‘James,’ he began, ‘when M took you to lunch and then for that walk in the park and explained Cream Cake to you, saying they would deny you if anything went wrong – what was your first thought?’
Smolin had started with the very truth that Bond had buried most deeply and would have given his interrogator only under the heaviest pressure.
10
INTERROGATION
For what seemed an eternity Bond felt as though his mind had been struck by a whirlwind: listening devices planted in Blades? Directional microphones? Sound stealing in the park? A penetration of M’s office? Of M himself? Impossible. Yet Smolin knew. M’s first private briefing had been in the park, and it was the last piece of information Bond would have revealed. But Smolin had it, and if he was party to that knowledge, what else did he know, and how?
Bluff could not last long, but he must try to spin it out.
‘What briefing? What park?’
‘Come, James, you know better than to try that. I’m a casehardened GRU officer. We’re both aware of the way our organisations can be penetrated. Let us say that Cream Cake was detected long before we allowed the four girls to discover they were blown.’
‘As I know nothing of this Cream Cake, I can’t be any help to you.’ Still only four girls, he thought, and no mention of the one man.
Smolin shrugged. ‘Do you want me to do it the hard way, James? We all make mistakes from time to time. Your people made a mistake with Cream Cake. We made a blunder in letting the network get away in their socks, as your people say.’ He gave his most unpleasant laugh. ‘In the case of Cream Cake, I suppose we should say they got away in their stockings, eh?’ He looked hard at Bond, and it seemed, incredibly, as though he was trying to pass some secret message. ‘All of them being young women, eh?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bond said quietly. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what this Cream Cake business is. I gave a lift to a girl I met at a party, and ended up with the GRU around my neck. I haven’t denied what you obviously do know, that I’m a member of one of Britain’s secret departments. But we’re not all privy to every harebrained scheme. We work on a need-to-know basis . . .’
‘And your Head of Service, M, decided that you did need to know, James. Yesterday in Regent’s Park, after you lunched together at his club, he told you the story, with many of its twists and turns; not quite all of them, though. Then he said he’d be obliged if you’d tidy things up, bring in the members of the Cream Cake team. He offered you the information but said he could not sanction your actions. If you got into a mess neither he nor the Foreign Office could bail you out. They would have to deny you. It was up to you and, like the headstrong field man you are, you took him up. Now, my question was, what did you feel when he laid that little lot on you?’
‘I felt nothing because it didn’t happen.’
There was a long pause as Smolin sucked in air through his teeth.
‘Have it your own way. I’m not going to play any games. No strong-arm stuff. I haven’t got time to waste. We’ll do it with a small injection. My report has to be ready later tonight when we expect an important visitor.’
He turned, speaking to the guards in a mixture of German and Russian. From what Bond could understand, he was telling them to bring in the medical instruments, then leave him alone. The taller of the two men asked if he needed assistance.
‘I can do my own recording. The prisoner is secure. Now get on with it.’
Smolin’s manner made them jump to obey, and one man was back in a few seconds, wheeling a small medical trolley.
Smolin dismissed him and moved towards one of the walls. For the first time, Bond saw a row of small switches, which Smolin carefully threw down. Then he turned back to the trolley and started to prepare a hypodermic syringe. Meanwhile he spoke very softly, not even looking in Bond’s direction.
‘I’ve turned the sound off, so we cannot be overheard. One of those guys is KGB – very bad news. And there are others planted in my team. Only two of them can be trusted as GRU men, and even they might find themselves in a situation where they cannot obey my orders. You should know that this injection will be nothing more harmful than distilled water. It was the only way I could engineer matters so that we could be alone.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Bond found his own voice dropping to a whisper. He had to be careful. He could not trust a man of Smolin’s reputation.
‘I’m speaking to you about truth, James Bond.’ Smolin lifted the syringe and picked up a small vial. He slid the needle through the skin of the vial, filled the syringe and squirted a small spray to eliminate any bubbles of air. ‘I’m talking about how I escape with Irma. I’m sorry, I mean Heather. I’ve been able to hide the fact that Wald Belzinger – your Jungle Baisley – was ever part of Cream Cake. I did that to shield myself and Susanne.’
‘Susanne?’ asked Bond as Smolin took his arm to give the injection.
‘My colleague, Susanne Dietrich. I hid her little affair, and the conspiracy. I also warned the four girls so they could get out before the KGB caught up with them. That was none of Heather’s doing, though of course she thinks it was her fault, that she made her play for me too soon.’ He slid the needle in and Bond did not even feel it. ‘If anyone should come in, act as though you’re doped to the eyeballs. In fact it would be a good idea if you just let your head go back and closed your eyes anyway.’
‘As I understand it,’ said Bond, still hardly above a whisper, ‘it was you, the resident GRU mole inside the HVA, who blew the whistle on the girls.’ Christ, into the trap, he thought. I’ve admitted it.
Smolin bent down close to Bond’s ear, pretending to make him comfortable. ‘Yes, I had to blow the whistle, as you put it. Believe me, James, I blew it only a matter of seconds before KGB sounded their own alarm. And now? Well, I can’t keep the heat off much longer. First, it is a KGB team – two teams to be exact – who are killing off the Cream Cake agents. Second, my guess is that tonight’s honoured guest will bring with him news that Wald Belzinger has had it away on his toes, as the London criminal fraternity would say, with my good colleague and friend, Susanne Dietrich.’
‘Really?’ Bond wanted to listen, not comment. Already he had gone too far.
‘She went on leave two weeks ago and hasn’t returned. The KGB officer in charge of cleaning up the case will have put two and two together by now and there will be an APB out on Belzinger, or Baisley. It puts me right in focus, which means I too must jump, as I have promised, if the going gets rough.’
‘Promised whom?’
‘My dearest Heather for one; her case officer, Swift, for another. And your own Chief, M, for good measure.’
‘Are you trying to tell me, Maxim, that you have been a defector in place for the last five years?’
‘Quite’
‘And you expect me to believe you? You, the half-Russian, half-German, scourge of the DDR’s intelligence service? Hated by more people than either of us would care to count? The dedicated officer with allegiance only to Moscow? I can’t buy it. It just doesn’t add up.’
‘That is exactly why you should buy it, James. It is the only thing you can do, because if you don’t you’re dead. So am I, come to that. You, Heather, Ebbie, me and eventually Susanne and Baisley. We’re all headed for oblivion if you don’t buy it and act on it.’
‘Prove it to me, then, Maxim.’