Icebreaker Read online

  ‘Be very careful what you touch. Any metals give shocks indoors here, at this time of the year. Be careful in the bathroom, James.’

  ‘I’ll wear rubber shoes.’

  ‘It wasn’t your feet I was thinking about. So glad you had a whim, James. See you at six-thirty’, and she rang off before he could come up with a smooth reply.

  Outside, the temperature hovered around twenty-five degrees Centigrade below. Bond stretched his muscles, then relaxed, taking his gunmetal case from the bedside table and lighting a cigarette – one of the ‘specials’ made for him, by arrangement with H. Simmons of Burlington Arcade.

  The room was warm and well-insulated, and there was a glow of immense satisfaction as he exhaled a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. The job certainly had its compensations. Only that morning Bond had left temperatures of forty below, for his true reason for being in Helsinki was connected with a recent trip to the Arctic Circle.

  January is not the most pleasant time of year to visit the Arctic. If, however, you have to do some survival training of a clandestine nature in severe winter conditions, the Finnish area of the Arctic Circle is as good a place as any.

  The Service believed in keeping its field officers in peak condition and trained in all modern techniques. Hence Bond’s disappearance, at least once a year, to work out with 22 Special Air Service Regiment, near Hereford; and his occasional trips to Poole in Dorset to be updated on equipment and tactics used by the Royal Marine Special Boat Squadron.

  Even though the old élite Double-0 section, with its attendant ‘licence to kill in the course of duty’, had now been phased out of the Service, Bond still found himself stuck with the role of 007. The gruff Chief of Service known to all as M had been most specific about it. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you, and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a trouble-shooter – a blunt instrument – and by Jove it’s going to have one.’

  In more official terms, Bond was what the American Service speaks of as a ‘singleton’ – a roving case officer who is given free rein to carry out special tasks, such as the ingenious undercover work he had undertaken during the Falkland Islands conflict in1982. Then he had even appeared – unidentifiable – on a television newsflash, but that had passed like all things.

  In order to keep Bond at a high, proficient level, M usually managed to set up at least one gruelling field exercise each year. This time it had been more cold climate work, and the orders had come quickly, leaving Bond little time to prepare for the ordeal.

  During the winter, members of the SAS units trained regularly among the snows of Norway. This year, as an added hazard, M had arranged that Bond should embark on a training exercise within the Arctic Circle, under cover, and with no permission either sought or granted from the country in which he would operate – Finland.

  The operation, which had no sinister, or even threatening, implications, entailed a week of survival exercises, in the company of a pair of SAS men and two officers of the SBS.

  These military and Marine personnel would have a tougher time than Bond, for their part would demand two clandestine border crossings – from Norway into Sweden, then, still secretly, over the Finnish border to meet up with Bond in Lapland.

  There, for seven days, the group would ‘live off the belt’, as it was called: surviving with only the bare necessities carried on their specially designed belts. Their mission was survival in difficult terrain, while remaining unseen and unidentified.

  This week would be followed by a further four days, with Bond as leader, in which a photographic and sound-stealing run would be made along Finland’s border with the Soviet Union. After that, they would separate – the SAS and SBS men to be picked up by helicopter in a remote area, while Bond took another course.

  There was no difficulty about cover in Finland, as far as Bond was concerned. He had yet to test-drive his own Saab Turbo – ‘The Silver Beast’ as he called it – in harsh winter conditions.

  Saab-Scania hold an exacting Winter Driving Course each year, within the Arctic Circle, near the Finnish ski resort of Rovaniemi. Arranging an invitation to take part in the course was easy, requiring only a couple of telephone calls. Within twenty-four hours Bond had his car – complete with all its secret ‘extras’, built in at his own expense by Communications Control Systems – freighted to Finland. Bond then flew, via Helsinki, to Rovaniemi, to meet up with driving experts, like his old friend Erik Carlsson, and the dapper Simo Lampinen.

  The Driving Course took only a few days, after which – with a word to the massive Erik Carlsson, who promised to keep his eye on the Silver Beast – Bond left the hotel near Rovaniemi in the early hours of a bitterly cold morning.

  The winter clothing, he thought, would do little for his image with the ladies back home. Damart thermal underwear is scarcely conducive to certain activities. Over long johns, he wore a track suit, heavy rollneck sweater, padded ski pants and jacket, while his feet were firmly laced into Mukluk boots. A thermal hood, scarf, woollen hat and goggles protected his face; Damart gloves inside leather gauntlets did the same for his hands. A small pack contained the necessities, including his own version of the SAS/SBS webbing belt.

  Bond trudged through snow, which came up to his knees in the easier parts, taking care not to stray from the narrow track he had reconnoitred during the daylight hours. A wrong move to left or right could land him in snowdrifts deep enough to cover a small car.

  The snow scooter was exactly where the briefing officers said it would be. Nobody was going to ask questions about how it got there. Snow scooters are difficult machines to manhandle with the engine off, and it took Bond a good ten minutes to heave and pull this one from its hiding place beneath solid and unyielding fir branches. He then hauled it to the top of a long slope which ran downwards for almost a kilometre. A push and the machine moved forward, giving Bond just enough time to leap on to the saddle and thrust his legs into the protective guards.

  Silently, the scooter slid down the long slope, finally coming to a stop as the weight and momentum ran out. Though sound carried easily across the snow, he was now far enough from the hotel to start the engine safely – after taking a compass bearing, and checking his map with a shaded torch. The little motor came to life. Bond opened the throttle, engaged the gear and began his journey. It took twenty-four hours to meet up with his colleagues.

  Rovaniemi had been an ideal choice. From the town one can move quickly north to the more desolate areas. It is also only a couple of fast hours’ travel on a snow scooter to the more accessible points along the Russo-Finnish border; to places like Salla, the scene of great battles during the war between the Russians and Finns in 1939–40. Farther north, the frontier zone becomes more inhospitable.

  During summer, this part of the Arctic Circle is not unpleasant; but in winter, when blizzards, deep-freeze conditions, and heavy snow take over, the country can be treacherous, and wretched, for the unwary.

  When it was all over and the two exercises with the SAS and SBS completed, Bond expected to be exhausted, in need of rest, sleep, and relaxation of the kind he could only find in London. During the worst moments of the ordeal his thoughts had been, in fact, of the comfort to be found in his Chelsea flat. He was, then, quite unprepared to discover that, on returning to Rovaniemi a couple of weeks later, his body surged with an energy and sense of fitness he had not experienced for a considerable time.

  Arriving back in the early hours, he slipped into the Ounasvaara Polar Hotel – where Saab had their Winter Driving Headquarters – left a message for Erik Carlsson saying he would send full instructions regarding the movement of the Silver Beast, then hitched a lift to the airport and boarded the next flight to Helsinki. At that point, his plan was to catch a connection straight on to London.

  It was only as the DC9–50 was making its approach into Helsinki’s Vantaa Airport, at around 12.30
pm, that James Bond thought of Paula Vacker. The thought grew, assisted no doubt by his new-found sense of well-being and physical sharpness.

  By the time the aircraft touched down, Bond’s plans were changed completely. There was no set time for him to be back in London; he was owed leave anyway, even though M had instructed him to return as soon as he could get away from Finland. Nobody was really going to miss him for a couple of days.

  From the airport, he took a cab directly to the Inter-Continental and checked in. As soon as the porter had brought his case to the room, Bond threw himself on to the bed and made his telephone call to Paula. Six-thirty at her place. He smiled with anticipation.

  There was no way that Bond could know that the simple act of calling up an old girlfriend, and asking her out to dinner, was going to change his life drastically over the next few weeks.

  3

  KNIVES FOR DINNER

  After a warm shower and shave, Bond dressed carefully. It was pleasant to get back into a well-cut grey gaberdine suit, plain blue Coles shirt, and one of his favourite Jacques Fath knitted ties. Even in the depths of winter, the hotels and good restaurants of Helsinki prefer gentlemen to wear ties.

  The Heckler & Koch P7, which now replaced the heavier VP70, lay comfortably in its spring-clip holster under the left armpit,and to stave off the raw cold, Bond reached the hotel foyer wearing his Crombie British Warm. It gave him a military air – especially with the fur headgear – but that always proved an advantage in Scandinavian countries.

  The taxi bowled steadily south, down the Mannerheimintie. Snow was neatly piled off the main pavements, and the trees bowed under its weight, some decorated – as though for Christmas – with long icicles festooning the branches. Near the National Museum, with its sharp tower fingering the sky, one tree seemed to crouch like a white cowled monk clutching a glittering dagger.

  Over all, through the clear frost, Bond could glimpse the dominating floodlit domes of the Upensky Cathedral – the Great Church – and knew, immediately, why film-makers used Helsinki when they wanted location shots of Moscow.

  The two cities are really as unlike one another as desert and jungle – the modern buildings of the Finnish capital being designed and executed with flair and beauty, in contrast to the ugly cloned monsters of Moscow. It is in the older sections of both cities that the mirror image becomes uncanny – in the side streets and small squares, where houses lean in on one another, and the ornate façades are reminders of what Moscow once was, in the good old, bad old days of tsars, princes and inequality. Now, Bond thought, they simply had the Politburo, Commissars, the KGB and . . . inequality.

  Paula lived in an apartment building overlooking the Esplanade Park, at the south-easterly end of the Mannerheimintie. It was a part of the city Bond had never visited before, so his arrival was one of surprise and delight.

  The park itself is a long, landscaped strip running between the houses. There were signs that in summer it would be an idyllic spot with trees, rock gardens, and paths. Now, in mid-winter, the Esplanade Park took on a new, original function. Artists of varied ages and ability had turned the place into an open-air gallery of snow sculpture. From the fresh snow of recent days there rose shapes and figures lovingly created earlier in winter: abstract masses; pieces so delicate you would imagine they could only be carved from wood, or worked at with patience in metal. Jagged aggression stood next to the contemplative curves of peace, while animals – naturalistic or only suggested in angular blocks – squared up to one another, or bared empty winter mouths towards hurrying passers-by, huddled and furred against the cold.

  The cab pulled up almost opposite a life-sized work of a man and woman entwined in an embrace from which only the warmth of spring could separate them.

  Around the park, the buildings were mainly old, with a few modern edifices looking like new buffer states bridging gaps in living history.

  For no logical reason, Bond had imagined that Paula would live in a new and shining apartment block. Instead, he found her address to be a house four storeys high, with shuttered windows and fresh green paint, decorated by blossoms of snow hanging like window-box flowers, and frosted along the scrollwork and gutters, as though December vandals had taken spray cans to the most available parts.

  Two curved, half-timbered gables divided the house, which had a single entrance, glass-panelled and unlocked. Just inside the door, a row of metal mailboxes signified who lived where, the personal cards in tiny frames. The hallway and stairs were bare of carpet, and the smell of good polish mingled now with tantalising cooking fragrances.

  Paula lived on the third floor – 3A – and Bond, slipping the buttons on his British Warm, began to make his way up the stairs. At each landing he noted two doors, to left and right, solid and well-built, with bell-pushes and the twins of the framed cards on the mailboxes set below them.

  At the third turning of the stairs he saw Paula Vacker’s name elegantly engraved on a business card under the bell for 3A. Out of curiosity, Bond glanced at 3B. Its occupant was a Major A. Nyblin. He pictured a retired army man holed up with military paintings, books on strategy and the war novels – such a going concern in Finnish publishing – keeping memories alive of those three Wars of Independence in which the nation fought against Russia: first against the Revolution; then against invasion; and, finally, cheek by jowl with the Wehrmacht.

  Bond pressed Paula’s bell, hard and long, then stood square to the small spy-hole visible in the door’s centre panel. From the inside came the rattle of a chain, then the door opened, and there she was, dressed in a long silk robe fastened loosely with a tie belt. The same Paula, inviting and as attractive as ever.

  Bond saw her lips move, as though trying to speak words of welcome. In that instant he realised that this was not the same Paula. Her cheeks were drained white, one hand trembled on the door. Deep in the grey-flecked eyes was the unmistakable flicker of fear.

  Intuition, they taught in Service training, is something you learn through experience: you are not born with it, like an extra sense.

  Loudly Bond said, ‘It’s only me from over the sea’, at the same time sticking one foot forward, the side of his shoe against the door. ‘Glad I came?’ As he spoke, Bond grabbed Paula by the shoulder with his left hand, spinning her, pulling her on to the landing. His right hand had already gone for the automatic. In less than three seconds, Paula was against the wall near Major Nyblin’s door, while Bond had sidestepped into the apartment, the Heckler & Koch out and ready.

  There were two of them. A small runt, with a thin, pockmarked face was to Bond’s left, flat against the inside wall, where he had been covering Paula with a revolver which looked like a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special. At the far side of the room – there was no hallway – a large man with oversized hands and the face of a failed boxer stood poised beside a beautiful chrome and leather chair-and-sofa suite. His distinguishing features included a nose which looked like a very advanced carbuncle. He carried no visible weapon.

  The runt’s gun came up to Bond’s left, and the boxer began to move. Bond went for the gun. The big Heckler & Koch seemed to move only fractionally in Bond’s hand as it clipped down, with force, on to the runt’s wrist. The revolver spun away, and there was a yelp of pain above the sharp crack of bone.

  Keeping the Heckler & Koch pointing towards the larger man, Bond used his left arm to spin the runt in front of him like a shield. At the same time, Bond brought his knee up hard. The little gunman crumpled, his good hand flailing ineffectually to protect his groin. He squeaked like a pig and squirmed at Bond’s feet.

  The larger of the two seemed undeterred by the gun, which indicated either great courage or mental deficiency. A Heckler & Koch could, at this range, blow away a high percentage of human being.

  Bond stepped over the body of the runt, kicking back with his right heel. Raising the automatic, arms outstretched, Bond shouted at his advancing adversary, ‘Stop, or you’re a dead man.’ It was more of a command
than a warning; for Bond’s finger was already tightening on the trigger.

  The one with the carbuncle nose did not do as he was told. Instead he suggested, in bad Russian, that Bond commit incest with his female parent.

  Bond hardly saw him swerve. The man was better than he had estimated, and very fast. As he slewed, Bond moved to follow him with the automatic. Only then did he feel the sharp, unnatural pain in his right shoulder.

  For a second, the blossom of agony took Bond off balance. His arms dropped, and Carbuncle-nose’s foot came up. Bond realised that you cannot be right about people all the time. This was a live one, the real thing – a killer, trained, accurate, and experienced.

  Together with this knowledge, Bond was conscious of three things going on simultaneously: the pain in his shoulder; the gun being kicked from his hand – the weapon flying away to hit the wall – and, behind him, the whimpering of the runt, decreasing in volume as he made his escape down the stairs.

  Carbuncle-nose was closing fast, one shoulder dropped, the body sideways.

  Bond took a quick step back and to his right, against the wall. As he moved, he spotted what had caused the pain in his shoulder. Embedded in the door’s lintel was an eight-inch knife with a horn grip and a blade curving away towards the point. It was a skinning knife, like those used to great effect by the Lapps when separating the carcase of a reindeer from its hide.

  Grabbing upwards, Bond’s fingers closed around the grip. His shoulder now felt numb with pain. He crabbed quickly to one side, with the knife firmly in his right hand, blade upwards, thumb and forefinger to the front of the grip in the fighting hold. Always, they taught, use the thrust position, never hold a knife with the thumb on the back. Never defend with a knife; always attack.

  Bond turned, square on, toward Carbuncle-nose, knees bending, one foot forward for balance in the classic knife-fighting posture.