‘I never expect the cavalry. Don’t trust horses. Temperamental beasts at the best of times, and since that business at Balaclava – the Valley of Death – I’ve not had much time for the cavalry.’
‘You’re quite a humorist, Mr Bond. Particularly for a man in your present situation.’
Bond shrugged. ‘I’m only one of many, Aarne Tudeer. Behind me there are a hundred, and behind them another thousand. The same applies to Tirpitz; and Rivke. I can’t speak for Kolya Mosolov because I don’t understand his motives.’ He paused for a second before continuing. ‘Your own delusions, Aarne Tudeer, could be explained by a junior psychiatrist. What do they amount to? A neo-Nazi terrorist group, with access to weapons and people. Worldwide organisation. In time the terrorism will become an ideal, something worth fighting for. The movement will grow; you will become a force to be really reckoned with, in the councils of the world. Then, bingo, you’ve managed what Hitler failed to do – a worldwide Fourth Reich. Easy.’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘Easy, but it won’t work. Not any more. How do you get someone like Mosolov – a dedicated Party member, a senior officer of the KGB – to go along with you even for some of the way?’
Von Glöda looked at Bond placidly. ‘You know Kolya’s Department in the First Directorate of the KGB, Mr Bond?’
‘Not offhand. No.’
The thin smile, eyes hard as diamonds, the facial muscles hardly moving. ‘He belongs to Department V. The Department that used, many years ago, to be called SMERSH.’
Bond saw a glimmer of light.
‘SMERSH has what I understand is called, in criminal parlance, a hit list. That list includes a number of names – people who are wanted, not dead, but alive. Can you imagine whose name is number one on the chart, James Bond?’
Bond did not have to guess. SMERSH had undergone many changes, but as a Department of the Russian Service, SMERSH had a very long memory.
‘Mmmm.’ Von Glöda nodded. ‘Wanted for subversion, and crimes against the state. Death to spies, Mr Bond. A little information before death. James Bond is top of SMERSH’S list and, as you well know, has been for a long time. I needed help of a particular kind. Something to get me . . . how would you say it? . . . off a hook, with certain gentlemen of the KGB. Even the KGB – like all men – have a price. Their price was you, James Bond. You, delivered in good condition, unharmed. You’ve bought me time, arms, a way to the future. When I’ve finished with you, Kolya takes you to Moscow and that charming little place they have off Dzerzhinsky Square.’ What passed for a smile vanished completely. ‘They’ve waited a long time. But come to that, so have we. Since 1945 we have waited.’ He dropped his long body into the chair opposite Bond. ‘Let me tell you the whole story. Then, possibly, you’ll understand that I shall have purchased the Fourth Reich, and the political future of the world, by fooling the Soviet Union and selling them an English spy: James Bond, for whom they lust. Foolish, foolish men, to stake the future of their ideology on one Englishman.’
The man was unhinged. Bond knew that, but possibly so did many others. Listen, he thought. Listen to all von Glöda has to say. Listen to the music, and the words, then, perhaps, you will find the real answer, and the way out.
14
A WORLD FOR HEROES
‘When the war was over, and the Führer had died, gallantly, in Berlin,’ von Glöda began.
‘He took poison and shot himself,’ interpolated Bond. ‘Not a gallant death.’
Von Glöda did not seem to hear him. ‘. . . I thought of returning to Finland, perhaps even hiding there. The Allies had my name on their lists, but I would, possibly, have been safe. Safe, but a coward.’
As the story came out: the hiding in Germany, then contact with the organised escape groups, Spinne and Kameradenwerk, Bond saw clearly that he was not just dealing with some old Nazi, living with dreams of a past glory which had died in the Berlin Bunker.
‘The novelists call it Odessa,’ von Glöda almost mused to himself, ‘but that was really a rather romantic notion – a loose organisation for getting people out. The real work was done by dedicated members of the SS who had the wit to see what could go wrong.’
Like many others, he had shifted from place to place. ‘You know, of course, that Mengele – Auschwitz’s Angel of Death – stayed in his home town for almost five years, undetected. In time, though, we all left.’
First, von Glöda and his wife had gone to Argentina. Later, he had been in the vanguard of those to hide in the remote, well-protected camp in Paraguay. They were all there, the wanted Nazis. But Aarne Tudeer – as he still was then – became dissatisfied with the company he kept. ‘They all play-acted,’ he snarled. ‘When Peron was still in control, and later, they openly showed themselves. Even rallies and meetings: beauty contests – Miss Nazi 1959. The Führer’s dream would come true.’ He gave an outraged, disgusted snort. ‘But it was all talk; idle. They lived on dreams, and allowed the dreams to become their substance. They lost guts; threw away their heroism; became blind to the truth of the ideology Hitler had laid out for them. Hitler was right. If National Socialism was reduced to ashes, a phoenix had to rise from those ashes – otherwise, before the end of the century, Communism would overthrow Europe and, eventually, the world.’
Von Glöda had urged the few who still held on to the dream that the time to strike was at the moment of transition, when the world appeared to lose its bearings, and direction, when everyone cried out for somebody to lead them. ‘That would be the time. Inevitably’, he claimed, ‘the Communist régime would hesitate just before throwing all its might into the domination of the world.’
‘It hasn’t quite happened like that.’ Bond knew his only hope was to establish some kind of common ground with this man – as a hostage must woo his captors.
‘No?’ There was even a laugh now. ‘No, it’s better than we ever imagined it could be. See what’s happening in the world. The Soviets have penetrated trade unions and governments, right through Britain and America – and much good will it do them. The Eastern bloc is, you’ll agree, slowly collapsing in on itself. Last year, we showed the world, by a few well-planned operations – starting with the Tripoli Incident. This year it will be different. This year we are better armed and equipped. We have more followers. We shall gain access to governments. Next year the Party will emerge into the open and within two more years, we shall be a true political force again. Hitler will be vindicated. Order will be restored, and Communism – the common enemy – will be swept from the map of history. People are crying out for order – a new order; a world of heroes, not peasants and victims of a régime.’
‘No victims?’ Bond queried.
‘You know what I mean, Mr Bond. Of course the dross must go. But, once they’re gone, there will be a master race – not just a German master race, but a European master race.’
Somehow, the man had managed to convince some of the older Nazis in Paraguay that all this was possible. ‘Six years ago,’ he said proudly, ‘they allotted me a large sum of cash. Most of what had been left in the Swiss accounts. I had assumed a new name in the late 1960s – or, at least, reassumed it. There are true links between my old family and the now-defunct von Glödas. I returned from time to time, then began work in earnest four years ago. I travelled the world, Mr Bond, organised, plotted, sorted out the wheat from the chaff.