Bond examined the tip of his cigarette. ‘What guarantee have I that he’ll let me go once he’s got me there?’
‘Oh, you have his word for that. The word of a colonel-general in the KGB.’
There was silence in the saloon of the Altair. Then Bond and Litsas exploded into laughter.
‘Did I do it well?’ asked Ariadne eagerly. ‘Did I have you fooled any of the time?’
Bond put his arms round her and kissed her cheek. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid not. You’ll never make a proper spy; you’re too honest. We could tell you were hating every word you said and despising the whole thing for being so unbelievable. A very poor performance all round.’
‘That chap seems to be raving mad.’ Litsas was pouring ouzo for the three of them. ‘What was he thinking? You told him the whole story, I suppose?’
‘Everything. He didn’t believe me. Oh, he believed the part about Mr Gordienko because even a moron like myself wouldn’t tell a lie he could check out. But the rest was that James was smooth-talking me to help him fight some gangsters so that he could try to blow up this conference. He wouldn’t succeed, of course, because the general’s precautions are so marvellous, but the man Bond is a dangerous criminal’ – she mimicked Arenski’s accent scornfully – ‘and might be a nuisance. I had to pretend to go along with him or I would not have gotten away myself.’
‘In other words,’ said Bond, ‘he went on as if he’d decided not to believe you as soon as he set eyes on you.’
Ariadne nodded vigorously. ‘Right. I was exactly the person he couldn’t believe. I’m Greek, so I’m backward and stupid and a peasant. Then I’m a woman.’
‘Oh, he’s …’ – Litsas gestured – ‘one of the boys, is he?’
‘Yes: you should have seen the look he gave Yanni. You ask him. Well, also I’m middle-class, so I’m a sentimental idiot, who can’t understand politics. And finally I’m GRU and Arenski’s KGB.’
‘Yes, that would certainly make you enemies,’ said Litsas dryly. ‘It must.’
Bond grinned. ‘The GRU is the Intelligence agency of the Red Army, Niko. They go in for regular spying too. That brings them up against the other lot, the KGB. They’re the secret police and much larger and more powerful. There’s quite a bit of rivalry there.’
‘Rivalry!’ said Ariadne with a snort. ‘Jealousy and hate. A private cold war. You remember Oleg Penkovski, the GRU colonel who spied for the West with that English businessman Greville Wynne, and committed suicide in prison in 1965. Yes,’ she went on as Bond looked up quickly, ‘the official story is that he was shot in ’63, but really they were keeping him in the hope of using him in a conspiracy against the Americans. Then by poisoning himself he escaped them after all. Anyway, everybody in the capitalist countries wondered why he became a spy – it wasn’t money, you see. All of us in the GRU know that Penkovski was having revenge on the KGB, getting back at them the only way he could for what they’d done to him and his friends and …’
Ariadne checked herself. Bond gave her a sardonic glance and chain-lit another cigarette.
‘Well, no help from the general,’ he said. ‘In fact we must keep out of his way. We’ve learnt that much.’
‘More. A survivor from the cruiser is in the hospital here. Arenski’s going to check on him.’
Bond and Litsas exchanged a glance. ‘So he was picked up after all, James. Interesting.’
‘That’s about as much as you can say. We haven’t the resources to watch him and find out who goes to see him and I can’t believe he’s any threat to us. Von Richter is our lead. Where do we start looking?’
‘The harbour. Always the harbour. We can be safe there for a short time and we must get some food, real food, hot food, meat, not these meals of a shepherd. And I’d like to refuel; the range of this tub is only a couple of hundred miles. Off we go, then.’
Litsas drained his glass and disappeared in the direction of the engine-room. Bond glanced at Ariadne. The girl’s light-brown eyes were veiled and the firm Grecian mouth drooped at the corners. He put his hand gently on the back of her neck. ‘What is it, Ariadne?’
‘Oh, darling, I’m so depressed. A big operation like this and they put that man in charge of Security, a fat little fairy, a … a monster of complacency. At least they were competent before. What’s happened?’
‘I could read you a lecture about bureaucracy and how promoting people for political reasons means not getting the best people, but I’ll spare you that. Forget it. Rely on Niko and me. And yourself. We’ll do what Arenski couldn’t.’
Ariadne nestled against him. Bond grinned to himself. Not the least oddity of this adventure was finding himself promising a Soviet agent that Soviet interests would be safeguarded. If ever M heard about that, he would –
The engine caught and Bond’s mind shut down.
The main harbour of Vrakonisi, though comparatively small, is one of the best in the southern Aegean, safe and comfortable in any weather except a southerly gale, which is uncommon in these waters. Most volcanic islands rise too steeply out of the sea to afford decent anchorages – the bay of Santorini, for instance, is over a thousand feet deep, and you must tie up to the shore or to a communal buoy – but a primeval disturbance of the sea-bed has tilted part of Vrakonisi northward, reducing the angle of its cliffs and providing a shallow strip up to eighty yards or so from the shore. This area is bounded by two short moles, the western one visibly dating back to Venetian times. Here, after refuelling the Altair moored.
Bond stood on the mole in the brilliant sunshine, waiting for the others to join him and looking about. There was plenty to see. The basin to his right was full of small craft: yachts, fishing-boats, transport vessels (most of Vrakonisi’s needs have to be supplied by water), and a fleet of the little twenty- and thirty-footers necessary to an island where roads are few and bad and many inhabited places are virtually inaccessible except from the sea. Ahead, a row of small buildings lined the waterfront. At the near end were whitewashed cottages with blue or tan shutters and doors, then a grocery, a ship’s supplier, harbour offices, a tavérna with a faded green awning. No neon, no cars, no souvenir shops. Not yet.
Litsas and Ariadne came ashore and the three moved off towards the bustle of the little port. From behind it the faltering zigzag of a dirt road led to the dazzling white scatter of the town, built on and around half a dozen minor crests at four or five hundred feet. And everywhere – apart from the slopes of an isolated limestone peak standing against the sky, older even than the volcano itself – ran the fantastic horizontal bands of igneous rock, black lava, porous white and yellow tufa, harder, more violently coloured strata of crimson, royal purple, seaweed-green. Vrakonisi is an unforgettable sight, but strange, even disturbing, rather than beautiful, in some way out of key with human habitation. The legend Bond had heard from Ariadne came irrepressibly to his mind. It struck him now as in one sense truer than any geological chronicle could be, in that it expressed the almost supernatural awe which any serious attempt to visualize so gigantic an upheaval must inspire.
They had a late lunch of fish soup made with plenty of lemon-juice, and half a dozen each of the admirable little quail-sized birds that fall to the gun all over Greece at this time of the year, accompanied by a sensible modicum of retsina. Litsas refused coffee and took himself off, explaining he must visit the harbourmaster’s office, not merely to stay within the law by presenting Altair’s papers there, but to keep his ears open and drop a few carefully-framed questions in that centre of island gossip.
He was back within the hour. The brown eyes were snapping and the mouth compressed in a kind of mirthless downward smile. One glance at him showed that he had news.
With a flourish he sat down, called for coffee now, and leant forward over interlaced fingers. ‘Two points,’ he said in a lowered voice. ‘I believe I have traced von Richter. A mysterious Dutchman who’s calling himself Vanderveld and says he’s studying rocks has taken a cottage near the eastern
tip of the island. He has with him another man, a young one, also supposed to study rocks. It wasn’t difficult to find this out. Von Richter hasn’t tried very much to hide himself. He dined at this tavérna last evening. Of course, he didn’t think he could be recognized. I think he was never within a hundred miles of here during the Occupation. We’ve had good luck.’
Bond frowned. ‘Niko – forgive me, but how do we know we have the right man? A description can’t really –’
‘My dear chap, I have some sense. Von Richter has a special mark. He has got a blast from a gun in the face. The gases from the muzzle have given him a bad burn on the left side of the head. That ear was damaged, and the skin near it, and he lost some hair for always. Our friend the Dutchman who likes rocks has the same thing. Enough?’
‘I’m prepared to go along with it, yes.’ Although he spoke coolly, Bond felt a surge of excitement. All day his restlessness at the lack of action had been sharpened by the fear that the right way to action might never be found, that the three of them might be ignominiously and hopelessly reduced to spending the crucial night in the offing of the islet, ready to pit the Altair and a rifle and tommy-gun against whatever mass-assassination weapon the Chinese had in store. Now at any rate they had a meaningful next step. But there was something else first. ‘What was the second point?’
‘Oh yes.’ Litsas drained his coffee and chased it with ice-water. ‘It would be useless to ask at the hospital. Our man walked out of it as soon as they’d bandaged him. On his way down into the town he met a farmer on a mule and he made him tie his shoes up. The farmer offered him a ride on the mule, but he said he would walk. Some people in the town asked him to stop and rest, but he wouldn’t. Everybody’s talking about it and saying the farmer should have made the man go back to the hospital. Anyway, the thing is that when last seen, this chap was walking to the west. Where the Russians are having their meeting on the islet. The opposite direction to von Richter’s hide-out. What do you make from that?’
‘Two hide-outs,’ said Bond, gazing at the scrubbed boards of the table. A memory was stirring, pushing feebly at the threshold of his consciousness. Something small, something recent. To grope for it was no good, he knew; to thrust it away might double its pressure, force it in the end to break through. He went on, ‘They’ll join forces soon. Tonight; they can’t leave it any later. The business end of the operation is presumably in the western part of the island rather than the east, so it must be von Richter who’ll be making a move. The question is how. This house he’s taken, Niko: is there a road to it or a path or anything, do you know?’
‘Above the house there are some vine-terraces, but you must climb a cliff to reach them. Not impossible, but very hard. I think we can forget that. He’ll move by water.’
‘So we watch the place from the Altair and follow him when he comes out,’ said Ariadne briskly. ‘Obvious.’
Litsas made a face. ‘That will be damn tricky, my dear. If we’re near enough to see we’re near enough to be seen. I can’t see how to help that. We’re somebody who just happens to be passing? Then he waits until we pass. Very, very tricky indeed.’
‘So we dowse our lights.’
‘The moon’ll be up.’
‘I saw him!’ said Bond suddenly. They looked at him. ‘Not von Richter, the man from the hospital. This morning, while we were waiting for you to come back, Ariadne. He was scrambling down the hillside in a clumsy sort of way, as if he were injured. From where he was he might have been making for any one of half a dozen houses along that shore. But we know the area now.’
‘How can you know he was that chap?’ asked Litsas.
‘I’d bet anything you like. I remember asking myself what could be so urgent that it would make an obviously handicapped man undertake a bloody awful ordeal like that. It was him all right, going to report to his lords and masters.’
‘But that’s the northern shore.’ Litsas still seemed dissatisfied. ‘You can’t even see the islet from there.’
‘And they can’t see you. We’ve no hope of understanding that part of it at this stage. What we have got is what to do next. We go off now and sail past that part of the coast at a discreet distance and find somewhere to …’
Litsas’s expression changed and his body grew rigid. His hand on Bond’s forearm felt like heavy metal. He said in a strangled undertone, ‘He’s here. Herr Hauptmann Ludwig von Richter. To your right, James. Coming out of the grocer’s. You can look at him. They still stare at the foreigners in these parts.’
Bond turned his head casually and at once caught sight of the German about twenty yards away. In sports shirt and shorts, a bulging shopping-bag in his hand, the man was looking over his shoulder and laughing, sharing some joke with the grocer. His companion, a fair-haired youngster carrying a wine-jar, grinned amiably. Between them they made an attractive picture of holiday high spirits, innocence, relaxation. Then von Richter faced his front and Bond saw the livid patch of skin round the ear and the dark hairless region above it. Chatting lightheartedly, the pair turned away and moved off along the quay. ‘Going home,’ said Litsas. ‘I’ll just stroll along and have a look at their boat. Might help us later.’
He left. Ariadne said, ‘James, one thing puzzles me. With plenty of others. Why do they want this guy along? He always might be recognized. What’s so special about him that they must have him?’
‘A good point. I suppose he might have done some work for them before. Then he’s an ex-army man. That could have its uses all right.’
Ariadne nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then you’re thinking of some sort of gun. A gun on the land more likely than the sea?’
‘Oh God, there’s no knowing at this stage. Land diversion, sea attack, the other way round. Anything.’
Another thoughtful nod, but one that suggested a private train of reasoning being pursued. ‘There are millions of ex-army men. This one’s an atrocity expert. That’s what’s so special about him. But why must they have one? And that gun still bothers me. How could you get anything big enough up that slope? And how was it brought here? Perhaps there’s a sort of gun that –’
‘Atomics,’ said Bond grimly. ‘Close-support type. That would be portable enough. At the moment I can’t think of any feasible alternative.’
The thought silenced them both until Litsas returned.
‘A biggish dinghy thing with an outboard motor,’ he reported. ‘They’re casting off now – we’ll give ’em five minutes.’
‘There’s a matter we can settle in those five minutes,’ said Bond. ‘Yanni.’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, we’ve got to pay him off now, haven’t we? We shan’t get another chance.’
Litsas considered. ‘I know we said we’d do that, but must we, the way things have turned out? He’s good with the knife. And he’s jolly useful on board. He can stay out of the really bad part.’
‘Look, Niko.’ Bond faced the other man squarely. ‘Yanni is going. Right away. The kid’s got a family, I suppose, parents? Well, how’s anybody going to face them if Yanni’s damaged or killed? And there are other ways of being damaged than just physically. Enough has happened to Yanni already on this trip.’
‘I didn’t think of that,’ said Litsas, looking crestfallen and self-reproachful now. ‘Of course you’re right. There’s a chap I know just along there who will go to Piraeus late this evening. I’ll fix it up with him.’
Ten minutes later, after a brisk exchange of handshakes, Yanni had been dropped and the Altair was standing out from the port. In one of those mental film-clips that the memory sometimes records at such moments, Bond registered everything around him in all its hard-edged clarity.
Astern were the gay variegated tints of the harbour, sails, awnings, flags of a dozen nations and freshly-painted hulls showing among a dense thicket of masts, and above all this the natural colours of Vrakonisi itself, no less diverse, but grim and ancient, giant washes and scribblings on a raw pile of rock with a life-span
measured in millions of years. To Bond’s right Litsas was at the wheel, dark eyes narrowed, brown hands easing the bows round to starboard; to the left Ariadne stood poised like a statue, clothed marble, fine tendrils of tawny hair blowing forward above her ears in the evening breeze. And ahead, the sun going down like a fat incandescent orange and a hint of lead entering the steely brightness of the enormous sea.
15
‘WALK, MISTER BOND’
Bond sat on the moonlit hillside two hundred feet above water-level and longed for a cigarette. He had found a lump of granite the size of a golf-hut which gave him shadow and something to lean his back against. It was not a perfect observation post but it was the best that could have been hoped for after a hurried visual reconnaissance from the deck of the Altair just before the daylight went. Stationed at a roughly central point above and behind the five scattered houses marked down earlier as possible headquarters of the enemy, he had a direct view of two, could see a third by moving fifty yards to his left, and had a clear enough grasp of the positions of the fourth and fifth to make it impossible for von Richter’s boat, even if it approached unlit, to put people ashore without giving away their destination.
For the moment all seemed in order. While sailing past they had spotted a tiny beach no bigger than a billiard-table, with what was evidently a climbable outlet to the steep slopes above. Down there, after a lot of grumbling, Litsas had agreed to remain and watch developments from a lower angle, the dinghy hauled up behind a tongue of rock that would, by night at any rate, mask it from seaward observation. The Altair, with an even more rebellious Ariadne on board, was a mile and a half away on the southern coast, tied up at the quay of a fishing village among a dozen other boats of similar build, the best camouflage available.
Though most of the time the silence was immense, it was not altogether unbroken. Until an hour before, a wireless or gramophone in the nearest house had been playing snatches of bouzouki music, that curious amalgam of conventional Western harmonies and Slav, Turkish and Arab rhythms and turns of phrase, a style in which the best singers, with their broken, complaining intonation, can blend together harshness, sexual excitement and desolate sorrow. Now the exotic melodies had faded and the house they came from was in darkness, but its neighbour was still lit up and an occasional snatch of talk or laughter drifted up to Bond on the warm air. Once or twice he had heard the wavering, chilly call of an owl from the crags above him and, immeasurably far off in the direction of the town, the clink of a goat-bell. Otherwise nothing.
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