by John Gardner
Jack Wade grunted, then assumed his role of tour guide.
"Welcome to the shopping mall of death. The wild East
This, for Russia, is capitalism's finest hour. One size maims all, and everyone can make a killing. Kinda like East LA, right?"
"I'm happy to say I've never been to East LA."
"Well, good for you, James.
Hang on, we turn right at the top of this nice little market place.
Zukovsky has a joint here, at the end of the street." He pointed to what appeared to be the entrance of a night club. "By ten at night, this place is really jumping, but your old friend does his business by day.' He turned right into the alley which seemed to be deserted.
"Your best way in is through any of the doors on this side. Just get in and follow the smell.
You'll find him soon enough." He pulled over to the kerb, and Bond was out of the car and into the shadow of a doorway long before Wade had even put the car in gear.
The wall, and the doors, made the place look like an abandoned warehouse, but he had seen many places like this: shells built around existing, well constructed places.
He reached for his wallet, and pressed hard on one of the metal protective edges. A secret compartment opened up to disclose an entire set of lock-picking tools. He wondered if Valentin Zukovsky was still as careful about locks as he used to be, back in the bad old days when he worked for the KGB. At that time, Zukovsky had a mania for unbeatable locks and the most sophisticated electronic alarm systems.
It seemed that his old adversary had lost his cunning.
Bond was through the door and making his way silently up the stairs in three minutes flat. Above, in the distance, he could hear someone singing just off-key enough to be grating on the nerves.
Valentin Zukovsky was big: tall, broad shouldered and with an elephantine girth. He had a moon face, so much so that people said he must be related somehow because he had all the craters and pock marks to go with it.
His club, which was simply known as Valentin's, was luxurious in an old-fashioned, red plush, gold-fringed manner. At this moment there were several people sitting around obviously doing business of one kind or another.
Judging by the type of people talking as low as they could, the business was, if not criminal, certainly bordering on the breaking of laws.
Zukovsky wore a creased and crumpled white suit which looked a size too big for him until he stood up and revealed that its voluminousness was necessary for his bulk.
Half-a-dozen scantily dressed young women waited on tables and pointed out certain favours they could bestow if you ordered from the reverse side of the menu. The most innocent of these was a normal massage.
On a raised dais at one end of the room, another young woman, very attractive and clad in red sequins, battled with "Raining in Baltimore' by Counting Crows, but she could not quite make the song come to life.
It was possible that, apart from being hampered by not being able to carry a melody, she did not understand the words.
Zukovsky had spent the past hour with a reedy-looking, ferret-faced Pakistani arms dealer of very doubtful provenance. They closed no deals, and the Pakistani was just about to leave when Zukovsky suddenly focused his attention on a small TV monitor, about the size of a playing card, set into the table where he always sat.
The monitor gave out a tiny beep and the picture came on. Zukovsky glanced down, then did a double-take as he saw who had entered by picking a lock to one of the side doors. He smiled as the picture followed the intruder slowly up the stairs, and his smile became almost benevolent.
Lazily, he gestured to a man who had the makings of a pair of gorillas, and said something to him. He then stood and walked with his lumbering limp towards a pair of red velvet curtains to the right of the dais where the singer was losing her battle with the song.
He passed through the curtains and showed no surprise when the muzzle of an automatic pistol was laid coldly on his neck, just behind the ear.
"Ah,' he breathed as though in a kind of bliss. "I know only three men who have used that particular brand of firearm, and I've personally killed two of them."
"That's lucky for me, then, Valentin,' James Bond whispered.
He did not even sense the other man until it was too late. A blackjack came down with a soft thud and Bond fell into the darkness of unconsciousness.
"No, not lucky for you, Mr. Bond,' Zukovsky purred.
Coming back to consciousness was like dredging his way through mud. He was aware of someone talking, and knew what had happened long before he allowed his body to reveal that he was back among the living.
It was one of those tricks Bond had learned over the years. If you regain consciousness with your captors nearby, hold back; assess the situation before doing anything.
He heard Zukovsky giving orders, and decided there were at least four people in the room. In the background he could hear the off-key singer trying to get through "Memories He stirred, shook his head violently and looked around.
He was not restrained in any way, and sat in an overstuffed armchair that had seen better days.
Valentin Zukovsky straddled a chair in front of him and there were at least three of his men in the room. Away in the club, the red sequined girl was murdering LloydWebber.
Valentin's face split into a wide and happy grin. "So, here we are, the great Mr. James Bond: dashing, sophisticated secret agent. I'm tempted to be melodramatic and say, so, we meet again." He chuckled and his men followed his lead, taking their cue from the boss.
"The great James Bond,' he laughed again, and the chorus joined in. "Shaken not stirred, Mr. Bond?" In the background, the singer hit a particularly terrible high note. "Who's strangling the cat?" Bond asked.
Zukovsky's initial response was to unholster a pistol and put a shot directly between Bond's legs. A jagged gash speared through the leather upholstery, and dirty white stuffing flew into the air as Bond pressed himself back in the armchair.
"That's my mistress, Irena." Zukovsky halted the pistol as though tempted to put another shot after the first, but slightly higher.
"And a very talented girl she is, Irena." Bond smiled innocently, and Zukovsky seemed to relent, raising his voice and shouting, "Irena!
Take a hike!" The warbling stopped, followed by a number of Russian obscenities and the sound of Irena's shoes clicking off into the distance.
Zukovsky winced at the fast and angry tap of the footsteps. Then he turned his attention back to Bond.
"So, what is it that brings you into my neighbourhood, Mr. Bond?
Still working for the Secret Intelligence Service? Or have you decided to drag yourself into the twenty-first century?" The moon face looked almost friendly. "Incidentally, I hear that your new boss is a girl.
She send you to see me?"
"No, I came to you to ask a favor." Zukovsky chuckled again and turned to his bodyguards "He wants me to do him a favor.
They all chuckled, and Bond thought they might be taking their lines from an ancient B movie.
"Bond,' this time he was not looking so benign, "my knee aches every day. Twice as much when it's cold, and do you realise how long winter can be in this part of the world?" He snapped his fingers at one of the thugs. "Tell him, Dimitri." The large bodyguard began to mumble, revealing that he was not blessed with a high 10.
Zukovsky sighed and shut off Dimitri's muttering with a withering look.
Bond fixed his eyes on his old adversary. "You know, Valentin, for an ex-KGB man you sometimes surprise me.
Surely, someone of your stature must have realised the skill wasn't to hit your knee, but to miss the rest of you." Some twenty seconds went by before Zukovsky took it in. "So why did you not kill me?"
"Let's call it a professional courtesy.
Zukovsky lifted his big head and growled, "Then I should return the courtesy." The pistol came up and he fired, the bullet slamming into the chair about half an inch from Bond's right knee.
&n
bsp; "Kirov's Funeral Parlour. Four o'clock this afternoon, Bond spoke very quickly as though trying to beat a second bullet.
"Really?" The Russian slowly untangled himself from his chair. "I think we'd better talk about this in privacy." After the red plush and velvet of Zukovsky's club, his office was a surprise: neat, modern furniture and filing cabinets; a computer on a large uncluttered desk and coffee brewing in a big state-of-the-art coffee machine.
He gestured Bond into a chair and filled two cups of coffee. "If my memory serves, you take it black with no sugar.
"Your memory's very good."
"Like you, James Bond, my memory was for many years one of my most important weapons.
Above the desk was a framed portrait of KGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square. Bond nodded at it. "You still cling to the old days, Valentin."
"It's still Moscow Centre." He settled himself behind his desk. "The Americans have a saying, "what goes around comes around".' "True enough.
"I have a firm belief that we'll all be back in business within a decade. Political ideologies do not die so easily, nor are they simply rubbed out by a declaration. Now, what's this about Kirov's funeral parlour?"
"Two hundred pounds of C-4 explosive, hidden in a coffin.
Your man drives the hearse in, the money changes hands, their man drives the hearse out."
"So?"
"So, their man is going to be arrested and the explosives will be seized. Armed with this knowledge, your man can make a miraculous escape with the money intact. You have time to warn him, and I promise you this is going to happen. Also, if certain people don't hear from me by three this afternoon, it all goes down the drain. Explosives, their man, your man and the cash." Zukovsky's big head nodded. "So, what do I owe for this piece of information?"
"Very little. I want you to set me up with Janus." The Russian made a little noise, half grunt half laugh.
"And what's Janus done to deserve you?"
"He stole a helicopter."
"I have six.
"You have three, and none of them fly." Zukovsky laughed. "Who's counting?"
"Valentin,' Bond was serious now. "These people aren't simply criminals. They're traitors. They used that helicopter to steal a nuclear space weapon. They also killed a number of quite innocent people while they were at it."
"What else can you expect from a Cossack?"
"Who?"
"This Janus. I've never met him, but I do know what he is - a Lienz Cossack."
"The Cossacks who fought for Hitler against the Russians in what you called the Great Patriotic War?"
"And you call World War II? Yes, you know your history. When the war was over, the Lienz Cossacks were captured by the British in Germany. They expected to join the British forces and go to war again to obliterate the communists. Instead, the British betrayed them. They were sent back to Stalin, who promptly executed them.
Wives, children, the entire families."
"That's a rather simplistic view, but basically it wasn't exactly our finest hour."
"You're right, of course. The plain, cut and dried story is simplistic. They were a ruthless people. In the end they got what they deserved. The families were the innocents though. Now, Janus?"
"I'd like you to contact him.
You must have ways. Let him know that it's me, and that I'm asking around about the helicopter. You could, possibly, say that we're meeting at the Grand Hotel Europe tonight. Might just drag him out.' "And you and I are even, while he'll owe me one.
"Precisely." Valentin Zukovsky rose and limped to the door. "If you're ever contemplating a change of career, let me know.
At the door, Bond said, "With people like you around, Valentin, I think I'll always find work."
Natalya's watch had stopped when the pulse of the nuclear explosion had hit at the Severnaya Station. She discovered the fact while on the train to St. Petersburg, and it had deeply saddened her, for the watch was of great sentimental value. Her parents had gone without a number of luxuries to purchase it as a gift before she went to university. It would have been easy for Natalya to buy a new one at the hard currency shop, but somehow she did not want to part with it. Maybe she could find a watchmaker who would repair it for her. In the meantime she would rely on public clocks, for the watch felt somehow comforting strapped to her wrist
On the previous evening she had found a small hotel off Tchaikovsky Street which did not require to see passports and any other identification as long as you paid, in advance, with hard currency.
The fact that the salaries at the Severnaya Station were issued in American dollars, a great incentive to remain silent about the work, had become the one most important method of survival - and she thanked God for it.
She had slept late, checked out of the hotel and walked the streets, visiting places which interested her, in order to get through the day. The first thing she did was to go and walk past the church of Our Lady of Smolensk - a tiny blue-painted Orthodox church, out near the Smolny Institute. There she discovered that she had started to think like a criminal, or at least a fugitive, for she checked the exits and entrances, together with all the adjacent streets and alleys.
At around ten minutes to six that evening she was back, looking at the church from the outside. Once more she walked around the building before venturing inside.
It was a little jewel, with icons that took her breath away. Just being in the church stirred her emotions. She did not know if she believed in God, or all the other things associated with the Russian Orthodox Christian religion, but, once inside, with the scent of incense in her nostrils she had a great desire to pray.
She walked slowly down the centre aisle to a large icon of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Smolensk, slid a bill into the little box and lit a votive candle, then she knelt to pray.
She prayed for her parents, for the souls of all her friends who had died at Severnaya Station. Then she prayed for herself and a deliverance from the danger in which she now found herself. Nobody had ever taught her to pray, but it came naturally to her, like walking or speaking to a friend. Lastly she added that God's will should be done, then realised that she had been inside the church for a good ten to fifteen minutes. Boris had not shown up and panic leaped into her head like some terrible vision. She began to question everything. Had Boris been caught? Had he led her into a trap?
The panic deepened and she moved back up the aisle towards the west door. Halfway up the aisle she stopped, turning quickly. Was that a noise? Soft footsteps from behind? She saw the flames of votive candles in front of the icon moving, as though someone had passed by them quickly.
The fear gripped her again; she turned towards the door and began to run. Straight into someone who had slipped into the church.
"Natalya!" said Boris.
"Boris!" Her heart was pounding. "Boris, what's...
He put a finger to his lips. "Quick. Come with me. There isn't much time." He grabbed at her hand, and for a second she remained uncertain, pulling away, then finally going with him, feeling his arm circle her shoulder as he led her towards a curtain to the right of the icon of Our Lady of Smolensk.
He still held her tightly as they pushed through the curtain, then stopped.
For a split second she could not believe it. She looked at Boris and then at the woman, Xenia Onatopp, who stood just inside the curtain, looking like some terrible harbinger of death.
She tried to shake herself free, felt the needle stab through her clothing into her right shoulder, saw the world spinning, and the terrifying face of Xenia, mouth open as though she wished to devour her. Then darkness.
Boris grinned at Xenia. "Silly little goose,' he said.
"Let's get her in the car. I've got another appointment,' Xenia spoke with an undisguised relish.
There is a spa in the basement of the Grand Hotel Europe, designed in some way similar to those Turkish baths that used to be found in London and New York. The only difference was that this spa's designers seemed to
have dug into the roots of Russian decor, after the old style, rather than any approximation of Turkey.
In what was once the old Soviet Union, you only found one type of chandelier, in various sizes, as though the State had a monopoly on design - which, of course, was true. Those same standard chandeliers lingered on, elsewhere there were fluted pillars, beautifully carved marble, red plush seats and hangings. There was also an unusually high scent of chlorine in the air.
During the evening you could often find many businessmen swimming in the luxurious pool, or reclining in one of the big steam rooms. In spite of the chlorine it was an admirable place to relax and unwind after a long hard day.
Bond was glad that he had got in before anyone else.
He wanted to swim and steam away the day's tensions on his own.
That was why he had carefully hung a Closed for Cleaning sign on the main door at the top of the steps leading down to the pool area.
There were other reasons. He wanted to be alone in the hope that Janus would take up the bait. To this end he had checked out the changing rooms and the steam rooms, particularly the big one decorated with beautiful tiling, the steam billowing and hot around him. As he knifed through the water, his mind began to focus on the events of the day, of his reunion with Zukovsky and the short telephone conversation he had initiated with Jack Wade. Zukovsky had taken up the offer regarding the explosives deal, the large amount of plastique was now in the hands of the authorities, and the money had safely reached Valentin. In turn, this almost certainly meant that Janus, by now, would have his sights on Bond, the tethered sacrificial goat.
He executed a fast racing turn and streaked through the water, breathing naturally and swimming with ease. He felt good. He felt even better as he emerged at the end of the pool close to the columned entrance to the big steam bath. The clouds of steam were moving, wafting, reforming as though a ghost had passed through.
