The Ian Fleming Files (26 page)

“He was a ladies man, like you,” said Dilly, signaling the start of
another reminiscence. “When he met your mother, it was the beginning of the end
of our friendship. Oh, we were still chums but it was never the same. I bet all
your mates are bachelors. Am I right?”

Fleming thought the comment was a bit cynical but let it go and nodded.
“Were there any women he was serious about before he met my mother?”

Dilly didn’t have to think. “He never took the same girl out twice.”

They shared a wolfish grin. Fleming felt a fleeting surge of pride
replaced by an empty sense of yearning.

“How are your brothers, Ian?”

“You know about Peter because you read the papers. Richard’s still
devastated about Michael. We all are, he’s just having a harder time with it.
They were very close.” Fleming trailed off. The conversation had arrived at a
place where neither of them wanted to be.

Dilly trickled booze into their cups. “To the Grim Reaper,” he said
mordantly. “The bastard.”

Fleming tried to change the subject. “Are you going to tell me why they
picked me for this enterprise? Or was the whole thing your idea?”

“Not at all,” said Dilly quickly. “Don’t short-sell yourself. You’re not
just a polyglot, you’re a killer.”

Fleming recoiled. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“You need it. I don’t remember this hesitancy about you. You’re out of
shape and your confidence is at an all-time low. It shouldn’t be. You’ve
survived the war.”

“I’ve been protected by my desk and sandbags of paperwork. Besides, it’s
not over yet.”

“You’ve been in the field a few times. Did quite the number on Admiral
Darlan and that kraut Beck or whatever his name is.”

“Bock. General Feodor Bock. That was four years ago. Peter’s penned three
best sellers and saved the world twice over.”

“We can’t all be Peter Fleming.” Dilly exploded into a coughing fit and
headed to the loo to take care of himself.

Fleming watched him go with concern, sipped his laced beverage. A killer?
He reflected on the dark role he had played in the war, an unusual position
that he had fallen into by dint of his skill set and circumstances. (Wasn’t
that what anyone’s life amounted to, ability mixed with chance?) He was a
diplomat with legal permission to kill. Most of the time he was on standby, a
fireman in a village that never had any fires, but if a situation arose with
two or more foreign languages involved and the likelihood of someone needing to
be offed he was invariably summoned.

But why was he fighting a growing anger? He searched his heart and the
clarity came: It was because the war was drawing to a conclusion and they had
just thrown him back in! He had survived it and now he had to survive it again.
The war was a year or so from closing and suddenly here he was as if it were
1939. But the fighting wasn’t over yet, he reasoned. Lives were still at stake.
He would take his medicine like a good boy, clean his pistol and go do his
duty.

The words of the U.S. Army handbook which he had read while stuck on an
endless sea voyage to Indochina came back to him.

Be loyal. Loyalty means that you must stand by your organization
through thick and thin. Boost your organization at every opportunity. Be loyal
and true to your officers, your noncommissioned officers, and your comrades. In
this way you will be loyal to your country.

He looked over at the Gents for a sign of Dilly. He was in a mild panic
suddenly, his brow moist, his front lobe and nasal area pulsating with migraine
throbs. The enveloping pall of head pain had finally arrived. For the next four
hours he would be in its thrall.

Dilly sat back down and emptied the rest of the flask into his mug.
Fleming masked his pain with forced cheeriness.

“I’m glad to see you assigned this job,” Dilly said as he stirred.
“Success will help position you for after the war. Get this mucky bugger back
from Cairo without a hitch and you can pretty much be guaranteed a full time
position at Bletchley. Even if I’m not around to push it through.” He laughed.
Fleming didn’t.

“Don’t say that, Uncle…” He trailed off and glanced away feeling his eyes
well.

Dilly looked at him quizzically. “Migraine?”

Fleming spoke his mind: “It’s all terribly unfair.”

Dilly exhaled wearily. “No one lives forever. Would it be any more fair
if a bomb killed me? The job gave me the cancer, all that stress, so by
association the Germans did this to me sure as they had lined me before a squad
and riddled me with lead. I’m as much a casualty of war as… ”

Fleming broke in: “As my father was?” His hands were trembling, his mouth
tight-drawn. He discreetly ran his sleeve cuff through his eyes, snatching up
the liquid.

Dilly looked guilty-faced. “I’m sorry. I’m being a selfish lout. I know
this isn’t easy on you.”

“It’s all right,” said Fleming. “Life is bitter-sweet. Change is afoot.
We can fight the Germans but we can’t fight change. Ann won’t wait much
longer.”

Dilly’s eyes glittered. “Attacked on all fronts! Full assault. Find a
bunker and hide, that’s my advice. I’ve seen too many men fall at the altar.”

Fleming was shocked at the cynicism, the vehemence. There was a
bitterness in Dilly’s voice that was new. He decided to change the subject:
“What does BP have to do with this mission?”

“You mean why did you have to drive all the way out here instead of
strolling down the Mall to Admiralty House?”

“We’re in the Citadel now, but yes. Why all the flim flam?”

“Bletchley’s been looking for a reason to stay relevant ever since we
cracked Enigma.”

“How did you insinuate yourself into the goings on of Parsifal?”

“Who do you think intercepted Ugarte’s plea for sanctuary to the FBI?”

Fleming reacted. “You mean he sought asylum with Uncle Sam before coming
to us?”

“I mean we
intercepted
it, not overheard. We seized the damned
note before it got anywhere near the States, let alone Hoover’s office. It
wasn’t a cable, it was a letter. Stupid bastard tried to send it by air mail.
Lucky for us, a sharp-eyed lass in Cairo spotted it in a routine mail scan.”

“No one from here has contacted him?”

Dilly shook his head. “All we have to go on is ‘Casino Opera’ on the
letterhead.”

Fleming looked disconcerted, tried not to wince as pangs of pain prickled
his skull. “Ugarte writes to Hoover for sanctuary and I show up?”

“What’s wrong with that old boy?”

“He’s waiting to take his girlfriend to America. Instead I’m to persuade
him to accompany me back to this soggy dump, without his bit of skirt, to sit
in a detention cell on the off-chance we’ll allow him to live here?”

“Ugarte knows he’s cornered. Convince him America gave him the cold
shoulder and show him that partnering with us, the presumptive victors over
Germany, is the best move to stay alive. Tell him there’s a job in it for him.
A plum post in the NID. Polishing the clappers in Big Ben. Whatever it takes. Just
get him here.”

“I don’t see why we don’t just send the boys in to Fortress Alderney and
wreck Parsifal’s HQ. That would put a damper on Wolfgang Krupp’s plans for
pan-European domination with Erwin Rommel at the helm and him playing puppet
master.”

Dilly hiccupped twice and said matter-of-factly, “You know why. The place
is impregnable. Part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall built to withstand any invasion
by Allied Forces.”

Fleming sighed, lit another Player.

“Sorry old boy,” said Dilly. “You’re on the next submarine bound for
Cairo.”

A LONE light beam sliced through a vast expanse of night revealing a
barren rain-lashed promontory surrounded by rolling sea. The raging storm sent
ten foot waves crashing into jagged boulders that lay in treacherous clumps in
the shallow waters around the archipelago. The sweep of light moved on and was
replaced with solid blackness. There was a crashing boom and then sheet
lightning shattered the sky to a blinding silver revealing the outline of a
medieval fortress in the cliffs. The amber strobe reappeared and repeated its
arcing survey of the storm-thrashed rocks. Another dazzling fork of electricity
exploded and the stark silhouette of the stronghold was revealed once more, its
original crenelated walls and turreted battlements evoking a distinctly Gothic
feel.

Alderney is part of the Channel Islands, British Crown Dependencies in
the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two
separate bailiwicks: Guernsey and Jersey and are considered the remnants of the
Duchy of Normandy, and are not part of the United Kingdom. They have a total
population of about 168,000. Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel
Islands and the closest one to both France and the United Kingdom. It is 3
miles long and 1.5 miles wide and the area is just 3 square miles.
Alderney/Aurigny is variously supposed to be a Germanic or Celtic name. It may
be a corruption of
Adreni
or
Alrene
, which is probably derived
from an Old Norse word meaning “island near the coast” as Alderney is just ten
miles from France. The island is generally a couple of degrees warmer than
mainland UK and it is host to an abundance of wildlife. An array of different
sea birds nest here including the iconic puffins, pulmars, guillemots, dartford
warblers, peregrines and gannets. Bibette Head is a popular stopover for
migrating species heading to warmer climes.

After the Allied defeat in France the British government decided that the
Channel Islands were “not of strategic importance,” a phrase that still rankles
islanders today. Hitler, on the other hand, considered Alderney vital to his
campaign both for the emotional propaganda effect of holding British territory
and the geographical addition to his Atlantic Wall. Unlike Guernsey, where an
uneasy truce existed between inhabitants and occupiers, Alderney was virtually
abandoned to the Germans. They invaded and occupied the land in the summer of
1940 and immediately commenced construction on the soon to be impenetrable
Fortress Alderney. The German fortifications included a complete overhaul of
the existing structure, the installation of coastal batteries, anti-aircraft
defenses and infantry strongpoints. Tunnels scattered across the island were
converted into subway lines. An air service with mainland France was
established. Concrete bunkers, air-raid shelters, gun-emplacements and huge sea
walls were built using forced labor, mainly prisoners from eastern Europe, most
of whom died from malnutrition and exhaustion, their corpses thrown into the
sea.

The fortress sat amid a granite shelf of pinnacles carved from the side
of the island by eons of eroding wind and rain. A tangled web of poison ivy and
sumac lay at the cliff’s base before a short strip of pebbled beach. Overgrown
trees shrouded in fog hid a narrow corniche that threaded up to the fortress,
with the ground rising on one side of the road and falling away on the other,
through the dense underbrush and a veritable maze of curving walls leading to
the main gate.

A giant owl swooped over the darkened grounds looking more like a pterodactyl
than a bird with its immense wingspan. The crooked cross of a swastika on a
flag streamed out stiffly from the staff above the parapet and the evil eyes of
belted Spandau machine-guns peeked out from the slotted embrasures in the
massive walls. In a mad clash of styles that ran from Baroque to Bauhaus, the
edifice that lurked beyond the medieval masonry looked like something Albert
Speer might have designed for the ultimate Übermensch. A sleek steel glass
domicile complete with barracks, stables, motorcade (for a 1935 Maybach 12
Zeppelin, an Adler Trumpf, a VW kubelwagen and a Mercedes Benz 230 w153
limousine), laboratory wing and servants cottage.  

There was movement at the main gate. Two trench-coated figures shuffled
up to the checkpoint and flashed papers. The Abwehr agents last seen diving
into the Thames, Otto Platz and Kurt Kreuzberg, proceeded down a dimly lit
corridor looking well-scrubbed for a meeting with the boss. Otto had thick wavy
golden hair, high cheekbones and sharply chiseled features. Kurt was almost a
lookalike for Otto, tall and broad-shouldered, lantern-jawed. He was an older
version by about ten years but nevertheless the resemblance was startling.

It had been a close shave in England. Ian Fleming read about their escape
from the police van and the subsequent chase through London that led nowhere.
Had they been on official Abwehr business they would have been left to face a
British POW camp. But they were on a job for Wolfgang Krupp, a man who had paid
for their services and who controlled a vast network across Europe to protect
his investments. On the run in enemy land, barely able to speak the language,
they called the emergency number they had been provided with. The call was
answered on the third ring as they were told it would be and they were at a
secret airstrip and on a plane bound for the mainland before dawn. They had
avoided a British POW prison, a fate reputed to be so awful that most captured
Germans became double-agents overnight. It wasn’t until they were safely on their
way home that it dawned on Otto Platz that this was the reason why Krupp had
‘rescued’ them. He avoided having double-agents in his midst by ensuring no one
was lost to the enemy.

Otto and Kurt turned a corner in the lugubrious hall and ascended a short
flight of stone steps. Lightning flashed through a narrow window at the top of
the stairs where a short carpeted passageway led to a heavy closed dark door.
They continued on like two condemned men ignoring the storm and the crashing
swollen waves visible through narrow apertures in the walls. They were aware of
no specific punishment favored by Krupp who was known to employ a variety of
methods from drowning to decapitation to a mercifully swift Parabellum to the
heart.