Twelve years after the war, it was still too soon to be back in Germany. Bond wondered if he would ever be comfortable there. The ghosts were still present – the dead and the living. Driving through what was left of old Cologne, he reflected on the sickness that had seized hold of a nation and propelled it down the path to almost total destruction. He couldn’t avoid it. The evidence was all around him in the gaping holes that still remained in the city and the cathedral – grim in that peculiarly Teutonic way – that had only been left intact so that the RAF could use it as a direction finder. All the rebuilding – the new park, the lakes, the cable car, the strikingly ugly blocks of flats that were going up on all sides – could not disguise it.
Bond’s attitude to the war had always been simple. It was a cataclysmic struggle between good and evil, starker and more straightforward than any war that had ever been fought. As a teenager, in the thirties, he had been taken skiing and climbing in Kitzbühel, a medieval town in the Tyrol, and on his return to London, acting on his own initiative, he had sat down and painstakingly compiled a report on what he had seen – planes, troop movements, political activity and so on – which he had then sent with a covering letter to the Foreign Office. A few years later, even before the actual outbreak of hostilities, he had lied about his age to enter the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant and had been delighted to see a copy of that letter in the file before him. His enemies might be different now but, for Bond, the moral certainties remained the same.
Nürburg was two hours south, surrounded by fields and woodland that stretched out luxuriantly, ignorant of recent history. It would have remained an anonymous little town, neither ugly nor particularly attractive with an assortment of very ordinary houses, a local shop and a dilapidated fortress high up on a hill, but for the decision made thirty years earlier by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club. It was they who had agreed to the construction of the fourteen-mile circuit, which had at last given the place a reason to exist. More than a reason. Racing had become its heart and its soul and the high-pitched scream of engines tore across the countryside long before you drew near.
After his long journey, Bond was glad to slow down and cruise gently past the hotels and guest houses that had recently sprung up and which were almost shamed by the astonishing assortment of prestige cars haphazardly parked outside them. Shops and garages advertised a hundred brands of tyres, lubricants, gaskets, dry liners and motor accessories. There were people of every nationality parading in the streets and it amused Bond to identify them: the Italians self-consciously stylish, the French cocksure and casual, the Germans on their own, the English superior and the Russians . . . Yes. He spotted them soon enough, walking together with that pinched look that comes from a poor diet and their dead-fish eyes. They made up a quartet, all dressed in clothes that were cheap and far too formal. He looked for Ivan Dimitrov. Did his teammates have any idea who he was? Not just another racer but an operative working for SMERSH? For the moment there was no sign of him and Bond drove on.
He checked into his hotel and changed into the clothes that would be both comfortable and practical on the circuit – a woollen jersey with waterproof patches on the shoulders and arms, trousers with pockets on top of the thighs and above the knees. He was wearing boots, light lace-ups lined with asbestos to shield him from the heat that would be transferred through the pedals, and an elastic body belt to protect his kidneys from road-shock. He carried with him a helmet, goggles, gloves, earplugs and, with so many gear changes ahead of him, a good supply of sticking plasters for his hands. He had arranged to meet Lancy Smith at the pit area and after a quick lunch of Ahle Wurst, rye bread and salad and a bottle of Gerolsteiner – the local mineral water – he strolled down to present himself.
He had seen Lancy Smith on newsreels and in the press and knew something of what to expect. Late twenties, fair hair, an easy smile and even a schoolboy scattering of freckles – if someone had designed a pin-up for the sport, this is what they might have come up with. On first sight, as he walked across the pit area through a crowd of mechanics and machines, he carried himself with the easy confidence and charisma of someone who had grown up surrounded by wealth. Bond recalled that his parents were titled with an ancestral pile somewhere in Berkshire. Well, this was a rich man’s sport. No surprise there. There was something inside Bond that was prepared to dislike him but it vanished the moment they shook hands. Smith exuded warmth and good nature, something that the films hadn’t been able to capture.
‘Welcome to Nürburgring. Good journey down?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘I think I saw you in that Bentley of yours. Lovely car. Must have been fun bringing it down the Continent. Anyway, let’s get you started . . .’
As far as Smith was concerned, Bond was an amateur, an interloper, but his greeting had been genuine, his enthusiasm and desire to help unforced. And if, like Logan Fairfax, he had his doubts about an inexperienced driver taking on Nürburgring, at least he expressed them less aggressively.
‘I understand you’ve been around the block a few times,’ he went on, as he walked with Bond to his car. ‘Goodwood and Silverstone, Logan said. How is she, by the way? Great girl, don’t you think? I knew her father – brilliant racer. Nerves of steel.’ His voice trailed off and just for a moment Bond saw the doubt in his eyes, the recognition that he, Bond, was just an amateur by comparison. But then it had gone. ‘Anyway, we’ll drive round together in my old MG and I’ll try and show you some of the horrors. Then you can do as many practice circuits as you can manage. I’d suggest nine or ten at the very least because there are the time trials tomorrow. See if you can get a feel for it, and if you have any questions you can catch me later. We usually have a pint at the Blaue Ecke. There’s quite a crowd there. OK? In you get . . .’
Smith drove a beautiful little MG A Roadster, English white with red leather seats. A boy’s toy, Bond thought as he climbed in. Once again, he was glad he had been given this job. Someone in Moscow had decided, quite casually, to kill or at the very least maim this young Englishman simply because they wanted to show off their own engineering. Forget the fact that he had friends, lovers, a life that he enjoyed living. It was a job to be done. And if fifty or a hundred spectators went with him, to hell with them too. That was the extraordinary thing about SMERSH, the way they reduced everything to ideology. They had once targeted Bond himself, turning his very existence into some sort of chess game with his destruction simply the final move. Well, it wouldn’t happen this time. He would take a very personal pleasure, once again crossing their path, in keeping this young man alive.
‘All set?’ Smith asked. ‘Then off we go.’
Twelve and a half minutes and one circuit later, Bond understood something of the challenge that lay ahead of him. Nürburgring was a brute from start to finish, cruel and unforgiving. The MG couldn’t rival the speed of a racing car but the view from the passenger seat made the photographs and 8 mm films he had studied at Foxton Hall seem almost irrelevant. It was a long, green scream that would test every fibre of his being – physically, mentally, to the very depths of his soul – with a series of terrifying challenges that would demand an exact response within microseconds. Bond was reminded of the shooting gallery in the basement at Regent’s Park where he practised against a tricky little device that effectively shot back at him. The circuit would test him in the same way, only this time he was the bullet and when the race began, he would be fired down a passageway as dangerous in its own way as the barrel of a gun.
Smith drove expertly, taking the corners at about seventy miles an hour, and Bond felt some of the centrifugal forces that would be five times worse when he was behind the wheel of the Maserati. There were moments when they left the road and hung in space, still hurtling towards the next obstacle. This was nothing like Goodwood or Silverstone. Bond had driven along country roads in Scotland and it seemed to him that Nürburgring had the same wildness, the same sense of magnitude. It was the road, not the car, which was the master here. And he would be up against real professionals; people who spent their whole lives taking on challenges just like this. As they accelerated down the long straight that led to the finishing line, Bond wondered for the first time if he – and M – hadn’t bitten off more than they could chew.
Smith took him round twice, the second time more slowly, adding a commentary that described the journey in almost mystifying detail. There were fast corners and descents, humped kinks and blind spots, each one demanding a different set of calculations. Finally, he returned to the pits where they had begun.
‘Well, that’s about it,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Good luck. I hope you enjoy yourself. You’re driving a Maz, aren’t you? Bloody nice car, absolutely made for racing – not cobbled together like some of the crates you see out here. I like what they’ve done with the chassis and you’ve got a real advantage being so low. Anyway, I’ll see you tonight? We normally gather around six – then early to bed before the big start. Nice meeting you.’
And that was it. The man who was at the centre of a SMERSH conspiracy, and whom Bond had been sent to protect, drove off without a care in the world. Left on his own, Bond walked over to the pits, listening to the throaty roar of different engines as they were warmed up and fine-tuned by the mechanics. The air smelled of oil and methanol. Some of the drivers were crouching down by their cars. Others were standing in small groups, smoking. There was a sense of camaraderie that Bond knew would disappear the moment the chequered flag came down but right now, on the eve of battle, everyone was relaxed.
No. There was one man standing apart. Bond saw the car first, a black Krassny with a single figure – number three – painted on its belly-pan fairing. The car had none of the elegance or classic curves of the Maserati and quickly betrayed its origins; half a dozen production Soviet cars bastardised to produce this one ugly creature. The driver had also lit a cigarette and it seemed to Bond that his face was exactly the same colour as the smoke he was exhaling, with hooded eyes and thin strands of hair that hung loosely over a high forehead. His mouth was a narrow slash, a wound made with a blunt knife. For a brief moment he looked up and his snake eyes locked onto Bond’s. He said nothing and showed no emotion but Bond knew that the connection had been made. The Russian had clocked him, made his assessment of this new contender, and filed the information away to be considered later.
Well, Bond had done the same and it helped him to have seen his enemy and, for that matter, the car he would be driving. The two of them would meet soon enough but for now Bond turned his back and went off to find his own car.
The Maserati had been unloaded that morning and sat waiting for him like an old friend. There was a man already working on the engine and he looked up as Bond approached. He was in his late fifties with greying hair and strangely aristocratic features given that he was wearing coveralls, spattered with oil. ‘You’re James Bond?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Bernardo Hertogs.’ He spoke with a slight South American accent. ‘Logan called me a few days ago. She asked me to look after you – or at least, to look after the car, which is the same thing.’
‘You know her?’
‘I raced with her father. We did the Panamericana together, back in ’51. That was my last race. These days I like to work with the mechanics in the pit – just to be close to the cars.’ He wiped his hands with a rag and then gestured at the Maserati. ‘We’ve warmed the engine. Now you must let it cool for a few minutes and after that it will be ready for you. This is your first time at Nürburgring?’
Bond admitted that it was.
‘We’ve just had the weather reports in and it looks as if it’s going to be fine for tomorrow. But I will give you some advice. Watch out for the adhesion factor on the road surface. That’s the whole secret. You don’t want your wheels spinning too wildly. Other than that, take it easy at first.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘If you give the impression that you’re not comfortable with the car, the rest of them will write you off. And then, when you put your foot down, they won’t see you coming!’
Bond waited until the car was ready, then he put on his helmet, goggles and earplugs and climbed in. Bernardo and another mechanic pushed him off and suddenly he was away, just he and the Maserati, plunging into the green hell . . .
At the end of the day, with his second medium dry Martini in front of him, Bond lit a cigarette and contemplated his chances of success. Nürburgring was every bit as brutal as he had been warned and against the likes of Lancy Smith, the Italian Luca Franchitti, the German Klausman, and even the Russian Number 3, he wouldn’t stand a chance – certainly not over twenty-two laps. His only hope was that Dimitrov would make his move early, in the first or second lap, and everything he had learned made this the most likely scenario. Leave it too late, when the pack would have separated, and he might not get a chance. And that being the case, Bond had a few tricks of his own up his sleeve. If he got off to a decent start and kept his focus on the more vicious turns, he might just get away with it.
The Blaue Ecke was a pretty, old-fashioned place on a corner, as its name suggested, and, with the warmth of the evening, the drinkers had spilled out onto the cobbled street. There were about thirty of them but the number had been almost doubled by the girls who swarmed around like brightly coloured flies. Fast guys, fast cars, fast girls. Bond was an unknown, so they left him alone but he noticed that the racers seemed to be on easy terms with them and there was plenty of banter and lewd jokes. He felt a sense of complicity in the air and could easily imagine a game of musical beds that went from country to country. There was a stir as Lancy Smith arrived. He didn’t need to buy himself a drink. A flute of pink champagne had appeared at exactly the same moment and found its way into his hand before he had even stopped.
He saw Bond and came over to him. ‘How did you get on?’
‘I was grateful for your help,’ Bond said, non-committally.
‘All set for tomorrow?’
‘I hope so.’
Bond raised his glass midway to his lips – then stopped. Three more men had gathered together across the road. They were directly in his eye line and even if he hadn’t immediately and shockingly recognised two of them, his attention would certainly have been captured by the third.
Ivan Dimitrov was the first. The second man was also Russian and had presumably travelled all the way from Moscow to be here. Bond had never met him but had seen his photograph enough times in the files to know him as Vladimir Gaspanov, a high-ranking member of SMERSH and a possible successor to Colonel General Grubozaboyschikov – ‘G’ – whose whereabouts were still unknown following the disastrous failure of his last operation a few years ago. Well, there it was. The link with SMERSH was proved. But what the hell was the general doing here? There was no way that such a senior officer would break cover, quite possibly putting himself in harm’s way, simply to watch two cars collide.
And then Bond turned his attention to the third member of the group and knew at once that this wasn’t just about the Krassny, that there was something else going on in Nürburg and that he had stumbled onto it quite by chance. This other man was angry. He was speaking rapidly to the general in a way that would have been a death sentence if the man didn’t have some sort of power or protection of his own. Bond’s every instinct screamed at him. Get a photograph. File a description. Find out more.
He was a Korean. Bond’s first thought had been that he was Chinese but he had quickly corrected himself. His eyes were too small and didn’t have the double eyelid, the famous epicanthic fold that he associated with the majority of that race. He was also too tall, very slender, with the long, delicate fingers of a concert pianist. His skin was olive-coloured, smooth but very pale and completely without blemish like a china doll, and this – along with his slightly effeminate features – made it almost impossible to tell his age. Bond guessed that he must be around thirty but he could have been much younger, perhaps even in his late teens. Apart from the very faintest suggestion of eyebrows, he had no facial hair and the hair on his head was cut short with a dead straight fringe. Beneath this, he wore wire-framed spectacles that were almost cartoon-like, as if they had been drawn onto his face. The glass was unusually thick, suggesting poor or even damaged eyesight. As he spoke, he showed childlike teeth, as white as pearls and somehow inappropriate between the grey, half-suggested lips. The last Korean Bond had encountered had been squat and ugly, the sort of man who could only have been improved by being sucked through the window of a Stratocruiser, but this one was at least passably good-looking with the confident, easygoing aura that often comes with considerable wealth. He was immaculately dressed in a grey silk suit that had been made to measure, a white shirt open at the neck and well-polished Italian, black leather shoes. He spoke at length, gesticulating with one hand. Ivan Dimitrov hung back, nervous.
Lancy Smith had noticed them too.
‘Do you know who he is?’ Bond asked. He gestured at the Korean.
‘As a matter of fact, I do. He’s got an interest in Grand Prix – strictly as a spectator sport. I’ve met him in Monaco and Paris. Interesting chap, by all accounts. His name is Sin Jai-Seong but that’s not what people call him. On the racing circuit and in the fashion magazines they’ve inverted his name and Westernised it to Jason Sin. It’s become a bit of a joke. Sin by name, sin by nature. And it works for him. Makes him seem racy, a bit of an adventurer, when actually his business is rather dull.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He has a recruitment agency and he’s involved in construction. Based in America. They say he’s one of the richest Koreans in the country. He certainly has a glamorous lifestyle, houses all over the world, including one not far from here. You can see it if you like. He always throws a big party after the race and all the drivers are invited.’
‘Are you going?’
‘I’ll say! Cristal champagne, foie gras and caviar flown in from Paris, and plenty of girls. Just try not to break your neck, James, and I’ll see you there.’
Lancy Smith moved away and Bond stood watching as the three men exchanged a few words and then went in separate directions. Bond thought of following one of them but decided against it. He had enough on his plate already and there was nothing to be gained by trudging through the streets at night. Even so . . . Two Russians and a Korean meet in a small German town. It was like the start of a bad joke but Bond was certain he’d stumbled onto something. Dimitrov and Gaspanov were obviously connected. Was it just a coincidence that the two of them had been in conversation with Sin?
That night, Bond wrote a cable using the customary transposition code based on the day of the month and addressed it to the Chairman, Universal Export, London. It occurred to him that he might be jumping the gun but it never hurt to be ahead of the game, and if anything happened to him the following day, at least London would know where to start. He requested a full background check on Sin Jai-Seong, also known as Jason Sin, with particular reference to any connection with SMERSH.