwin, told me who they were."

"Well, who did they really work for – Lady Trish or Sir Max?"

"Max, of course. Everybody worked for Max in the long run. All you had to do was send someone really straight down to Sir Max and he'd come back bent as a corkscrew."

"Anything special about Duxford?"

"I think the original plan was for them to fly out of Duxford airfield, though that would have been a bit tricky."

"They managed to do it after Lady Trish's murder." Tanner was standing just behind Flicka. "On that dark night, a corporate jet landed at Duxford just after midnight. Claimed he had a fuel problem. They let him fill up and the pilot made a telephone call. About an hour later, as I understand it, a pair of Land-Rovers turned up and the occupants climbed out and boarded the aircraft. The jet took off, but the radio transmissions were, to say the least, on the sparse side. The general feeling is that money changed hands, but I doubt they'll prove anything."

"That was exactly how they were going to do it the first time." The Minister seemed to have gained a small amount of confidence since Bond's promises. "I think they had a genuine problem with the aircraft that time because, at the last minute, I was told to give them an extra twenty minutes if possible."

"And you were well recompensed for all this, Minister?"

"I took money, yes. I've already told these people that I took money." He made the word "people" sound like an obscenity.

"Max only used money?" Flicka asked.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning what I said. Did Max only use money to bribe people?"

The Minister gave a bitter laugh. "Max used anything available. Money always worked because he paid out beyond people's wildest dreams, but the man has no conscience. Would snuff out his mother if it would do any good, and he'd sleep soundly at night. He was equally at home with blackmail and providing other little favors – women, even boys."

"Anyone we know?"

"He pimped Cathy and Anna for friends. I know that for a fact. When you finally get to him, Bond, wish him well from me just before he dies. You'll certainly not take him alive, I'd put money on that. Without doubt, Max Tarn is the most evil man I have ever known. He's moved through the world like a plague, sowing germs of death disguised as arms and military equipment to anyone willing to pay. He sees nothing wrong in that. In fact he believes that, in the end, the world will accept him because he reckons to have some great plan that will do immeasurable good."

"Didn't I mention that to The Committee?" Bond thought he had told them. "You've no idea what this great boon to mankind actually is?"

"None. Except a code word. SeaFire, he called it. I've heard him laugh and say that when he reveals SeaFire, he will have no enemies in the world."

"Any idea where he's headed next?"

"None. He was in Germany – but, of course, you knew that. You were there."

"And you allowed me to go. You let me talk you into it, and agreed to use that four-day recommendation rule. Now why did you do that?"

"What option did I have? You were pressing me. I thought it was safe -"

"You also thought it would be the end of me, didn't you?'

The Minister did not reply. He just shook his head, indicating this was not the case. Then: "He might still be there, as far as I know. He did say he had a great deal to do."

"Personally," Bond sounded as though he were detached, speaking words that were simply thoughts in his mind, nothing to do with any of those present. "Personally, I think he's headed somewhere completely different." He turned to Tanner. "A word in private. Bill."

Flicka followed the two men out of the room.

"Bill, the old Service? Do we still employ Q Branch?"

"Barely, but the divine Ann Reilly still labors in our vineyard."

"Good, Q'ute's still with us. Can I get to see her?"

"James, I have to be honest about this. Because of all this business, The Committee's going to insist on everything going through them."

"I can live with that. Let's go in and ask them. Oh, and by the way, Bill, I'll need to have a word with M again. How's he doing?"

"Making Nurse Frobisher pretty miserable. You'll be a sight for her sore eyes."

"So shall I," said Flicka firmly. "If he's going to see M, then so am I."

"Whatever you both wish." Bill Tanner prided himself on being a diplomat, so he added that he had organized coffee and sandwiches for The Committee. "Shall we join them?"

As they reached the reading-room door, the new Chairman, Lord Harvey, came up the stairs. Tanner introduced Bond and Flicka.

"Ah, the man of the moment." Harvey was one of the younger peers. In his early forties, he was reckoned to be the catch of the year for any young girl who had aspirations to the upper crust. It was said that whoever married him would be forced to share Harvey with politics and government, as he was reputed to be one of the most able men on the Joint Intelligence Committee. "Glad to see you made it back in one piece. But you've caused me all kinds of problems. I've been reading reports since the crack of dawn. This fellow, Tarn? Is he really as black as he's painted?"

"Blacker, sir. But I think I know how to hook him."

"Really? Then you can be a great help to me here and now. Let's go in and I'll give you the floor."

The members of The Committee rose as they saw their new Chairman come through the door, and he made much of shaking hands with each of them before calling the meeting to order.

"Captain Bond has asked me to allow him to put a proposal to The Committee, so I've promised to let him speak to you first." He smiled his charming smile and gave a deferential bow to Bond.

"As you say, sir, I'd like to make some propositions to The Committee." Bond looked around him belligerently. "More important, I'd like to draw up an order of battle. I mink I know where friend Tarn has gone, and I'd like to follow him there and bring him back. Dead or alive, I don't really care which."