Back in his room he called Flicka, who sounded brighter, particularly when he said that he hoped to be back either tomorrow or the day after. Then he used code words to let her know his intentions for that night.
"Should I tell the vicar?" she asked innocently. The vicar was their password for the Minister.
"I don't see why not if it makes him happy. He is like Dad, keeping Mum?"
"Like the grave, but I think he fancies his chances. He came into the office this afternoon and sat a little too close for comfort. Held my hand with a squeeze when he was leaving."
"Never marry into Whitehall, my dear. The Junior Minister of today is not always the Prime Minister of tomorrow. You can get your name in the papers as well, consorting with members of HM Government."
"I know it." There was laughter in her voice as she used a particularly ribald code word. One that she had thought up, signifying certain desires.
It was eight-thirty by the time he had changed into black jeans, rollneck and denim jacket. The holster for his automatic was firmly in place on his right hip and hidden by the jacket, while spare ammunition magazines were distributed about his body, and the knife was strapped on his left forearm. He also carried the disguised Swiss Army Knife and a small, powerful flashlight in his pocket. Earlier he had sat on the bed and memorized the route from the detailed map of Tarnenwerder provided by Bill Tanner.
It was almost a ten-mile drive, mainly on small country side roads, but it took him to a point on a boundary road of the Tarnenwerder estate where he could safely leave the car, backed in among a thick cave of shrubbery by the roadside.
Quietly he left the vehicle, standing, as usual, for several minutes to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He knew that the ground sloped upward from the road, and at the crest of the rise he would be able to look down onto the old house less than three hundred yards away.
He now saw that the way up was lighted by the reflection of what seemed to be flickering fire from the other side of the rise. He could also hear the voice, electronically amplified, of Max Tarn, and he shivered, for already it sounded like the rabble-rousing oratory of someone from the historic past.
15 – Tarnenwerder
When he reached the crest, the sight that struck him, almost like a blow to the mind, was even more reminiscent of some replay of an old 1930s movie.
The house itself was huge and bathed in light – a great tall oblong edifice in gray stone. In front a long raised terrace with central steps and an ornate stone balustrade stretched the entire length of the building. In the center at the top of the steps, a solid wooden lectern had been set up and Maximilian Tarn, in a brown uniform that also owed much to another era, stood, flanked by men in similar dress, haranguing a crowd of two or three hundred – a sea of people, men and women, girls and boys, ranged in well-ordered lines across a vast lawn. Each of these people held a blazing torch that threw disconcerting and moving shadows against the trees and the facade of Tarnenwerder. Tarn's shadow was, by some prearranged trick of lighting, huge and glowering against the house itself.
"It is with these thoughts in our minds that we must go forward. Fight. Keep faith. Stand firm, shoulder to shoulder. Remember the glorious dead who were betrayed." Tarn raised both his hands in little jerking movements as he held me audience entranced. "Only if we stay true to the message of our great forefathers…" One hand swept upward, clawing the air. "Only if we stay true to the oaths of those who went before, will we rebuild what the glorious Adolf Hitler succeeded in building before he was betrayed – One Empire… One People… One Leader."
Bond felt a cold sweat clouding his forehead. Tarn's voice, gestures, and manner were almost exact replicas of those that had belonged to Adolf Hitler sixty-odd years before. Even the last words – "Ein Reich… Ein Volk… Ein Führer!" – were Hitler's words, and they were a signal to the crowd, which bellowed back in a great series of waves like crashing surf: "Sieg Heil… Sieg Heil… Sieg Heil!" Hail Victory.
Then came the moment that made Bond's stomach turn over and the cold sweat envelop his entire body. The sudden launching into song – one that he knew from old films and recordings and that conjured up the whole Nazi horror:
Die Fahnen hoch, die Reihe dicht geschlossen!
The flags held high! The ranks stand tight together.
It was the Nazi hymn, its marching song, its anthem, the "Horst Wessel."
The very tune brought images, culled from books, news films, documentaries, and photographs, sharply to his mind: the young men shot to pieces on the ground, the sea, and in the air; he almost heard the jackboots stamping, his mind seeing the flamboyant uniforms of the SS, and the sinister faces of the Gestapo. Europe a ruin, and the thousands who had disappeared to the camps. The six million Jews who had gone to the gas chambers. It was as though an entire montage of terror had filled his head: the walking dead of Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau, and the other death camps; the piles of skin and bone; the smoke from the dread chimneys. The horror of those past years early in this century when the whole of the continent shrank under the Nazi yoke. Was it all returning again?
There was no doubt now that Sir Max Tarn had already captured the leadership of the new Nazi Party, resurrected from its brutal past, fed by the indecision of the present German leadership, and watered by the requirements of a new age ripe for the taking.
Max Tarn, he knew, had banked on some spectacular act that would bring him forgiveness for former dealings in death, and set him up as a figure to be reckoned with on a global scale. It was, the unhappy Trish Nuzzi had told him, going to happen in the Caribbean. So this obscenity he now watched was but a prelude of what would come if by any chance the obsessive man could pull off some incredible coup that might make him untouchable in the eyes of the world.
Through all the flashing pictures in Bond's head, the words of the infamous "Horst Wessel Song" seemed even more prophetic:
Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,
Marschieren im Geist in unsern Reihen mit.
Comrades who, though shot by Red Front or Reaction,
Still march with us, their spirits in our ranks.
Indeed, old Nazi ghosts would revel and caper among this crowd, while the once-defeated leadership – from Hitler to Himmler – would stand close to this would-be Führer, smiling and nodding at what he was intent on bringing back, plunging the world into yet another dark age and dragging the old abominations from their very graves.
Bond was so wrapped up in revulsion that he failed to catch any sign of danger to himself. He had been oblivious to the security patrols that were obviously circling the perimeter of the Tarnenwerder estate. His first glimpse of an emergency came as a sudden flash of movement from within the grounds and to his left.
He turned to see two brown-uniformed men about fifty yards away, unleashing a pair of German shepherd attack dogs. The trained animals had sensed him as an intruder, and now they flew toward him with low growls.
He was on his feet and blundering down through the shrubbery heading back to the car, as the two beasts came bounding over the rise. He pulled his knife with his left hand and unholstered the automatic pistol with his right, running for his life and aware of the dogs closing like a pair of express trains.