Rivke nodded and Tirpitz laughed unpleasantly.
‘All right.’ The transmogrification trick again: Kolya changed from the slow professor into the sharp executive; decisive, in control. He was a joy to watch, Bond thought. ‘All right. I’ll give it to you quickly and straight. This – as you probably do know, Mr Bond – concerns the National Socialist Action Army: a proven threat to my country and to your countries too. Fascists in the old mould.’
Tirpitz gave his unpleasant laugh again. ‘Mouldy old Fascists.’
Mosolov ignored him. It appeared to be the only way to deal with Brad Tirpitz’s wisecracks. ‘I am not a fanatic.’ Mosolov dropped his voice. ‘Nor am I obsessed by the NSAA. However, like your governments, I believe this organisation to be large and growing every day. It is a threat . . .’
‘You can say that again.’ Brad Tirpitz took out a pack of Camels, thumped the end against his thumb, extracted a cigarette and lit it, using a book match. ‘Let’s cut through it, Kolya. The National Socialist Action Army’s got you Soviets scared shitless.’
‘A threat’, Kolya continued, ‘to the world. Not just to Soviet Russia and the Eastern bloc.’
‘You’re their main target,’ Tirpitz grunted.
‘And we’re implicated, Brad, as you know. That’s why my government approached your people. And Rivke’s and Mr Bond’s governments.’ He turned back to Bond. ‘As you may, or may not, know, all the arms used in operations carried out by the NSAA come from a Soviet source. The Central Committee were informed of this only after the fifth incident. Other governments and agencies suspected we were supplying arms to some organisation – possibly Middle Eastern – which was, in turn, passing them on. This was not so. The information solved a problem for us.’
‘Someone had his fingers in the till,’ Brad Tirpitz interjected.
‘True,’ Mosolov snapped. ‘Last spring, during a spot inspection of stores – the first for two years – a senior officer of the Red Army discovered a huge discrepancy: an inexplicable loss of armaments. All from one source.’ He rose, walked across the room to a briefcase and took out a large map, which he spread on the carpet.
‘Here.’ His finger pointed at the paper. ‘Here, near Alakurtii, we have a large ordnance depot . . .’
Alakurtii lay some sixty kilometres east of the Finnish border, well into the Arctic Circle – about two hundred-plus kilometres north-east of Rovaniemi, where Bond had based himself during his recent expedition.
Kolya continued. ‘During last winter that particular ordnance depot was raided. We were able to identify all the serial numbers of weapons used by the NSAA. They definitely came from Alakurtii.’
Bond asked what was missing.
Kolya’s face went deadpan as he rattled off a list: ‘Kalashnikovs; RPKs; AKs; AKMs; Makarov and Stetchkin pistols; RDG-5 and RG-42 grenades . . . A large number, with ammunition.’
‘Nothing heavier than that?’ Bond made it sound casual, an off-the-cuff response.
Mosolov shook his head. ‘It’s enough. They disappeared in great quantities.’
First black mark, Bond thought. He already knew from M – who had his own sources – that Kolya Mosolov had omitted the most significant weapons: a large number of RPG – 7V Anti-Tank launchers, complete with rockets that carried several different kinds of warheads – conventional, chemical, and tactical nuclear – large enough to wreck a small town and devastate a fifty-mile radius from point of impact.
‘This equipment disappeared during the winter, when we keep a small garrison at Base Blue Hare, as we call the depot. The Colonel who made the discovery used his common sense. He told nobody at Blue Hare, but reported straight back to the GRU.’
Bond nodded. That figured: the Glavnoye Razvedy-vatelnoye Upravleniye – Soviet Military Intelligence, an organisation linked umbilically with the KGB – would be the natural source to be informed.
‘The GRU put in a pair of monks – that’s what they like to call undercover men working in government offices, or army units.’
‘And they lived up to their holy orders?’ Bond asked without a smile.
‘More than that. They’ve located the ringleaders – greedy NCOs being paid off by some outside source.’
‘So,’ Bond interrupted, ‘you know how the stuff was stolen . . .’
Kolya smiled. ‘How, and the direction in which it was moved. We’re fairly certain that, last winter, the consignment was taken over the Finnish border. It’s a difficult frontier to cover, though parts are mined, and we’ve cut away miles of trees. People still come in and go out every day. That’s the way we believe the stuff went.’
‘You don’t know the first destination, then?’ It was Bond’s second testing question.
Mosolov hesitated. ‘We’re not certain. Our satellites are trying to pinpoint a possible location, and our people have their eyes open for the prime suspect. But the facts are still unclear.’
James Bond turned to the others. ‘And is it just as uncertain to you two?’
‘We only know what Kolya’s told us,’ Rivke said calmly. ‘This is a friendly operation of trust.’
‘Langley have given me a name nobody’s mentioned yet, that’s all.’ Brad Tirpitz was obviously not going to say more, so Bond asked Mosolov if he had a name to say aloud.
There was a long pause. Bond waited for the name which M had given him on the last night, in that office high on the ninth floor of the building overlooking Regent’s Park.
‘It’s so uncertain . . .’ Mosolov did not wish to be drawn.
Bond opened his mouth to speak again, but Kolya quickly added: ‘Next week. By this time next week we may well have it all sewn up. Our GRU monks report that another consignment is to be stolen. That’s why we have little time. As a team, our job is to gain evidence of the theft, then follow the route by which the arms are removed – right up to their final destination.’
‘And you think the man who’ll receive them will be Count Konrad von Glöda?’ Bond gave a broad smile.
Kolya Mosolov did not show any signs of emotion or surprise.
Brad Tirpitz chuckled. ‘London has the same information as Langley, then.’
‘Who’s von Glöda?’ Rivke asked, not attempting to disguise her shock. ‘Nobody’s mentioned any Count von Glöda to me.’
Bond removed the gunmetal cigarette case from his hip pocket, placed a slim white H. Simmons cigarette between his lips, lit it, inhaled smoke, then let it out in a long thin stream.‘My people – and the CIA too, it would appear – have information that the principal acting on behalf of the NSAA, in Finland, is a Count Konrad von Glöda. That true, Kolya?’
Mosolov’s eyes still remained cloudy. ‘It’s a code name. A cryptonym, that’s all. There was no point giving you that information yet.’
‘Why not? Are you hiding anything else, Kolya?’ Bond did not smile this time.
‘Only that I would hope to lead you to von Glöda’s retreat in Finland next week when we carry out our surveillance on Blue Hare, Mr Bond. I had also hoped you would accompany me into Russia to see it all for yourself.’
James Bond could hardly believe it. A KGB man was actually inviting him into the spider’s web, under the pretext of witnessing the theft of a large quantity of arms. And there was no way, now, in which he could tell whether Kolya Mosolov meant it to be a genuine part of Operation Icebreaker, or whether Icebreaker was merely some carefully dreamed-up device to trap Bond on Soviet soil.
It was the latter possibility that M had warned Bond about, before 007 had left for Madeira.
6
YELLOW vs SILVER
The four members of the Icebreaker team had arranged to meet for dinner, but Bond had other ideas. M’s warnings of duplicity among the uneasy quartet had been made all too apparent at the short briefing in Kolya’s room.