"Please, Kurt, don't call me Mo. My name's Maurice."
16 – Dead or Alive
He stayed where he was, lying on the ground hidden by the little mound of rocks. His body was bruised and sore, while the bite on his arm began to throb. Tarn's men left fairly quickly, and the local police and rescue team arrived within minutes of their jubilant departure. Several townspeople, alerted by the crash and explosion of the car, followed, milling around anxious to see what had happened.
He used the sudden influx of people to get to his feet, mingle for a few minutes, trying to ease the aches in his body, and think of ways and means to get out of Wasserburg as quickly as possible.
Finally he slipped away, walking back to the hotel across a deserted Marienplatz. There was nobody about in the hotel entrance, so he was able to get to his room unseen. Once there he took a quick very hot shower, cleaned off the lacerations in his arm, which looked slightly red and swollen, and made a more permanent bandage from a couple of handkerchiefs. He dressed in blazer and slacks and then returned downstairs again.
The elderly waiter was nodding off behind the small reception desk.
"You work long hours, my friend." Bond shook him by the shoulder.
"Ach." The waiter slowly opened his eyes. "I don't sleep much these days. You get older, you don't need so much sleep. What can I do for you?"
Bond asked if he knew a reliable taxi service, "I want to get to Munich as quickly as possible."
"How quickly?"
"Now. Straightaway."
"My brother. He's stupid enough to go anywhere at any time. Wait." He dialed a number and proceeded to have an agitated conversation with somebody he called Wolfie. Putting a hand over the mouthpiece, he grinned. "He'll do it, but you'll have to make it worth his while."
After a little haggling they settled on a price. Bond paid his hotel bill and went back to finish his packing. Fifteen minutes later he carried the garment bag and the briefcase, repacked with the weapons in the safe compartment, downstairs and found the waiter's brother chatting in the small foyer.
The brother turned out to be older than the waiter, and wore thick-tensed glasses, but he grabbed the bags and set off toward his car. Before following him, Bond pushed a handful of notes into the waiter's hand and half whispered, "You've never seen me, okay?"
"I never see anybody. That's how you get from being a teenager in Hitler's Germany. It always pays never to see or hear anything."
Wolfie appeared to be under the impression that he was a Formula One driver, but he still took well over an hour and a half to get to Munich Airport. There were only four really frightening incidents during the drive, and Bond paid up, hurrying into the almost deserted airport to find that he had a very long wait, as there were no flights to London until a British Airways departure at seven-thirty in the morning. There were seats on the flight, so he managed to exchange his Lufthansa ticket, to the delight of the young woman at the BA desk.
Speed was essential, he thought, once he arrived in London, so he did not check in any luggage. His next step was to use a telephone carefully enough not to give any prior warnings to the person whose voice he carried on the tape in his pocket.
Using a credit card, he called Bill Tanner at his home number and very quickly laid the news on him, covering both Max Tarn's bid for a Fourth Reich in Germany and the name of the person who had betrayed MicroGlobe One and the entire country.
"You're certain?" Tanner was as shaken as Bond had been.
"One hundred percent proof positive, Bill. Here's what I want you to do." He outlined the exact steps that needed to be taken in the morning. "I'll call Flicka just before the flight departure," he ended. "You can both meet me; but for heaven's sake have everything else fixed."
"It'll all be done." Tanner was about to close the line when Bond asked if they still employed Burke and Hare.
"We certainly do."
"Better have them on hand as well."
Burke and Hare were nicknames for Bill Burkeshaw and Tony Hairman, the two most experienced inquisitors who worked for the Intelligence Service. They would certainly be needing them if things were to run to a smooth climax.
He found a seat in front of one of the airport television sets where you could watch CNN in English. It was positioned so that he had an uninterrupted view of the whole concourse, and he remained there until the British Airways flight was called. Only then did he use the telephone again to call Fredericka von Grüsse, who answered brightly.
He gave her the flight number and time of arrival at Heathrow, tersely telling her to meet him, closing the line quickly.
The BA Airbus 360 landed at exactly eight-thirty local time – a two-hour trip with a time difference of one hour between Munich and London.
Flicka embraced him as though he had been away for a month, not just a couple of days. Bill Tanner stood to one side, then clasped his hand.
"Everything done?" Bond asked, and Tanner nodded without speaking.
"What the hell's going on?" Flicka looked confused.
"You'll see." He gave her a mischievous smile. "Hope you didn't do anything rash, like bringing a rental car and driver out, because we're heading straight for the Home Office in Bill's car."
She gave a resigned sigh. "Might as well talk to a brick wall."
Everyone except M was gathered in the reading room at the Home Office, and two members of the Security Service loitered in the passageway outside the door.
"Ah, our wanderer returns." The Minister spoke with a little surprise. "Tanner, you didn't tell us that Captain Bond was back."
"He wasn't, sir. Not when I spoke with you early this morning."
"With your permission, Minister, I'd like to tell you exactly what I've been doing in Germany."
"Of course. Go ahead. Nobody's going to stop you."
So Bond gave what he later called his "recital," particularly stressing the facts concerning Tarn's German citizenship and the scene he had witnessed on the previous evening. When he came to the end, the Minister asked if he could be excused for a moment. "I have someone coming over from the Foreign Office." He made toward the door and had almost reached it when Bond stopped him.
"Minister, I'm afraid I am the bearer of even worse news."
"Oh?"
"I suggest you stay and hear me out."
Reluctantly, the Minister returned to his seat, grumbling that he hoped this would not take long.
"I've made no secret of the fact that I've been unhappy with MicroGlobe One from the outset," Bond began, and Wimsey made an exasperated noise.
"We're not going into all that again, surely."
"I'm afraid we have to, Commissioner. My feeling is that Tarn has been leading us a merry dance from the beginning. For instance, who actually suggested that Fräulein von Grüsse and myself should tip him off about the impending search-and-seizure warrants?"
"Not me," Wimsey proclaimed loudly.
"No." Bond looked at him, steely-eyed. "No, Claude, I'm now sure it wasn't you. The whole of that idea was rather cleverly arranged. You voiced the idea, but someone else put it into your mind. Have any of you really thought deeply about how Tarn could have faked his death at such short notice? That business on the way to Duxford wasn't organized on the fly. It had been set up long before Fredericka and I even arrived in Cambridge." He made a gesture toward Tanner, who nodded and left the room.
"There are other matters, which I touched on very briefly when we were last gathered here. How in blazes could your people, Wimsey – the police – and the Security Service have been so left-footed when Tarn and company came back into England? How did the timing work when Fredericka and I went up to Hall's Manor and found Lady Tarn's body? There are too many coincidences, and Tarn had just too much luck. He and his partners knew I would be in Wasserburg well before my arrival. I very nearly lost my life in Germany, and there's a possibility that Tarn actually thinks I am dead." He turned to Flicka. "That's why I didn't talk to you very much when I got back this morning, my dear. I'm covered in bruises and my right arm's giving me a little trouble, but I'm sure the dog that bit me wasn't rabid. As the Führer elect, I am certain Tarn would have made certain that his stable of guard dogs is free from any infection."