‘They’ll send the Mercedes after us first, and there will probably be another couple of teams,’ said Smolin, ‘but our car switch should help. This one I kept up my sleeve. Nobody knows I have it. I did the whole thing alone.’
‘Is it far?’ Bond asked. He needed to get to a telephone.
‘It’s fifteen minutes as the crow flies. But have you noticed, the crows don’t seem to fly in this country? They litter the roads.’
They were moving swiftly through lanes that appeared to have been constructed from sets of left-over S-bends, overhung by bushes and hedges. Nobody spoke, though Ebbie’s hand stole softly into Bond’s palm, then was snatched back again as she peered in the half light at the blood flowing from so many cuts and gashes.
Without a word she reached down and lifted her skirt, exposing a generous segment of white thigh. She started to tear at her slip. When she had a sizable piece of light-coloured silk she put it to her mouth, biting to rip it into two pieces, which she then tenderly bound around both of Bond’s damaged hands.
‘Poor you,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll kiss them better.’
So saying, she bent her head and ran her lips over the exposed part of his fingers. First one hand, then the other, her tongue licking the flesh and her lips closing over the middle finger of one hand.
‘I don’t think anyone’s ever made love to my hands before,’ Bond whispered. ‘Thank you, Ebbie.’
Breaking the spell, she looked up at him, her eyes wide with innocence. ‘I hope your tetanus shots are up to date,’ she murmured.
After a couple of miles they turned off abruptly on to a narrow road leading to a large forest. It was completely dark now and the trees were grey against the headlights. Every few hundred yards there were stacks of timber on wooden bunkers. Half a mile farther on they turned on to a track leading directly into the trees. A notice clearly proclaimed: NO MOTOR VEHICLES. PEDESTRIANS ONLY.
‘Do you see that, Maxim?’ Bond asked.
‘We’re in Ireland, James. Notices like that don’t mean what they say. Anyway, I figured a car-free zone would be the best place to hide a car.’
‘Did the GRU teach you that as well?’
‘I suppose so. But I’m pretty certain that for all their clever ways Chernov’s lads will be looking for this BMW, not for the pretty lady over here.’
He flung the car sideways on, almost grazing the thick trunks of the fir trees before the headlights revealed a mound of branches in the centre of a small clearing.
‘Okay, everybody get out. Uncover that car, then use the stuff to hide this one. I have to look to my maps.’
In under ten minutes a dusty, but patently new black Rover Vitesse stood in the clearing, while the pile of branches covered the BMW. Smolin walked a few paces from the nearside front wheel of the Rover, dug into the moss-covered ground and retrieved a small package containing two sets of keys. Bond, standing over him, spoke in a low voice.
‘Get the girls into the car, Maxim. We need to talk.’
Smolin nodded. He carefully ushered Heather into the front and Ebbie to the back. Then he walked over to Bond, a short distance from the Rover, where the girls could not hear them.
‘First,’ said Bond moving very close to him, ‘when you were in Berlin, did you have a sidekick called Mischa? Because, if you didn’t, Maxim, you should look to your lady.’
Smolin nodded. ‘Yes, Mischa was around, but he was a KGB plant. You should know, James, that nothing can ever be straightforward between KGB and GRU. We are up to our ears in suspicion concerning one another. You ask about him because he’s one of Chernov’s killing party. He was in London, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s right. Now, further plans. I just about trust you, Maxim, but I need to know what we’re up to. You mentioned throwing them off the scent and getting to west Cork.’
Smolin smiled in the gloom. ‘You have special contacts, James. I too. I run two people in Skibbereen. They have a light aircraft. By night we can fly very low. We can escape detection and land, without anyone knowing, in a field in glorious Devon. I have done it several times.’
Bond knew it was feasible. Hadn’t Special Branch and ‘Five’ suspected illegal entry by light aircraft for some years now? No place had ever been pinpointed, yet they knew the lads from the North came in and thought other interlopers did too.
‘All right. Chernov wants us, the girls, and presumably Jungle and Dietrich. If we drive to Skibbereen now we won’t make it until the very small hours. That’ll mean holing up close to our departure point, not the best thing. We all need some rest. There are also things I have to do . . . the telephones at the castle. You follow?’
Smolin nodded.
‘Why don’t we drive part of the way tonight?’ Bond peered at his watch. ‘It’s eight-thirty now. We could be in Kilkenny by ten o’clock. We could stay there overnight, then continue the journey late tomorrow afternoon. I presume you can get hold of your people by telephone. Are they contained?’
‘How contained?’
‘From KGB doubling.’
‘KGB cannot know them. They’re mine. This will be the first time I’ve taken anyone in with me. Okay?’
‘Okay. They won’t be looking for a black Rover, but they will be on the trail of four people. Once we’re on the road we could telephone ahead and book in at two different hotels. You can drop Ebbie and me off near one and take the car to yours. We’ll have to arrange a meeting for the morning.’
‘That seems good. I have two cases in the boot. There’s nothing that will fit you, but it will make the right impression, yes? The girls can shop in Kilkenny tomorrow, as long as they’re careful. Ebbie has some clothes in that big shoulder bag, so she may be all right.’
‘What kind of papers are you carrying, Maxim?’
‘A British passport, international driving licence and credit cards.’
‘Are they good?’
‘The best forgeries ever to come out of Knamensky Street. My name is Palmerston. Henry J. Temple Palmerston. Do you like it?’
‘Oh yes.’ Bond’s voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘You just have to pray that no Passport Control officer is a student of nineteenth-century politics.’
‘Correct.’ You could feel Smolin’s broad smile in the dark. ‘They are mainly people whose interests lie elsewhere – aeroplane modelling, railway trains, the novels of Dick Francis and Wilbur Smith. Very few of them graduate to Margaret Drabble or Kingsley Amis. We ran a thorough check through the mail. Simple questions but effective. Eighty-five per cent filled in our little forms. We said it was for market research and offered a prize of £5,000 sterling. A man working at Heathrow won the lucky draw, and all the others got small consolation prizes – Walkmans, pens, diaries. You know the kind of thing.’
Bond sighed. At least the Soviets were sometimes thorough. ‘Well, Mr Palmerston, don’t you think we should get going?’
‘If you say so, Mr Boldman.’
They arranged that Smolin and Heather should stay, not in Kilkenny, but at the Clonmel Arms Hotel, thirty minutes’ drive away. Bond and Ebbie were booked into the Newpark, near the famous castle, in Kilkenny. In Smolin’s opinion it was best that they were completely separated. Surprisingly, they had come across an unvandalised white and green booth marked Telefon only fifteen minutes after leaving the dense wood and had been able to make the reservations from there.
‘You can have the bed,’ Bond told Ebbie in the back of the car. ‘I’ll sit up and keep watch.’
‘Let’s wait and see.’ Ebbie’s hand slid into his. ‘I do know you’re a gentleman, James. But perhaps I don’t want a gentleman.’
‘And I have certain professional duties,’ he replied calmly.