James Bond: The Authorised Biography (18 page)

For some time Naval Intelligence had been having trouble with its Baltic circuit. This whole area was of great importance since it also covered the British convoys to Murmansk. Russia was now our ally – Germany was battling towards Leningrad and trying hard to close the Northern ports. But we were getting faulty information; agents were being caught, four in the last two months. With so much at stake, such wastage could not continue.

Fleming explained all this to Bond, but, as he talked, something about his manner made Bond uneasy.

‘It looks as if you'll have to take a little trip,’ he said. ‘Sweden. You'll find it chilly after Egypt, but I'm sure you'll make the best of things. I'm told the Swedish girls are ravishing.’

‘Whereabouts in Sweden?’

‘Stockholm. Lovely city. There's a man called Svenson. I'm afraid we need him dealt with – rather your line of country.’

Bond raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

‘He's one of ours – in theory. We trained him over here – you may have met him. He's a Norwegian – big, good-looking chap – ex-sailor. I had him set up in a Stockholm shipping agency for cover, but he's doubled on us.’

‘You're sure?’ said Bond.

‘No question. It's the usual story – good work to start with, then too many women. We've had reports of heavy spending. Now we're having all this trouble with the circuit and it must be Svenson. The opposition got two of our best men last week and we know that Svenson was the only person who could possibly have betrayed them. He must be fixed – for good.’

‘Couldn't you find someone else?’ said Bond. ‘I knew him.’

‘Did you now? So much the better.’

Despite himself, Bond was impressed by the thoroughness of Fleming's preparations. During the next few days they spent a lot of time together and Bond could see that nothing had been left to chance. Fleming had assembled a complete biography of Svenson. He even had some clips of film taken during training. The two men ran them through in the private cinema behind the Admiralty. Bond recognized at once the ready smile, the lumbering good-nature of the big Norwegian.

‘I'd have trusted Svenson anywhere.’

‘That's been the trouble,’ said Fleming grimly.

Finally Bond realized that he knew too much about this man he had to kill. It would have been better to have known nothing for knowledge causes pity and a sense of guilt. It is much simpler to destroy a traitor than a human being.

*

Perhaps it was his mood, but Bond found Stockholm an uneasy city. Behind its palaces and quays and calm good sense lurked a hygienic pallor that depressed him. It was a city of cold eyes and painless dentists. Any excess was possible in such a place.

Bond had officially his prewar role of diplomatic courier to the British Embassy. He had made a complicated journey to the north by British warship, then across the border and by train to Stockholm. He had no doubts about his mission. It was necessary, but it was no adventure. Instead of the usual excitement of a fresh assignment, he felt a dreadful heaviness. He was the visiting executioner.

Bond didn't want to meet his victim face to face. Stockholm was an impersonal city – the place for an impersonal death; the quicker now the better.

He had no difficulty finding Svenson. His house was in the old city, a gabled, yellow-painted house straight from the pages of Hans Christian Andersen. Svenson had his office here and private flat. From the caf opposite Bond spent some time watching it. Business did not appear to be too good. During the morning he saw two people entering the house, both of them well-dressed Swedes in heavy overcoats. There was no sign of Svenson. Just before lunch the front door opened and a girl came out. From behind his copy of
Svenska Dagblat
, Bond watched her as she crossed the street and walked towards the caf where he sat. She was tall, slender with the palest coloured hair that Bond had ever seen, a Hans Christian Andersen princess. He saw her enter the café, walk to the counter where she bought some smörgäsbord. Then Bond sensed that she was looking at him. Lowering his paper he looked back. The girl had violet eyes. Bond recognized the look she gave him – it was a look of fear and unmistakable suspicion. For just a moment he thought she would speak. Instead she turned away, collected her neatly tied package from the counter, and Bond watched her cross the street and enter the house again. She used a latch-key of her own.

Bond was still hoping Svenson would show himself. It was all he needed. But although Bond kept the house under watch most of the afternoon, there was no sign of him. Bond cursed the girl. She must have warned Svenson of the man watching from the caf opposite. That hygienic operation Bond was hoping for began to seem unlikely. It looked as if he could not avoid personal contact with Svenson after all. He waited hopefully till nearly six. Then he telephoned.

A woman answered. She spoke Swedish. It was a young attractive voice and Bond imagined it must be the girl. He replied in German, asking for Herr Svenson. She said he was out, and had no idea when he was returning. Who was speaking?

‘An old friend of his – James Bond. I'm staying at the Carlton Hotel on Kungsgatan. Perhaps he'd ring me. I'll be there tonight at eight.’

But Svenson didn't ring, and finally Bond tried again. This time the telephone was answered by Svenson.

At the first sound of that booming voice with its fragmented English, Bond was reminded of the man that he had known. Happy-go-lucky Svenson, great drinker, womanizer, and Norwegian patriot. He always had enormous warmth of personality – even now Bond felt it in the voice.

‘James, this is wonderful, just wonderful. You of all people here in bloody Stockholm. I can't wait to see you.’

‘I'm not staying long, and tomorrow looks impossible. Any chance of seeing you tonight? It's been a long time.’

‘So it has – too long. But yes, of course. We must meet and have a drink or two at least. I can't have you leaving Stockholm without seeing you.’

Svenson suggested a café, Olafson's on Skeppsbron – two minutes from the royal palace. Bond promised to be there.

He was, but Svenson wasn't. Once again Bond was armed and ready to complete his mission. But although he waited until gone eleven there was no sign of Svenson. Bond was almost relieved when it was clear that he would not come. It would have been a wretched business to have drunk with a man and reminisced about the past, then gunned him down. On the other hand it meant that Bond would now need to involve himself still deeper with his old friend to get a chance to kill him.

Bond didn't feel like food, but forced himself to eat some smrgsbord and drink sufficient schnapps to numb his feelings. Then he set out again for the yellow gabled house in the old city. This time Bond walked. It was a freezing night, and Bond recalled that Stockholm was as far north as Alaska. But the stars were bright, the spires and roofs of the old city still glittering like some Arctic city in a fairytale. Bond cursed the city for its beauty.

When he reached the little square, the house was in darkness. This time Bond was careful to stay out of sight – Svenson or the girl might well be watching for him. Instead he tried the street behind the house. There was an alleyway, a wall, a window he could force, and he was in. He found a staircase and then, gun in hand, set out to explore. The house was silent. Bond's first thought was that Svenson and the girl had fled. Then he heard voices from above. Tiptoeing he reached a landing. There was a bedroom door with light beneath it.

Bond called out, ‘Svenson,’ there was no reply, but the light inside the room went out.

‘Svenson, I'm coming after you,’ he shouted, then kicked the door in. There was a shot – a bullet hit the woodwork by his head, and spun off down the stairs. Bond was expecting this. He had dodged back and fired twice towards the source of the shot. This seemed as good a way as any now of killing Svenson. It would be less like murder – more of an equal fight.

Bond waited, holding his fire. He could see nothing in the room, but somebody was moaning. Bond paused in readiness to shoot again.

‘Svenson,’ he called softly.

‘For God's sake hold your fire,’ said a voice, Svenson's voice. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘You know why,’ said Bond.

‘James, just wait while I put the light on. Don't you know you've hit her?’

Bond realized it was a woman moaning. The light went on.

Svenson was sitting up in bed. He was much fatter than Bond remembered and sat clutching the bedclothes to his chest. He was unarmed and white with fear. Sprawled across the floor lay the girl Bond had seen that morning. She was naked. Blood was pumping from a bullet hole below the breast. In her hand she still held a small silver automatic.

There was not much that Bond could do for her. The violet eyes were already closed, the knees drawn up against the slender belly. She tried to speak, then slumped against the floor. Bond knew that she was dead.

Svenson was trembling.
He
was moaning now.

‘Let me explain,’ he said. ‘You are my friend, James. You must understand.’

‘I understand too well,’ said Bond.

It was a pathetic business. Bond had never witnessed the effect of total fear before. He would have liked to have shot Svenson where he lay, but couldn't. Instead he heard his terrified confession followed by the inevitable plea for mercy. Bond was revolted – as much by himself now as by Svenson. War is a dirty business: but some men's wars are dirtier than others.

When Svenson realized that Bond was quite implacable he begged him one last favour – to be allowed to shoot himself – and Bond agreed. He took the gun from the dead girl, left one bullet in the chamber, and threw it on the bed.

‘I'll wait outside,’ he said. ‘Get it over quickly.’

Bond waited several minutes but there was no shot. When he went back into the bedroom, Svenson was still lying in the bed. He had the girl's gun in his hand and fired at him, as Bond knew he would. Svenson's gun-hand trembled when he fired. Bond's didn't.

*

Bond was commended for the Stockholm mission. After Svenson's death there were no more casualties in the Baltic circuit – nor were there any diplomatic repercussions.

The Stockholm police apparently were satisfied that the death of Svenson and his mistress was a
crime passionel
by an unknown person. Such crimes are common in the north: the dossier was closed.

For Bond, the irony of the case was that it confirmed him in the last role that he wanted – that of a ‘hard’ man, a remorseless killer. But luckily his talents were employed on ‘cleaner’ assignments for a while. Towards the end of 1943 he was back in Switzerland, organizing the escape of two important Jewish scientists from Germany across Lake Constance. He had a period behind the lines in Italy, helping the partisans attack the big Ansaldo naval works at Spezia. Later he was attached to the naval task force liaising with the French resistance in the Channel ports before D-Day. But Bond's big assignment came at the end of 1944, during the crucial German offensive into the Ardennes.

This has long baffled the more attentive readers of Ian Fleming's books. For Fleming was involved in this as well, and mentioned the affair in passing, thus giving rise to Mr Kingsley Amis's pained query, ‘what was a commander of naval intelligence doing in the Ardennes in 1944?’

Fleming himself did hint at the answer in his short story
From a View to a Kill
where he mentioned ‘left-behind spy units’ set up by the retreating Germans in the Ardennes. In fact these units at one point looked like becoming a menace to the Allies, and it was largely thanks to James Bond that this was averted.

Throughout the summer of 1944 there had been reports from Allied agents that the Nazis were preparing a full-scale resistance movement against an Allied victory. It was known that in Berlin an entire S.S. department, based in big offices off Mehringplatz, was concerned with nothing else. It was commanded by a full-ranking S.S. general named Sender, and already Goebbels was planning to ensure that the Nazi myth survived defeat in war.

Already he could see that a full-scale Nazi resistance movement was now the immortal Reich's best hope of immortality. And in London the Joint Chiefs of Staff set up a small committee to contain it. As something of a German expert, Fleming was a member. It was through him that Bond became involved.

During the autumn the committee's chief concern was the Ardennes. Nobody doubted that the Fuehrer's massive armoured offensive to win back lost German conquests here would ultimately fail. But our agents were reporting that one of the secret aims of the offensive was to gain time to plant a self-contained resistance set-up here for the future. It would have arms, underground headquarters and carefully disguised command points for its troops. It would include the so-called ‘Werewolf Movement’ but in addition have a fully equipped and trained ‘secret army’ to harass the advancing Allies from the rear. According to well-confirmed reports, the S.S. general from Mehringplatz was personally in charge, and Himmler had paid a two-day visit to the area.

Information had suddenly become crucially important, but no Allied agents had succeeded in penetrating the area. Nazi security throughout the battlehead was strict, with a virtual black-out of all information within forty miles of the salient. Fleming suggested Bond as one of the very few men who might discover what was going on.