Death Is Forever

by John Gardner

  He drummed his little tattoo again. ‘No, I haven’t seen Weisen’s name in either the London or New York Times, let alone the Washington Post, or the news magazines. He’s gone missing, joined the lost boys of the old regime. Perhaps . . . ? And then again, perhaps?’ His face had come back into the light and his lips were now tilted into a sinister smile.

  Wolfgang Weisen, Bond thought, my God, there would be an enemy and a half. It was claimed by some that Markus Wolf was merely a figurehead for the more fanatical Weisen, born in Berlin of mixed parentage – Russian mother and German father – moved into Russia as a child, and returned to his native Germany after World War II.

  Just as there had never been a good photograph of Mischa Wolf, so there had never been even a good description of Weisen, only hearsay and double talk. Weisen, the Poison Dwarf of the East German intelligence and security services. A man who had learned his trade at the knees of some of the most vindictive in the business. Moscow-trained, ambitious, ruthless, a confirmed and unyielding Communist whose ties went back to Stalin himself. Weisen, the Communist zealot with the full, near-Jesuitical education from the true evil which had, at one time, overtaken the ideology of Marx and Lenin.

  Bond had studied the file, which maintained that, as a boy, little Wolfgang had spent time, quite a lot of time, at the ageing Stalin’s strange villa at Kuntsevo: the house which was constantly growing, yet had a ground floor of identically furnished rooms – each a combined sitting room and bedroom – where old Joseph Stalin would eke out his days sending death by a look, or even a thought that someone had betrayed him. Joseph Stalin, Lenin’s natural successor, who had warped and bent the system into a new dogma of terror.

  As Bond recalled it, the evidence told of the boy Wolfgang sitting with Stalin to watch the grim old dictator’s favourite Tarzan movies, over and over, again and again, the terrible man keeping up his own running commentary on the banalities. It was also said that Stalin had given the child private tuition on how to usurp power. Some, at that time, had seen this small, stunted boy as the crown prince of the macabre despot.

  The file also had a number of notes, based on firm intelligence, that the child, Wolfgang Weisen, had been a favourite of the awesomely depraved, utterly implacable Beria, head of the pre-KGB service. The man who sent his hatchet-men out onto the streets to pull in some fancied schoolgirl on whom the degenerate Lavrenti Beria would perform unthinkable sexual acts. Beria, the beast of Dzerzhinsky Square, Stalin’s first minister of horror.

  There were footnotes, not corroborated, that Weisen had inherited many of Beria’s traits and warped desires, together with Stalin’s illusory intuitions. What if Wolfgang the Terrible, as some of the experienced analysts called him, was loose and had Cabal in his sights?

  The thought again crossed Bond’s mind as he entered the pleasant luxury of the Kempi, with its restful tropical fish tanks and unhurried order. ‘Good day, Herr Boldman. It is good to have you back, Herr Boldman. Suite 207, Herr Boldman, if there is anything . . .’ and all the usual smiling warmth and willingness to please.

  Bond unpacked, stripped, showered – first scalding hot followed by cold – the bathroom door open and a view to the suite’s door unimpaired via the mirrored wall. He then towelled himself vigorously and, wrapped in the crested Kempi robe, stretched out on the bed. Easy St John was to go through a telephone code as soon as she arrived. Now he had nothing to do but think.

  The 9mm ASP automatic, which had travelled in the specially lined briefcase, lay under his pillow, and, while he would have given almost anything to allow sleep to fold him up, Bond put his mind on alert. Then, for the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours, he went over the facts again and tried to make some logical sense of the whole business.

  First, he thought about Easy St John. Though they had spent a great deal of intense time together, mostly in the company of M, and mainly poring over documents, Bond considered it would take a great deal longer for him to get used to her. Easy gave off the paradoxical characteristics of a career businesswoman – a brusque, know-it-all outer surface which could change in a second to charm and understanding. It was as though having reached her relatively exalted position within the American Service by dint of her own talents, she now claimed a certain reverence as her right. Bond knew where that kind of thinking could lead – a power base of isolation, which did nobody any good.

  He would have to work hard to bring her down to the full realisation that life in the field demanded more than simply talent and good training. His concern was that she might well be living a fantasy where playing by the book, which she obviously knew by heart, was enough to survive. There had been one incident, in particular, concerning the death of Eagle – Liz Cearns – which had made him doubly unsure of her.

  Before leaving London he had even confided in M, who had shown a certain amount of irritation. ‘She’s all we’ve got from the American Service,’ he spat, testily. ‘If necessary, you’ll have to train her on the fly, 007.’

  ‘She’s really a desk jockey who’s simply done the right courses, isn’t she, sir?’

  ‘Possibly. They’re reorganising at Langley, you know that. Trying to give more people real field experience.’

  ‘Sir, with respect, you don’t send a pilot who’s only flown simulators straight out in a jet fighter for real.’

  ‘Apparently the Americans do, 007. You’ll have to make the best of it.’

  M’s whole attitude told Bond that his Chief was as leery of Easy St John as he was. He had seen it before. M’s only concern was really the British side of the business, which meant he was trusting Bond with the lion’s share of the work.

  Now, lying on his bed in the Kempi, he wondered how much extra stress would be added in trying to keep a somewhat egocentric Easy out of trouble. In the end he decided to worry at it instead of about it, taking things a day at a time, an hour at a time, even – he contemplated gloomily – a minute at a time. From the Easy problem, he again went over the facts of Puxley’s and Cearns’ deaths.

  Cabal’s original case officers had both perished after speaking to supposedly loyal members of the network. The call from Oscar Vomberg, Mab, the scientist, had sent Puxley – Vanya – scurrying to his appointment with the Opel outside his hotel. The simple act of the telephone call had led, unmistakably, to the agent’s death by an outmoded KGB method.

  In Vomberg’s case they had studied the voice prints and looked over all the analytical evidence. The graphs showed that the caller was unequivocally Vomberg. So the only conclusion to be drawn amounted to him having been used, wittingly or unwittingly, as the trigger to the event outside the Frankfurter Hof Hotel. There was no room for any other theory.

  The same applied to Liz Cearns’ death. Just as Vomberg had pressed the button on Ford Puxley, so Praxi Simeon, Sulphur, appeared to have done the business with her old controller, Eagle. Once more, the voice analysts had been emphatic that Praxi’s voice had been the one on the telephone. So, Praxi’s call had prompted Cearns to change hotels, thereby setting herself up for what appeared to be a frankly old-fashioned and tricky form of death. A kind of death so precarious that even the old black heart of the KGB had last used it in 1958–9 against two targets in what was then West Germany.

  On that occasion, the assassin was a young man – KGB trained for these special assassinations. His name was Bogdan Stashinsky, and the work was done with a clumsy-looking pistol, in reality a tube with a trigger mechanism at one end. The tube was seven inches in length, and made up of three sections. The trigger and firing pin, within the first tube, ignited a powder charge in the middle section which, in turn, crushed a glass phial in the third section. The phial contained 5cc of hydro-cyanide.

  Fired a couple of inches from the victim’s face, the cyanide killed instantly and, supposedly, left no trace. The assassin, however, was also armed with a pill, which had to be ingested before the kill, and a further antidote in a glass capsule. It was necessary for the murderer to crush hi
s capsule between his teeth and inhale the antidote at the moment of firing the cyanide.

  The method was used twice, against anti-Soviet Ukrainian Nationalists living in Germany. The first murder went undetected, the victim being Lev Rebet, editor of the Ukrainian exile newspaper Ukrainski Samostinik. On October 10th, 1958, Stashinsky murdered Rebet as he was on his way to his office. The autopsy concluded that the victim had died of a coronary obstruction. Nobody suspected violence.

  In the following year Stashinsky used the same method on Ukrainian exile leader Stepan Bandera. But this time the autopsy yielded traces of poison in the brain. Eventually, Stashinsky – a reluctant assassin – gave himself up to the American Intelligence authorities. He was the centre of what amounted to a show trial, drew only eight years, and now lived happily ever after with his wife and family somewhere in Germany.

  After that there appeared to be no other murders using the cyanide pistol, until Liz Cearns took a face-full of the poison in her room at the Hotel Braun off the Ku’damm, and that worried Bond, who had studied the evidence and photographs with great care.

  Certainly Praxi appeared to have lured Eagle to the place of death, but the forensic and autopsy reports showed no further marks on the body. She had died lying stretched out on the hotel bed, clad only in provocative underwear. From the photographs she looked like a woman prepared and ready for intense sexual activity, and there was no reason to believe she had been placed in this position after death.

  It was as though she had eaten a piece of very rich cake, drunk two cups of coffee, let a lover into the room, prepared to make love to him, or her, and was then surprised as annihilation came to her, floating on a small cloud of vapour.

  Both M and Bond quizzed Easy St John for some time, for she seemed to have been a particular friend of the deceased case officer.

  ‘You said she had a lover in DC?’

  ‘Yes. Liz and I were . . . Well, we shared each other’s little secrets . . .’

  ‘That was all, just girl talk? You didn’t share any restricted information?’

  ‘Girl talk.’ Easy’s brow creased and her nose wrinkled into what was becoming a familiar gesture, used whenever she thought anyone was being unfair to her. ‘Liz was a first-class officer, and I pride myself that I would never have asked any question which might have made her uneasy. I would never have asked her about classified material which I had no need-to-know.’ This last spoken with an underlying confidence, as though she was saying how dare you even think I would have talked about restricted matters.

  ‘Tell us about the lover,’ M prodded.

  ‘He’s a lawyer. The Agency use him occasionally. He checks out. It was a great shock to him. I’d go as far as to say he was prostrate . . .’

  ‘Name?’ Bond asked.

  There was the slightest hesitation. Then, ‘Richards. Simon Richards. Robertson, Richards and Burns. A very old DC law office. As I said, it’s Agency connected.’

  ‘And you say she was a faithful lady?’

  ‘Utterly.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Again a pause. ‘Yes. I only remember . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘One small indiscretion. It must’ve been two years ago. She told me about it over lunch, in – oh, it must’ve been ’89. I know we lunched at Maison Blanche. I know that for sure. Just as I know she really felt bad about it: the little fling, I mean. You see, Liz was a girl who longed for marriage. They were going to be married, Liz and Simon. No doubt about that. She told me . . . I mean the words she used . . .’

  ‘She told you what?’

  ‘She used the words, “. . . my conscience has been seared. I feel dirty”.’

  ‘She felt dirty about one lapse?’

  Easy nodded. ‘She even wanted to tell Simon. I advised her to keep it to herself.’

  M nodded, and, in the silence that followed, Bond asked if the incident had taken place in Washington DC.

  ‘She had just come back from Europe. I suppose from her work with Cabal.’

  Bond and M exchanged looks which spoke entire encyclopaedias of doubt.

  ‘So the indiscretion took place in Europe.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Bond sighed. ‘Easy, why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?’

  ‘Because it was one time. A one-off. It happened once, and she was upset about it.’

  ‘It wasn’t one of those indiscretions some women claim were once, and it turns out to have been with the band of the Royal Marines?’

  ‘That’s offensive, Captain Bond. I find that most offensive.’

  ‘Okay, Easy, I’m sorry, but we have to know . . .’

  ‘She said it wouldn’t ever happen again.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Of course!’ High dudgeon, and very defensive.

  ‘Easy,’ Bond said quietly. ‘You don’t know for certain. You can’t know for certain.’

  ‘Liz was an honourable . . .’

  ‘Honour has nothing to do with need, Easy. Have you never been faced with a situation like this – I don’t mean sex – any situation?’

  ‘No. If I say I’m not going to do something again, I don’t do it. Liz was like that also.’

  ‘Did she mention the lover’s name?’

  ‘Not really. Hans, or Franz, something like that. No family name. He was German.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Bond had sighed. This was yet another nail in Easy’s coffin of inexperience, and it left him even more unhappy about working in a very dangerous area with her.

  Yet Liz Cearns was very experienced. Would she fall for one of the oldest tricks in the game? The reverse honeytrap? The use of what was known, in the business, as the joy-boy syndrome. Bond just did not know, but the whole thing made him very dubious about Ms Easy St John and her conception of honour, not to mention her blind belief in people she liked.

  He rose from the bed and walked over to the mirror, looking at his reflection: wondering, for a second, if death would come to him in some unexpected and absurd manner. For what could be worse than meeting your end as you reached up to enfold a lover in your arms?

  He dressed. Razor-creased slacks, a Turnbull & Asser shirt, with a Royal Navy tie, and a tailored blazer that did not even show a lump where he carried the ASP, tucked into his waistband behind his right hip.

  Easy should have arrived by now. As soon as she checked in with him, he would go down and have dinner. They did wonderful smoked salmon at the Kempi, he remembered. Also the Beef Wellington was out of this world.

  He was standing in front of the mirror again, adjusting the set of his tie, when the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello?’ He expected it to be Easy, so was ready for her code sequence.

  ‘James?’

  ‘Yes?’ Oddly perturbed because she was supposed to ask for Jim Goldfarb.

  ‘I’m in 202. I think you’d better get over here quickly.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She should at least give him the word ‘particular’ if something was amiss. Instead, ‘Just come straight away. It’s urgent.’

  Her voice sounded level, and he detected no fear. Touching the ASP like a talisman, he left the suite and went down the corridor to 202, knocking at the door.

  ‘It’s open,’ she called out and he gently pushed the door.

  ‘Won’t be a moment, James.’ She only raised her voice slightly from behind the half-open bathroom door.

  Then, as he kicked the main door closed behind him, she appeared in the doorway, her face grey with fear. A man stood behind her, his arm around her throat.

  He was tall, in his early sixties, with thin grey hair swept back from his forehead. He wore thick pebble glasses, was unshaven and looked as though he had slept in the shapeless brown suit which hung off his body making him look as if he had suddenly suffered a severe weight loss.

  Easy St John was held and pushed in front of him like a shield, his left arm pulling her head back, forcing her forward, whil
e his right hand, thrust in front of her body, held a nasty little IMI Desert Eagle automatic – the 0.44 Magnum variety, Bond thought. Not that it would make much difference, the Israelis had produced a handgun that would stop a target with either version at this range.

  ‘Forgive me,’ the man said, looking oddly distorted by the thick spectacles which made his eyes seem huge. ‘You are the new Vanya, I understand.’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean, friend. Why not let the lady go? It isn’t easy to carry out a reasonable conversation when someone’s waving one of those things around.’

  ‘I wish to remain alive.’ He had a thick accent. Originally Munich, Bond thought, though he was no Professor Higgins as far as German dialect went.

  ‘I think we all want to do that.’

  ‘Then you will kindly sit down, please.’ The eye of the Desert Eagle flicked towards a chair. He knew how to handle the weapon, bad eyesight or not.

  Bond obeyed and sat with his right arm across the back of the chair, a little repro Venetian eighteenth century, with a carved and polychromed back. The seat was blue velvet. In fact blue was the pick-up colour of the room, neatly done to include a very good copy of Cézanne’s Blue Vase over the fake fireplace.

  ‘So,’ Easy’s captor had swivelled her to face the seated Bond. ‘So, you are the new Vanya, yes? And this is the new Eagle?’

  ‘What did you tell him, my dear?’ Bond forced a smile.

  ‘Nothing!’ She tried to shake her head, but the man with the bottle glasses and the Desert Eagle pistol pressed in on her neck and made it impossible.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he allowed his hand to drop behind him, casually floating down his back, feeling for the butt of the ASP. ‘Tell you what. You let us have your name and we might trade some secrets with you. How about it?’

  He seemed to be thinking it over, opening his mouth and then closing it a couple of times.

  ‘Okay,’ Bond smiled. His fingertips touched the metal under his jacket. ‘Let’s make it easier. I’ll tell you who you are. Right?’

  He saw the man’s grip relax a fraction.

  ‘I think you’re the world-famous, mind-bending drugs doctor known as Oscar Vomberg; sometimes called Ulricht Voss, and using another alias – Mab. I also think you are responsible for the death of a friend of mine. You knew him as Vanya, yes?’