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looked down into his eyes and said urgently, `Duschka, how long shall we have
this for?'
`For long.' Bond's thoughts were still luxurious with sleep.
`But for how long?'
Bond gazed up into the beautiful, worried eyes. He cleared the sleep out of
his mind. It was impossible to see beyond the next three days on the train,
beyond their arrival in London. One had to face the fact that this girl was an
enemy agent. His feelings would be of no interest to the interrogators from
his Service and from the Ministries. Other intelligence services would also
want to know what this girl had to tell them about the machine she had worked
for. Probably at Dover she would be taken away to `The
Cage', that well-sentried private house near Guildford, where she would be put
in a comfortable, but oh so well-wired room. And the efficient men in plain
clothes would come one by one and sit and talk with her, and the recorder
would spin in the room below and the records would be transcribed and sifted
for their grains of new fact and, of course, for the contradictions they would
trap her into. Perhaps they
would introduce a stool-pigeon a nice Russian girl who would commiserate with
Tatiana over her treatment and suggest ways of escape, of turning double, of
getting `harmless' information back to her parents. This might go on for weeks
or months. Meanwhile Bond would be tactfully kept away from her, unless the
interrogators thought he could extract further secrets by using their feelings
for each other.
Then what? The changed name, the offer of a new life in Canada, the thousand
pounds a year she would be given from the secret funds? And where would he be
when she came out of it all? Perhaps the other side of the world. Or, if he
was still in London, how much of her feeling for him would have survived the
grinding of the interrogation machine? How much would she hate or despise the
English after going through all this? And, for the matter of that, how much
would have survived of his own hot flame?
`Duschka,' repeated Tatiana impatiently. `How long?'
`As long as possible. It will depend on us. Many people will interfere. We
shall be separated. It will not always be like this in a little room. In a few
days we shall have to step out into the world. It will not be easy. It would
be foolish to tell you anything else.'
Tatiana's face cleared. She smiled down at him. `You are right. I will not ask
any more foolish questions.
But we must waste no more of these days.' She shifted his head and got up and
lay down beside him.
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An hour later, when Bond was standing in the corridor, Darko Kerim was
suddenly beside him. He examined Bond's face. He said slyly, `You should not
sleep so long. You have been missing the historic landscape of northern
Greece. And it is time for the premier service.'
`All you think about is food,' said Bond. He gestured back with his head.
`What about our friend?'
`He has not stirred. The conductor has been watching for me. That man will end
up the richest conductor in the wagon-lit company. Five hundred dollars for
Goldfarb's papers, and now a hundred dollars a day retainer until the end of
the journey.' Kerim chuckled. `I have told him he may even get a medal for his
services to Turkey. He believes we are after a smuggling gang. They're always
using this train for running Turkish opium to Paris. He is not surprised, only
pleased that he is being paid so well.
And now, have you found out anything more from this Russian princess you have
in there? I still feel disquiet. Everything is too peaceful. Those two men we
left behind may have been quite innocently bound for Berlin as the girl says.
This Benz may be keeping to his room because he is frightened of us. All is
going well with our journey. And yet, and yet ... Kerim shook his head. `These
Russians are great chess players. When they wish to execute a plot, they
execute it brilliantly. The game is planned minutely, the gambits of the enemy
are provided for. They are foreseen and countered. At the back of my mind,'
Kerim's face in the window was gloomy, `I have a feeling that you and I and
this girl are pawns on a very big board that we are being allowed our moves
because they do not interfere with the Russian game.'
`But what is the object of the plot?' Bond looked out into the darkness. He
spoke to his reflection in the window. `What can they want to achieve? We
always get back to that. Of course we have all smelt a conspiracy of some
sort. And the girl may not even know that she's involved in it. I know she's
hiding something, but I think it's only some small secret she thinks is
unimportant. She says she'll tell me everything when we get to London.
Everything? What does she mean? She only says that I must have faith that
there is no danger. You must admit, Darko,' Bond looked up for confirmation
into the slow crafty eyes, `that she's lived up to her story.'
There was no enthusiasm in Kerim's eyes. He said nothing.
Bond shrugged. `I admit I've fallen for her. But I'm not a fool, Darko. I've
been watching for any clue, anything that would help. You know one can tell a
lot when certain barriers are down. Well they are down, and I know she's
telling the truth. At any rate ninety per cent of it. And I know she thinks
the rest doesn't matter. If she's cheating, she's also being cheated herself.
On your chess analogy, that is possible.
But you still get back to the question of what it's all in aid of.' Bond's
voice hardened. `And, if you want to know, all I ask is to go on with the game
until we find out.'
Kerim smiled at the obstinate look on Bond's face. He laughed abruptly.
`If it was me, my friend, I would slip off the train at Salonica with the
machine, and, if you like, with the girl also, though that is not so
important. I would take a hired car to Athens and get on the next plane for
London. But I was not brought up ``to be a sport''.' Kerim put irony into the
words. `This is not a game to me. It is a business. For you it is different.
You are a gambler. M also is a gambler. He obviously is, or he would not have
given you a free hand. He also wants to know the answer to this riddle. So be
it. But I
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like to play safe, to make certain, to leave as little as possible to chance.
You think the odds look right, that they are in your favour?' Darko Kerim
turned and faced Bond. His voice became insistent. `Listen, my friend,' he put
a huge hand on Bond's shoulder. `This is a billiard table. An easy, flat,
green billiard table. And you have hit your white ball and it is travelling [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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