The Ian Fleming Files (45 page)

He tumbled down and out and darted to the nearest automobile. He spied a
government chauffeur he recognized waiting with the official cars. It was
thirty-five year old Nick Lister, a prewar racing star and the most trusted
driver in the British Secret Service.

By the time they screeched to a halt outside The Dorchester, army
vehicles, fire-engines, a Black Maria and a string of police cars had beat them
to it. Fleming leapt out just as Ann was being wheeled into an ambulance. He
got in with her. Had he looked out the window behind him as the ambulance
roared off he would have seen that an entire corner of the second floor of The
Dorchester had been completely torn away by a blast. A column of sooty black
smoke curled up to the sky.

Silence lay heavy in the austere waiting room of St. Mary’s Hospital. A
frosty chill was immune to the best efforts of a small portable gas heater.
Fleming rubbed his hand across his eyes then shook his head slowly as if to
clear it. His face held the same remote and withdrawn expression it had worn
for two days.

His unborn son was dead. Was dead even the right word? Ann and Maria were
alive. Ann was being treated for smoke inhalation and Maria checked for
potential nerve problems. Had Ann not been soaking in her deep steel tub when
the bomb exploded she would probably have been killed.

Fleming had spent the last two days living in the cold, antiseptic waiting
room reading ancient
Readers Digests
(‘
Titanic
sinks!’) and
surviving on stale sausage rolls. His debriefing had been mercifully short and
on the first day Godfrey appeared with gladiolas and tins of biscuits and was
magnanimous.

On day two, the Chief brought along Hargreaves, Blake and Quacker and the
Boys got down to business. They filled Fleming in. Krupp had vanished along
with his mother and his diamond collection from Fortress Alderney. It was
possible that Krupp died when he parachuted from the plane and his mother might
have absconded with the gems of her own volition. But given Parsifal’s line in
smuggling Nazis overseas it was highly likely that Krupp had a contingency
plan. Colonel Zeiss and Captain Stransky panicked when they heard about his disappearance
and gave a green-light to their half-baked plans to use the Reserve Army to
stage a coup. Himmler’s spies alerted the SS Chief to the skullduggery and
Zeiss and Stransky were placed under house arrest and sent to Spandau to await
trial. Parsifal was in tatters. If there was a plot against Hitler it was over
and as far as Bletchley Park was concerned Fleming and the other denizens of
Room 39 could go back to winning the war.

“Take some leave,” Godfrey had told Fleming. “Plenty of leave.”

Fleming had other ideas. Like organizing The Thirty and mounting an
expedition to Tanzania.

Godfrey said no. “Go haring off on a wild goose chase? Out of the
question. Besides, The Thirty’s busy in North Africa. That’s where the fight
is. Not the East.”

The admiral didn’t care for Fleming’s observations from his recent trip
to Cairo and his comments that the Africa Korps had declared defeat a year ago
(“Pockets of resistance,” was Godfrey’s riposte).

After three days of incessant haranguing, the Chief caved. “You can have
five of them. But this isn’t a personal vendetta, 17F, it’s an assignment like
any other and if you can’t treat it as such, coldly and objectively, then I’ll
find some paperwork for you to do.”

Fleming chose his words wisely. “I am prepared to execute this mission in
the spirit you suggest.”

Godfrey didn’t let him off lightly. “I insist on a weekend of
conditioning. The boys have been fighting in the desert. From what we know of
Krupp’s likely landing spot, you’re going to have to go upriver. Real
Heart
of Darkness
stuff.”

“Why waste time? I have my training from Camp X.”

“That was years ago. Nothing on guerrilla warfare. Nothing on jungle
survival. Report to Special Activities immediately for further instructions.”

Fleming hesitated.

Godfrey glowered. “Well? What are you waiting for?” The admiral paused,
read his underling’s demeanor. “How are your women, Fleming?”

“They are both ready to receive visitors, sir.”

“I see. Well, in that case, report to Special Activities after you’ve had
your two romantic bedside scenes.” He laughed humorlessly. “Well go on!” he
said.

Fleming skedaddled.

Godfrey picked up a
Readers Digest
and read the headline: “Germany
Invades Poland.”

Fleming was sitting on the neatly folded edges of Ann’s cot, holding her
little hand in his. “Ann there’s nothing I can say that won’t sound trite.”

“Say it anyway,” she croaked. “I could use some clichés right now, since
I feel like one.”

“Very well. It’s all my fault. Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

He swallowed, dry-mouthed. “Has anyone spoken with you yet?”

“Doctors, nurses, my mother..”

“Anyone official?”

She shook her head. He paused, took a breath and proceeded to come clean.
He told her everything. Everything that is except the part about being a secret
agent and having an affair with a German.

“So you see,” he said, coming to the end of his lengthy elaboration,
“these saboteurs somehow confused me with Peter and thought they were getting
retaliation for a number he did on them in Italy by blasting his famous wife to
kingdom come.”

“You mean,” said Ann, processing the wild tale, “Italian saboteurs
confused me with Celia Jonson?”

“Precisely. They thought I was Peter and that you were my wife, since you
were in our suite at The Dorchester when they snuck in and planted the explosives.”

“When did they do that? I haven’t left the house in weeks. I’ve been a
bit of a recluse.”

“They might have crawled in through the ventilation and left the bomb
between the walls,” he said smoothly. “There will be a full investigation of
course.”

Ann looked perplexed. “But the suite is in my name. How did they confuse
you and Peter?”

“Who knows, Ann? Perhaps they trailed me to The Dorchester, put two and
two together and got five. It’s a tragic occurrence, Ann. By the grace of god
you are okay.”

She withdrew her hand. “I’m not ‘okay’ Ian. Far from it.”

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I was ready to be a father. I know it’s
different but I’m quietly devastated, if it makes you feel any better.”

She cut him a hard look. “What a thing to say. Of course it doesn’t make
me feel better.”

“Ann, I have to go away this weekend and the rest of next week. Godfrey’s
requested my presence at a small gathering of naval personnel at Admiral
Sommerville’s yacht off the Isle of Wight.”

“You’re going yachting?”

“It’s work, Ann. There’s a chance I could find something permanent with
Somerville for after the war.”

“On the Isle of Wight? What happened to our plans for a cottage in
Oxfordshire after the war?”

“Nothing. I just think it smart to pursue any and all opportunities. Your
sister telephoned. She can come help you home.”

Ann looked away and didn’t say anything.

He leaned in and pecked her cheek, picked up his fedora and headed out.
She waited until he had left before she started to cry.

Maria Lustbaden was discharged and escorted by Fleming to Room 39 where
they met with Godfrey, Quacker and a man from the Treasury Department. Fraulein
Lustbaden became Mrs. Elsa Schuman, a divorcee whose brave German resistance
fighter husband had been shot dead by the Gestapo. They gave her a thousand
pounds in cash and the address of a friend in Harrisburg who would help her
settle in and find work.

Fleming drove her to Croyden airport and walked her to the gate. They
talked around the subject. How it could never have been. Maria stared at the
concourse floor, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

“It was fun,” she said when they came to the gate and it was time to say
goodbye. “The train. Our time together.”

“Fun? We were shot at,” he said. “We were lucky to get out alive.”

She smiled thinly. He looked at her in her travel outfit, young,
beautiful, a whole life ahead of her. For a moment he wished he was going with
her.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I was wondering what the weather was like in Pennsylvania,” he lied.

“Perhaps one day you will visit me?”

He looked at her. “Yes. Of course.”

“Never say never,” she said reading his mind and then stood on tiptoe and
kissed him on the lips. “Goodbye, Commander Fleming.”

“Auf Wiedersehn, Maria Lustbaden,” he said and watched her disappear into
a crowd.

The best five men from The 30 Assault Unit as determined by the
organization’s founder Ian Fleming assembled at sunrise outside The Citadel in
ship shape and Bristol fashion, ready for a weekend training in Northumbria.
They wore pocket tunics with breeches, laced leggings and ankle boots. Captain
Patrick Dalzel, Major Jack Jones, Corporal Bob Raines, Lieutenant Steiner
“Dutch” Mortensen and Sergeant Mike Archer. They were the best of the best.
Highly trained men with exceptional records of resourcefulness, ability and
ingenuity.

Patrick Dalzel was the veteran leader of the group. A man in complete
control of his emotions, fully engaged and in the moment. He never lost his
temper, he never cried and he never had a bad night’s sleep. As leader of the
unit, he wore the mantle of command sternly but without arrogance. He had
parachuted a dozen times into France and Italy and each time brought back
valuable information. The war had aged him. He was about thirty-five but looked
a great deal older. The care, the exhaustion, the endless privations had
heavily silvered the once-black hair and deeply scored into the prematurely
aged face the lines of physical and mental suffering. He was no longer the
eager chocolate sailor brimming with alacrity. But he was still the leader of
the outfit, the most experienced of the group and his war exploits were the
stuff of tavern lore.

Major Jack Jones was a broad-chested killer tattooed with scripture
quotes and naval iconography such as anchors and the names of vessels he had
served on all over his muscled back and enormous biceps. A pug-nosed bear of a
man who was reticent and withdrawn he sported a utility belt around his waist
that held three knives, his service pistol, mace and an American style ‘pineapple’
grenade, an excess of armament that on another man might have looked
preposterous or even comical but which on this man provoked no mirth at all.

Corporal Bob Raines was the youngest of the bunch at 21, a perpetually
upbeat lad who by the look of his ears, cheeks, chin, nose and teeth had been
in frequent and violent contact with a variety of objects, both blunt and
razor-edged.  

Lt. Steiner “Dutch” Mortensen was a strapping 25-year old with reddish
brown hair and intense eyes. He was famous for his daring escape from a Polish
POW camp. He survived in the freezing wilderness for a month on berries and
squirrels and was officially declared unkillable by the rest of the unit whose
undying admiration he had won.

The most dangerous man amongst them was probably sharpshooter Sergeant
Mike Archer, aged twenty-nine, a short-ish, eagle-eyed anti-German fanatic who
in two years had emerged as one of the Allied Forces most deadly shots.

They drove for nine hours in a shuttle to the camp and didn’t get a chance
to settle in before they met a battery of instructors led by the familiar face
of NID armorer Charles Fraser Smith. A V2 rocket in 1944 had left the legendary
pistolsmith partially deaf and deskbound.

The retired champion marksman welcomed them in a group speech before the
program commenced. “All a man needs to survive and defend himself in the wild
is a good piece of steel,” he began. “If the locals prove hostile, you’ll be
facing an army that can live like wild beasts in the forest, subsisting on roots
and insects. What happens when your rifle jams? What do you do when the
moisture in the air destroys your gunpowder?”

They practiced knife-throwing for half a day. By lunchtime Fleming found
his mind wandering. Fraser Smith noticed the wan look in his friend’s eyes.

“I’m bored of knives,” said Fleming.

“Bored of life?” asked the weaponeer, cupping his ear.

“Knives,” Fleming shouted.

“Oh, knives. Let’s see, I might have something more stimulating for you.”

They wandered to the shooting range where paper targets were fixed to
bales of golden straw.

“Since you’re going to the jungle why not try something exotic,”
suggested Fraser Smith as he rummaged behind a stand and produced a crossbow.

Fleming was taken aback. “Interesting and different.”

“Silent and deadly more like,” said Fraser Smith. “Ideal for stalking big
game that you don’t want to frighten off if you miss. A bow attracts less
attention. For the stealth hunter it’s a smarter choice over a rifle.”

“Not exactly something to put in your pocket,” said Fleming, examining
the bow.

“In the right hands this crossbow will deliver five shots in five seconds
with near-rifle accuracy over ranges up to forty yards. The steel-pointed
arrows or quarrels as they are correctly called are loaded from the top into a
magazine like the cartridges in a bolt-action rifle. After loading, the bow is
cocked by a slide, and the quarrel is fired by pressing a trigger which
releases the bowstring.

Nocking of
the five quarrels in the magazine is done automatically by the repeating
mechanism here.” He indicated on the crossbow. “Note the trim lines. If
desired, you can install either open or peep sights on the barrel.”

“What’s the bow made of?” asked Fleming completely absorbed. “It’s not
hickory or yew.”

“Fifty-four inches of lemonwood strengthened at center by a steel sleeve.
The trend is for steel bows but personally I prefer the smooth shooting action
of a good wood bow, and pound for pound a wood bow will outshoot steel. Grip and
tang can be shaped to your liking. The stock is modeled on the AR-7 which I
know you have experience with.”