Too Bad to Die (23 page)

Behind him, he caught the murmur of Stalin's voice. And then his interpreter's.

“You see? He
loves
the Germans who have brought his country to its knees!”

And to his rage and shame, he heard Roosevelt laugh.

I
t is not enough,” Zadiq said.

“Turing is monitoring his transmissions.” Ian managed to hold on to his patience. “My friend at the embassy will monitor Turing. We'll know almost as soon as those Nazi paratroopers when and where Long Jump will go off.”

“It is not enough.”

“Why not?”

Zadiq was looking not at Ian but at his son, Arev. The boy asked something in Armenian and Zadiq answered. Arev shot out of the room.

“We must know the frequency ourselves. We must know immediately when the Fencer communicates. The risk to Iosif Vissarionovich is too great.”

“But the Fencer transmits in code,” Ian pointed out. “Turing is the only one who's broken it.”

“Then he must give us that, too,” Zadiq insisted stubbornly.

Ian went very still. So that was the point: The NKVD wanted Bletchley to share its crown jewels. The technology behind Turing's bombes and his cryptanalysis. The breakthroughs made by the Government Code and Cypher School during four brutal years of torpedoed ships and drowning men. The NKVD wanted access to ULTRA—the most secret intelligence Britain had ever known. And Zadiq was the instrument. Playing roulette right now with the British intelligence officer who'd stupidly betrayed Turing to him.

Ian.

The stake? All their lives.

Not just the Big Three, anymore.

His
life.

Ian suspected Zadiq had met with Lavrentiy Beria, the NKVD chief, by some secret route of his own. Slipped out of the bowels of the Tehran Bazaar while Ian ate lamb stew with the beguiling Siranoush. Which meant Beria knew everything Ian had shared about Operation Long Jump. He knew the Fencer was one of the Allies. He knew that Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin would be killed before they all left Tehran. Beria could work with British intelligence to save all three—or he could let the dice fall.

Beria could ignore the Fencer and the Nazi threat.

He might even allow himself to think of a future without Stalin. A Russia where Beria was King.

In the meantime, it would be enough to see what Ian Fleming was worth. How much of ULTRA England would squander, in order to buy his life.

What had his superiors always told him?

Too great a risk to send you into the
field. You're too valuable. You know too much.

He understood, now, what they'd really been saying:
We will not barter with your blackmailers.
They would expect him to do the honorable thing—and die by his own hand.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori . . .

He watched with sick finality as Zadiq pulled out his Nagant.

“Come,” the Armenian said, motioning toward the corridor that led to the turned German agents' cells. “You will walk ahead of me, please.”

He could rush Zadiq right there and force him to shoot. Seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth. But it bothered him that no one would ever know. He would simply disappear off the face of the earth. A deserter, in the official record.

A raw wound, in his family's.

Surely, Mr. Bond, you won't take death sitting down?

He would play for time a bit longer.

—

T
HE FAKE
Russian waiters were good at moving furniture. They'd filled the large conference room with round tables that were hurriedly draped and set with flatware. Chairs for a hundred were placed around them and ashtrays set out. The delegations were dining together tonight, and the Soviet military band continued to play. People milled around, checking place cards. The room was uniformly male, except for Grace Cowles.

She had no intention of eating in the Soviet Embassy. She would be fixed at her post in the Signals Room, desperate for a message from Bletchley. But it was imperative she find Michael Hudson—and he ought to be here. She craned on tiptoe, searching the room, then felt a hand in the small of her back.

Damn him.
She never saw him coming.

“Hello,” he said. “You're in uniform. Don't tell me you're working?”

“War is hell,” she said lightly.

“You must have time for a drink, at least.”

She shook her head resolutely. She had to stay sharp for Alan Turing. “But I'd like to talk to you, if you've a moment.”

He understood. His gaze briefly searched the oval room and then he touched her elbow. “Let's take a turn around the garden. It's a bit chilly in the dark, but no one will be listening there.”

She wondered if he suspected the Soviet Embassy was bugged. She allowed him to weave her through the crowd and out the French doors that lined the far wall. There was a terrace beyond, with a stone balustrade and steps down to the lawn.

“That must have been a ballroom once,” she said, as she glanced back at the conference–cum–dining room. For an instant she could imagine it: Women dressed like Anna Karenina. Hussars and diplomats. Candlelight softening the lines on their faces.

“And this used to be a garden,” Michael added. “Like Stalin's world used to be Russia. It's only going to get drabber.”

The paths were unlit and uninviting; the garden was obviously untended. She hesitated on the scant gravel, shivering.

“Cigarette?”

She waited for him to light it and then let the smoke roll over her tongue and into the Tehran night. “It's about Ian,” she said.

“Flem? You've heard from him?”

“I've seen him.”

Michael went very still. His expression was suddenly blank. “
Here.
Ian's here?”

“Well, not in the embassy. He's met me in the bazaar. He's wearing civvies and lying doggo, and he's quite definitely absent without leave. He's even using a false name.”

“He was ordered back to England.”

“He hired a pilot and flew east instead.”

Michael swore softly under his breath and inhaled deeply. Their clouds of smoke met and mingled.

“Without telling anyone, Grace? You didn't know his plans? Nobody in the British delegation knew?”

“Nobody. He says he kept mum for security reasons. That if he was
thought
to be safely out of the way, he'd live longer.”

“The usual drama.” His mouth twisted in a semblance of a smile. She caught the glitter of teeth in the darkness. “He's hunting the Fencer, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Single-handedly? Pigheaded fool. Why didn't he—”

Michael broke off and dropped his cigarette angrily underfoot, crushing it into the stone.

“Contact you?” Grace reached impulsively for his sleeve. “He is now. That's why we're talking like this.”

“And?” he demanded. But his anger had faded.

Grace glanced over her shoulder. The dining party was seating themselves. Golden light spilled through the French doors and left vivid splashes on the garden steps. “Go to the bazaar. The Perfume Sellers Hall. He'll be watching,” she said. “Call him Commander Bond when you see him.”

“Bond,” Michael repeated. “And he wants me now? Tonight?”

“I told him you have the dinner. But it's incredibly urgent, Michael.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“And you're to watch Ambassador Harriman like a hawk,” Grace said. She still felt uneasy and exposed. As though Stalin himself were listening.

“Am I?” Michael returned ironically. “Flem's up to his old spy tricks again, isn't he? I hope it's worth a court-martial.”

Her brow furrowed. Her cigarette had burned down unnoticed; she dropped it hurriedly at her feet. “You still think he's imagining things?”

“Sure. That's what Ian does. Escapes into his fantasy world. I mean, seriously, Grace—
Averell Harriman
?”

“But Pamela's codebook . . .”

“You told him about that?”

She didn't have to admit it. Michael sighed.

“I'll go see him, Grace. But promise me something in return. Stay away from Flem from now on. He'll get you in too deep.”

“But—”

“You'll attract too much attention if you keep slipping out to the bazaar. I have a plausible reason to go there—I'm staying at the Park, and nobody will notice if my taxi drops me a few blocks away. If this thing blows up in all our faces, I want you to be in the clear.”

Nice of him, she thought. But her uneasiness deepened. The whole conversation was too fantastic, like the attack on Churchill Ian Fleming was convinced would come. She hugged herself suddenly against the garden and all its works.

Was she a fool? Was Ian really mad?

“Should we tell somebody about all this? Pug, or—”

“Not on your life,” Hudson said. “Let's go in. You're dying of cold.”

T
hey herded Ian at gunpoint down a long and narrow stair, Arev in front and the two Nazi agents behind him, with Zadiq bringing up the rear. Zadiq had placed two of his most trusted subordinates between Ian and the Germans, to prevent them from acting together on a whim. Ian's hands were bound behind him.

Of Siranoush, there was no sign. Would she even be told what they'd done with him? Or would Zadiq say Commander Bond had turned tail and run back to Egypt like a coward?

The staircase ended at a door that led out into an alley. It seemed to be used for donkeys and camels unloading goods in the bowels of the bazaar. There was a nose-curling stench of animal urine, feces, and rotting hay. A truck covered with a tarpaulin completely filled one end of the narrow space.

He was forced into the back of the lorry along with the Germans and two of the NKVD men. It was pitch-black until one of Zadiq's people placed an oil lamp between himself and the edge of the lorry opening. The double doors were then swung closed and bolted from outside.

Ian studied the other four faces. The Germans kept their heads down. The gray-haired one was twitching faintly.

Zadiq and Arev were driving.

Ian thrust his back up against the lorry wall and felt the vibration of the engine roll throughout his body. His hands were going numb. The taut position of his right shoulder blade should have been excruciating. He realized, however, that his knife wound was slowly healing. The thought gave him a flicker of hope.

The lorry lurched and rolled forward.

“Where are we going?” he asked aloud.

Zadiq's men did not answer. But the gray-haired German glanced up at Ian briefly. He understood English. Or perhaps he was simply expecting Ian to speak German, as he had in the man's cell. That gave Ian an idea.

“Wie heißen Sie?”
he asked.

“Erich,” the other said.
“Und Sie?”

“James.”

“Engländer.”

“Yes,” he agreed, in the man's tongue. Zadiq's guards failed to react, but they were watching the conversation all the same. “Any idea where we're going?”

Erich shrugged. “I am thinking it is to the safe house. Where we told the paratroopers to come. We will be expected to welcome them so that all looks correct. So they do not suspicion anything.”

“You've been there before?”

“But yes.” He smiled mirthlessly. “It was my house, you see, before we were taken by these
russische Schweine
.”

Of course. Zadiq had intercepted Erich's communications, tracked where they came from, and arrested him with his partner.

That partner—whose accent had sounded vaguely East European to Ian—was staring at him now. “I thought you were one of them,” he said. “Not cattle like us. Maybe you still
are
one of them—put back here to spy. Don't talk to him, Erich. It's a trick.”

“I wish it were.” Ian studied the man warily. “Where is this safe house of yours?”

“In the southern part of the city.” Erich shot his partner a look. “It is nothing, Tomàš. If he were with them, he would know this, already.”

Tomàš. The man was Czech. Possibly of Sudeten origin, if he had joined the Nazis. And they were all headed south—farther away from the British Embassy and its targets.

“Do you know when your friends are expected to come down from the hills?”

“We were told to say 2200.”

“Erich!” hissed Tomàš. “Shut up, you fool!”

“He would know,”
Erich repeated patiently. “If he is one of them, I am telling nothing of importance. And if he is not—still I am telling nothing. We gave them directions. Bona fides. They will not suspect.”

His voice died away on these last few words, and he dropped his head again. Erich obviously was haunted by his multiple betrayals. At the way he was saving himself, by luring these men to their deaths.

War is bloody, Ian thought. But he felt a distaste for Tomàš and Erich, regardless. They probably had thought it would be easy to sell a few secrets to Zadiq. Play both sides of the field. Wait for the Germans or the Russians to come out on top. They were agents in Occupied Persia, after all—and anyone with a secret to sell was a fool not to seek the highest bidder.

But this couldn't be easy.

It was cold-blooded murder.

And they didn't have the comfort of viewing the paratroopers as enemies. Like Ian did.

He turned his head slightly and studied the most vigilant of the NKVD escort. He was slightly older than the boy Arev—in his twenties, perhaps—with closely cropped black hair and a nose that had been frequently broken. His left fingers were stained yellow by nicotine, but his gun barely wavered in his right hand, despite the lurching lorry. He'd let Ian and Erich talk freely. Which meant he wanted to hear what they had to say.

There are three of you and only two of
them. When the lorry stops, 007, kick out with your
legs and smash the oil lamp. Utter darkness. Flame, perhaps,
on the NKVD agent's leg. He's shrieking. His men are
fighting. Your hands aren't free, but your head is. Use
your weight and height. Use your skull if you must.
When the door is unbolted, leap out into Zadiq's face.

And then?

He'd be shot to death.

Or he'd hobble away into an unknown part of the city, an obviously escaped prisoner with no Farsi to his name. He'd be arrested and eventually turned over to the British Embassy, if he lived so long.

Roll the dice either way, he'd be shut out of Zadiq's plans. No paratroopers. No idea when the Fencer meant to kill Churchill and the others.

Unacceptable.

He leaned back against the lorry wall and closed his eyes.

—

S
IRANOUSH HAD
washed her hair and dressed carefully for this meeting. She was wearing a frock she'd admired in Cairo; Nazir had bought it and given it to her as a gift. It was silk and very dear—silk was almost impossible to obtain, now that there was war. Except for a dealer in precious antiquities. A man who knew the value of every material that came under his hand. A man who knew how to haggle for what was precious.

Nazir had haggled for her, she thought, as he might have for a fragment of Nefertiti's head unearthed in the Egyptian sand. She had never been his granddaughter and he knew nothing really about her, but he had found her in the NKVD camp in Yerevan, a scrawny orphan of fourteen, and coveted her like the collector he was. Like a man with an eye for perfection.

He had given her a new name once he bought her.
Siranoush.
It meant
Creature of Beauty
in Armenian.

She could barely remember being anyone else.

She thought of the old man now with vague nostalgia and not a little hatred. As was true of some connoisseurs, Nazir was inclined to peculiar tastes. Siranoush had fulfilled all of them. Fantasies. Crudities. He had enjoyed each infinitesimal variation, and had enjoyed most, perhaps, the perversions from which he rescued her himself. The time he had tied her wrists and ankles to a bed in a suite at Shepheard's Hotel, and then sent a series of strangers in to ravish her. The time he had sold her in a game of cards to a man whose throat he cut just at climax. He liked to think of himself as God: Creator, Seducer, Rapist, and Savior.

Father, Son, Virgin, and Holy Ghost.

She was glad he was dead.

But she wondered, now, if she still existed.

Without the old man's eyes on her, she felt increasingly invisible. Remote behind opaque glass, beating her hands to break out.

She smoothed the silk over her hips and sighed. Then she bit her lips to bring color to the flesh—strange, how pain animated everything—and went down into the bazaar.

—

M
ICHAEL
H
UDSON
idled among the perfume bottles. Grace had said the Perfume Hall—he was sure of it. But maybe she was smarter than he thought. Maybe she'd lied to him on purpose.

He thought fleetingly of the earnest face, drowning in the dusk of the Soviet garden. No. Gracie didn't lie.

He smiled faintly as he considered her. She wore her heart on her sleeve. He excited her—in ways she couldn't fathom, and probably couldn't trust. And so she said more than she should. She'd told him Ian was operating alone and was in civilian clothes. Nobody from the embassy behind him. He was out on a wire, teetering above the ground, and the slightest push would send him plummeting to earth.

Michael had known Ian long enough to appreciate his uncanny grace. His extraordinary luck. His facile charm. He could slip through fingers, balance on any tightrope, land on his feet like a cat. But there was a limit to nine lives.

Michael needed to find Ian. Before he hurt himself or anyone else.

Commander Fleming ought to be watching the bazaar right now. All Hudson had to do was show up. Look obvious. Wait for Ian to stroll over and say:
I told you Averell Harriman was a wrong'un from
the start.

Only it was not Ian whose heels were clicking swiftly toward him across the ancient mosaic floors. With the sixth sense of the born spy, he turned just as the girl launched herself into his arms.

“Darling!” she cried, kissing him full on the mouth.

He was aware of a ripe body pressing against his. His groin surged to life. He stared dazedly into the flowerlike face hovering beneath his own.

“It's been so long!” she breathed. “And I've been so lonely. Tell me you've
missed
your Siranoush!”

—

H
E TOOK
HER
out to the street and began walking, aimlessly, toward the Shah's empty palace. She stared straight ahead, the darkness punctuated by passing lights, her face sporadically illuminated. Her hair was a river of platinum. She was a magnificent creature, Hudson thought. And totally uncontrollable. He would have to work carefully.

“Siranoush,” he said aloud, savoring the word. “Don't you think it was ill advised to approach me in such a public place, in such a headlong manner? I enjoyed it immensely—don't get me wrong, but—”

“I do not understand this
headlong,
” she said impatiently. “You are looking for Bond, yes?”

“You know him?”

“We made contact in Cairo. The night he was attacked. You knew he was attacked, yes?”

“I heard. Eventually. Also that he was ordered to return home.”

“He flew with me to Tehran instead.”

“He
would
.” Hudson pressed his fingers against his eyes, feeling a dull throb of pain at his temples. “Military transport would never do—it'd have to be hot and cold running blondes. Have you been with him ever since?”

She shrugged dismissively. “He was taken away tonight. By my people.”

“Taken? Where?”

“I do not know. They no longer trust me.”

“Because you've been with . . . Bond?” he guessed. “You're tainted by association?”

She gave a little shrug, her eyes still not meeting his. “It is not important. What matters is that you find him.”

“I thought we were all supposed to be Allies,” he muttered in frustration. “What do
your people
want with my friend?”

“Something to do with codes. Intercepts.”

Turing, he thought. “German codes?”

“Probably.” She glanced at him. “I do not think they mean to kill Bond. Not yet. But they will hurt him until he gives them what they want. And then . . . They took two German agents, too. Radio operators.”

“Why?”

“Long Jump,” she said. “They are to ambush a group of paratroopers who have been hiding in the hills.”

Hudson's brows shot up. “And these Nazis have no idea their friends have been turned. So tonight . . .”

“The German radio operators will lure six men to their deaths. In order to save your President's life.”

Hudson laughed brusquely. “So
your people,
as you call them, have known all along where the last few commandos were. Not exactly the briefing Molotov gave us. Just goes to show. Never trust a Russian.”

“Then it is just as well I am Armenian.” She flashed a rare smile. “Bond thinks Stalin and the others will die, whether we trap the paratroopers or not. He is sure the Fencer will go ahead with his plan—he is a member of the delegations, and has perfect access to his targets. How can he fail?”

“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.”

—

T
HE
G
ERMAN
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.