Still working for the Secret Intelligence Service? Or have you decided to drag yourself into the twenty-first century?” The moon face looked almost friendly. “Incidentally, I hear that your new boss is a girl.
She send you to see me?”
“No, I came to you to ask a favor.” Zukovsky chuckled again and turned to his bodyguards “He wants me to do him a favor.
They all chuckled, and Bond thought they might be taking their lines from an ancient B movie.
“Bond,’ this time he was not looking so benign, “my knee aches every day. Twice as much when it’s cold, and do you realise how long winter can be in this part of the world?” He snapped his fingers at one of the thugs. “Tell him, Dimitri.” The large bodyguard began to mumble, revealing that he was not blessed with a high 10.
Zukovsky sighed and shut off Dimitri’s muttering with a withering look.
Bond fixed his eyes on his old adversary. “You know, Valentin, for an ex-KGB man you sometimes surprise me.
Surely, someone of your stature must have realised the skill wasn’t to hit your knee, but to miss the rest of you.” Some twenty seconds went by before Zukovsky took it in. “So why did you not kill me?”
“Let’s call it a professional courtesy.
Zukovsky lifted his big head and growled, “Then I should return the courtesy.” The pistol came up and he fired, the bullet slamming into the chair about half an inch from Bond’s right knee.
“Kirov’s Funeral Parlour. Four o’clock this afternoon, Bond spoke very quickly as though trying to beat a second bullet.
“Really?” The Russian slowly untangled himself from his chair. “I think we’d better talk about this in privacy.” After the red plush and velvet of Zukovsky’s club, his office was a surprise: neat, modern furniture and filing cabinets; a computer on a large uncluttered desk and coffee brewing in a big state-of-the-art coffee machine.
He gestured Bond into a chair and filled two cups of coffee. “If my memory serves, you take it black with no sugar.
“Your memory’s very good.”
“Like you, James Bond, my memory was for many years one of my most important weapons.
Above the desk was a framed portrait of KGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square. Bond nodded at it. “You still cling to the old days, Valentin.”
“It’s still Moscow Centre.” He settled himself behind his desk. “The Americans have a saying, “what goes around comes around”.’ “True enough.
“I have a firm belief that we’ll all be back in business within a decade. Political ideologies do not die so easily, nor are they simply rubbed out by a declaration. Now, what’s this about Kirov’s funeral parlour?”
“Two hundred pounds of C-4 explosive, hidden in a coffin.
Your man drives the hearse in, the money changes hands, their man drives the hearse out.”
“So?”
“So, their man is going to be arrested and the explosives will be seized. Armed with this knowledge, your man can make a miraculous escape with the money intact. You have time to warn him, and I promise you this is going to happen. Also, if certain people don’t hear from me by three this afternoon, it all goes down the drain. Explosives, their man, your man and the cash.” Zukovsky’s big head nodded. “So, what do I owe for this piece of information?”
“Very little. I want you to set me up with Janus.” The Russian made a little noise, half grunt half laugh.
“And what’s Janus done to deserve you?”
“He stole a helicopter.”
“I have six.
“You have three, and none of them fly.” Zukovsky laughed. “Who’s counting?”
“Valentin,’ Bond was serious now. “These people aren’t simply criminals. They’re traitors. They used that helicopter to steal a nuclear space weapon. They also killed a number of quite innocent people while they were at it.”
“What else can you expect from a Cossack?”
“Who?”
“This Janus. I’ve never met him, but I do know what he is - a Lienz Cossack.”
“The Cossacks who fought for Hitler against the Russians in what you called the Great Patriotic War?”
“And you call World War II? Yes, you know your history. When the war was over, the Lienz Cossacks were captured by the British in Germany. They expected to join the British forces and go to war again to obliterate the communists. Instead, the British betrayed them. They were sent back to Stalin, who promptly executed them.
Wives, children, the entire families.”
“That’s a rather simplistic view, but basically it wasn’t exactly our finest hour.”
“You’re right, of course. The plain, cut and dried story is simplistic. They were a ruthless people. In the end they got what they deserved. The families were the innocents though. Now, Janus?”
“I’d like you to contact him.
You must have ways. Let him know that it’s me, and that I’m asking around about the helicopter. You could, possibly, say that we’re meeting at the Grand Hotel Europe tonight. Might just drag him out.’ “And you and I are even, while he’ll owe me one.
“Precisely.” Valentin Zukovsky rose and limped to the door. “If you’re ever contemplating a change of career, let me know.
At the door, Bond said, “With people like you around, Valentin, I think I’ll always find work.”
Natalya’s watch had stopped when the pulse of the nuclear explosion had hit at the Severnaya Station. She discovered the fact while on the train to St. Petersburg, and it had deeply saddened her, for the watch was of great sentimental value. Her parents had gone without a number of luxuries to purchase it as a gift before she went to university. It would have been easy for Natalya to buy a new one at the hard currency shop, but somehow she did not want to part with it. Maybe she could find a watchmaker who would repair it for her. In the meantime she would rely on public clocks, for the watch felt somehow comforting strapped to her wrist
On the previous evening she had found a small hotel off Tchaikovsky Street which did not require to see passports and any other identification as long as you paid, in advance, with hard currency.
The fact that the salaries at the Severnaya Station were issued in American dollars, a great incentive to remain silent about the work, had become the one most important method of survival - and she thanked God for it.
She had slept late, checked out of the hotel and walked the streets, visiting places which interested her, in order to get through the day. The first thing she did was to go and walk past the church of Our Lady of Smolensk - a tiny blue-painted Orthodox church, out near the Smolny Institute. There she discovered that she had started to think like a criminal, or at least a fugitive, for she checked the exits and entrances, together with all the adjacent streets and alleys.
At around ten minutes to six that evening she was back, looking at the church from the outside. Once more she walked around the building before venturing inside.
It was a little jewel, with icons that took her breath away. Just being in the church stirred her emotions. She did not know if she believed in God, or all the other things associated with the Russian Orthodox Christian religion, but, once inside, with the scent of incense in her nostrils she had a great desire to pray.
She walked slowly down the centre aisle to a large icon of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Smolensk, slid a bill into the little box and lit a votive candle, then she knelt to pray.
She prayed for her parents, for the souls of all her friends who had died at Severnaya Station. Then she prayed for herself and a deliverance from the danger in which she now found herself. Nobody had ever taught her to pray, but it came naturally to her, like walking or speaking to a friend. Lastly she added that God’s will should be done, then realised that she had been inside the church for a good ten to fifteen minutes. Boris had not shown up and panic leaped into her head like some terrible vision. She began to question everything. Had Boris been caught? Had he led her into a trap?