By Royal Command (26 page)

Once they were down the mountain they headed back to Kitzbühel and then south towards the high Alps. Soon after Jochberg they left the main road and slowed down. The road began to slope upwards and they had to negotiate a series of tight hairpin curves to left and right, which meant that they were climbing higher.

It was another twenty minutes before they arrived at their destination and it was growing dark. James could just make out walls built out of massive blocks of grey stone, and a pair of huge black wooden gates. He heard shouts and heavy iron locks being opened. The gates swung back and the car drove in over cobbles, the sound of the engine reflecting back from the high surrounding buildings. They had entered a courtyard of some sort. The car stopped and he heard the gates being closed behind them.

Then he was shoved out of the car without a word.

The first thing that struck James was the smell. There was a horrible blocked-drain, rotting-food stink about the place that forced him to clamp a hand over his mouth and nose.

He was standing in the courtyard of an ancient Alpine schloss high on the mountainside. There was a cold, cheerless feel about the place even though it was early July. The buildings were tall and angular with tiny windows. The walls were running with damp and covered in moss and lichen. Dominating all was the peak of the mountain that towered overhead.

The second car drove up and parked nearby. James caught a glimpse of Roan scurrying into a side building between two men, her hair a bright flash of silver in the murk.

The man in the coat had been smoking for almost the whole journey, lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the one he was finishing. He now dropped his last cigarette half-smoked and stamped it out on the cobbles. James had hated the smoke at the time, but he much preferred it to the bad-drain smell filling the courtyard. It was the stink of death.

There came a rattle of locks and then a large door at the top of a flight of steps creaked open. A man walked out and stood looking at James.

It was the Graf von Schlick.

He was dressed in the long, black fur-trimmed coat and astrakhan hat, and still wore a cravat round his neck and leather gloves on his hands. As usual, the smooth skin stretched like a mask across his bland features showed no emotion.

‘James Bond,’ he said, his voice as flat and featureless as his face. ‘Welcome to Schloss Donnerspitze. I trust you will not have a pleasant stay.’

‘Thank you,’ said James, whose calm exterior was belying the fact that his brain was working away like mad. The Graf was no longer speaking in a whisper and James was sure he knew that droning voice from somewhere, but it went with a different face.

‘I apologise about the smell,’ said the Graf. ‘My men are looking into it. A pipe is blocked somewhere or some unfortunate creature has crawled into the walls to die.’

The man walked towards James and only stopped when he was a few inches away from him.

‘You really don’t recognise me, do you?’ he said. ‘I did not believe it at first. The surgery was more effective than I could ever have imagined.
Your
face, however, I will never forget. It is burned into my memory.’

That voice. So familiar. Flat and monotonous, with no ups and downs.

Where had he heard it before?

‘Throughout all my long and painful operations one thing kept me going,’ the man went on. ‘The thought that one day we might meet again and I could finish what was started at Loch Silverfin.’

‘Silverfin?’ said James. ‘But then…’

‘Perhaps you assumed that I had died in the fire. I very nearly did, but I managed to escape. Not without terrible injuries, though.’

It was like talking to a doll – the voice was mechanical and the features barely moved, the mouth only opened a tiny slit and the unblinking eyes showed nothing.

‘Doctor Perseus Friend,’ said James.

‘Yes. Now we have a lot to catch up on. Perhaps you would like to come inside and we can talk a little before you die.’

27

Keeping Up Appearances

The great hall was long and very tall, as if it hadn’t been built for human use at all, but rather for some fairy-tale giant. The walls were grey stone and they stretched up into the shadows where the steeply sloping roof was supported by massive wooden beams. Even though it was the height of summer it felt cold in here and a small pile of logs smouldering in the huge fireplace did little to dispel the chill.

The room took James back to the previous year and another gloomy castle, this time in the west of Scotland. Castle Hellebore. It was there that James had first met Dr Friend. He had been working for Lord Hellebore, a maniac who had been trying to create a drug that would turn ordinary soldiers into super-strong fighting machines. Dr Perseus Friend had been Hellebore’s chief scientist and James had helped to destroy his laboratory. He vividly recalled the moment when Friend had run back into the burning building to try and save his work, and he had thought that that was the last he would ever see of the man.

How wrong he had been.

For here he was, sitting at the head of a long table built from great planks of dark wood, taking sips from a glass of iced water.

The walls were decorated with murky portraits, faded and tattered banners and the odd piece of armour. James guessed the portraits were of members of the von Schlick family. So why exactly was Dr Friend impersonating the Graf? And what did he have to do with Roan’s plan to assassinate King George? James had known that the Graf fitted in somewhere, but he had never connected him directly with Roan herself.

It didn’t make sense. Friend had worked for the Russians once, but he had fled to the West. Was he back working for them again? Or was there something more complicated going on? James had the feeling that if he waited long enough he would get answers to all his questions.

He had been sitting here, alone at the table, since his arrival, with two armed guards standing watch over him. Then at last Friend had come in. He had barely looked at James, and had been quietly sipping water at the far end of the table for the last few minutes. His smooth face showed nothing, and, so far, he had said nothing.

Now, finally, Dr Friend turned to look at James. James remembered that he had used to wear spectacles. He was wearing none now, but his eyes were pale and steady.

‘I used to wonder,’ he said, ‘while I was lying for all those long weeks and months in various hospitals around Europe, my whole body gripped by indescribable pain…’ He paused for another sip, sucking the water noisily between his thin lips. ‘I used to wonder what I might say to you if I ever saw you again. I practised lines… “Ah, James Bond, we meet once more, but this time the outcome will be very different.” That sort of thing. But it never sounded right. It was all too –
what is the word
– “corny”. I sounded like a cheap villain from a melodramatic American movie. I was still working on what to say when you stumbled into my room at the clinic, and I was too shocked and surprised to say anything. Not that I
could
say anything, as I did not want to give myself away. So I was silent. Sometimes it is best to say nothing, to keep your mouth shut.’ The monotonous drone, combined with his immobile, wax-like features, made Friend seem more like an animated dummy than a living, breathing man.

‘I expect you want to know what I am doing here, pretending to be the Graf von Schlick,’ he went on, ‘and how I got here, and what is going on. While we wait for the ladies, I will tell you. It will amuse me.

‘The fire was very strong when I ran into it. I knew at once that it was over, the laboratory would perish, and I would perish, too, if I did not get out of there. Fallen timbers blocked the door I had entered by. But the way out to the loch side was clear; the doors there had burned away. I had just time to recover my medical bag and I burst out of that hellhole like a human fireball. I plunged into the loch. My flaming clothes were extinguished, but not before most of my body was badly burned. I swam. I had to. For I knew that the eels would come for me. I was leaking blood and pieces of toasted flesh into the water. Luckily the noise and commotion, the heat and falling debris were keeping them away, but some of the bolder ones were already nipping at my skin. Somehow I made it to the bank on the far side of the castle and climbed ashore. Then I took a risk. I injected myself with the latest, untried, batch of serum. The few vials that I had in my case were the last of it, but I knew that it was my only hope of survival. It gave me the strength and the energy to carry on and it boosted the healing process. I crawled into the woods then found my way to the house of one of Hellebore’s workers, a pilot. He had always been a loyal man, and he had been paid well. I directed him to do the best he could with my injuries and offered him a great deal of money to fly me out of there in Hellebore’s aeroplane. Under the cover of darkness we took off and hopped across to Iceland, then to Norway, then down to Switzerland. I kept going by giving myself regular injections. How ironic it was that in that last batch we had managed to perfect the drug. It would have been an enormous boon to medical science. It helped to heal my skin, but the damage was very severe. Very deep. Once in Switzerland I took myself to a hospital and so began the months of painful treatment. As I said, it was not only the serum that kept me going, it was also the thought of revenge. Revenge on you, and revenge on your country.’

‘So you went to the Russians?’ said James.

Friend took another sip of iced water and stared at James.

‘It is galling,’ he said, ‘that twice now my plans have been upset by somebody as stupid as you.’ He stopped and looked over to the door behind James.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Here are the ladies.’

James twisted in his seat. First into the room was Roan. She was wearing a simple white dress that he had not seen before and she had removed her blonde wig. She had obviously spent some effort on her appearance and, for the first time since he had known her, was wearing make-up, which made her look much older. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and didn’t even glance at James.

Behind her came another young woman. The man with baggy eyes was pushing her in a wheelchair. She too was pretty, but her looks were spoiled by tiredness. Tiredness and something else. Her head lolled and she could barely keep her eyes open. Her mouth was slack. Her skin pale and shiny. As she came near to the table her head rolled towards James and their eyes met. For a moment something came alive inside her and there was a brief flare of intelligence; she gave James a pleading look that was gone almost before he registered it. Then her chin flopped down to her chest and her features slackened.

‘Good evening to you both,’ said Dr Friend as Roan sat down and the other girl was wheeled to her place.

‘And you will join us as well, I hope, Vladimir?’

‘
Da
,’ said the baggy-eyed man and he sat next to Roan.

‘You have not been properly introduced, James,’ said Dr Friend. ‘This is my associate Vladimir Wrangel, also known as Agent Amethyst.’

Wrangel turned to James with a sour look. Dr Friend carried on with his introductions.

‘The beautiful Roan, Agent Diamond, you know,’ he said. ‘And the other beauty is Liesl Haas. She was the real Graf’s mistress, and I decided to keep her on here for the sake of appearances. I would say that she brightened the place up, but she is so heavily sedated, she may as well be dead.’

So that explained it. The girl had been drugged. This promised to be a fun evening.

There was a distant muffled boom followed by a sharper, echoing crack.

‘Ah,’ said Dr Friend. ‘Talking of keeping up appearances, that is our cannon. A General Franz von Schlick captured it from the Turks in 1683 after breaking the siege of Vienna. Ever since, as long as a von Schlick has been in residence here, it has been fired every hour, on the hour, from dawn till dusk. It is a charming family tradition. A celebration of victory and freedom. It is where the Schloss gets its name.
Donnerspitze
. Thunder-Peak Castle.’

He clapped his hands and two uniformed servants brought over bowls of cold soup.

‘I only eat cold food now,’ Dr Friend explained. ‘I cannot bear anything hot near to me. Cold water. Cold food. This cold castle suits me well.’ He noisily slurped soup off his spoon. ‘Mm, this is good,’ he said and looked at Roan. ‘I was just telling James about my medical history.’

Roan muttered something without raising her head.

‘Yes, the doctors were amazed at how quickly my skin healed and how well the new grafts took,’ said Friend. ‘Unbeknownst to them I was still secretly injecting myself with the SilverFin serum. Now the serum is all gone, but I am still here. It has not been cheap, but I made sure that I had stashed away some funds in the form of gold coins. I stole them from under the nose of Lord Hellebore himself. I thought it wise to take precautions. He was a ruthless man and not to be trusted.’

‘Unlike you, I suppose,’ said James.

‘I assume you are being sarcastic,’ said Friend. ‘Please don’t bother. I have never understood the point of humour. A man should say what he means and be done with it.’

‘All right,’ said James. ‘I’ll say it plainly. You’re a snake.’

‘There you go again,’ said Friend. ‘I am not a snake. I am a man. A very clever man. Cleverer than Hellebore. He was a great scientist in many ways, but he was also wrong in so many ways. On a military level, the SilverFin experiment was a complete waste of time. We were rushing madly in the wrong direction. We do not need stronger soldiers. Men are cheap and expendable. We can simply breed more of them. The future of warfare is in the technology of weapons and in the advances of intelligence. I like that word,
intelligence
. I have always been an intelligent man. And I used my intelligence to secure my future.’

So that’s what this was all about
, thought James. Dr Friend was simply showing off, trying to prove to James what a clever piece of work he was. Well, James had had his fill of madmen who thought they were geniuses. They gave him a bellyache.

Or was that the soup?

He swallowed hard. Although hungry, he was struggling to finish the watery liquid in his bowl. It was cold and grey and had lumps of unidentifiable stuff floating in it. In the end he pushed it away half-eaten. After all, he didn’t need to be polite in present company. He wondered whether he should pour it on to the floor in disgust.

‘It was while I was in Switzerland that I met Wrangel,’ said Dr Friend. ‘Wrangel is a spy. He sought me out because he had learnt that here was a man who could speak fluent Russian, German and English. Here was a man who knew Britain very well. Here was a man who had worked for the Russians. Here was a man who was very clever and ambitious. So I met with his superiors. I went to the very top, and we started to form a plan. When I was well enough, I was made head of a secret unit and we put Operation Snow-Blind into action.’

‘So you are Obsidian?’ said James. Dr Friend nodded.

The two servants started to serve the next course. Cold ham and raw cabbage chopped with onions and hard-boiled egg, with cold noodles on the side. It didn’t look any more appetising than the soup.

‘I sent Wrangel and his team to Lisbon,’ Dr Friend droned on, ‘where they recruited Roan and Dandy. The two of them were perfect for our plans. New blood, freshly arrived on the Continent, desperate to help the communist cause, young enough and foolish enough not to ask too many questions. Dedicated revolutionaries, blinded by their zeal.’

‘What do you mean, blinded?’ said Roan, a forkful of food halfway to her mouth.

‘Did you really think, my dear, that when you killed King George, the ordinary working people of Great Britain would rise up and throw over their bosses? Did you really think that it would be the first step to building your communist Utopia there? The British people are sheep. They are conservative and sentimental and they worship tradition. They love their royal family more than they love themselves.’

‘Then why did you send us to do it?’ said Roan, her voice cracking with emotion.

‘I said earlier that I could not understand the point of humour,’ said Dr Friend. ‘But I appreciate now that we are in a rather humorous situation.’

‘Why?’ said Roan.

‘The flag I fly does not have the hammer and sickle of the Soviets on it, my dear,’ said Dr Friend. ‘It has a swastika.’

Roan threw down her fork with a loud clatter.

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said James, bitterly. ‘You’ve been working for the wrong side. He’s a Nazi.’

‘It can’t be true,’ said Roan.

‘It is true,’ said Dr Friend. ‘Lisbon is wide open, a chaotic morass of double agents, triple agents, carpetbaggers and sharks. Even some of the agents themselves have forgotten who they are really working for. Wrangel’s team easily identified the communist cell and destroyed it. The chief communist spy, Martinho Ferreira, was strangled and our own man, Cristo Oracabessa, was installed in his place. You believed, Roan, that you were dealing with communists, but you were not. You were dealing with Nazis. By the time the Russians realised what was going on it was too late. You and Dandy were in England and your only point of contact was Wrangel, Agent Amethyst.’

‘But Wrangel is a Russian,’ Roan protested.