He did not quite make the car before the first animal attacked, snarling and leaping for his right arm, its weight carrying him against the car, knocking the breath from his body. He felt a sharp pain as the dog's teeth sank into his forearm and pulled. For a second the heavy shepherd made a mistake, snapping at his arm again but putting itself between Bond's body and the pistol. He put a bullet into the beast, which seemed to stop dead before being thrown backward with a long yelp of agony.
The other shepherd, hearing its partner yelp and seeing it fall, hesitated for a fraction of a second, but it gave him enough time to slide into the car and close the door.
The dog landed heavily on the hood, barking and clawing against the windshield, saliva running from its jaws, the sharp teeth clearly visible. Bond started the engine, slammed the vehicle into gear, and shot from the cave of overgrown shrubbery, wrenching hard at the wheel and throwing the dog to the ground, as he accelerated onto the road.
Two bullets struck the rear of the Corrado. He felt the heavy thumps but could not detect damage. Hunched over the wheel and driving as though the hounds of hell were after him, he screeched around a long bend and headed back toward Wasserburg. If his mission was to be truly successful, he had one more important thing to do, and he knew only too well that he had jeopardized the whole business by making the trip out to Tarnenwerder.
After ten minutes he was sure that nobody had followed, but he considered that would only be a matter of time. The dog handlers had got a good look at the car, so it would not take them long to report the matter. When that was done, Tarn's orders could take only one form – Bond's death warrant.
It was almost ten-thirty as he steered the car into the parking lot, where he chose a space close to the exit. For a few moments he sat in the driver's seat, examining the damage to his forearm. There was blood, but the dog's fangs had not gone deep. He counted four long lacerations, which he covered with a handkerchief tied tightly and soaking up the blood immediately.
Time was now at a premium, so he rolled down his sleeve over the makeshift bandage, removed the miniature camera from the glove compartment, and left the car, jogging away toward the rear of the buildings on the side of the Marienplatz in which Saal, Saal u. Rollen was situated.
It took less than five minutes to reach the back of the lawyers' offices, and only thirty seconds to slide a credit card between the curved bolt and its housing. Nobody, it seemed, had bothered to clip down the retainer, which would have posed difficulties.
He stood for a moment in the darkness inside the office, switching on the flashlight and shielding it with his hand, then making his way along the passage that led to the large entrance hall. All was silence, and he could see the computers under their protective hoods. Again he stood listening. Not a sound, so he began to move silently up the stairs, across the landing, and to the door with its little notice that read "H. Saal."
He had expected to need his lockpicks to get into Helmut's office, but the door was open and he was able to swing the flashlight beam around the room. The huge desk was similar to the one in Fritz's office, but the wall opposite was lined with a tall bank of gray filing cabinets.
Listening again for a few seconds, he went over to the one window and pulled down the blind, then made for the cabinets, which were neatly lettered by alphabet. The letter T took up half of the wall, so it took little brain to realize that Helmut kept a large number of documents on Tarn and Tarnenwerder there in his office.
The latest legal work for Tarn, Bond decided, would be in the last drawer labeled T. Slowly he removed his lock-picks, in their Swiss Army Knife disguise, and got down to the business at hand.
The cabinets were normal commercial pieces of equipment, about as easy to unlock as a child's money box. This was either all too simple, he thought, or Helmut was a lawyer with a very trusting nature. The last drawer clicked and slid open, displaying about ten files hanging neatly on their rails. As he removed the first folder, Bond tried to use some logic on the situation. Helmut Saal had installed no special alarms or security equipment because Wasserburg, in all probability, had a low crime rate. The people of this unique little town were all descendants of families who had lived and died here over the centuries. Wasserburg was not the kind of place you moved into from somewhere on the other side of the country. This, being a given fact, meant that few would ever want to look at the files concerning Tarn and the estate. True, there had been small legal skirmishes over the years, when consortiums, and even the authorities in Munich, had tried to take over the estate, but even that would not be any cause for concern. Possibly there were very old documents that traced the estate's history back over centuries, but they would be stored in some safe vault. More recent papers could be kept here in the office with impunity. Any legal firm that still clung to archaic laws concerning generations of Saals and Rollens would not give a thought to having its documents behind ultra-secure locks and warning devices.
He moved the file over to Helmut's desk and began to examine the papers within, holding the small light in his teeth. The very first item showed that he had struck pay dirt, for it was a copy of an application for one Maximilian Erwen von Tarn to reclaim his German citizenship. Attached to it were copies of the official correspondence concerning the application, and the final page showed that the whole thing had been granted in March of 1992.
Other papers in this one file alone concerned the issue of a passport to Tarn, while the last section of documents were copies of a court order banning anyone else's claim to ownership of the house called Tarnenwerder and its considerable estates. The whole shooting match had legally belonged to the said Maximilian Erwen von Tarn since January '92, even though he had not officially reclaimed his German citizenship until March.
There was enough here to satisfy The Committee that Sir Max Tarn, business tycoon and philanthropist, was not quite what he seemed. Certainly, as dual nationality could not apply, he had been sailing and flying under a false flag for some time.
He took out the camera and began adjusting it in order to get clear, well-lit shots of the papers. As he put his hand down on the corner of Helmut's desk he glanced toward the right-hand set of drawers that ran down to the floor. The bottom one was slightly open, and he glimpsed a small red pinpoint of light from within.
Opening it further revealed a combination answer-phone, set to pick up any incoming messages. He touched the little arrowed button marked Rewind, knowing that sometimes people did nothing about rewinding the tape after they had played it back. When it stopped he pressed the Play Messages button, heard the beep and then the second shock of the night. "This is most urgent," said a disembodied voice on the tape. "An agent from the British Intelligence Service is on his way to Wasserburg. His mission is to run a check on Max and on the current Tarnenwerder situation. The man will be operating under the name James Boldman, and I would advise that Max give him the disappearing treatment." Then followed a description of himself, James Bond, together with a few other facts – facts pertaining to MicroGlobe One and the current situation in England.
It was not so much the message as the voice that rocked Bond on his heels. It was one he recognized immediately. Someone with whom he worked very closely and would never have thought capable of penetrating an organization like Two Zeros or even MicroGlobe One. Reaching down, he removed the tape from the answer-phone and slipped it into his pocket. Going back to the job of photographing the documents, he found himself working like an automaton. The identity of the person who had betrayed him was so devastating that he could think of little else, but he completed the work, returned the file to its place in the cabinet and, using his picks again, relocked the drawer. It was one of the things he had learned very early in his training. If you become involved in a covert burglary it is always best to leave things at least approximately how you found them.