Too Bad to Die

by Francine Mathews

  “It’d be a first,” Hudson admitted.

  If he was startled by her casual use of a code name few people knew, he did not betray it. “Why was Bond taken prisoner tonight? He’s no threat to your people.”

  “A disagreement. Bond wants to use the paratroopers as bait. Let them launch their operation—and follow them to the real leader.”

  “The Fencer.” How like Flem, Hudson thought. Ian had stumbled stupidly into a snare—and nobody in his chain of command had any idea where he was. He’d made himself a hostage. He was a liability to Britain now. Whether he divulged anything about Turing or the codes Siranoush had mentioned, Naval Intelligence would cut him loose.

  Unless Ian could pull off the impossible.

  Trap the Fencer. Save three critical lives.

  They had reached the empty gardens of Golestan Palace, and Hudson’s feet slowed. Should he tell somebody at the British Embassy what he knew—or keep Ian’s secrets?

  “He has courage, this Bond,” the girl said with a trace of wistfulness. “But he is naïve. It is very English, yes? To be forever the schoolboy?”

  “It is.” Hudson grasped her arm. In her frail silk dress, she was shuddering with the November cold. And something else. Fear?

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll find him.”

  —

  THE GERMAN named Erich was passive, Ian knew—he seemed to accept his fate as the lorry rolled to a stop in the darkness. But it surprised him that the Czech, Tomàš, was equally resigned. Tomàš was younger. More impassioned. A truer believer, Ian guessed, in Hitler’s cause. If anybody was going to be a hero tonight, it would be Tomàš. But as the heavy steel doors were unbolted by unseen hands, the Czech merely studied the lorry floor. One of the guards had forced him to kneel, hands bound behind his back.

  The other guard had his gun trained on Ian.

  The doors swung open. Arev’s pinched face, peering above the edge, and Zadiq behind him. His Nagant covered all of them.

  “Aussteigen,” Arev barked. Get out.

  Tomàš was hauled to his feet and forced to descend. Then it was Ian’s turn. He thrust himself upright by levering his bound hands against the lorry wall; he refused to be tossed around like a swaddled baby. A maniac in a straitjacket.

  A helpless hostage.

  He moved at a crouch toward the lorry opening. He could see very little of the street beyond; the southern part of the city was generally impoverished, the houses small and leaning together along fetid alleyways. There was a strong smell of cat. A hand grasped his left shoulder; he was pulled off the lorry and landed hard, on his left side, on the ground. It was unpaved mud, wet and stinking against his cheek. Someone kicked him in the ass. He tried to roll to his feet and was hauled upright, struggling. They would fight his impulse toward self-sufficiency as soundly as open rebellion.

  He was hustled a short distance through a door. Tomàš was standing in what looked like a kitchen, head bowed, Zadiq a few paces away. Behind Zadiq was the welling blackness of a doorway; the only light in the room was from the head guard’s oil lamp. Ian was thrust toward the kitchen table and stumbled into it. Arev or one of the guards had pushed him, and he wondered, idly, if they hated him because he was English, or because of Siranoush?

  Where was she now?

  Erich jostled him and fell heavily onto the table.

  “Warten Sie,” he breathed.

  Wait.

  Ian did not betray that he had heard.

  The door of the safe house closed behind them.

  And at that moment, a face loomed out of the darkened doorway behind Zadiq and a rifle was punched forcefully into his back.

  On impulse, Ian shoved himself sideways and felt Arev tumble to the floor. Swearing in Armenian.

  Tomàš slammed his skull into the nearest guard’s nose. The man fell back, howling in pain. And there were other faces now, rolling through the doorway, bodies in field dress and helmets with rifles raised.

  Nazi paratroopers.

  “Lassen Sie Ihre Waffe,” one of them commanded.

  Zadiq dropped his gun. His black eyes glittered and his teeth were bared in a grimace. He was not the kind, Ian thought, to go quietly.

  “Your friends?” he murmured to Erich.

  “Ja. We were supposed to tell them to be here at 2200 hours. But we told them twenty-one. We thought they would like time to prepare.”

  His voice held the satisfaction of a simple man.

  CHAPTER 30

  When he was finally able to slip away from the formal dinner, Elliott Roosevelt was lucky to find a phalanx of taxis pulled up before the diplomatic compound’s guardhouse. He’d excused himself from his father’s table with the idea that he was bound for the men’s room. Franklin had probably lost sight of him immediately in the crowd surging through the Soviet ballroom. The President would be closeted again that evening with Stalin and Churchill. Elliott figured he had a few hours before he’d be missed.

  He was sweating freely despite the bone-chilling cold. He’d drunk too much. Once he’d settled himself in the taxi and directed the driver to the Park, the warmth of the car made his skin clammy to the touch. Coffee was what he needed. But the thought of it made him sick.

  It was his wretched nerves, Elliott thought, that were upsetting his stomach and making him drink so much. May-ling had rattled him badly last night. He’d been forced to pick her up off his lap and set her squarely on her feet, facing him. I can’t marry you, Madame Chiang, he’d said with a terrifying sense of entrapment, because both of us are already married.

  He made no mention of his pending divorce. The last thing Elliott Roosevelt wanted was a crazy Chinese prima donna clinging to his arm as he flew out of Tehran. May-ling was beautiful, sure—but she wasn’t much of a sport. Too refined. And too . . . Christ, too foreign! He’d spent the past few years building his chops as a war hero, and right as he was set to cash in on the deal, he’d be ostracized for marrying outside of his kind. Nossir Bob, that wasn’t Elliott Roosevelt’s plan. Nosiree.

  To do her credit, May-ling was all cut up about the idea of a divorce. She bowed her perfectly molded head and dropped her almond-shaped eyes. She spoke of the dearness of her Methodist faith and the shame such a scandal would visit on her family. Elliott guessed it’d be no picnic for her to marry outside of her kind, either. Which was when he saw a glimmer of hope.

  “If I tell the Generalissimo that you were nothing but a perfect lady in my company,” he suggested, “maybe he’ll take you back.”

  She had glanced at him wistfully and shaken her head. “Chiang has been dishonored. Merely your word cannot change that.”

  Jesus, he thought. The guy’s not gonna want to fight me, is he? Make a hell of a headline back in the States.

  Elliott’s taxi pulled up beneath the lighted portico of the Park Hotel. He could assume that most of the American delegation was still working their way back from the Soviet dinner, but nonetheless he made a point of keeping his head down as he entered the foyer. His pulse was throbbing painfully, and he was afraid, for an instant, that he might throw up. Despite his best instincts, he veered away from the elevator and into the bar.

  “Coffee,” he said tersely. “Black.”

  It was scalding. He downed the cup in two gulps, anyway, and felt immediate relief.

  Better seize the bull by the horns, he thought, before this wears off.

  —

  MAY-LING WAS FULLY DRESSED TONIGHT, and her maid opened the door to Elliott. She did not efface herself as she had last evening, and May-ling did not order her to go. The sitting room was filled with bandboxes and hats waiting to be packed into them; with Vuitton trucks compartmented for shoes; with handbags lying carelessly on chairs; and dresses cascading across the sofa. There was nowhere to sit.

  So Elliott stood, swaying slightly, as May-ling studied the floor
. Her role was to oversee the packing; it was the maid whose hands busily fluttered among the cashmere sweaters and silk cheongsams.

  “You’re leaving,” he said.

  She shrugged exquisitely. “You gave me no choice. Having shamed my husband, I am now an embarrassment to you.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry, May-ling. I never meant to—”

  “That is immaterial.”

  She would not meet his eyes. Elliott felt like a worm. “Where will you go?”

  “To Shanxi.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “China.” Her voice was scathing; it was clear she regarded Elliott as worse than hopeless. “The Red Army headquarters is there. I will give myself up to Mao Zedong.”

  Elliott stepped toward her impulsively. “You can’t mean that! It’s madness for a woman like you . . . Mao is your husband’s enemy.”

  “You know that?” At last she raised her eyes to his. “I thought you Americans believed this nonsense about our united front against the Japanese.”

  “The Communists will torture you,” he said hoarsely. “They’ll want to know every last thing about Chiang’s military structure and the Kuomintang’s movements in western China, the Generalissimo’s plans for Mao once the war’s over . . .”

  “Then perhaps Chiang will come for me,” she said simply.

  Elliott stared at her, aghast. “That’s your plan? To give yourself up to the Enemy, so your husband will dash to the rescue?”

  “He will not want me to tell Mao what I know. Chiang understands the value of information.”

  Elliott ran his hands over his face. He was feeling clammy and sick again. He wished he could sit down.

  “If I could bring him some information,” May-ling murmured, with that same wistful air, “some priceless piece of news he could never learn elsewhere—it is possible he might forgive me. I might save myself.”

  Chiang understands the value of . . .

  “May-ling.”

  “Yes, Colonel?”

  “The Generalissimo wasn’t invited to this Tehran Conference . . .”

  “That is correct. Only Cairo.”

  “. . . because the conference is not about the Pacific War. It’s about Europe.”

  She looked bewildered. “Why do you tell me this, Colonel?”

  “Stalin wants the Allies to open a second front against the Germans. He wants us to invade Europe in the next six months. Would Chiang be interested in information about that?”

  “I do not know,” she murmured.

  “If I told you the place and time we’re going to attack, would he take you back?”

  May-ling frowned. “How could you know such a thing?”

  “Because my father’s deciding when and where the invasion happens,” he retorted. “Nothing will be decided without his say-so. He commands most of the troops. And once the war in Europe is over, those troops can help Chiang get rid of the Japanese—before Mao does it for him.”

  “That is true,” she admitted. “He would give much, I think, to know of this invasion.”

  “If I tell you about it—will you give up this crazy idea of turning yourself in to the Reds? Will you go home to your husband?”

  She bowed her head submissively. “Yes, Elliott. I will.”

  He glanced at the maid. “Send the girl away.”

  May-ling spoke a few sharp words to the maid in Chinese.

  Elliott shifted a pile of handbags and sank down onto a chair. He mopped his face with a white linen handkerchief his mother, Eleanor, had embroidered with his initials. He waited until the bedroom door closed behind the girl.

  “Now, listen, May-ling. The invasion is set for the middle of May. We’re going to launch it from the Adriatic, with the full Allied force driving north through Yugoslavia . . .”

  CHAPTER 31

  The call from Turing came through at one twenty-six a.m.

  Grace had fallen asleep in the embassy’s Signals Room with her head lying on her arm. Nearby, an ashtray overflowed with half-smoked cigarettes. She had sent the usual diplomatic operators home when she’d taken over at eight p.m., telling them it was a special case. War business. Now the building was silent and the room was chilly. When the persistent ring of the Secraphone roused her, she discovered that her arm had gone numb. She forced herself upright, shaking the tingling limb, and reached for the green receiver with her other hand.

  “Emb-b-b-bassy Tehran?” The voice was tinny and howling, like a gramophone played through a cyclone.

  “Speaking.”

  “Turing here. For Grace C-C-C-Cowles.”

  “Go ahead, Mr. Turing.”

  “No news, I’m afraid,” he said without preamble. “The whole b-b-bloody channel’s gone silent.”

  “Does that mean . . . the operation is under way—or that it has been called off?”

  “Means they’re not b-b-bloody talking about it.”

  Grace hesitated, at a loss. She must ask the Prof something while she had him on the line. “Did you find out where that second burst went? The one that wasn’t for Berlin?”

  “I t-t-told you. Channel’s dead.”

  Then so is Churchill, she thought despairingly. “You’ll call if anything changes?”

  “Won’t. Fellow’s g-g-got the wind up. Tell Fleming g-g-good luck.”

  “Thank you,” she said, but he had already rung off. She stared blankly at the Secraphone in her hand.

  She had no news, no hope, to give to Ian. How could she tell him that even Turing had failed?

  Was the Fencer’s sudden silence, Grace wondered, the result of Pam Churchill’s suicide attempt? The British Embassy had made every effort to camouflage Mrs. Randolph’s illness, but whispers had circulated. If the Fencer truly was a member of either the American or British delegations—and if Pam was working with him—he would know she had lost her nerve. He’d wonder what she’d confessed. He’d feel hunted, on his guard. And more likely to act as soon as possible.

  Or, Grace thought with a sudden chill, what if Pamela herself is the Fencer? And when Michael confronted her, she tried to take the easy way out?

  That might mean that Operation Long Jump was called off.

  She needed to talk to Michael. He must have met with Ian by this time. Why hadn’t he called? Now it would have to wait until morning.

  Morning. When the three men most worth saving could be riddled with machine-gun fire.

  Grace shivered, and took herself off to bed.

  DAY SIX

  TEHRAN

  TUESDAY,

  NOVEMBER 30, 1943

  CHAPTER 32

  Sarah Oliver was finishing her breakfast in the embassy’s morning room when Pamela appeared in the doorway. Her face was pallid beneath her hat, despite the distracting wisp of black veil that swept over her eyes. She wore no lipstick. Sarah had never seen her without it before, and the absence of color seemed to magnify her drained appearance, as though Pamela were a watercolor sketch someone had left out in the rain.

  “You’ve been discharged! Thank heaven,” she said, by way of greeting. “Would you like some tea? Shall I ring for another cup?”

  “No, thank you,” Pamela said. “You might put something in it—and then everyone would think I was mad again.”

  “I?” Sarah frowned at her. “Why should I put anything in your tea? You don’t even take sugar.”

  “No. I don’t. I’m very careful about what I take. Regardless of what some people say.” She deliberately drew off her gloves, her gaze fixed not on Sarah but on her fingertips. “I am exceedingly careful about my things, too. I always know what’s supposed to be in my drawers and what isn’t. But you couldn’t have known that, Sarah. We’ve never really known each other, have we? No matter how many homes we share. I suppose that’s why you did this. You feel justified in hating me.”

&n
bsp; Sarah set down her tea. Her hands were controlled, but still the china gave off a faint ring as the saucer met the cup. “What are you talking about, Pamela?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I assure you, I don’t.”

  “Ave hasn’t mentioned it?”

  Sarah rose and walked toward her. Pam stood rigidly in the doorway, still swathed in her fur coat. “Are you all right? Do you need to lie down?”

  “And take another dose to make me sleep?” Pamela suggested mockingly. “No. I’ve slept enough. I need a public apology, Sarah. I need you to tell Papa that you lied. That I would never betray him or England. Then I need to get the hell out of this wretched country.”

  She turned and groped her way almost blindly into the hall. Sarah watched Pamela mount the stairs and disappear from view. Then she hurried across the foyer to the opposite wing of the embassy, where the official conference rooms were. Gil Winant would be in one of them.

  —

  “I KNOW you are adamant in believing the assault must come from across the Channel and strike at the heart of France,” Churchill was saying, as he stood by the conference room window. “But there are so many competing alternatives! We might sap the Germans’ strength by forcing the Italian campaign on to Rome! Or compel Turkey to enter the war! We might blockade or seize the islands of the Aegean! Only consider, Franklin—that archipelago taken, we might open transport lines through the Dardanelles and Black Sea into Russia itself!”

  “We’re not invading Russia,” Roosevelt said, “and as I recall, the Dardanelles were an Allied grave once already.”

  Churchill’s shoulders hunched a trifle. He had been the architect of military disaster at Gallipoli during the First World War. But the essential strategy even then had been correct. He refused to pick up Roosevelt’s bait. “That part of the world secured, we might then make forays across the Adriatic, to aid Tito and his partisans in Yugoslavia. Or send an expedition to the Adriatic’s head—and march north through the Ljubljana Gap and on to southeastern Hungary. Good God, man—the Nazis would not know where to fight us off first!”