The Ian Fleming Files (42 page)

Fleming went to help her up when a volley of high powered rifle shots
exploded from the outer darkness.

A hollow voice shrieked, “
Halten
!”

Boris the Blade and two stormtroopers wielding machine-carbines appeared
from beyond the crest of a sand dune. One of the guards looped his arms under
Maria and dragged her off by the shoulders through the sand.

Fleming removed his hand from inside his shirt and braced himself for the
inevitable strike. Boris spun him around and with his steel appendage fished
the Browning out by its trigger guard. He patted Fleming down, relieved him of
his utility belt and backpack, tossed them to his guard along with the pistol.
As he checked Fleming’s upper body, his steel claw clunked against something.

“What’s this?” said Boris, extracting Fleming’s acid-filled Mont Blanc.
He popped the lid and sniffed it.

“That’s called a pen,” said Fleming wryly.

“It looks dangerous to me,” said Boris who tossed the Mont Blanc to the
guard, finished his body search. He noticed the cord around Fleming’s neck and
clawed it out. After a cursory glance at the tire ripper he looked at Fleming
in all seriousness and said: “You wear a bottle-opener around your neck? Do you
have a drinking problem?”

Boris looped the tire ripper over his head and wore it like a necklace.

“I’d give you a right hook,” Fleming said, “but I see you already have
one.”

Boris scowled. “English wit. I suppose a country should be good for
something. I hear the women are even uglier than the men. You probably have a
hard time telling them apart.”

“That’s why god invented the Adam’s apple.”

Boris guffawed. “I like you English mustard. You have panache. You remind
me of me! Before I came to this oversized pebble.” He beheld Fleming pitifully.
“It will be a shame to chop that pretty witty head of yours off but I have my
orders.” He sighed wearily. “My life is one order after another.”

“You sound like a waiter,” quipped the incorrigible Brit.

“Enough repartee,” Boris snapped. “Your bantering days are over.” He
jabbed two fingers into his gob and whistled. There was a sharp crack of an air
pistol and something silver flashed at Fleming. He felt a sting. A tiny object
had cut through his collar and punctured the skin just below his windpipe. He
instinctively put his hand to his throat to investigate when a powerful gloved
fist slammed his nose. Another chopped him in the stomach winding him. His arms
were grabbed in a vice-like grip. His feet left the ground and he was whisked
to a dirt path where a kubelwagen awaited. The tiny dart in his neck loosened
and fell to the sand where a jackboot stomped on it.

The kubelwagen trundled uphill to the castle on the cliff. Fleming lay in
the back unconscious, his hands and feet lashed by leather straps, his mouth
gagged.

THE INSISTENT tones of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 32 greeted Fleming
as he came to in a deep leather armchair beside a roaring fire, a red welt from
the dart visible on his throat, his cobalt eyes rolling groggily, eventually
settling on Wolfgang Krupp who was playing a Steinway grand. The debonair Nazi
sported a white shark-skin jacket with edelweiss protruding from the front
jetted breast pocket. His playing was not amateurish at all; he played quite
well.

They were in the vaulted high-ceilinged hall that housed Krupp’s African
loot and diamond display where the wind off the sea came howling in through
gaps in the stone walls.

Fleming heard footsteps and turned to see the Swedish siren Anike Asplund
waltz in bearing a silver tea service which she set down on a low oak table
before him with a warm smile.

“Thank you, Anike,” Krupp said without looking up.

The blonde vision swanned gracefully out, her eyes lingering on the
handsome Brit trying to get his bearings.

“Who was that? A Valkyrie?” Fleming asked Krupp. “Is this Valhalla?”

Krupp stopped playing and chortled. “I like a condemned man with a sense
of humor. That was my Swedish secretary Anike but if you prefer consider her to
be Valhalla’s golden-haired goddess Sif.”

“Let me guess,” said Fleming. “You must be Odin?”

Krupp shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, Commander. You know your mythology
better than that. Odin was the lazy leader sitting on high. Sif was a
handmaiden of Thor. Thor was the one who got things done.”

“He had thunderbolts and lightning,” said Fleming. “What do you have?
Some malcontent officers and a diamond mine?”

“Empires have been forged with less.”

“You’ll never kill him,” said Fleming. “He’s too well protected and too
unpredictable.”

Krupp smiled cryptically. “We shall see.”

There was a low grumbling sound. A pair of shiny jet-black Rottweilers
were sitting beside Krupp both still as statuary, upright and alert, muzzles
dripping with saliva. Slabs of raw meat sat untouched before them. A few feet
beyond the dogs, Fleming noticed a cabinet showcasing an array of ornate
knives. Krupp followed his gaze.

“Kpinga throwing knives used by the Azande of Nubia,” explained Krupp
proudly, possessively, as he rose from the Steinway and trotted to the display
case with a goblet of wine in his hand, opened the cabinet and extracted a long
stiletto-like blade.

“Where is the girl, Krupp?”

“Fraulein Lustbaden? Or should I call her Heidi von Aachen?” He
sniggered. “The mighty Naval Intelligence Department, those same prodigious
British minds who claim to have cracked Enigma, suckered by a transparent ruse
that a five year old child could see through. Don’t fret about Ms. Lustbaden.
Boris is taking good care of her.”

Krupp held the thin knife an inch from Fleming’s eyeball. Fleming didn’t
flinch, even when Krupp extended the steel closer and its pointy tip brushed a
lash. “Answer me one question, Commander.”

“If I can,” said Fleming, cool as ice.

“Why do you Brits like tea so much?”

Fleming didn’t bat an eyelid. “I prefer coffee myself,” he said.

Krupp lowered the blade and gestured to an ice-bucket where a bottle sat
sweating. “Would you prefer something a little stronger?”

Fleming leapt to the rare knife cabinet and pulled the doors. The dogs
immediately pounced, stopping inches from him and growling, not daring to
attack until told to. Krupp snapped his fingers and the dogs relaxed again.
Fleming stepped back from the weapons. Krupp snapped his fingers once more and
the hounds gobbled up the steaks.

“Aren’t I supposed to be bound and gagged while you interrogate me?”
Fleming said with a sigh. “Where’s your torturer or is your effort at
intelligent discourse supposed to be excruciating enough?”

“Tell me, Englishman, how is your pistol eye these days?”

Fleming squinted at the German. “Right now it can see a deranged kraut
with delusions of grandeur. Twenty-twenty.”

“According to your file, you are a crack shot. You completed your
small-arms instruction at the hands of Charles Fraser Smith, the British pistol
champion. You have won competitions. But because seeing is believing I need you
to show some friends of mine what I already know to be true. That Ian Lancaster
Fleming is a demon deadeye, a seasoned sharpshooter who could land a nine
millimeter slug between the eyes of a sparrow in flight from four hundred
yards.”

He rang a bell. A tall bookcase withdrew into the wall and a pair of
guards appeared dragging Maria who was strapped upright in a chair with her
mouth taped. Frau Krupp entered from the hidden passage behind them in a black
dress looking like some ghastly apparition.

“Lift her up, you fools!” she cried at the guards upon seeing trails of
black skid marks on the ivory tiles. “You’re destroying the floor!”

Maria writhed helplessly, murmuring and whimpering behind her mask, her
red eyes streaming tears over puffy swollen cheeks.

Fleming’s face was a look of stony horror.

Krupp strode to his diamond collection and retrieved a mammoth 6 carat
stone. He studied it with a loupe, scrutinizing its heart of blue-white flame.
Infinite colors reflected and refracted from its depths. He set it down and
grabbed an uncut, unpolished rock, a coarse chunk of lifeless matter almost
opaque beside the dazzling translucence of the diamond.

“Since, Commander Fleming you know so much about European culture,” he
said, “you should enjoy this recapitulation of one of our neighboring country’s
legends. Does your erudition extend to the mutual friend of ours with the flag
that looks like a first aid kit?”

“Switzerland?” said Fleming rhetorically. “Cuckoo clocks and chocolate.
What else is there to know?”

“You have forgotten Wilhelm Tell,” said Krupp. “This should help embed
the legend in your memory.”

Krupp placed the bumpy lump of quartz atop Maria’s head and held it in
place with the tip of his finger, nodding to Boris who taped it down as Maria
whimpered helplessly.

Fleming paled. “You want me to show you how good a shot I am? Fine,
Krupp, but keep her out of it.”

“I’m afraid you were the one who brought her into it,” said Krupp through
grit-teeth.

Anike entered with General Martin Zeiss and Captain Franz Stransky.

Zeiss was in a foul mood. “Krupp! Must you insist on keeping us waiting
every time we come to this wretched island!”

“This is the last time, Krupp,” muttered Stransky. “Show us a plan that
makes sense or turn this over to us.”

“You two couldn’t organize a desk drawer,” said Krupp, guiding them to
seats. “Now be quiet and meet the Englishman who is going to save Germany.
General Martin Zeiss, Captain Stranksy, here is your assassin.”

Fleming looked at Krupp in disbelief.

“He will not be this close,” Zeiss moaned. “You spoke of a distance of
half a mile.”

“True,” conceded Krupp. “But he will have telescopic sights. This is a
test of his nerves and raw aim.”

“Let’s see what he can do,” said Stransky as he helped himself to a
highball of vodka. “I’ve always wanted to watch someone do this.” He sat down
and propped his feet up, the picture of complete and careless relaxation.

Krupp tossed Fleming his Browning. “There’s a single round in there. Your
weapon, so no excuses.”

Boris produced a small revolver and pointed it at the back of Fleming’s
head.

“In case you get any funny ideas about sending that one bullet in there
anywhere other than in the direction of that 6 carat apple,” said Krupp.

“You’ve made your point,” said Fleming. “Enough cabaret. Let her go.”

Boris pressed the snub-nose of his weapon into the base of Fleming’s
skull and pulled the hammer back.

“All I require is a demonstration of your ability,” said Krupp. “If you
are as good as your file says you are, no harm should come to her.”

“Choose another target,” said Fleming. “I’ll not risk a misfire.”

“Shoot, Englishman,” said Krupp coldly, “or I will. I haven’t fired a
pistol since I was a boy. Your choice.”

“All right,” said Fleming, checking the Browning.

Boris stepped back. Fleming flexed his hands, took a cool clinical look
down the room at Maria. Her terrified eyes bulged at him. He leveled the pistol
and put her in the sights, squinting down the muzzle as he calculated distance,
velocity, recoil. His hand was still, his aim true. He lowered the Browning.
“This is absurd, Krupp. I won’t do it.”

Boris pistol-whipped him, sending bloody spit hurling from his cheeks.

Fleming recovered, gripped the gun firmly and took deep gulps of air,
lowering his adrenaline and heart-rate to condition his aim. He assumed a
combat pose, his pistol arm aligned and at one with the lethal instrument at
its tip, pointing with his left hand clasped over his right forearm for
stabilization.

He raised the barrel a fraction and stopped breathing. It was silent. He
lowered the barrel and then raised it again, almost imperceptibly. Slowly the
muscles in his fingertip hardened and grazed the single-action trigger.

The shot rang out. Time stood still. There was a feeble muffled scream
from across the room. Maria’s neck snapped forward and her lifeless head
flopped down. There was a gasp from Anike and cries of “Good God!” and “He
missed!” from Zeiss and Stransky respectively. Wolfgang Krupp was dumbfounded,
rooted to the spot.

Fleming and Frau Krupp were the only ones who remained calm as the rest
of the gathering scrambled to the far end of the room.

Krupp turned to face Fleming with angered realization, having discovered
the Browning’s payload lodged a good six inches above the quartz lump in the
plaster behind Maria’s head.

Zeiss felt Maria’s pulse and sighed dismissively. “She’s fine.”

“Very amusing, Commander,” said Krupp. “Now we will try it again. Someone
wake her up.”

“Wolfgang, I think we get the purpose of this exercise,” came the
commanding voice. “It is time to stop the tomfoolery.”

Krupp looked at his mother like a boy caught stealing cookies. His voice
was a vicious whisper. “Very well,” he said after a pregnant pause. He turned
to Doctor Schenk who was waiting in the wings with his mousy nurse at hand.
“See to her, Herr Doctor.”

Boris gestured to Fleming. “What about him?”

Wolfgang walked over, took the gun from Fleming and clobbered him over
the head with a force that was surprising for a man his size, strong enough to
topple someone a good four inches and fifty pounds heavier. “Show our honored
guest to his room, Boris,” ordered Krupp. “The suite. Only the best for our
champion sniper.”

Boris smiled wickedly, snapped his fingers at the two guards.

The dank dripping hole they stuffed Fleming into made his shoebox on
Tantalus
look like a suite at Claridge’s. He could rotate himself once lengthwise and
stand stooped with his neck perpendicular to the wall. There was a barred
window the width of a crawlspace. When he came to, for a moment he thought they
had buried him alive.