by Steve Cole
In an awful rush, memories of the old Moscow graveyard returned. The horrible realization that his parents had not died in a straightforward climbing accident at all.
James fought to keep his body at rest, his face neutral. He’d seen so much horror in his life: death and disaster of all descriptions. It was as though steel shutters came down inside, fenced off his feelings, allowed adrenalin to do its job – to get himself and those he cared about the hell out of danger. But this time he was far too late to save the people he loved. They’d died years back, at the hands of someone he’d thought he could trust. At the hands of someone whose life he’d saved in Los Angeles last year . . .
‘Now give us your Jean Harlow,’ Elmhirst beseeched Mimic.
The boy obliged and reproduced the actress’s voice without hesitation. ‘You want things and you’re not content till you get them! You don’t give. You take . . .’
Ragged applause followed, and a sardonic wolf-whistle – James estimated three other men were present.
‘Movies are fine, but now let’s have some real-life drama,’ Elmhirst drawled. ‘I know! How about the day we met Andrew and Monique Bond?’
James fought desperately to show no reaction.
‘Get your hands off of her!’ came Andrew Bond’s cry, and James’s heart ached. If he opened his eyes, surely he’d see his father standing there. ‘Damn it, Elmhirst, I haven’t talked to anyone. I don’t have any evidence! Please, my love, don’t cry . . .’
‘Stop it!’ James shouted. ‘For God’s sake!’ He jerked his body up into a sitting position, gasping as nausea spun from skull to stomach.
Elmhirst was crouching over him, a grin on his doughy face. ‘Welcome back, Bond.’
James tried to get up, but found that his wrists were handcuffed and his ankles chained together. He saw a conning tower rising amidships and realized he was not on a ship, but a submarine that had surfaced to utilize its powerful diesel engines, charging its batteries as it sliced its way forward, buffeted by the choppy waves which formed the only landscape.
‘Where’s Anya?’ he demanded.
Elmhirst ignored him. ‘Did you not like Mimic’s little historical re-enactment, Bond? He’s got an eidetic memory to go with his knack for voices – never forgets a thing – makes him quite an asset. Didn’t you just love his impression of your aunt Charmian on the phone at the airport?’
‘That was Mimic I talked to?’ James shut his eyes. ‘Of course. You told me she was staying with a friend so I wouldn’t query the different telephone number.’
Elmhirst smiled. ‘Mimic could do her voice because he telephoned her the night before last, pretending to be you. Told her you were staying with your old mate Hugo for a few days, so she wouldn’t miss you.’
Bastard, James thought. ‘Tell me where Anya is.’
‘You trying to act tough, Bond?’ Elmhirst straightened up. ‘Well, listen. You’ve been flown from Khodynka aerodrome in Moscow to Esbjerg in Denmark, and transferred to a Soviet submarine we met off the coast. You’re in chains in the middle of the North Sea and dependent for your survival on the whims of your worst enemies.’ He shook his head. ‘So do me a favour: drop the tough-guy act, and maybe think about begging.’
‘Go to hell,’ James muttered under his breath. Through the pelt and bluster of the spray and wind, he saw the captain at the helm station, and guessed that the other two men were the watch officer and a lookout. He guessed too that Elmhirst and Mimic were more than just passengers; they were here as honoured guests.
But where is Anya? James wondered uneasily. Why am I being held on deck instead of down below? He needed more time to recover, time to think; perhaps appealing to Elmhirst’s sense of vanity would buy him precious minutes. ‘I suppose Karachan attacking us at the hotel was staged to make me trust you more. But what about those men you killed – the ones from the brotherhood who were trying to get me?’
‘Your trouble, Bond, is that you don’t pay attention.’ Elmhirst’s smile was sickening. ‘I told you, out in Russia Great Britain’s resources are limited; if we need a job doing, we often employ locals.’
‘What job?’
‘SIS have no idea I’ve been in Moscow – I told you, I used a fake passport. As far as they’re concerned, I’m currently undercover, investigating the whereabouts of that stolen Blade-Rise hexogen – stolen by myself, of course.’ He tutted. ‘Unfortunately Karachan was clocked at Croydon Airport’s passport control on his way to catch the plane before us. That led to SIS checking passenger records to look for known accomplices. And, of course, they found your name on the manifest: the boy who delivered fresh evidence on a Russian cold case straight to their door.’
‘SIS thought I’d been kidnapped . . . so they hired some freelance muscle to find me?’ James felt sick, remembering the thick Russian accent in his ear: You come with us . . . you not hurt. He bowed his head. ‘They grabbed me like that to take me to safety.’
‘Off for tea and crumpets at the British Embassy, yeah. And they all knew me, of course, from past dealings, which is why I had to kill them. If it got back to SIS that I was in Moscow with you, well . . .’
‘They would know that you’re a lying, murdering, traitorous—’
‘As it is, one of my fellow agents has already been assigned to investigate what happened. He’s on his way from London now.’ Elmhirst tutted wistfully. ‘I knew they would send someone, of course. I’m only one agent of many on the Karachan case; I put them off for as long as I could. And they won’t know he’s being smuggled back into Britain the slow way, by submarine . . .’
James was still getting his head round the deceit. ‘You took me to Moscow to make sure you found the evidence first?’
‘I don’t like loose ends,’ Elmhirst agreed. ‘That’s why I’ve tied you up.’
James looked him in the eye. ‘Are you just gloating for fun, or is there a reason why you haven’t killed me?’
‘I don’t do anything without reason, Bond. I want information, so I’m offering some in exchange.’ He held out his arms. ‘The Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic has invested years in this project, waiting for the perfect time, building up to the biggest coup in history. Then, just weeks before we’re ready to go, evidence turns up that could blow the whole thing. If your old man had just handed over said evidence to me when I asked for it, maybe your mummy would still be alive today.’
James felt his guts clench. ‘What do you mean?’
‘On your father’s last visit to Moscow with Vickers, La Velada learned that he had evaded his official party escorts three times. I was stationed there – asked him what he was up to. He wouldn’t talk.’
‘SIS suspicious.’ James remembered the coded message from Chamonix. ‘That meant he found you suspicious – he must’ve thought the only way you could know so much was if you were involved. That’s why he encrypted the message in a different way.’
‘Typical Bond. Too clever by half.’ Elmhirst looked out across the churning ocean. ‘I eased up, played dumb, let him think he was in no real danger. But I followed him home with Mimic.’
James closed his eyes. ‘Yes. I heard.’
‘We confronted them. Your mater and pater made a run for it, got away into the mountains . . . When I caught up with them, they still didn’t want to play. They were roped together by then, tried to climb too far, too quickly, and . . .’ Elmhirst looked across at Mimic. ‘How did it go, again?’
Mimic screamed the scream of Monique Bond, his eyes as wide as his grin. Sickened, James looked away.
‘I’ve done so many things to safeguard this project,’ Elmhirst went on, ‘so many. Now there’s just one last dangling thread I need to tie up. For my peace of mind, you know?’ His eyes were cold as the ocean as he regarded James. ‘Hejnał from Krakow to Jericho, J6 14–15, Holster. Words I found written on a page of your daddy’s buried notes. He’s gone back to that bloody Trumpeter book again, hasn’t he? Another clue, tied in with you. So, what doe
s it mean?’
James stared back, his face impassive. The message related to the map in the holster, of course, but he wasn’t about to reveal that. Elmhirst hadn’t been there when James discovered the Beretta in its chamois case, and didn’t seem to know that James had placed them in the backpack. If only he had that backpack now!
Elmhirst nodded to the watch officer and the lookout, who moved forward and grabbed hold of James by the ankles and armpits.
‘You know what?’ the agent called. ‘Killing Bonds prematurely? It’s habit-forming.’
Without further ceremony, the crewmen tossed James off the deck.
Shocked, James had time to draw only the quickest breath before he crashed into the cold, churning grey and sank, unable to swim properly with his hands cuffed together, weighed down by the chains. Pain bit into his ankles as the chain grew taut and tugged him through the water. Choking, struggling to reach the surface and spluttering for air, James saw the bulk of the sub loom up to his left and fought to get away from it, pushing wildly against the water with both bound hands. If he was drawn into the propellers . . .
No good, he thought desperately as he went under again; pressure, the sub’s engines and the buffeting current roared in his ears. Can’t swim like this, can’t—
He felt another jerk on his legs; the chains that held him were being hauled in by the two crewmen. While Elmhirst watched, James found himself pulled out of the sea feet-first and dumped once more on the deck. Retching, gasping for air, he turned onto his side and glared up at the rogue agent defiantly.
‘Try again, shall we?’ Elmhirst walked closer. ‘What does that message mean?’
‘I’m not sure.’ James swallowed hard, still panting for breath. He had to play for time – time to think. While he lived, there was just a chance he could do something to stop Elmhirst; right now, to him, nothing else mattered. ‘I . . . I know that the Hejnał is the tune the Trumpeter played in the book.’
‘And the “J” has got to be you, right? J for James.’
‘Perhaps. As for Jericho . . . it’s a suburb of Oxford. We . . . had relatives there. On my mother’s side.’
‘Names?’
James didn’t answer. Elmhirst nodded to the crewmen, who lifted James back up again. He thrashed angrily in their grip as they took a menacing step closer to the side of the U-boat, like fishermen about to throw a disappointing catch back into the sea.
‘Well?’ Elmhirst called.
‘If you kill me,’ James shouted back, ‘you’ll never know!’
For the longest moment he was suspended in mid-air, dripping wet, staring at the whipped-up white of the propellers’ trail through the ocean. Then the captain called something in Russian, and James was thrown onto the deck as the crewmen ran to join him at the helm station. One by one they ducked down into the belly of the sub, before Mimic followed suit.
‘Shipping sighted,’ Elmhirst said. ‘We have to dive.’
James felt the heat of relief in his cold, wet, aching body. ‘So you’re postponing your little poolside party?’
‘It gave some amusement to the men. I didn’t expect to get much more out of you than that. You’re too much the natural hero: with so many more lives at risk back home, your life means nothing, right? Which is why, since time is short, I thought I’d bring some extra leverage.’
James stared up. ‘Anya?’
‘Anya.’ Elmhirst hauled James to his feet. ‘Keep any details back from me, Bond, and you’ll watch me do a proper number on her legs. I’ll make sure she never walks again.’
22
Truth and Blood
WET AND SHIVERING, James was lowered down into the belly of the sub. At the bottom of the conning tower, two of the ratings caught him and swung him round into a narrow corridor. James’s head smashed against the bulkhead; the pain was blinding, and he must’ve passed out. When he came to, he was lying on a narrow bunk. The atmosphere was dank and stale and salty. Through the throb of his headache he heard the hissing of pipes, the deep diesel drone of engines and the pat-pat of water dripping.
He was lying down, and still wet, so he couldn’t have been out for long. The light came from a red bulb bolted into the ceiling, like the one in the underground chamber beneath the Mechta Academy’s basement. James tried to sit up, but found that while his legs were now free, his hands had been cuffed behind his back.
‘James?’
His heart jumped at the sound of Anya’s sleepy voice. Leverage, Elmhirst had called her. She was lying on the bunk below his. ‘Are you all right?’
‘My arms are tied behind me, I cannot feel them.’
‘Mine too.’
‘I’ve been slipping in and out of sleep. You weren’t here before – where did they—?’
‘Elmhirst had me chained up on deck, but then we had to dive.’ James turned onto his side, pins and needles prickling through his wrists. ‘I reckon we’re approaching England.’
‘Why is Elmhirst even keeping us alive?’ Anya said. ‘He has his information now.’
‘Not all of it,’ James muttered. ‘Not yet.’ As his headache ebbed a little, he took in the tiny cabin properly. There was room for the two bunks, a folding sink, a toilet – and his father’s battered backpack, lying discarded on the floor.
The gun and the holster, he thought. I pray they’re still there.
The thought of prayer made a connection in his mind. The Bible. That reference, J 6 14–15: it could mean chapter six, verses 14–15. And Jericho... He’d lived through so many dusty sermons at Eton and Fettes, there couldn’t be a schoolboy alive who didn’t know the story of how the Israelites had brought down the walls of besieged Jericho with the sound of their trumpets, to break inside and destroy their enemies . . .
He was about to say as much to Anya when it occurred to him: Elmhirst’s told me where I am and what he wants, wound me up like a clockwork mouse, and now he’s put me in on my own with Anya. What’s the first thing we’re going to do? Talk. Plan.
What if this room is bugged?
‘James?’ Anya prompted.
Awkwardly, he managed to swing himself down from the bunk to the cabin floor, leaned in to her ear, spoke in a whisper: ‘Assume we’re being spied on. Toe the line. Say nothing about the gun.’
Anya pulled away, then put her lips to James’s ear. ‘Do we even have it?’
‘I’m going to see. It might be our only advantage,’ James whispered. Then he looked away and raised his voice. ‘Nothing to do but wait, I suppose.’
Anya sighed. ‘I wonder where we are going?’
‘Somewhere on the English coast, I assume, if Elmhirst wants to go to Jericho.’ James leaned towards her, lowered his voice to a murmur. ‘We need to talk – if we are being listened to, it’ll cover the noise of me trying to open and search through a backpack with both hands tied behind my back.’
As he rose and crossed to the backpack, she nodded her understanding. ‘I liked England,’ she began. ‘It was such a joy to study there . . . I was to be the next Mathilde Kschessinska. Do you know of her?’
‘Happily not,’ James said, fumbling behind him for the backpack’s straps. ‘I don’t imagine she’d be happy with the hash I’d make of pronouncing her name.’
‘My tutors all said that I was a future prima ballerina assoluta, perhaps even greater than Mathilde . . .’ Even in the crimson gloom James could see animation return to her face; he needn’t have worried about slow and halting conversation, for Anya was warming to her theme. ‘Even at thirteen I could master twenty consecutive fouettés en tournant.’
‘Is that a type of food?’
‘Philistine! It means “whipped turns” done in one place and on one leg.’ She seemed to luxuriate in the memory, moving under the bunk’s rough blankets as though they were silk.
James freed one of the straps with his swollen fingers and began on the other, nodding at Anya to carry on. ‘You must have started young . . .’
‘From the age of five I wa
s taught in Paris by Madame Preobrajenska, a former Russian ballerina with the Imperial Theatre. She gave evening classes in a big studio on the Rue de la Pompe. Father was always so busy, but I barely missed him: from the age of eight I trained with Madame every day after morning school.’
‘Single-minded,’ James observed, freeing the second strap so he could reach inside the backpack.
‘Have you never found something you excel at, James? Something that defines you?’
With a jolt he remembered Elmhirst discussing something similar. ‘Nothing very worthwhile, I’m afraid.’
Anya closed her eyes, and James held still. ‘You know, if I try, I can still see Madame’s studio, just as it was when I was small.’
‘Take me there.’ James reached down inside the backpack, exploring with his fingertips, pulling at fabric. ‘Anywhere beats this hole.’
‘I can see the watering can she used before every class to dampen the floor and create grip,’ Anya went on, ‘and the long stick she used to beat time.’ She smiled at her imaginary surroundings. ‘There were barres along three walls, and the fourth wall was a mirror from floor to ceiling. I would watch my reflection turn and point . . . Back then I had grace, and beauty, and power.’
You still do, James thought, if you could only see it. Finally his fingers brushed the soft chamois of the Beretta’s holster, and a wild pulse thumped triumph through his body.
‘It’s like I’m there, Anya.’ He pulled out the gun and holster and manhandled both into the back pocket of his trousers. ‘Yes, the view is suddenly so much better . . .’
The sudden scrape of a bolt made them jump in panic. James scrambled to his knees as the second bolt screeched across the iron bulkhead door. Whoever came in couldn’t fail to see that he’d been through the backpack. What if they searched him—?
Anya sprang up from her bunk. ‘I will buy you time,’ she hissed and, as the door swung open, jumped bravely forward and swept her leg upwards.
