Seconds ticked away, almost audible in Bond’s head, and then the outer door opened, and the man Bond had known as Brad Tirpitz came in, followed by the two uniformed men who had been in the ante-room. They raised their arms in salute.
‘You know, Hans, what information I require from this man,’ said von Glöda. ‘Use all your powers of persuasion. Now.’
‘Jawohl, mein Führer.’ The arms raised in unison, heels clicking, then the two men converged on Bond, and took him by the arms. He felt handcuffs encircle his wrists, and the grip of strong fingers as they caught hold, bundling him from the room.
They took him no farther than the ante-room. Tirpitz/Buchtman went over and pressed the hessian-covered wall, revealing a section which swung back with a click.
Buchtman disappeared through the door, followed by one of the officers, his hand grasping Bond’s jacket. The other man kept a tight hold on 007’s handcuffed wrists. One in front and the other behind. Bond soon found out the reason. Once past the door, they were crammed into a narrow passage, just wide and high enough to take a man.
After half a dozen paces it was clear they were descending; then, quite quickly, they came to a bare stone staircase, lit by dim blue lights set into the walls at intervals, a rope running through metal eyes down one side as a guide rail.
Their progress was very slow, for the staircase went a long way down. Bond tried to work out the depth but gave up quickly. The steps appeared to steepen. At one point there was a small platform, leading to an open chamber. Here Buchtman and the two guards put on heavy greatcoats and gloves. None were offered to Bond who, even in the outdoor winter gear he still wore, began to feel the dreadful uprush of intense cold from the depths below them.
The steps became increasingly slippery and Bond sensed ice-growths on the sides of the walls as they continued down. At last they emerged into a brightly lit cave – circular, the walls of natural rock, the flooring beneath them seemingly pure thick ice.
Heavy wooden crossbeams spanned the cave, passing over its centre. Attached to the beams was a block and tackle mechanism, with a long solid metal chain dangling down and ending in what looked like an anchor hook.
One of the uniformed men took out his pistol, staying close to Bond. The other opened a large, ice-encrusted metal box, from which he took a small, motor-driven chain saw.
The breath of all four men, in this freezing dungeon, thickened the air in clouds. Bond smelled the gasoline from the chain saw motor as it fired. ‘We keep it well-protected.’ Buchtman had not lost his American accent. ‘Okay.’ He nodded to the man with the gun. ‘Strip the bastard.’
As Bond felt hands starting to undo his clothing, he saw the chain saw biting into the floor of the cell, sending chips of ice flying. Even with his clothes on, the cold had become crippling. Now, as the layers were roughly removed, his body seemed to be enveloped in an invisible coat of sharp needles.
Buchtman nodded towards the man with the chain saw. ‘He’s cutting a nice bath tub for you, James old buddy.’ He laughed. ‘We’re well below the main line of the bunker here. In summer the water rises quite high. Small natural lake. You’re gonna get to know that lake very well indeed, James Bond.’
As he spoke, the chain saw broke through the ice, showing it to be at least half a metre thick. Then the operator began to chew out a rough circle, the centre of which lay directly under the chain dangling from the block and tackle.
15
DEAD COLD
They unlocked the handcuffs. By that time, James Bond was too cold to resist. The removal of the top half of his clothing, which followed, did not seem to make any appreciable difference. He could hardly move, and it seemed that even his desire to shiver was denied him.
One of the uniformed men pulled Bond’s arms in front of his stark naked body, then clasped the handcuffs into place again. The metal on his wrists felt as though it burned.
Bond began to concentrate. Try to remember something . . . Forget the cold . . . Close your eyes . . . See just one spot in the universe, let the spot swell.
The rattle of chains, and Bond heard rather than felt that his handcuffed wrists were being clipped over the hook. Then, disorientation for a moment, as they hoisted the block and tackle. His feet left the ground and he spun and swung as the chain lifted. Acute pain, now, as the handcuffed wrists took the strain. Arms stretched, pulled from their sockets. Then numbness again. It did not matter about the weight on his arms, shoulders, and wrists, for the freezing temperature acted almost as an anaesthetic.
Strangely, the thing that did matter was the swinging and spinning. Bond did not normally react to disorientation, while flying, doing high-speed aerobatics, or the many other stress tests included in his yearly checkout. Now, however, he felt the bile rise in his throat as the swinging became more regular – pendulum-like – and the spinning slowed, first one way, then the next.
Opening his eyes was as painful as anything else. A struggle against light frost forming on the lids. Necessary though, for he desperately needed some fixed point on which to focus. The ice-streaked sides of the cave turned in front of him, the hard light from above throwing off colour – yellows, reds and blues. It was impossible to keep his head up, with arms stretched above him, taking all the body weight.
Bond’s head slumped forward. Below him a wide, dark eye, figures moving on the periphery, the eye turning lazily, squinting, slanting. It was a moment before his numbed brain took in the fact that the eye was not moving. The illusion came from his own swinging motion, at the end of the chain. The needles continued to assault his body. They seemed to be everywhere at once, then localised – clawing at his scalp, moving to a thigh, or rasping against his genitals.
Concentrate: he fought to get a proper perspective, but the cold was like a barrier, a chill wall preventing his brain from working. Harder; concentrate harder.
Finally Bond took in the eye, as the swaying and spinning motion settled. The eye was a circle cut in the ice. Its darkness was the frozen water below. Slowly they were letting out the chain, so that his feet seemed poised directly over the water.
Now a voice. Tirpitz – Buchtman: ‘James, buddy, this is going to be dirty. You should tell us now before we go on. You know what we want? Just answer yes or no.’
What did they want? Why was this happening? Bond’s very brain felt as though it were freezing. What? ‘No,’ he heard his voice croak.
‘Your people have one of our men. Two questions: where is he being held in London? What has he told your interrogators?’
A man? Held in London? Who? When? What had he told? For a few seconds Bond’s mind cleared. The NSAA soldier, being held at the Regent’s Park HQ. What had he told? No idea, but hadn’t he worked it out? Yes, the man must have said a great deal. Tell nothing.
Aloud he said, ‘I know nothing about anyone being held prisoner. Nothing about any interrogations.’ His voice was unrecognisable, echoing against the walls of the natural cavern.
The other voice floated up to him, each word a struggle for Bond to recognise or comprehend. ‘Okay, Jim, have it your way. I’ll ask you again in a minute.’
From above, the rattle of something. The chain. His body moving down towards the black eye. For no reason, Bond suddenly thought he had lost all sense of smell. Odd; why no sense of smell? Concentrate on something else. He struggled, setting his mind on a new course. A summer day. The countryside. Trees in full leaf. A bee hovered above his face, and he could smell – the sense of smell was back: a mixture of grass and hay. Far in the distance the sound of some farm machinery peacefully purring. Don’t say anything. You know nothing except this – the hay and grass. Nothing. You know nothing.