Death Is Forever Read online

  DEATH IS FOREVER

  John Gardner

  For John and Pam

  who love joy and living

  Remember ‘Lucky’

  And the eyes of the man . . . spoke to him and said: ‘Mister, nothing is forever. Only death is permanent. Nothing is forever except what you did to me.’

  Ian Fleming, Diamonds are Forever

  One cannot rule out . . . that some adventurers might try to profit from their knowledge.

  Markus (Mischa) Wolf: former head of the East German Foreign Intelligence Service for over three decades, in answer to a question about the dangers which might exist from, as yet, uncovered East German agents, November 1991

  CONTENTS

  1 The Deaths of Vanya and Eagle

  2 Death of Cabal

  3 Responsible for a Death

  4 Death Through the Mouth

  5 Death of a Queen

  6 Death and a Pair of Aces

  7 Death Threat

  8 Death in Proximity

  9 Death on Wheels

  10 Appointments with Death

  11 Death Comes Expensive

  12 Keeps Death His Court

  13 Talk of Death and Disaster

  14 Signing a Death Warrant

  15 Death on the Grand Canal

  16 Death in Venice

  17 Death Squad

  18 A Matter of Life or Death

  19 Death on the Road

  20 Curse of Death

  21 Death Under Water

  22 R.I.P.

  By John Gardner

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  THE DEATHS OF VANYA AND EAGLE

  Ford Puxley came face to face with death at exactly 4.12 p.m. on a chilly October Thursday outside the Frankfurter Hof Hotel in the heart of Frankfurt. In the last split second of his life, Puxley knew the arrival of death was his own fault.

  During the iceberg centre of the Cold War, Puxley had instructed many novice spies, and his watchword was, ‘Wear tradecraft like a good suit, or carry it like an American Express card. Don’t leave home without it, but use it automatically. If your tradecraft sticks out like a lion in a monkey run, it will kill you.’

  So, at the end, Puxley’s tradecraft, or lack of it, killed him.

  There was a convention beginning that week. Conventions and Trade Shows are a way of life in Frankfurt, and the locals do not care whether it is books, business machines or automobiles. Conventions and the like mean business, and the jingle of cash registers.

  The lounges and lobbies were full. Once-a-year friends were being reunited; smooth businessmen, with wives or mistresses, were arriving smugly from the airport; a large aggressive woman tried to complain about her room – in execrable German, to a young man who spoke better English than the plaintiff – while bored conventioneers stood in line.

  Ford Puxley hardly noticed any of them, for he was in a hurry. The telephone call he had just taken in his third floor room had been a breakthrough. He stopped only long enough to make a quick return call. Now, the sooner he got out to meet his source, the faster he would be back in his neat little house in Greenwich, with its trim garden and his young wife. He had married late and that proved to be a boon. Nowadays he did not like being away from England.

  He shouldered his way through the crowd in the main lobby, and out onto the street. After the failed August 1991 coup in Moscow, the imploding of the once Evil Empire, and the outlawing of the Communist Party in what used to be the Soviet Union, his subconscious had sent all of his lifetime security habits to sleep.

  He barged out onto the twilight pavement, ignored the commissionaire, and waved to the trio of taxis waiting for trade. The first in line started his engine, but the Opel was faster. It was grey, splashed with mud and came scooting out from its hiding place at the end of the row; accelerating and cutting in front of the taxi which was only now starting to move slowly forward.

  The whole thing was beautifully executed. The inside bumper of the Opel struck Puxley’s hip, skittering him around. Then the vehicle fishtailed so that the whole rear weight of the moving car sideswiped the staggering man, throwing him into the air, crushed and dead before he even hit the pavement, scattering amazed and frightened bystanders.

  In the moment before death, Puxley’s mind registered several things. He realised the man near the row of taxis had raised his hand, and it was not to hail either a cab or bus. Classic. A signal to the Opel. He also took in the fact that the Opel’s registration had been fouled with mud. By the time the car hit him, Puxley realised he was being flyswatted. That is what they used to call it in the old days, within the shimmering glacier of Berlin. His very last thought was how well it was being done. They were certainly experts, and he went into oblivion cursing himself and knowing exactly why this had happened to him.

  They took Puxley home to England and buried him. M, who personally went to the interment, said later that it had been a very dull little funeral. ‘The widow didn’t seem to be much bowed with grief,’ he told Bill Tanner, his Chief of Staff. ‘The sherry was undrinkable. Also, I didn’t much care for the parson. He had a cold and was in an obvious hurry.’ But M was, of course, more used to naval funerals, with the Royal Marine band playing a cheery march as the mourners left the cemetery, while the chaplain treated the deceased as one of his own. The cleric, he said to Tanner, could have been planting a tree. ‘Not right, you know, Bill,’ he muttered. ‘Death is the last enemy and all that. You don’t get another turn.’

  In the field, Puxley’s cryptonym had been Vanya.

  Exactly one week after Puxley’s dull obsequies, Libby Macintosh arrived at a pleasant, unpretentious hotel in one of the many tributaries which flow off Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm.

  Ms Macintosh, a lady in her late forties, had never stayed in this hotel before, though she knew the city backwards. If the authorities had taken the trouble to check up on her, they would have discovered that she had been in Berlin many times over the years, and, on this occasion, had already lived in the city for the best part of a month, though they would have been hard put to it to seek out the different addresses she had used: apart from the five alternative names.

  Libby Macintosh was an American businesswoman, and it showed, from the power suit – severe, navy with white trim – to the power briefcase she seemed to guard with her honour. Certainly, it was later said, she would not let the bellboy take it, with the two Louis Vuitton suitcases, to her room.

  She quietly told the concierge that she was expecting a Herr Maaster to visit her. A Herr Helmut Maaster. He should be announced and sent up the moment he arrived.

  She tipped the bellboy, and called down to room service asking for coffee and gateaux which were duly sent up to her.

  Herr Maaster did not materialise, and the next anyone knew of Ms Libby Macintosh was when the chambermaid called agitatedly for the housekeeper who, in turn, sent for the Duty Manager.

  In all, Ms Macintosh had resided in the hotel for around two hours. When the chambermaid went in to make up the room for the night, she found its occupant spreadeagled on the bed, clad only in black silk underwear by Victoria’s Secret, available at any one of the chain store’s branches spread across the United States and Europe. The somewhat chic look – for Ms Macintosh still had an excellent figure – was spoiled by the fact that she was dead.

  The management was not overjoyed. No hotel is happy about death on the premises, and, rightly, they felt it was an affront. However, the business blew over, and nobody said anything about foul play.

  In fact the police released Ms Macintosh’s body after only two days, and the corpse was returned to the United States where it was buried – an Episcopalian service – in a small Virginia churchyard under i
ts rightful name, Elizabeth Cearns. Among the family mourners were two senior officers from Langley, or, to be more accurate, from the Central Intelligence Agency.

  Nobody could prove anything about Ms Macintosh/Cearns’ death, but there were those in forensics at Langley who had a feel for these things. They suspected an old method, long out of date, last used, they thought, in the late 1950s – the cyanide pistol.

  Death by cyanide inhalation is supposed to leave no trace, but the people at Langley had performed an autopsy on the victim’s brain where they found minute traces: enough to finger the method.

  In the field, Elizabeth Cearns’ cryptonym had been Eagle.

  Three days after Elizabeth Cearns’ burial, the two deaths were brought to the notice of Captain James Bond RN, just before he was summoned to the presence of his chief – M, as he was known to those who lived, moved and had their being in the arcane halls of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

  2

  DEATH OF CABAL

  ‘Cabal died sometime between September 30th and October 6th, 1990.’ M sat in his ultra modern chair in the chrome and glass office on the fifth floor of the anonymous building overlooking Regent’s Park.

  ‘The week of Germany’s reunification,’ Bill Tanner supplied in a quiet footnote kind of voice.

  ‘Went dead, really,’ M continued. ‘Just closed itself down. Fragmented if you like. No orders from either us or our relations at Langley, as Ms St John already knows.’

  Ms St John nodded from her seat on M’s left hand. James Bond sat on the right, and Bill Tanner hovered near the window.

  ‘And this is a concern to us now.’ Bond raised his eyebrows.

  M’s eyes flicked towards his agent: a small flash of irritation. ‘Should be obvious, Captain Bond.’ His voice reflected the sharp snap of annoyance. ‘You read the file this morning, and Ms St John’s been dragged across the Atlantic from her hearth and home. I should’ve thought even a cretin could deduce that Cabal is a matter of unease.’

  ‘I was making a statement, not a query, sir. Haven’t we left things to stew for rather a long time? I mean October 1990 is two years ago.’

  ‘A lot of things’ve been left too long, 007. I know that and you know it. Europe hasn’t been the easiest operational continent since ’90.’ The Old Man was rattled, Bond thought, and when M was perturbed it was time to batten down against a storm. M was too experienced to be easily discomfited.

  M grunted, and Ms St John gave a small, supercilious laugh.

  James Bond had not taken to Ms St John. She was the kind of American woman to whom the old chauvinistic centre of his nature remained allergic. Short and pert, Ms St John wore clothes which seemed to envelop her: a baggy pants suit with a checked waistcoat over a white shirt, under a loose coat which seemed too large for her small frame. Paul Stewart of New York, Bond thought. He had seen the ensemble in some women’s magazine, yesterday, at the dentist’s. She was, he decided, dressed more for a grouse shoot than the kind of field they would be beating. He also detected the stir of condescension in the girl’s manner.

  When Bill Tanner had introduced them in his office less than thirty minutes ago, she had given him a curt ‘Hi,’ and a handshake to match, while the pearl-grey eyes appraised him as if to say that all men were inferior, but some were more inferior than others. Bond had the distinct impression that, as far as Ms St John was concerned, he fell definitely into the latter category.

  M continued to talk. ‘If you’ve read everything, you’ll know that Cabal was, without any doubt, our most successful network running out of the old DDR, out of East Germany before the great thaw.’

  Bond nodded. At the height of its success, Cabal had sported over thirty active agents, including two deep penetrations within the old KGB headquarters at Karlshorst. Cabal had probed and listened, fed disinformation, and carefully lifted at least three solid defectors from within the ranks of KGB, the now defunct Stasi of ill renown, and the HVA – the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, the former East German Foreign Intelligence Agency.

  Cabal had run every kind of operation in the book, from dangles to false flags, deceptions and even the odd honeytrap. Its history was the history of the Cold War, and its weapons had been classic to that time – the meat and drink of all the famous espionage novelists. If the CIA and the British SIS had their way, every member of Cabal would have been loaded with medals. Now nobody could be found. Not a single agent could have the Congressional Medal of Honor or the CBE pinned to his or her chest.

  ‘Disappeared in a puff of smoke,’ M continued, ‘and when the original case officers went after them they both wound up dead. One outside an hotel in Frankfurt, the other inside an hotel in Berlin. You’ve read the details.’

  ‘And both dispatched by outmoded means, sir.’ Bond looked at the ceiling, as though talking to himself.

  ‘Everything’s outmoded now.’ M sounded tired, as though the end of the Cold War had brought new horrors into his fiefdom. ‘Everything, including a whole network vanishing in broad daylight.’

  ‘Could someone be trying to send us a message?’

  ‘Such as?’ M remained seated, with his head bowed, as though in meditation, accepting the input of others and cycling it through his mind to find answers by magic which only he possessed.

  ‘The old ways. Antiquated methods for what the Russians used to call wet work. Using old cold warrior weapons. Flyswatting and the cyanide pistol. Flyswatting went out with the ark: too expensive; and as for the cyanide pistol, well, we all know they threw that out after one operation.’

  ‘Yes. Certainly it could be a message.’ M gave a Buddha-like bob of the head. ‘We, the Ancients, are still among you, that kind of thing, eh? But what about motive?’

  ‘Revenge, sir?’ Bond tempted, as though trying to draw his old chief.

  M shrugged sadly, commenting that there was certainly plenty of that going on in Eastern Europe these days. ‘One of the reasons we must keep active. The Joint Intelligence Committee’s adamant that our Service will be required to remain fully operational in Europe for a minimum of ten years. One of the reasons Cabal was so important. Together with our American brothers, we had listed new targets for them: political, economic, paramilitary, terrorist.’

  In some ways, Bond thought, it must be like the situation directly after World War II, when the various secret agencies had their work cut out sniffing around for Nazis hiding in the woodpile of freedom. Now they looked for diehard Communists: people anxious to see the discredited regime regain its lost credibility. Men and women whose lives had been dedicated to the Marxist-Leninist cause: persons now without rank, authority or political estate, who craved for a return to the norm in which they had believed down all their years. There was a lot of talk about underground Marxist terrorist groups; and the reorganisation of secret cadres ready to infiltrate fledgling democracies.

  ‘The two of you’ll have to get out there and follow in the footsteps of poor old Puxley and Ms Macintosh . . .’

  ‘Cearns, sir.’ Ms St John seemed to come out of a daydream. It was possibly the jet lag. ‘Liz Cearns. She was an old colleague and friend.’

  ‘Yes, Cearns.’ M looked at the young woman, his gaze bleak. ‘Just as Ford Puxley was an old friend and colleague of ours, Ms St John. Your service does not have the monopoly on grief.’

  ‘Then it should make us all more determined, sir.’ She bit the words out, as though holding back a geyser of anger.

  ‘Oh, I think we’re determined enough already. Hope you’re not too emotionally involved, Ms St John. Doesn’t do to go off into the cold woods with anger and sentiment leading the way. Going into the labyrinth and plucking out what’s left of Cabal’s going to need cool, dispassionate minds.’

  Ms St John opened her mouth, then seemed to think better of it. M treated her to one of his embracing, avuncular smiles, warm as a Spring morning. ‘Come,’ he said, his voice following up on the smile. ‘Let’s get down to work. Play at being Sherlock Holmes f
or a while. Let’s go through what information we have, and then deduce what went wrong for Ford Puxley and Elizabeth Cearns. Vanya and Eagle. That way lies more safety for you.’

  He rose and, uncharacteristically, removed his dark blue blazer with the anchored buttons, pulling back his shirtsleeves, like a man about to sit in at a round of high-stakes poker. ‘Roll up our sleeves, what? Get down to it.’ He turned to Tanner, asking him to organise coffee and sandwiches. ‘It’s going to be a long night, I fear. Might as well make ourselves comfortable. Get out of that coat, Ms . . . I refuse to go on calling you Ms St John. What do people call you, Elizabeth, isn’t it?’

  While Ms St John did not actually thaw, she visibly relaxed, slipping out of the voluminous coat to display that, even clothed in the tweedy pants suit, she possessed a body of neat feminine proportions. ‘Friends,’ she said, smiling for the first time, ‘call me Easy.’

  M did not even return the smile, and Bond felt his eyes crease into a twinkle.

  ‘My initials,’ she nodded. ‘Elizabeth Zara. Ee Zee. By the age of fourteen I was the best arm-wrestler in my school. You know what kids are like?’

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ Bond took his cue from M and suppressed the laugh, drawing his chair closer to M’s desk.

  When Bill Tanner returned with the sandwiches and coffee, the trio looked like conspirators, hunched over the desk, their faces drawn into shadow outside the circle of light falling from the angled lamp which provided the only illumination in the room. M had switched off the overhead lights so they could more easily concentrate on the papers he had before them.

  For over six hours they carefully put together the jigsaw of Vanya’s and Eagle’s last days.

  From the final week in September until their deaths, within a week of each other, the two case officers had kept in constant touch: both with each other and their home base, which was a joint facility in rural Oxfordshire, separated from, but run under the auspices of, a small Royal Air Force Communications base hard by the village of Bloxham, a stone’s throw from Banbury, famous for the nursery rhyme ‘Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross’.