Silence, for a good half minute.
Then Kolya nodded, his strange trick of sudden facial change turning him sage-like. ‘Once we were alerted to what was going on at Blue Hare, our Special Operations Departments were given precise orders. High flying aircraft and satellites were set on new routes. Eventually they came up with these.’ He slid a small, clear plastic folder from under the map and began to pass around a series of photographs. There were a number of pictures, obviously taken from reconnaissance aircraft – probably theRussian Mandrake, Mangrove or Brewer-D, all ideal for the purpose. Even in black and white the photographs clearly showed large areas of disturbed ground. They had been taken during the late summer months or in early autumn before the snows, and on most of them some kind of large concrete bunker entrance was unmistakable.
The other photographs were also of a type with which both Bond and Brad Tirpitz were familiar: military reconnaissance satellite pictures, taken from miles above the earth, with varied cameras and lenses. The most interesting were those which showed, in vivid colour, changes in geological structure.
‘We put one of our Cosmos military intelligence birds on the job. Good, eh?’
Bond’s eyes flicked from the satellite pictures to the small drawings on the map. The pictures, mostly magnified and blown up, showed that considerable work had taken place under the earth’s surface. The textures and colours made it plain that the building was well-executed, with a great deal of steel and concrete used. It was a highly symmetrical structure with all the signs of a complete and active underground complex.
‘You see,’ Kolya continued, ‘I have more than just the photographs.’ He produced yet another folder, containing both plan and elevation drawings of what could only be a very large bunker. ‘We were alerted by the satellite findings. Then our field agents moved in. There were also one or two interesting maps of the area, used at the time of the Winter War, and later. Finnish military engineers built a large, underground arms dump on exactly this spot during the late 1930s. It was big enough to contain at least ten-tracked tanks, as well as ammunition and facilities for repair. The main bunker entrance was large – here,’ he pointed directly to the photographs and the plan view drawing. ‘From our people on the ground, and existing records, we know the bunker was, in fact, never used. However, about two years ago during the summer, much activity was reported in the general area – builders, bulldozers, the usual paraphernalia. It is, without much doubt, von Glöda’s lair.’ His finger started to trace along the drawings. ‘There, you see, theoriginal entrance has been rebuilt and sealed off – large enough to take vehicles, with plenty of room below for storage.’
It was a very clear, and convincing, batch of evidence. The complex seemed large, divided into two areas: one for vehicles and stores, the other a vast honeycomb of living quarters. At least three hundred people would be able to live underground in this place, year in and year out. The bigger entrance lay parallel to a smaller access and both sloped down similar gradients to a depth of some three hundred metres, which, as Tirpitz said, was ‘deep enough to bury a lot of bodies’.
‘We believe it is where all the bodies are buried.’ Kolya showed no sign of humour. ‘I personally think it constitutes the headquarters, and planning control command post, of the National Socialist Action Army. The place has also become a major staging point for the arms and munitions stolen from Red Army bases. That refurbished bunker, in my opinion, is the heart of the NSAA.’
‘So all we have to do’, Tirpitz glanced at Kolya, the sarcasm practically tangible, ‘is take some pretty pictures of your army people betraying their country, then follow the vehicles back to here,’ finger on the map, ‘to the bunker. Their cosy little Ice Palace.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Just like that. Three of us – with me, I presume, acting as a backstop on the frontier, where any hairbrained asshole could pick me off like a jack-rabbit.’
‘Not if you’re as good as they tell me,’ Kolya said, returning like for like. ‘For my part, I’ve taken the liberty of bringing in another of my people – simply because there are two crossing points.’ He indicated another line, slightly farther north than the route he and Bond would be taking, explaining that both border crossings should be covered. ‘Originally I wanted Rivke up there, just in case. We need a spare, so I’ve arranged it.’
There was a brief pause. Then Bond said, ‘Kolya, I want toknow something.’
‘Go ahead.’ The face lifted towards him, open and frank.
‘If this runs to plan – if we get the evidence, and we follow the convoy back to the bunker you say is here,’ Bond pointed at the map, ‘when we’ve done all that, what’s the next move?’
Kolya did not even stop to think. ‘We make certain we have our proof. After that, we do one of two things. Either we report back to our respective agencies, or, if it looks feasible, we finish the job ourselves.’
Bond made no further comment. Kolya had signalled an interesting endgame. If he was, in fact, involved in any KGB-Red Army conspiracy, the action of ‘finishing the job ourselves’ would be as good a method as any to cover things up for ever. The more so, Bond calculated, if Kolya Mosolov saw to it that Bond and Tirpitz did not return. Meanwhile, if the conspiracy theory held any water, the NSAA command headquarters could already be set to move out to another hiding place; another bunker.
They talked on, going over the minutiae: where the snow scooters were hidden, the kind of cameras they would be using, the exact point at which Tirpitz would take up his post and the position of Kolya’s new agent, identified solely by the cryptonym Mujik, a little joke of Kolya’s, or so he maintained, a mujik being in old Russia a peasant, regarded by the law as a minor.
After an hour or so of this close briefing, Kolya handed out maps to both Tirpitz and Bond. They covered the entire area, were as near to Ordnance Survey standard of cartography as you could get, and had the routes over the frontier marked in thin pencil, together with the position of Blue Hare, and the same series of oblongs denoting the underground complex of what they had taken to calling the Ice Palace. Blue Hare and the Ice Palace, Kolya maintained, were drawn in to exact scale.
They synchronised their watches, and were to meet at midnight at the RV point – which meant leaving the hotel, individually, between eleven-thirty and eleven-forty.
Bond re-entered his room silently, taking out the VL34 to check the entire suite again. Gone were the days, he thought in passing, when you could keep a watch on your room by leaving tiny slivers of matchstick in the door, or wedged into drawers. In the old days, a small piece of cotton would do wonders; but now, in the age of the micro-chip, life had become more sophisticated, and considerably more difficult.
They had been at it again during the briefing. Not just the automatic ‘infinity’ in the telephone this time, but a whole screen of listening devices as back-ups: one behind the mirror in the bathroom; another in the curtains, neatly sewn in place; a third disguised as a button in the small ‘housewife’ pack of needles and thread tucked into its pocket inside the hotel stationery folder, and another bug ingeniously fitted within a new lamp bulb by the bed.
Bond treble-swept the place. Whoever was doing the surveillance certainly knew the job. As he destroyed the various items, he even wondered if the new infinity bug in the telephone was merely a dummy, placed there in the hope he would not continue the search after finding it.
Once he was assured that the room was clean, Bond spread out his map. From the briefcase he had already removed a military pocket compass which he intended to carry that night. Using a small pad of flimsies and a credit card as a ruler, Bond started to make calculations and trace the routes on to the map – noting the exact compass bearings they would have to follow to get across the border and locate Blue Hare, then the bearings out from Blue Hare, following both the route in and its alternative.