In Bond’s room, the agent introduced herself as Carmen Costa. She was a tall redhead, of the kind some men might find irresistible, and she already knew who Bond and Goodnight were; Hip had sent word ahead to Station A and asked them to make contact once they landed.
“My boss told me to meet you here. He said that he knew you would be in the bar within half an hour of checking in”, she smiled.
Bond’s eyes narrowed, then he laughed out loud. “Roman Rojas! It is, isn’t it? Don’t tell me he’s Head of Station here these days!”
“Senor Rojas is our head, yes. He said to make contact with you, then tomorrow morning bring you to his office. Can I meet you here at nine o’clock, after you have had breakfast? Or is that too early?”
Bond made eye contact with Mary, who indicated that nine would be fine with her. Plenty of time to wake up properly.
Roman Rojas was a burly man with a boisterous laugh. He and Bond had worked together some time ago and had enjoyed each other’s company. He waved his guests to comfortable chairs and shouted out for coffee.
“So James, my friend, we do not have enough beautiful women here in Argentina, you have to bring your own with you, eh?” He laughed, shaking the furniture.
“Can I introduce Miss Mary Goodnight, Roman? She is an agent of the Service, and is working with me on this mission”.
“I am overjoyed to meet you, Miss Goodnight”, said Roman, leaping to his feet and kissing her cheek. Mary blushed a deep crimson.
“Very … er, very pleased to meet you, Senor Rojas”, said Mary, looking as if she wished the floor would open up and swallow her.
“Roman”, said Bond, “before we go any further I would like a gun. A Walther PPK by preference, but I’ll take what you have”.
Roman reached into his desk drawer and produced a Beretta. “I’m sorry, but this is all I have available at the moment. We took it from a lady’s handbag”.
Bond smiled as Roman handed over the gun. “I’m very grateful to you. I’m somewhat familiar with this model”.
The door opened and a young man came in carrying a tray. He put it on Roman’s desk, then served everyone as they requested. The coffee was strong and dark and delicious. Bond said so. Roman laughed again.
“You are in the native land of coffee, James. We pride ourselves on the flavour and aroma of our native product. We do not serve that feeble instant excuse for coffee you in Europe seem to enjoy so much”.
“Not everyone, Roman. Me for one”.
“Anyway, let us get down to our business. I have been told that you are here with a purpose. A paid assassin from Hong Kong has come here to assassinate our beloved President Juan Peron”.
There was an undercurrent of sarcasm in Roman’s words. Bond replied, “That’s a short version. But can I take it that Peron is not beloved here, then?”
Roman sighed. “It would take too long to explain the history. He is hated by the left and loved by the right one year. Then he is hated by the right and loved by the left the next. The army supports him, then they want to depose him, they want a coup. He has been President, then he is not, then he is President again. Somebody wants to kill him? Get in line, take a ticket”.
“We have been told that the person who is paying the assassin is his wife”.
“Very possible. She of all people knows if he should be killed or not”.
Mary hesitantly said, “I know his wife Eva died a long time ago”.
“Oh indeed, indeed”, said Roman, “and that is a long story in itself. No, this is his third wife, Isabel. There are rumours that he is insane and that she is in fact running the country with him as a figurehead. No-one knows for sure”.
“Why would she want him dead?” asked Bond.
“So she can take over as President in her own right. She has pulled all the levers, put all the machinery into place. It would be very easy for her to do”.
“Can you think of a possible time for Peron to be killed? Some army event, perhaps, or something political”.
Again Roman laughed. “I can think of no better time than tonight”.
Bond and Goodnight stared. “Why tonight, Senor Rojas?”
“Oh please, you must call me Roman. You are a friend of James, and he is a friend of mine. And I will call you Mary, of course”.
The red flush that had just about left Mary’s features returned. “Oh, er, Roman, of course. What is to happen tonight?”
“Tonight is carnival night. Carnavales! There will be parades, and costumes, and much singing and dancing. The President likes to stand on his balcony and watch, he has done this for many years”.
Bond said thoughtfully, “So he will be standing out in the open and there will be enough noise to cover the sound of a bullet”.
“A bullet?” Roman mocked. “My dear James, you could fire a cannon tonight and it would not be heard”.
To Be Continued
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,068Chief of Staff
I’m very tempted to say this is your best work yet @Barbel but that would be unfair on your other work 🤗
Again…
Roman reached into his desk drawer and produced a Beretta. “I’m sorry, but this is all I have available at the moment. We took it from a lady’s handbag”.
As Roman had said, the noise in the streets was deafening. Rockets going off competed with ear-shattering music, yells, and screams. The costumes were spectacular, some skimpy and others beyond skimpy as the celebrants danced and sang and drank. A dog wandered into view and relieved himself between two floats.
“And this goes on all day?” Mary yelled at Carmen, happily dancing with a character wearing a papier-mache head which could have passed for one of Tolkien’s characters, who couldn’t hear a word.
Roman gave a huge bellow of laughter. “All day, young lady?”, he said as he waved his flagon of beer around. He barely seemed to be raising his voice. “This will go on all night, and for those strong enough into tomorrow as well. Maybe things will settle down by tomorrow evening, maybe not”.
Bond looked at the jubilant crowds. You wouldn’t be able to spot a giant here, he thought, never mind a little person.
“When will the president appear?” he asked, looking toward the palace. Spotlights were centred on the balcony, making someone who appeared there an easy target for a determined marksman.
“Oh, it is too early”, replied Roman, “but rest assured he will be there”.
Nick Nack sat in his room taking stock of his preparations, as he had seen his master do so many times. Money – check, safely deposited in his account. The gun – check, bulging in his coat pocket. It was really too warm to wear a coat, but there was nowhere else someone of his size could hide such a powerful weapon. Bullets – check; one loaded, three spares. He was a good shot, but nothing compared to the gun’s previous owner so spares might be necessary. Air tickets – check.
Now had he done everything? Had he missed something… ? Of course. He should have remembered sooner about Scaramanga’s habits. There was one more thing that was required whenever he was hired. He reached for the phone and asked for the head porter. In his experience that was the right man to deal with if a girl was needed. And he still had at least two hours.
The incessant noise of the carnival had penetrated Mary’s head, and she asked Bond if they could go back to the hotel for a while. He checked with Roman, who said they had at least two hours, before accompanying her back to her room. Her arms came up and snaked around his neck.
Nick Nack made his way through the throng, trying to stand as close to the sides as he could. The music annoyed him, but short of shooting holes through the loudspeakers he could do nothing about it. Fortunately he didn’t have far to go, if the map he had consulted was correct.
It was. A block of flats stood at the end of the main thoroughfare. It faced onto the wild celebrations below, but the side faced toward the Presidential Palace. He could see the balcony from here. Now, all he had to do was get above it ….
Bond and Goodnight rejoined the carnival. They looked briefly for Carmen and Roman but quickly gave that up as an impossible task and headed toward the Palace. It wasn’t far, and the spotlights seemed brighter now than before.
At the wide crossroads before the Palace a crowd had formed, growing larger with every minute that passed, the citizens waiting to cheer or boo their leader as their preferences dictated. Bond looked left. A shopping area, covering three floors, then what looked like a darkened storage area above them. If he were the assassin, that was where he would pick. Nobody to disturb him, and the windows a floor higher than the balcony at the Palace. Yes, that looked like it. He turned to Mary.
“Mary, we’ll never figure out where he’ll be, but I’m guessing he might be over there”, he pointed, “on the fourth floor. See, where it’s dark above the shops? We aren’t going to do any good just standing here, let’s go over there and –“
“James, I’m not doubting you. You know a lot more about this than I do, but look on the other side at that block of flats. All the windows facing the Palace are lit, with people waving flags and looking out, I suppose waiting for the President to emerge. All the windows except one. That one”. She pointed.
She was right. One window was dark, but open. If there was no-one inside, or perhaps someone sleeping, it would have been closed. He made an instant choice.
“You’re right. Let’s go”.
They ran over to the entranceway to the flats and then inside. There was no lift, so they pounded up the stairs as fast as they could. From outside they could hear a sudden increase in the volume of the already deafening cheers from the crowd. President Peron must have appeared on the balcony. If they were wrong, there was no time to change their minds now.
Nick Nack had moved a chair to the window, backwards so that he could use it as a rest for his gun. He softly caressed the gold, his eyes looking impassively at the corpses of the old couple he had slain to take over their flat. The cheers from the crowd alerted him to the presence of his target, and he carefully took up position.
Bond reached the fourth floor. Two flats. One had an open door and the sounds of partying, music and drinking, emerging from within. Pushing Mary to one side, he kicked open the other door and sprang into the room, crouching as he aimed the Beretta. He heard one shot from the room. From outside he could hear the cheers turn to screams.
Nick Nack had only a second to enjoy the results of his shooting before he registered the door crashing open behind him and turned to see James Bond, with the Goodnight woman behind him, pointing a gun straight at him. He quickly aimed and fired with his glittering weapon, only too late remembering that it held only one bullet, before Bond shot him through the head.
“He … he’s dead” said Mary, holding a hand to her mouth and leaning against one of the walls. Only now did the two of them take in the scene, the dead couple on the floor, and the golden gun falling from Nick Nack’s grip and onto his chair beside him.
“I had to”, said Bond, “I know the original of that gun only took one bullet but I couldn’t take a chance on this one holding more”.
The screams from outside were joined by police sirens heading to the slain President. There was the sound of heavy feet pounding up the stairs.
I had to do soome research on Peron for this. Very good stuff. A bit more cultural detail, perhaps some internalising, and it would be excellent. Thanks.
Thank you for that, Chris. I gave all the inner monologues to Nick Nack, since he didn't have any dialogue, though a touch of that from Bond would have been a good idea which I must watch out for.
And again you're right, a touch of local colour wouldn't be a bad idea.
I'm very grateful for the advice!
Edit : Juan Peron did die in 1974, though as far as I know not from a golden bullet.
In the airport bar Roman was throwing back vast quantities of beer while Carmen and Mary talked quietly.
“I hope I shall see you again, James”, said Roman, “and that time we shall have more time for recreation rather than work”. He wiped some foam from his lips.
“It’s a deal”, said Bond, sipping at his whisky and genuinely wishing to meet this big happy man again one day, “and once again thank you for all your help with our assignment”.
“Oh it was easy”, laughed Roman, “the police were able to match up the bullet that killed el Presidente with the strange gun the little man was holding and the bullets in his pocket. I was able to make them ignore the small point of one of your bullets being in his head – after all, he was an assassin”.
“And now you have the President’s widow as your new President”, said Mary.
“We do, young lady, and she will not be enquiring into the details of this affair very closely. The man who shot her husband has himself been shot. That is all she wants to know, and that is all she needs to know”.
A voice spoke loudly through the Tannoy, and Roman and Carmen stood up.
“Time for us to go. We will see you again, I hope”.
“Goodbye, Mary. Goodbye, James”, said Carmen.
Bond took Mary’s arm and they headed for the departure lounge's darkened doorway.
M: …. What? … Yes, of course, Miss Moneypenny, put the call through … Good morning, Your Maj - …..Yes, I’ve heard ….It’s on all the TV channels, and the radio …. Yes, sir, I understand, it must be very …. What? Make it look like an … No, I don’t think that would be possible. He’s not going to be driven through Paris at any time soon … Or indeed at all, yes ….. Ask the Americans? … Oh, you mean like what happened with [REDACTED] …. No, I don’t think that’s possible, sir … Well, yes, I believe 007 isn't doing anything. A lot of people have been complaining about that, actually ..... but I don’t think he’d ….
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,068Chief of Staff
When the red telephone rang, James Bond was already lighting his tenth Morland’s cigarette of the day. The brand was one of his own, a personal blend of Turkish and Balkan tobacco. He paused, the flame of his lighter burning half an inch from the paper, while his free hand reached for the receiver.
“OO7.”
“He wants you, James.”
“I thought that was your calling card, Moneypenny.”
“Now, now, James, no time for chit-chat. He wants you now. Before lunch, at least.”
Bond cast one eye at the clock above his office door. 10.30.
“Five minutes, Penny.”
“This isn’t a negotiation, James.”
“Call it four.”
Bond chuckled and softly replaced the receiver. He lit the cigarette, sucked in the deep, antagonistic scent and slake of the tobacco and smoked until the cigarette had burnt down to the first of the three distinct gold bands at the top of the filter. He remembered how he had missed their taste during the few days he had given up following that first visit to Shrublands a few years ago. Bond had vowed never to miss that taste again.
Two minutes later he stepped out of the lift on the top floor of Universal Exports House, that undisclosed location of the British Secret Service which overlooked the north corner of Regent’s Park. He strode quickly down the corridor and entered Miss Moneypenny’s outer office without knocking. She was indifferently twiddling a pen between two fingers.
“You’re late.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“I make it a minute.” She pressed the call button. “OO7 for you, Sir.”
“Alright. Send him in.”
The green light went on above the leather panelled door. Bond said no more to the divine secretary who guarded the secrets of MI6 with her heart, her soul and a turn of her auburn-haired head.
Inside the inner office sunlight streaked through the windows. It was unusually warm, though Bond always found his superior’s office rather a cold place. M seemed never to notice whether it was hot, cold or tepid. Wafts of pipe tobacco smoke spiralled around his head, painting grey on grey. He was scribbling on a document with a thick-nibbed fountain pen.
“Sit down, James.”
James. Always a bad sign. This was something personal. Or worse, something illicit.
Bond sat and crossed one knee over the other. Relaxed, he waited, admiring not for the first time the painting of HMS Repulse on the wall behind the desk, the Admiral’s last command.
“Cigarette, OO7?” said M after he concluded his notation.
Bond nodded and produced his gunmetal case. If he’d known this was the form, he wouldn’t have rushed the one downstairs.
“Now, ever heard of Notorio?” asked M casually.
Bond shrugged. He knew better than to reply.
M answered his own rhetorical question. “No reason why you should. Brand of corned beef. Quite popular apparently, in certain supermarkets.”
“Can’t stand the stuff,” said Bond. “Reminds me of the Navy.”
M snorted. He struck a match and relit the pipe which had gone out. He sucked at the tip and sighed wistfully.
“Argentinian corned beef, James. Biggest suppliers of the product to the world. Brings in millions to the Argentinian economy, apparently. Notorio isn’t so big in the UK. More a European product. Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Latin countries. It’s owned by a man called Carl Devlin. Only founded the brand back in 1947, so he’s clearly got a grasp on the business.”
“Devlin?” repeated Bond. “Curious name. I would have expected something more Spanish.”
“There’s a reason for that. Devlin’s a German. Émigré, 1946. Peron let him in. He wasn’t called Devlin then. He was born Leo Hubermann. Mossad identified him a couple of years ago. He’s a wanted Nazi war criminal. Hubermann was an SS officer stationed in Vichy France. He operated an escape route for Nazis from post-war Europe. The route was called the Leopoldine and ran through France to fascist Spain and then over the Atlantic to Argentina, where they were welcomed by Peron’s sympathetic regime. He’s had a little routine plastic surgery, but it couldn’t disguise his features long enough for Mossad’s operatives. They’ve got eyes like bloody hawks.
“Mossad attempted to assassinate him twice last year. They failed. Getting close to Devlin is difficult; he’s very well protected. Unusual of course for a businessman to have a private army, but that’s more or less what he’s got. A close-knit circle of sympathisers who do as they are asked without question. Most of them, of course, are ex-Nazis or Nazi sympathisers and there are plenty of those to be found in Argentina to say nothing of Chile, Brazil, Paraguay. The whole of South America seems littered with the bastards.
“Anyway, Mossad needed an ‘in’ – someone they could trust who wasn’t Jewish, who might pass for German, and they contacted us. They know we’ve employed some Germans who escaped the Soviet East. We use them to keep tabs on East German activities mostly. Well, I had a think about it. The work wasn’t going to be pleasant. I knew that. I had a hard job convincing myself it was a worthwhile endeavour. Mossad insisted Hubermann, or Devlin or whatever we should call him, was instigating political turmoil in Argentina, unsettling the already right-wing government in the hope of restoring to power his friend and saviour Peron.
“We had this unmarried German woman, Alexis Sebastian. Nice girl. Works in the translations department on the second floor. Or did, I should say. Alexis is a distant cousin of the late Kaiser Wilhelm II. Comes from money and was introduced to the Queen Mother at the 1952 Deb’s Ball. The aristocratic connection would certainly make her of interest to a would-be ‘nuevo aristo’ like Devlin. I had her in here for a chat. Yes. Nice girl.”
M paused, puffed at the pipe and swivelled his chair so Bond couldn’t see the expression on his face. One of severe distress, Bond gathered. The twitching of M’s pipe hand told him so.
“I knew her father before he passed away. The family escaped Berlin in ’38. Set up a home tutoring business. Foreign languages to the elite. Even helped the Duke of Kent. Both parents were very useful to intelligence during the war. Never any suggestion of treason. Good man, was Markus. Played bridge with him at Blades once. Anyway, Miss Sebastian was willing to do what Mossad required. I sent her to Buenos Aires. No cover story. Well, not much, a job at a children’s school, a little political background. The new fascists, that kind of thing.”
Bond nodded and lit his latest Morland’s.
“She made contact, seduced Devlin and took up a situation in his household. It was exactly what Mossad wanted. Essentially, Miss Sebastian was acting as Devlin’s ‘companion’.”
M said this final word with some distaste and swung the chair even further so Bond saw even less of a profile than he had before.
“Strange what some women will do for their country.”
M stood up and walked to the window. He stared out across the cityscape, his shoulders heaving with big controlled breaths.
“Is she still there?” ventured Bond.
“We’ve not had any reports for three months. She was only supposed to wheedle her way inside, get an angle for Mossad to attempt a third assassination. But her intel was too good, both for Mossad and for us. A ton of economic data, about Argentine trade, politics, society, who was allied to who, grand stuff. Then it all stopped. The last we heard was from the gossip columns in La Nación. Apparently, Carl Devlin is engaged to be married to a German school teacher called Alexis Sebastian.”
“You think she’s been turned?”
M’s shoulders heaved again.
“God, I hope not, James. I bloody hope not.”
“Where do I come in?”
M returned to his desk. Suddenly, he was all business.
“I’m sending you to Buenos Aires. You’ll be travelling as David Somerset. Universal Exports delegate to the 1966 Buenos Aires Trade Exposition. You’re to make contact with the Notorio delegation and seek out Alexis. Flush her out, if you have to, and Devlin also. I’ve informed Mossad and they’ll be keeping discreet tabs on you. If you can get him in the open, get Devlin away from his minders, even for a few minutes, they seem certain they can lift him.”
“Wait.” Bond sat forward slightly. “They want him alive, Sir?”
“Before they kill him, yes. Any information Mossad can glean on the whereabouts of other escaped Nazis would be a godsend to them. Of course, they may not get the chance.”
M looked sharply at Bond when he said this, sharply from under the hooded hunter’s eye sockets.
“I understand, Sir. And Miss Sebastian? Is there a potential security risk with the girl?” There was no reply. “Is the operation to withdraw or to eliminate?”
The hunter’s eyes didn’t flinch. Without looking, M took up the top file from his in-tray and handed it over the desk. Bond took the slim dossier and noted the ‘Eyes Only’ stamp. Quickly he opened it and read the mission statement, a six-line summary of what M had just told him and the nine-letter word starting with ‘E’ he had dared not.
“It’s all in there, James.”
The expression was hard as stone, but the voice was cracked as if struck by a mason’s chisel.
There was a photograph of a woman inside the dossier. Alexis Sebastian was not a traditional beauty, but she had an enigmatic, almost powerful face, despite the soft edges. She had pale skin and high plump cheekbones with a nose slightly too large for her face. Her mouth was wider than most women’s, the lips exquisite, slightly plump too. Good for kissing, he pondered. But it was her eyes that struck him, pleading, slightly agog, lavender blue, the lids wide, as if she was about to cry. He immediately wanted to help her whatever her situation. A sweep of brown hair finished the fashionable look. Alexis could have passed for a movie star.
“She looks like a young Ingrid Bergman,” he commented.
“Who?” said M.
“Nothing, Sir. Is this photo recent?”
“Taken a couple of days before she left, so a year old. Read the dossier carefully, James, then bring it back here. You leave tomorrow from London Airport. Moneypenny has the flight details.”
“Yes, Sir.” Bond closed the dossier, stubbed out his smouldering cigarette in the upturned shell casing M used as an ash tray and stood up. “If that’s all…”
“Just one thing. It’s not in the dossier. This was something only she and I talked of. Before she left, I gave her a password. Miss Sebastian called it a safe-word. It was to be used by us or her should she get in any danger and we needed to get her out quickly. I suggest you use it.”
Comments
Thanks, guys, more very soon.
Chapter Four
In Bond’s room, the agent introduced herself as Carmen Costa. She was a tall redhead, of the kind some men might find irresistible, and she already knew who Bond and Goodnight were; Hip had sent word ahead to Station A and asked them to make contact once they landed.
“My boss told me to meet you here. He said that he knew you would be in the bar within half an hour of checking in”, she smiled.
Bond’s eyes narrowed, then he laughed out loud. “Roman Rojas! It is, isn’t it? Don’t tell me he’s Head of Station here these days!”
“Senor Rojas is our head, yes. He said to make contact with you, then tomorrow morning bring you to his office. Can I meet you here at nine o’clock, after you have had breakfast? Or is that too early?”
Bond made eye contact with Mary, who indicated that nine would be fine with her. Plenty of time to wake up properly.
Roman Rojas was a burly man with a boisterous laugh. He and Bond had worked together some time ago and had enjoyed each other’s company. He waved his guests to comfortable chairs and shouted out for coffee.
“So James, my friend, we do not have enough beautiful women here in Argentina, you have to bring your own with you, eh?” He laughed, shaking the furniture.
“Can I introduce Miss Mary Goodnight, Roman? She is an agent of the Service, and is working with me on this mission”.
“I am overjoyed to meet you, Miss Goodnight”, said Roman, leaping to his feet and kissing her cheek. Mary blushed a deep crimson.
“Very … er, very pleased to meet you, Senor Rojas”, said Mary, looking as if she wished the floor would open up and swallow her.
“Roman”, said Bond, “before we go any further I would like a gun. A Walther PPK by preference, but I’ll take what you have”.
Roman reached into his desk drawer and produced a Beretta. “I’m sorry, but this is all I have available at the moment. We took it from a lady’s handbag”.
Bond smiled as Roman handed over the gun. “I’m very grateful to you. I’m somewhat familiar with this model”.
The door opened and a young man came in carrying a tray. He put it on Roman’s desk, then served everyone as they requested. The coffee was strong and dark and delicious. Bond said so. Roman laughed again.
“You are in the native land of coffee, James. We pride ourselves on the flavour and aroma of our native product. We do not serve that feeble instant excuse for coffee you in Europe seem to enjoy so much”.
“Not everyone, Roman. Me for one”.
“Anyway, let us get down to our business. I have been told that you are here with a purpose. A paid assassin from Hong Kong has come here to assassinate our beloved President Juan Peron”.
There was an undercurrent of sarcasm in Roman’s words. Bond replied, “That’s a short version. But can I take it that Peron is not beloved here, then?”
Roman sighed. “It would take too long to explain the history. He is hated by the left and loved by the right one year. Then he is hated by the right and loved by the left the next. The army supports him, then they want to depose him, they want a coup. He has been President, then he is not, then he is President again. Somebody wants to kill him? Get in line, take a ticket”.
“We have been told that the person who is paying the assassin is his wife”.
“Very possible. She of all people knows if he should be killed or not”.
Mary hesitantly said, “I know his wife Eva died a long time ago”.
“Oh indeed, indeed”, said Roman, “and that is a long story in itself. No, this is his third wife, Isabel. There are rumours that he is insane and that she is in fact running the country with him as a figurehead. No-one knows for sure”.
“Why would she want him dead?” asked Bond.
“So she can take over as President in her own right. She has pulled all the levers, put all the machinery into place. It would be very easy for her to do”.
“Can you think of a possible time for Peron to be killed? Some army event, perhaps, or something political”.
Again Roman laughed. “I can think of no better time than tonight”.
Bond and Goodnight stared. “Why tonight, Senor Rojas?”
“Oh please, you must call me Roman. You are a friend of James, and he is a friend of mine. And I will call you Mary, of course”.
The red flush that had just about left Mary’s features returned. “Oh, er, Roman, of course. What is to happen tonight?”
“Tonight is carnival night. Carnavales! There will be parades, and costumes, and much singing and dancing. The President likes to stand on his balcony and watch, he has done this for many years”.
Bond said thoughtfully, “So he will be standing out in the open and there will be enough noise to cover the sound of a bullet”.
“A bullet?” Roman mocked. “My dear James, you could fire a cannon tonight and it would not be heard”.
To Be Continued
I’m very tempted to say this is your best work yet @Barbel but that would be unfair on your other work 🤗
Again…
Roman reached into his desk drawer and produced a Beretta. “I’m sorry, but this is all I have available at the moment. We took it from a lady’s handbag”.
Loved this 😁
Very much appreciated, Sir Miles, thank you, though it was the second line that was written especially for you. 😄
I see Roman Rojas as a Kerim Bey kind of character.
Very good, as always.
Excellent story Barbel.
Keep up the great work.
Many thanks, guys, the next part will be here soon.
Chapter Five
As Roman had said, the noise in the streets was deafening. Rockets going off competed with ear-shattering music, yells, and screams. The costumes were spectacular, some skimpy and others beyond skimpy as the celebrants danced and sang and drank. A dog wandered into view and relieved himself between two floats.
“And this goes on all day?” Mary yelled at Carmen, happily dancing with a character wearing a papier-mache head which could have passed for one of Tolkien’s characters, who couldn’t hear a word.
Roman gave a huge bellow of laughter. “All day, young lady?”, he said as he waved his flagon of beer around. He barely seemed to be raising his voice. “This will go on all night, and for those strong enough into tomorrow as well. Maybe things will settle down by tomorrow evening, maybe not”.
Bond looked at the jubilant crowds. You wouldn’t be able to spot a giant here, he thought, never mind a little person.
“When will the president appear?” he asked, looking toward the palace. Spotlights were centred on the balcony, making someone who appeared there an easy target for a determined marksman.
“Oh, it is too early”, replied Roman, “but rest assured he will be there”.
Nick Nack sat in his room taking stock of his preparations, as he had seen his master do so many times. Money – check, safely deposited in his account. The gun – check, bulging in his coat pocket. It was really too warm to wear a coat, but there was nowhere else someone of his size could hide such a powerful weapon. Bullets – check; one loaded, three spares. He was a good shot, but nothing compared to the gun’s previous owner so spares might be necessary. Air tickets – check.
Now had he done everything? Had he missed something… ? Of course. He should have remembered sooner about Scaramanga’s habits. There was one more thing that was required whenever he was hired. He reached for the phone and asked for the head porter. In his experience that was the right man to deal with if a girl was needed. And he still had at least two hours.
The incessant noise of the carnival had penetrated Mary’s head, and she asked Bond if they could go back to the hotel for a while. He checked with Roman, who said they had at least two hours, before accompanying her back to her room. Her arms came up and snaked around his neck.
Nick Nack made his way through the throng, trying to stand as close to the sides as he could. The music annoyed him, but short of shooting holes through the loudspeakers he could do nothing about it. Fortunately he didn’t have far to go, if the map he had consulted was correct.
It was. A block of flats stood at the end of the main thoroughfare. It faced onto the wild celebrations below, but the side faced toward the Presidential Palace. He could see the balcony from here. Now, all he had to do was get above it ….
Bond and Goodnight rejoined the carnival. They looked briefly for Carmen and Roman but quickly gave that up as an impossible task and headed toward the Palace. It wasn’t far, and the spotlights seemed brighter now than before.
At the wide crossroads before the Palace a crowd had formed, growing larger with every minute that passed, the citizens waiting to cheer or boo their leader as their preferences dictated. Bond looked left. A shopping area, covering three floors, then what looked like a darkened storage area above them. If he were the assassin, that was where he would pick. Nobody to disturb him, and the windows a floor higher than the balcony at the Palace. Yes, that looked like it. He turned to Mary.
“Mary, we’ll never figure out where he’ll be, but I’m guessing he might be over there”, he pointed, “on the fourth floor. See, where it’s dark above the shops? We aren’t going to do any good just standing here, let’s go over there and –“
“James, I’m not doubting you. You know a lot more about this than I do, but look on the other side at that block of flats. All the windows facing the Palace are lit, with people waving flags and looking out, I suppose waiting for the President to emerge. All the windows except one. That one”. She pointed.
She was right. One window was dark, but open. If there was no-one inside, or perhaps someone sleeping, it would have been closed. He made an instant choice.
“You’re right. Let’s go”.
They ran over to the entranceway to the flats and then inside. There was no lift, so they pounded up the stairs as fast as they could. From outside they could hear a sudden increase in the volume of the already deafening cheers from the crowd. President Peron must have appeared on the balcony. If they were wrong, there was no time to change their minds now.
Nick Nack had moved a chair to the window, backwards so that he could use it as a rest for his gun. He softly caressed the gold, his eyes looking impassively at the corpses of the old couple he had slain to take over their flat. The cheers from the crowd alerted him to the presence of his target, and he carefully took up position.
Bond reached the fourth floor. Two flats. One had an open door and the sounds of partying, music and drinking, emerging from within. Pushing Mary to one side, he kicked open the other door and sprang into the room, crouching as he aimed the Beretta. He heard one shot from the room. From outside he could hear the cheers turn to screams.
Nick Nack had only a second to enjoy the results of his shooting before he registered the door crashing open behind him and turned to see James Bond, with the Goodnight woman behind him, pointing a gun straight at him. He quickly aimed and fired with his glittering weapon, only too late remembering that it held only one bullet, before Bond shot him through the head.
“He … he’s dead” said Mary, holding a hand to her mouth and leaning against one of the walls. Only now did the two of them take in the scene, the dead couple on the floor, and the golden gun falling from Nick Nack’s grip and onto his chair beside him.
“I had to”, said Bond, “I know the original of that gun only took one bullet but I couldn’t take a chance on this one holding more”.
The screams from outside were joined by police sirens heading to the slain President. There was the sound of heavy feet pounding up the stairs.
Epilogue to follow
I had to do soome research on Peron for this. Very good stuff. A bit more cultural detail, perhaps some internalising, and it would be excellent. Thanks.
Thank you for that, Chris. I gave all the inner monologues to Nick Nack, since he didn't have any dialogue, though a touch of that from Bond would have been a good idea which I must watch out for.
And again you're right, a touch of local colour wouldn't be a bad idea.
I'm very grateful for the advice!
Edit : Juan Peron did die in 1974, though as far as I know not from a golden bullet.
Lurking in darkened doorways 😁
Good to see the final end of Nick Nack, an irritating character that makes the movie very much poorer.
The story has got stronger in each chapter - quite an accomplishment 👏
Thanks, CHB, I'm glad you enjoyed it. That chapter came out at breakneck speed, no delays, in one session - which I believe is a good sign.
Epilogue
In the airport bar Roman was throwing back vast quantities of beer while Carmen and Mary talked quietly.
“I hope I shall see you again, James”, said Roman, “and that time we shall have more time for recreation rather than work”. He wiped some foam from his lips.
“It’s a deal”, said Bond, sipping at his whisky and genuinely wishing to meet this big happy man again one day, “and once again thank you for all your help with our assignment”.
“Oh it was easy”, laughed Roman, “the police were able to match up the bullet that killed el Presidente with the strange gun the little man was holding and the bullets in his pocket. I was able to make them ignore the small point of one of your bullets being in his head – after all, he was an assassin”.
“And now you have the President’s widow as your new President”, said Mary.
“We do, young lady, and she will not be enquiring into the details of this affair very closely. The man who shot her husband has himself been shot. That is all she wants to know, and that is all she needs to know”.
A voice spoke loudly through the Tannoy, and Roman and Carmen stood up.
“Time for us to go. We will see you again, I hope”.
“Goodbye, Mary. Goodbye, James”, said Carmen.
Bond took Mary’s arm and they headed for the departure lounge's darkened doorway.
THE END
Another very well written story Barbel.
The attention to detail...the very fine prose and the well paced narratives.
It is always a pleasure to read your literary works.
Keep up the great work.
Had to catch up with the final two parts…another rollicking tale very well paced and written - I look forward to the muse striking again 😄
Looking forward to the next one 😁
As ever, thank you all very much.
Time for the often threatened break now, but I'm pretty sure more will be along.
BTW, I think this calls for a bout of Caravales 🍸🍸🍸🎊🎊🎊🎉🎉🎉 also, rather taken with the idea of Bond in Buenas Aires
19th February 2026
M: …. What? … Yes, of course, Miss Moneypenny, put the call through … Good morning, Your Maj - …..Yes, I’ve heard ….It’s on all the TV channels, and the radio …. Yes, sir, I understand, it must be very …. What? Make it look like an … No, I don’t think that would be possible. He’s not going to be driven through Paris at any time soon … Or indeed at all, yes ….. Ask the Americans? … Oh, you mean like what happened with [REDACTED] …. No, I don’t think that’s possible, sir … Well, yes, I believe 007 isn't doing anything. A lot of people have been complaining about that, actually ..... but I don’t think he’d ….
🤣🤣🤣😳🤣🤣🤣
As always, Barbel has his finger on the pulse 😁😂👏
Coming very soon....
I’m looking forward to this 😁
Oohhh…very clever.
Is there a lonely goatherd…? 👀
You'll just have to read it and find out...
EDELWEISS
By ChrisNo1 and Barbel
Chapter One
When the red telephone rang, James Bond was already lighting his tenth Morland’s cigarette of the day. The brand was one of his own, a personal blend of Turkish and Balkan tobacco. He paused, the flame of his lighter burning half an inch from the paper, while his free hand reached for the receiver.
“OO7.”
“He wants you, James.”
“I thought that was your calling card, Moneypenny.”
“Now, now, James, no time for chit-chat. He wants you now. Before lunch, at least.”
Bond cast one eye at the clock above his office door. 10.30.
“Five minutes, Penny.”
“This isn’t a negotiation, James.”
“Call it four.”
Bond chuckled and softly replaced the receiver. He lit the cigarette, sucked in the deep, antagonistic scent and slake of the tobacco and smoked until the cigarette had burnt down to the first of the three distinct gold bands at the top of the filter. He remembered how he had missed their taste during the few days he had given up following that first visit to Shrublands a few years ago. Bond had vowed never to miss that taste again.
Two minutes later he stepped out of the lift on the top floor of Universal Exports House, that undisclosed location of the British Secret Service which overlooked the north corner of Regent’s Park. He strode quickly down the corridor and entered Miss Moneypenny’s outer office without knocking. She was indifferently twiddling a pen between two fingers.
“You’re late.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“I make it a minute.” She pressed the call button. “OO7 for you, Sir.”
“Alright. Send him in.”
The green light went on above the leather panelled door. Bond said no more to the divine secretary who guarded the secrets of MI6 with her heart, her soul and a turn of her auburn-haired head.
Inside the inner office sunlight streaked through the windows. It was unusually warm, though Bond always found his superior’s office rather a cold place. M seemed never to notice whether it was hot, cold or tepid. Wafts of pipe tobacco smoke spiralled around his head, painting grey on grey. He was scribbling on a document with a thick-nibbed fountain pen.
“Sit down, James.”
James. Always a bad sign. This was something personal. Or worse, something illicit.
Bond sat and crossed one knee over the other. Relaxed, he waited, admiring not for the first time the painting of HMS Repulse on the wall behind the desk, the Admiral’s last command.
“Cigarette, OO7?” said M after he concluded his notation.
Bond nodded and produced his gunmetal case. If he’d known this was the form, he wouldn’t have rushed the one downstairs.
“Now, ever heard of Notorio?” asked M casually.
Bond shrugged. He knew better than to reply.
M answered his own rhetorical question. “No reason why you should. Brand of corned beef. Quite popular apparently, in certain supermarkets.”
“Can’t stand the stuff,” said Bond. “Reminds me of the Navy.”
M snorted. He struck a match and relit the pipe which had gone out. He sucked at the tip and sighed wistfully.
“Argentinian corned beef, James. Biggest suppliers of the product to the world. Brings in millions to the Argentinian economy, apparently. Notorio isn’t so big in the UK. More a European product. Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Latin countries. It’s owned by a man called Carl Devlin. Only founded the brand back in 1947, so he’s clearly got a grasp on the business.”
“Devlin?” repeated Bond. “Curious name. I would have expected something more Spanish.”
“There’s a reason for that. Devlin’s a German. Émigré, 1946. Peron let him in. He wasn’t called Devlin then. He was born Leo Hubermann. Mossad identified him a couple of years ago. He’s a wanted Nazi war criminal. Hubermann was an SS officer stationed in Vichy France. He operated an escape route for Nazis from post-war Europe. The route was called the Leopoldine and ran through France to fascist Spain and then over the Atlantic to Argentina, where they were welcomed by Peron’s sympathetic regime. He’s had a little routine plastic surgery, but it couldn’t disguise his features long enough for Mossad’s operatives. They’ve got eyes like bloody hawks.
“Mossad attempted to assassinate him twice last year. They failed. Getting close to Devlin is difficult; he’s very well protected. Unusual of course for a businessman to have a private army, but that’s more or less what he’s got. A close-knit circle of sympathisers who do as they are asked without question. Most of them, of course, are ex-Nazis or Nazi sympathisers and there are plenty of those to be found in Argentina to say nothing of Chile, Brazil, Paraguay. The whole of South America seems littered with the bastards.
“Anyway, Mossad needed an ‘in’ – someone they could trust who wasn’t Jewish, who might pass for German, and they contacted us. They know we’ve employed some Germans who escaped the Soviet East. We use them to keep tabs on East German activities mostly. Well, I had a think about it. The work wasn’t going to be pleasant. I knew that. I had a hard job convincing myself it was a worthwhile endeavour. Mossad insisted Hubermann, or Devlin or whatever we should call him, was instigating political turmoil in Argentina, unsettling the already right-wing government in the hope of restoring to power his friend and saviour Peron.
“We had this unmarried German woman, Alexis Sebastian. Nice girl. Works in the translations department on the second floor. Or did, I should say. Alexis is a distant cousin of the late Kaiser Wilhelm II. Comes from money and was introduced to the Queen Mother at the 1952 Deb’s Ball. The aristocratic connection would certainly make her of interest to a would-be ‘nuevo aristo’ like Devlin. I had her in here for a chat. Yes. Nice girl.”
M paused, puffed at the pipe and swivelled his chair so Bond couldn’t see the expression on his face. One of severe distress, Bond gathered. The twitching of M’s pipe hand told him so.
“I knew her father before he passed away. The family escaped Berlin in ’38. Set up a home tutoring business. Foreign languages to the elite. Even helped the Duke of Kent. Both parents were very useful to intelligence during the war. Never any suggestion of treason. Good man, was Markus. Played bridge with him at Blades once. Anyway, Miss Sebastian was willing to do what Mossad required. I sent her to Buenos Aires. No cover story. Well, not much, a job at a children’s school, a little political background. The new fascists, that kind of thing.”
Bond nodded and lit his latest Morland’s.
“She made contact, seduced Devlin and took up a situation in his household. It was exactly what Mossad wanted. Essentially, Miss Sebastian was acting as Devlin’s ‘companion’.”
M said this final word with some distaste and swung the chair even further so Bond saw even less of a profile than he had before.
“Strange what some women will do for their country.”
M stood up and walked to the window. He stared out across the cityscape, his shoulders heaving with big controlled breaths.
“Is she still there?” ventured Bond.
“We’ve not had any reports for three months. She was only supposed to wheedle her way inside, get an angle for Mossad to attempt a third assassination. But her intel was too good, both for Mossad and for us. A ton of economic data, about Argentine trade, politics, society, who was allied to who, grand stuff. Then it all stopped. The last we heard was from the gossip columns in La Nación. Apparently, Carl Devlin is engaged to be married to a German school teacher called Alexis Sebastian.”
“You think she’s been turned?”
M’s shoulders heaved again.
“God, I hope not, James. I bloody hope not.”
“Where do I come in?”
M returned to his desk. Suddenly, he was all business.
“I’m sending you to Buenos Aires. You’ll be travelling as David Somerset. Universal Exports delegate to the 1966 Buenos Aires Trade Exposition. You’re to make contact with the Notorio delegation and seek out Alexis. Flush her out, if you have to, and Devlin also. I’ve informed Mossad and they’ll be keeping discreet tabs on you. If you can get him in the open, get Devlin away from his minders, even for a few minutes, they seem certain they can lift him.”
“Wait.” Bond sat forward slightly. “They want him alive, Sir?”
“Before they kill him, yes. Any information Mossad can glean on the whereabouts of other escaped Nazis would be a godsend to them. Of course, they may not get the chance.”
M looked sharply at Bond when he said this, sharply from under the hooded hunter’s eye sockets.
“I understand, Sir. And Miss Sebastian? Is there a potential security risk with the girl?” There was no reply. “Is the operation to withdraw or to eliminate?”
The hunter’s eyes didn’t flinch. Without looking, M took up the top file from his in-tray and handed it over the desk. Bond took the slim dossier and noted the ‘Eyes Only’ stamp. Quickly he opened it and read the mission statement, a six-line summary of what M had just told him and the nine-letter word starting with ‘E’ he had dared not.
“It’s all in there, James.”
The expression was hard as stone, but the voice was cracked as if struck by a mason’s chisel.
There was a photograph of a woman inside the dossier. Alexis Sebastian was not a traditional beauty, but she had an enigmatic, almost powerful face, despite the soft edges. She had pale skin and high plump cheekbones with a nose slightly too large for her face. Her mouth was wider than most women’s, the lips exquisite, slightly plump too. Good for kissing, he pondered. But it was her eyes that struck him, pleading, slightly agog, lavender blue, the lids wide, as if she was about to cry. He immediately wanted to help her whatever her situation. A sweep of brown hair finished the fashionable look. Alexis could have passed for a movie star.
“She looks like a young Ingrid Bergman,” he commented.
“Who?” said M.
“Nothing, Sir. Is this photo recent?”
“Taken a couple of days before she left, so a year old. Read the dossier carefully, James, then bring it back here. You leave tomorrow from London Airport. Moneypenny has the flight details.”
“Yes, Sir.” Bond closed the dossier, stubbed out his smouldering cigarette in the upturned shell casing M used as an ash tray and stood up. “If that’s all…”
“Just one thing. It’s not in the dossier. This was something only she and I talked of. Before she left, I gave her a password. Miss Sebastian called it a safe-word. It was to be used by us or her should she get in any danger and we needed to get her out quickly. I suggest you use it.”
“Of course, sir. What is it?”
“Edelweiss.”
To Be Continued
This is excellent writing.
Bravo @chrisno1 and @Barbel.
Looking forward to Chapter Two.
Keep up the great work.
What an utterly brilliant start 👏🏻😁
Well done, gents, excellent stuff. I’m loving the nods to Fleming and the movies (I can clearly visualise Sean, Bernard and Lois).
David Somerset 😁 Fabulous title too 👏🍸
Thank you, gentlemen 😊