The Ian Fleming Files (37 page)

“Major,” said Fleming sternly. “You are interfering with official KRIPO
business and I must ask you to leave.”

“Official business? At this hour? What business exactly?” He lurched for
the stack of papers and scoured them with his back to Fleming.

“How dare you!” said Fleming. “I have authority here, Major, and I order
you to put those documents down.”

Baselitz spun round to face him. “I’d say I have authority now.” He was
brandishing a Mauser pistol its muzzle pointed at Fleming’s chest.

“Have you lost your mind?” said Fleming.

“Take a bow, both of you, this little masquerade is over.”

Maria cowered exaggeratedly as she shuffled over to Fleming. There was a
sudden swift movement and Baselitz saw stars. A sharp stabbing pain shot up
from his groin to his lungs and made him double over in helpless retching
agony. By the time he realized that it was the flat of Maria’s foot that had lurched
out backwards and smashed into his testicles, Fleming’s rigid right hand
shattered his solar plexus and karate-chopped his neck.

But Baselitz was a big man and didn’t topple easily. He managed to
retrieve his Mauser as he writhed on the floor but the pistol was loose in his
grasp and Fleming booted it away.

The major caught hold of Fleming’s foot as he kicked and twisted his leg
sending him down. Maria fetched the gun, picked it up but was shoved hard by
Baselitz. It flew from her hands and crashed through the window into the night.

Baselitz slapped her face hard sending her spilling into the wall and
knocking her out cold.

Fleming was fiddling with the latch to the luggage that contained his
Browning. Baselitz pounced but Fleming was fast and decked him hard in the
belly, wrapped his elbow under the his right forearm and jerked upwards,
causing ligaments to pop like Champagne corks.

The Nazi screamed and flung his arms around Fleming in a bear hug,
hoisted him over his head and battered him into the ceiling repeatedly before
hurling him like a ragdoll across the length of the car.

Fighting a strong urge to pass out, Fleming looked about for a weapon,
spied a smashed reading lamp and strained to reach it as he lay there, the life
half-crushed out of him. Baselitz approached and rolled his sleeves up.

“If you are a KRIPO investigator, I am Eva Braun. So who are you?” He
stooped down and got in Fleming’s face. “Well?”

Fleming grasped the lamp and cracked the bulb against the wall to expose
the filament. Tiny blue flames shot out. He tried to stand but Baselitz used
his downward shoulder weight to prevent him. Fleming kept pushing up, his arm
outstretched, until the lamp’s exposed wires came within an inch of the
German’s eye. The muscles in Baselitz’s neck bulged. Fleming stomped down hard
on his foot with his heavy iron-shod boot, breaking Baselitz’s big toe.
Baselitz screamed and Fleming shoved the lamp end into his gob along with
twelve crackling volts.

The German moaned a deep, low, horrible sound and slumped backwards
lifelessly as though some great switch inside him had just been turned off.

Fleming heaved a coffee table into the Nazi’s back, reached for the upper
bunk mattress and held onto it as an abutment while he swung with his feet and
sent the officer crashing out the train window. Fleming peered out to see
Baselitz rolling down a hillside into the shadows. Maria came to and appeared
at his side, looked out at the darkness.

“What happened?” she said groggily.

“We need to get off this train now.”

There was a knock. They froze.

Dieter Vaughn called out “
Bruno! Wie gehts? Wo ist sie?”

Not about to go through the same ordeal, Fleming snapped open his
suitcase and extracted his Browning pistol, checked the magazine, jacked it in
place and positioned himself behind the door. He nodded to Maria who composed
herself as best she could and opened the door.

“Hello, Dieter,” she said.

“There you are, my Alpine rose,” he put his arms around her and pulled
her into a swooning embrace, making a clean shot difficult for Fleming. “My
lieben, I am so glad to see you again,” he said passionately, trying to steal a
kiss.

“Not here, foolish boy, meet me in your room,” said Maria trying to turn
him around to Fleming.

Dieter felt the chill of the room. “It’s freezing in here.” His eyes went
from the smashed window to the broken furniture to Maria. His expression
changed and then he reached for his service pistol.

“Out of the way!” Fleming hollered and Maria wrenched free and shoved
Dieter into a wall.

The German saw a flash of muzzle steel as Fleming coldly and precisely,
at point-blank range shot the young Brandenburg Captain through the heart.
Dieter’s face went slack.

Fleming gently lowered the shuddering body to the ground and folded it
into a corner.

Maria watched him tuck the corpse away with a detachment that was
disturbing.

Fleming grabbed the suitcase with one hand and Maria with the other and
not waiting for the inevitable commotion caused by the gun report whisked them
into the next door compartment and shut the sliding door after them. Fleming
pulled at the window but it was stuck.

“Stand back,” he warned her and blasted the catch.

“I’ll go out first and help you up,” he said, lifting the
bullet-splintered pane.

Her face paled. “Are you serious? The train’s going too fast.”

“No time to debate,” he said. “We’re seconds from being discovered.”
Visible through the glass partitioning two porters were marching their way past
roused guests inquiring into the ruckus.

“Hurry!” Fleming exhorted.

The porters came crashing in to find the room thrashed, threw the door
aside to the connecting lounge to see it was empty. A third colleague appeared
as the first pair ran to the window and looked out.

Fleming and Maria clung to the roof of the Express as it surged through
the pitch-black night at eighty miles an hour. A gush of steam half-drowned
Maria out as she cried, “Now what are we supposed to do?”

“Wait!” Fleming shouted.

“Wait? What for?”

The jolt nearly threw her but Fleming was expecting it and was able to
clasp her arm in time. She hung there, dangling a leg until her foot found a
guardrail. The great locomotive screamed to a grinding halt amid a loud
hullabaloo from its rudely woken sleepers. Fleming winced as he felt the pain
from his beating, focused on the leap and braced himself.

“Get ready!” he hollered. “Wait until I say so!”

The screech of brakes was deafening. Showers of sparks fulminated off the
wheels and rails spotlighting their faces in the starless night.

Fleming spied something ahead. “Get down!”

They could see the brick walls of the tunnel as the fireworks continued.

“Wait for it… Now!”

Fleming dropped. Maria swayed with one hand and let go, landing in a
heap. He helped her up and they fled the tunnel dashing past curious faces
pressed against the carriage windows. They coursed over a field, stumbling in
the dark as the sound of voices shouting carried over from behind them. The
ringing of a railroad crossing pealed.

“Come on!” he cried. They lunged toward the sound as faint lights could
be made out. There was a loud report and then a blazing flare on a parachute
slowly descended, wiping out the black and turning everything into hideous
daylight. Fleming turned to see a trio of porters cantering through the fields
after them with pistols.

One of them fired off a round, missing wildly. Maria emitted a tiny cry
and held onto Fleming’s arm. The freight train’s whistle screamed, urging them
along. Fleming practically dragged Maria as he ran, flanking an open boxcar. He
threw his luggage in, tossed his pistol.

“I can’t do this!” she shouted.

A bullet whizzed past and deflected off the boxcar, ricocheted inside and
that was all it took to send her flying in. The shooters gained and one of them
leveled his gun right at Fleming’s head as he strained for the boxcar door and
slammed it shut on the bullet which mushroomed into the corrugated steel and
failed to penetrate. More rounds flattened into the car’s exterior and for a
few terrifying moments they shoved themselves in a corner and endured the
fusillade while the train continued to roll slowly through the crossing.

A bell clanged monotonously as they passed the automatic signals.

There was a slight clatter from the wheels and then the train began to
accelerate. Speed picked up and the sound of gunfire ceased.

They sat there, breathing heavily, slumped to the floor in exhaustion.
Fleming dragged a section of ratty tarp over and arranged it as makeshift
blanket. “Still enjoy traveling by train?”

“You saved my life again,” she said. “Now I owe you.” She kissed him on
the lips then pulled back to see red seepage forming a swelling stain on his
shirt.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” she said as she gingerly lifted his shirt to see the
wound. “That brute really did a number on you. Why don’t you lie down?”

He leaned back and took her hand, pulled her in and kissed her.

“You need a bandage.” She looked around. “What can we use?”

He unclasped her bra. “This?” He pulled her in close and they began to
make love.

They were lying back, smoking cigarettes.

She giggled. “You’re quite a boy. Are you certain there is no other
woman?”

“Are you used to men being attached?” he said meanly.

“Men? I am used to one man, only.”

“What’s he like?”

“Wolfgang? A boy. Mother dominates him. Father abandoned him when he
died. You don’t need to be Freud to figure it out.”

It was uncomfortably silent for a moment. Maria tried to read his
expression in the half-light. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Just because a chap’s father dies that doesn’t make him an egomaniac.”

“I see you are sensitive. Wolfie is the same. Perhaps this is true of all
men.”

“Why don’t you tell me something useful.”

“Am I being interrogated?”

“What else do you know about Parsifal?

She thought for a moment. “Krupp has scores of terrified officers in his
thrall. They all want passage out of the wasteland to Africa. In return they
swear their fealty to the cause. But I doubt if any of them will rally when
push comes to shove. Anything Wolfgang is cooking up is probably a ruse. He
never cared that much for politics. He wants them to think he cares. But all
that matters to him is money and setting himself up for after the war.”

Fleming pulled on his cigarette. The glow of the stub revealed a face
lined in thought.

“We are going to England now, Ian?”

“If we can get to Czechoslovakia I can contact someone who runs safe
houses for downed airmen. From there we’ll be flown on an unmarked plane over
radar to a secret airfield. I can’t say what will happen to you immediately but
I promise I will do all that I can to see that you are treated fairly.”

Maria pulled her clothes over her, uncomfortable suddenly. “What do you
mean?”

“You can’t check into a hotel. You’re a German without a visa.”

“Why can’t I stay with you?”

“My flat was destroyed by one of your country’s rockets.”

“Where do you live?”

Fleming paused. “With my mother. She has a place in Chelsea. It’s
temporary, until the end of the war.”

“I don’t want to live in England. I want to live in Philadelphia. I
thought we could stay together until I go. Or maybe you could come with me.
What am I saying? I’ve known you two days and I feel like I am in love with
you. It’s impossible. I know, you’re afraid you’ll fall in love with me, afraid
people will laugh at you, the invincible Commander Fleming fallen for a kraut.”

He looked down into the murky eyes that were no longer hard, imperious.
He bent and kissed them lightly.

She felt her cheeks blush. “I’ve never made love to a man because I was
attracted to him. I always felt it was something I should do out of duty. You
are my first. I don’t even know if I’m doing it right. Am I?”

Fleming smiled down into the pale beautiful face and said, “Not bad for a
beginner.”

“Does that mean there’s room for improvement?”

“There’s always room. Perhaps I can teach you one or two things.”

“A lesson? I’d like that.” She looked at the rather cruel mouth waiting
above hers. She reached up and brushed back the comma of black hair that had
fallen over his right eyebrow. “Ready when you are.”

They took the freight train south for four hundred miles to the ancient
spa town of Klodzko and snuck across the border into Czechoslovakia. It was a
short hike to the nearest telegraph office where Fleming made contact with
Station C and spoke to Biffy Dunderdale - a glad-handing, wisecracking bon
vivant whom Fleming knew from Eton - who sent a car for them at once. Within
eight hours they were on a rickety Southerland bound for a secret airstrip five
miles from London.

They were met on the tarmac by a phalanx of officials and military
police. Maria Lustbaden was cuffed and escorted into an unmarked van.

Fleming was mobbed by government men in dark suits and armed guards. An
unfamiliar man in a pork-pie hat said “Follow me” and showed him to an armored
car where two SAS operatives sat in the back with submachine guns. Fleming
looked around but there was no Godfrey or Dilly or any of Churchill’s Boys in
sight.

As they drove into the night, Fleming’s thoughts were on Maria.

Guilt washed over him. The trend of late had been to treat all German
POWs quite brutally. He hoped she would be taken to a center run by the NID or
the Home Office. The odds were slim given the complete absence of Naval
Intelligence personnel in the welcoming committee.

He cringed at the possibility of Maria being thrown in the Cage, a
top-secret unit in Kensington Palace Gardens. The London Cage was part of a
network of nine ‘cages’ around Britain run by the Prisoner of War Interrogation
Section (PWIS) which came under the jurisdiction of the Directorate of Military
Intelligence. German prisoners thought to possess valuable information — and
there had never been a case of a POW who wasn’t classified as such - were taken
to the Cage for further enhanced interrogation. The military police who ran it
had earned the nickname of the British Gestapo. Last year a German inmate had
apparently begged to be killed because he couldn’t take any more of whatever it
was they were doing him. Lately, the stories were of Nazi inmates being
starved, whipped, taunted with red hot pokers and tortured with electrical
devices. It made Fleming’s imminent spell at Scotland Yard seem like a stay at
the Hilton.