Icebreaker jb-18

by John E. Gardner

  Bond tore his eyes from the painting to look at the man behind the desk. The same weatherbeaten countenance, severe military bearing – even when seated – and well-groomed, iron-grey hair. The face was not that of an old man; Count von Glöda was, as Bond had already noted at the hotel, a man blessed with ageless features – classic, still good looking, but with eyes which held no twinkle of pleasure. At the moment they were turned on Bond as though their owner were merely measuring the man for his coffin.

  ‘I’ve only seen photographs of it,’ Bond said calmly in return. ‘I didn’t like them, so it follows that, if this is the real thing, I don’t really care for it either.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You should address the Count as Führer.’ The advice came from Brad Tirpitz, who sprawled comfortably in an easy chair near the desk.

  Bond had ceased to be surprised by anything. The fact that Tirpitz was also part of the conspiracy caused him merely to smile and give a little nod, as though suggesting he should have known the truth in the first place.

  ‘You managed to avoid the land mine after all, then?’ Bond succeeded in making it sound matter-of-fact.

  Tirpitz’s granite head made a slow negative movement. ‘You’ve got the wrong boy, I’m afraid, James old buddy.’

  A humourless laugh came from von Glöda as Tirpitz continued, ‘I doubt you’ve ever seen a photograph of Brad Tirpitz. “Bad’’ Brad was always careful – like Kolya here – of photographs. I’m told, though, that in the dark with the light behind me, we were the same build. I fear Brad did not make it. Not ever. He got taken out, quietly, before Operation Icebreaker even got under way.’

  There was a movement from the desk, a slapping of the hand, as though von Glöda decided he was being neglected.

  ‘I’m sorry, mein Führer.’ Tirpitz was genuinely deferential. ‘Itwas easier to explain directly to Bond.’

  ‘I shall do the explaining – if there is need for any.’

  ‘Führer.’ Paula spoke, her voice hardly recognisable to Bond. ‘The last consignment of arms is here. The whole batch will be ready for onward movement within forty-eight hours.’

  The Count inclined his head, eyes resting on Bond for asecond, then flicking over to Kolya Mosolov. ‘So. I have the means to keep my part of the bargain then, Comrade Mosolov. I have your price here at hand: Mr James Bond. All as I promised.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kolya sounded neither pleased nor disgruntled. The single word stated only that some bargain had been fulfilled.

  ‘Führer, perhaps . . .’ Paula began, but Bond cut across her.

  ‘Führer?’ he exploded. ‘You call this man Führer – Leader? You’re crazy, the lot of you. Particularly you.’ His finger stabbed out towards the man behind the desk. ‘Aarne Tudeer, wanted for crimes committed during the Second World War. A small time SS officer, granted that dubious honour by Nazis fighting with Finnish troops against the Russians – against Kolya’s people. Now you’ve managed to gather a tiny group of fanatics around you, dressed them up like Hollywood extras, put in all the trappings, and you expect to be called Führer! Aarne, what’s the game? Where’s it going to get you? A few terrorist operations, a relatively small number of Communists dead in the streets – a minuscule success. Aarne Tudeer, in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king. You’re one-eyed and cock-eyed . . .’

  His outburst, calculated to produce the maximum fury, was cut short. Brad Tirpitz, or whoever he was, sprang from his chair, arm rising to deliver a stinging backhander across Bond’s mouth.

  ‘Silence!’ The command came from von Glöda. ‘Silence! Sit down, Hans.’ He turned his attention to Bond, who could taste the salty blood on his tongue. If he wasn’t careful, thought Bond, Hans, or Tirpitz, or whoever, would get a slap himself before long.

  ‘James Bond,’ von Glöda’s eyes were glassier than ever, ‘you are here for one purpose only. I shall explain to you in due course. However,’ he took a moment, lingering over the last word, then repeating it, however, there are things I wish to share with you. There are also things I trust you will share with me.’

  ‘Who’s the cretin disguised as Brad Tirpitz?’ Bond wanted to throw as many curves as possible, but von Glöda appeared to be unshakable, used to absolute obedience.

  ‘Hans Buchtman is my SS-Reichführer.’

  ‘Your Himmler?’ Bond laughed.

  ‘Oh, Mr Bond, it is no laughing matter.’ He moved his head slightly. ‘Stay within call, Hans – outside.’

  Tirpitz, or Buchtman, clicked his heels, gave the old, well-known Nazi salute and left the room. Von Glöda addressed himself to Kolya. ‘My dear Kolya, I’m sorry but our business will have to be delayed for a few hours – a day perhaps. Can you accommodate me in that respect?’

  Kolya nodded. ‘I suppose so. We made a deal, and I led your part of the arrangement right into your hands. What have I to lose?’

  ‘Indeed. What, Kolya, have you to lose? Paula, look after him. Stay with Hans.’

  She acknowledged this order with ‘Führer’, took Kolya’s arm, and led him from the room.

  Bond studied the man carefully. If this really was Aarne Tudeer, he had kept his looks and physique exceptionally well. Could it be that . . . ? No, Bond knew he should not speculate any more.

  ‘Good; I can now talk.’ Von Glöda stood, hands clasped behind his back, a tall straight figure, every inch a soldier. Well, Bond reflected, at least he was that – not the pipsqueak military amateur Hitler had proved himself to be. This man was tall, tough, and looked as shrewd as any seasoned army commander. Bond sank into a chair. He was not going to wait to be asked. Von Glöda towered over him, looking down.

  ‘To set the record straight, and get any hopes out of your mind,’ the self-styled Führer began, ‘your Service resident in Helsinki – through whom you are supposed to work . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Bond smiled.

  A telephone number – that was all he had as a contact with the resident in Helsinki. – Though the London briefing had been precise about his using their man in Finland, Bond had never even thought of it, experience having taught him, years ago, that one should avoid resident case officers like the plague.

  ‘Your resident was – to use the term in vogue – “taken out” as soon as you left for the Arctic.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bond sounded enigmatic.

  ‘A precaution.’ Von Glöda waved his hand. ‘Sad but necessary. There was a substitute for Brad Tirpitz. I had of course to be very careful about my errant daughter, but Kolya Mosolov acted under my orders. Your Service, the CIA, and Mossad all had their controllers removed, and the contact phones – or radio in Mossad’s case – manned by my own people. So, friend Bond, do not expect the cavalry to come to your aid.’

  ‘I never expect the cavalry. Don’t trust horses. Temperamental beasts at the best of times, and since that business at Balaclava – the Valley of Death – I’ve not had much time for the cavalry.’

  ‘You’re quite a humorist, Mr Bond. Particularly for a man in your present situation.’

  Bond shrugged. ‘I’m only one of many, Aarne Tudeer. Behind me there are a hundred, and behind them another thousand. The same applies to Tirpitz; and Rivke. I can’t speak for Kolya Mosolov because I don’t understand his motives.’ He paused for a second before continuing. ‘Your own delusions, Aarne Tudeer, could be explained by a junior psychiatrist. What do they amount to? A neo-Nazi terrorist group, with access to weapons and people. Worldwide organisation. In time the terrorism will become an ideal, something worth fighting for. The movement will grow; you will become a force to be really reckoned with, in the councils of the world. Then, bingo, you’ve managed what Hitler failed to do – a worldwide Fourth Reich. Easy.’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘Easy, but it won’t work. Not any more. How do you get someone like Mosolov – a dedicated Party member, a senior officer of the KGB – to go along with you even for some of the way?’

  Von Glöda looked at Bond placidly. ‘You know Kolya’s Department in the F
irst Directorate of the KGB, Mr Bond?’

  ‘Not offhand. No.’

  The thin smile, eyes hard as diamonds, the facial muscles hardly moving. ‘He belongs to Department V. The Department that used, many years ago, to be called SMERSH.’

  Bond saw a glimmer of light.

  ‘SMERSH has what I understand is called, in criminal parlance, a hit list. That list includes a number of names – people who are wanted, not dead, but alive. Can you imagine whose name is number one on the chart, James Bond?’

  Bond did not have to guess. SMERSH had undergone many changes, but as a Department of the Russian Service, SMERSH had a very long memory.

  ‘Mmmm.’ Von Glöda nodded. ‘Wanted for subversion, and crimes against the state. Death to spies, Mr Bond. A little information before death. James Bond is top of SMERSH’S list and, as you well know, has been for a long time. I needed help of a particular kind. Something to get me . . . how would you say it? . . . off a hook, with certain gentlemen of the KGB. Even the KGB – like all men – have a price. Their price was you, James Bond. You, delivered in good condition, unharmed. You’ve bought me time, arms, a way to the future. When I’ve finished with you, Kolya takes you to Moscow and that charming little place they have off Dzerzhinsky Square.’ What passed for a smile vanished completely. ‘They’ve waited a long time. But come to that, so have we. Since 1945 we have waited.’ He dropped his long body into the chair opposite Bond. ‘Let me tell you the whole story. Then, possibly, you’ll understand that I shall have purchased the Fourth Reich, and the political future of the world, by fooling the Soviet Union and selling them an English spy: James Bond, for whom they lust. Foolish, foolish men, to stake the future of their ideology on one Englishman.’

  The man was unhinged. Bond knew that, but possibly so did many others. Listen, he thought. Listen to all von Glöda has to say. Listen to the music, and the words, then, perhaps, you will find the real answer, and the way out.

  14

  A WORLD FOR HEROES

  ‘When the war was over, and the Führer had died, gallantly, in Berlin,’ von Glöda began.

  ‘He took poison and shot himself,’ interpolated Bond. ‘Not a gallant death.’

  Von Glöda did not seem to hear him. ‘. . . I thought of returning to Finland, perhaps even hiding there. The Allies had my name on their lists, but I would, possibly, have been safe. Safe, but a coward.’

  As the story came out: the hiding in Germany, then contact with the organised escape groups, Spinne and Kameradenwerk, Bond saw clearly that he was not just dealing with some old Nazi, living with dreams of a past glory which had died in the Berlin Bunker.

  ‘The novelists call it Odessa,’ von Glöda almost mused to himself, ‘but that was really a rather romantic notion – a loose organisation for getting people out. The real work was done by dedicated members of the SS who had the wit to see what could go wrong.’

  Like many others, he had shifted from place to place. ‘You know, of course, that Mengele – Auschwitz’s Angel of Death – stayed in his home town for almost five years, undetected. In time, though, we all left.’

  First, von Glöda and his wife had gone to Argentina. Later, he had been in the vanguard of those to hide in the remote, well-protected camp in Paraguay. They were all there, the wanted Nazis. But Aarne Tudeer – as he still was then – became dissatisfied with the company he kept. ‘They all play-acted,’ he snarled. ‘When Peron was still in control, and later, they openly showed themselves. Even rallies and meetings: beauty contests – Miss Nazi 1959. The Führer’s dream would come true.’ He gave an outraged, disgusted snort. ‘But it was all talk; idle. They lived on dreams, and allowed the dreams to become their substance. They lost guts; threw away their heroism; became blind to the truth of the ideology Hitler had laid out for them. Hitler was right. If National Socialism was reduced to ashes, a phoenix had to rise from those ashes – otherwise, before the end of the century, Communism would overthrow Europe and, eventually, the world.’

  Von Glöda had urged the few who still held on to the dream that the time to strike was at the moment of transition, when the world appeared to lose its bearings, and direction, when everyone cried out for somebody to lead them. ‘That would be the time. Inevitably’, he claimed, ‘the Communist régime would hesitate just before throwing all its might into the domination of the world.’

  ‘It hasn’t quite happened like that.’ Bond knew his only hope was to establish some kind of common ground with this man – as a hostage must woo his captors.

  ‘No?’ There was even a laugh now. ‘No, it’s better than we ever imagined it could be. See what’s happening in the world. The Soviets have penetrated trade unions and governments, right through Britain and America – and much good will it do them. The Eastern bloc is, you’ll agree, slowly collapsing in on itself. Last year, we showed the world, by a few well-planned operations – starting with the Tripoli Incident. This year it will be different. This year we are better armed and equipped. We have more followers. We shall gain access to governments. Next year the Party will emerge into the open and within two more years, we shall be a true political force again. Hitler will be vindicated. Order will be restored, and Communism – the common enemy – will be swept from the map of history. People are crying out for order – a new order; a world of heroes, not peasants and victims of a régime.’

  ‘No victims?’ Bond queried.

  ‘You know what I mean, Mr Bond. Of course the dross must go. But, once they’re gone, there will be a master race – not just a German master race, but a European master race.’

  Somehow, the man had managed to convince some of the older Nazis in Paraguay that all this was possible. ‘Six years ago,’ he said proudly, ‘they allotted me a large sum of cash. Most of what had been left in the Swiss accounts. I had assumed a new name in the late 1960s – or, at least, reassumed it. There are true links between my old family and the now-defunct von Glödas. I returned from time to time, then began work in earnest four years ago. I travelled the world, Mr Bond, organised, plotted, sorted out the wheat from the chaff.

  ‘I planned to start the supposed terrorist acts last year.’ Von Glöda was truly in his stride now. ‘The problem, as always, was arms. Men I could train – there are plenty of troops, many experienced instructors. Arms are another matter. It would have been difficult for me to pose as PLO, Red Brigade, IRA even.’

  By this time, he had moved back to Finland. His organisation was taking shape. Arms and a secret headquarters were his only problems. Then he’d had an idea. ‘I came up here. I knew the area well. I found I remembered it even better than I’d thought.’

  Particularly he remembered the bunker, built initially by the Russians and improved by German troops. For six months von Glöda had lived in Salla and used the recognised ‘smuggling’ routes in and out of Russia. Amazingly he found a great deal of the bunker was intact, and he had openly gone to the Soviet authorities, with permission from the Finnish Board of Trade. ‘There was some haggling, but, finally, they allowed me to work here: prospecting for minerals. I was not over-specific, but it was a good investment. It cost the Soviets nothing.’

  Another six months – with teams brought in from South America, Africa, even England – and the new bunker was built. And in that time von Glöda had made contact with two ordnance depots near by. ‘One was closed down last year. I got the vehicles from them. I got the BTRs,’ he punched himself in the chest, ‘just as I did all the deals with those treacherous imbeciles at Blue Hare. Sold themselves for nothing . . .’

  ‘Themselves and a lot of hardware – rocketry you haven’t used yet, I gather.’ Bond slipped the fact in, receiving a cutting stare in return.

  ‘Soon,’ said von Glöda, nodding. ‘The second year will see us using the heavy weapons – and more.’

  Silence. Was von Glöda expecting congratulation? Possibly.

  ‘You seem to have pulled off a coup of some magnitude,’ Bond said. He meant it to sound like a comic boo
k bubble, but von Glöda took him seriously.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I think so: to go out and buy from Russian NCOs, who have no sense of their own ideology – let alone that of the NSAA. Dolts. Cretins.’

  Silence once more.

  ‘Then the world catches up with them?’ Bond suggested.

  ‘The world? Yes. The authorities catch up with them, and they come running to me for cover. Yes, I really think I can boast of our successes so far. One thousand men and women here, in this bunker. Five thousand men out in the field – throughout the world. An army growing daily; attacks on main government centres all over Europe, and the United States, all planned down to the last detail; and the armaments ready for shipment. After the next assault, our diplomacy. If that does not work, then more action, and more diplomacy. In the end we shall have the largest army, and the largest following, in the Western world.’

  ‘The world fit for heroes?’ Bond coughed. ‘No, sir. You’re undermanned and outgunned.’

  ‘Outgunned? I doubt it, Mr Bond. Already during this winter we’ve shipped very large quantities of munitions out of here – BTRs, Snowcats, piled high. Straight across Finland, over rough country. Now they’re waiting for onward shipment as machine tools and farming implements. My methods of getting supplies to my troops are highly sophisticated.’

  ‘We knew you were bringing them out through Finland.’

  Von Glöda actually laughed. ‘Partly because I wanted you to know. There are other things, however, you should not know. Once this consignment is on its way, I am ready to move my forces nearer to the European bases. We have bunkers already prepared. That, as you may realise, is one of the problems which concerns you.’ Bond frowned, not understanding, but von Glöda was now caught up in the story of how he had dealt with the people at Blue Hare.

  A healthy trade with the NCOs at Blue Hare was established and worked well for some time. Then, suddenly, their CO – ‘a man of little imagination’ – came, in a panic, to the Ice Palace. A spot inspection had been called, and two Red Army Colonels were spinning around like Catherine wheels, accusing anyone and everyone – including the Warrant Officer CO Von Glöda suggested that the Warrant Officer stand on his dignity and ask the Colonels for an investigation by the KGB.