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dark windows.
You'll see there's a block of four together on the corner above the
intersection. They've stayed dark last night and tonight. They've got the best
field of fire. From here, their range varies from three hundred to three
hundred and ten yards. I've got all the figures and so on when you want them.
You needn't worry about much else. That street stays empty during the
night only the motorized patrols about every half an hour. Light armored car
with a couple of motorcycles as escort. Last night, which I suppose is
typical, between six and seven when this thing's going to be done, there were
a few people that came and went out of that side door. Civil-
servant types. Before that nothing out of the ordinary usual flow of people in
and out of a busy government building, except, of all things, a whole damned
woman's orchestra. Made a hell of a racket in some concert hall they've got in
there. Part of the block is the
Ministry of Culture. Otherwise nothing certainly none of the KGB people we
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know, or any signs of preparation for a job like this.
But there wouldn't be. They're careful chaps, the opposition. Anyway, have a
good look. Don't forget it's darker than it will be tomorrow around six. But
you can get the general picture."
Bond got the general picture, and it stayed with him long after the other man
was asleep and snoring softly with a gentle regular clicking sound. A
Wykehamist snore, Bond reflected irritably.
Yes, he had got the picture. The picture of a flicker of movement among the
shadowy ruins on the other side of the gleaming river of light, a pause, the
wild zigzagging sprint of a man in the full glare of the arcs, the crash of
gunfire and then either a crumpled, sprawling heap in the middle of the wide
street or the noise of his onward dash through the weeds and rubble of the
Western Sector.
Sudden death or a home run. The true gauntlet! How much time would Bond have
to spot the Russian sniper in one of those dark windows? And kill him? Five
seconds? Ten? When dawn edged the curtains with gun metal, Bond capitulated to
his fretting mind. It had won. He went softly into the bathroom and surveyed
the ranks of medicine bottles that a thoughtful Secret Service had provided to
keep its executioner in good shape. He selected the Tuinal, chased down two of
the ruby and blue depth-charges with a glass of water, and went back to bed.
Then, poleaxed, he slept.
He awoke at midday. The flat was empty. Bond drew the curtains to let in the
gray Prussian day, and, standing well back from the window, gazed out at the
drabness of Berlin, and listened to the tram noises and to the distant
screeching of the U-Bahn as it took the big curve into the Zoo Station. He
gave a quick, reluctant glance at what he had examined the night before, noted
that the weeds among the bomb rubble were much the same as the London
ones campion, dock, and bracken and then went into the kitchen.
There was a note propped against a loaf of bread: "My friend [a Secret Service
euphemism that in this context meant Sender's chief] says it's all right for
you to go out. But to be back by 1700 hours. Your gear [doubletalk for Bond's
rifle] has arrived and the batman will lay it out this P.M. P. Sender."
Bond lit the gas cooker, and with a sneer at his profession, burned the
message. Then he brewed himself a vast dish of scrambled eggs and bacon, which
he heaped on buttered toast and washed down with black coffee into which he
had poured a liberal tot of whiskey. Then he bathed and shaved, dressed in the
drab, anonymous, middle-European clothes he had brought over for the purpose,
looked at his disordered bed, decided to hell with it, and went down in the
lift and out of the building.
James Bond had always found Berlin a glum, inimical city, varnished on the
Western side with a brittle veneer of gimcrack polish rather like the chromium
trim on American motorcars. He walked to the Kurfürstendamm and sat in the
Café Marquardt and drank an espresso and moodily watched the obedient queues
of pedestrians waiting for the Go sign on the traffic lights while the shiny
stream of cars went through their dangerous quadrille at the busy
intersection. It was cold outside and the sharp wind from the
Russian steppes whipped at the girls' skirts and at the waterproofs of the
impatient hurrying men, each with the inevitable briefcase tucked under his
arm. The infrared wall heaters in the cafe glared redly down and gave a
spurious glow to the faces of the cafe squatters, consuming their traditional
"one cup of coffee and ten glasses of water," reading the free newspapers and
periodicals in their wooden racks, earnestly bending over business documents.
Bond, closing his mind to the evening, debated with himself about ways to
spend the afternoon. It finally came down to a choice between a visit to that
respectable-looking brownstone house in the
Clausewitzstrasse known to all concierges and taxi drivers and a trip to the
Wannsee and a strenuous walk in the Grunewald. Virtue triumphed. Bond paid for
his coffee and went out into the cold and took a taxi to the Zoo Station.
The pretty young trees round the long lake had already been touched by the
breath of autumn, and there was occasional gold amongst the green. Bond walked
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hard for two hours along the leafy paths, then chose a restaurant with a
glassed-in veranda above the lake and greatly enjoyed a high tea consisting of
a double portion of
Matjeshering, smothered in cream and onion rings, and two
Molle mit Korn.
(This Berlin equivalent of a boilermaker and his assistant was a schnapps,
double, washed down with draught
Löwenbräu.) Then, feeling more encouraged, he took the S-Bahn back into the
city.
Outside the apartment house, a nondescript young man was tinkering with the
engine of a black Opel Kapitan. He didn't take his head out from under the
bonnet when Bond passed close by him and went up to the door and pressed the
bell.
Captain Sender was reassuring. It was a "friend" a corporal from the transport
section of Station WB. He had fixed up some bad engine trouble on the Opel.
Each night, from six to seven, he would be ready to produce a series of
multiple backfires when a signal on a walkie-talkie operated by Sender told
him to do so. This would give some kind of cover for the noise of Bond's
shooting.
Otherwise, the neighborhood might alert the police and there would be a lot of
untidy explaining to be done. Their hideout was in the American Sector, and
while their American "friends" had given Station WB clearance for this
operation, the "friends" were naturally anxious that it should be a clean job
and without repercussions.
Bond was suitably impressed by the car gimmick, as he was by the very
workmanlike preparations that had been made for him in the living room. Here,
behind the head of his high bed, giving a perfect firing position, a wood and
metal stand had been erected against the broad windowsill, and along it lay
the Winchester, the tip of its barrel just denting the curtains. The wood and
all the
13
metal parts of the rifle and sniperscope had been painted a dull black, and,
laid out on the bed like sinister evening clothes, was a black velvet hood
stitched to a waist-length shirt of the same material. The hood had wide slits
for the eyes and mouth. It reminded
Bond of old prints of the Spanish Inquisition or of the anonymous operators on
the guillotine platform during the French Revolution.
There was a similar hood on Captain Sender's bed, and on his section of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]