She hurried to make good her mistake. How curious that the compliment didn’t please him. Didn’t everyone in the West want to look like a film star? ‘I was lying,’ she said. ‘I wanted to give you pleasure. In fact you are like my favourite hero. He’s in a book by a Russian called Lermontov. I will tell you about him one day.’
One day? Bond thought it was time to get down to business.
‘Now listen, Tania.’ He tried not to look at the beautiful face on the pillow. He fixed his eyes on the point of her chin. ‘We’ve got to stop fooling and be serious. What
‘But of course!’
‘Oh!’ Bond was taken aback by the directness of her answer. He looked at her suspiciously. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes were truthful now. She had stopped flirting.
‘You’re not afraid?’
He saw a shadow cross her eyes. But it was not what he thought. She had remembered that she had a part to play. She was to be frightened of what she was doing. Terrified. It had sounded so easy, this acting, but now it was difficult. How odd! She decided to compromise.
‘Yes. I am afraid. But not so much now. You will protect me. I thought you would. ’
‘Well, yes, of course I will.’ Bond thought of her relatives in Russia. He quickly put the thought out of his mind. What was he doing? Trying to dissuade her from coming? He closed his mind to the consequences he imagined for her. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll look after you. ’ And now for the question he had been shirking. He felt a ridiculous embarrassment. The girl wasn’t in the least what he had expected. It was spoiling everything to ask the question. It had to be done.
‘What about the machine?’
Yes. It was as if he had cuffed her across the face. Pain showed in her eyes, and the edge of tears.
She pulled the sheet over her mouth and spoke from behind it. Her eyes above the sheet were cold.
‘So that’s what you want. ’
‘Now listen. ’ Bond put nonchalance in his voice. ‘This machine’s got nothing to do with you and me. But my people in London want it. ’ He remembered security. He added blandly, ‘It’s not all that important. They know all about the machine and they think it’s a wonderful Russian invention. They just want one to copy. Like your people copy foreign cameras and things.’ God, how lame it sounded!
‘Now you’re lying,’ a big tear rolled out of one wide blue eye and down the soft cheek and on to the pillow. She pulled the sheet up over her eyes.
Bond reached out and put his hand on her arm under the sheet. The arm flinched angrily away.
‘Damn the bloody machine,’ he said impatiently. ‘But for God’s sake, Tania, you must know that I’ve got a job to do. Just say one way or the other and we’ll forget about it. There are lots more things to talk about. We’ve got to arrange our journey and so on. Of course my people want it or they wouldn’t have sent me out to bring you home with it. ’
Tatiana dabbed her eyes with the sheet. Brusquely she pulled the sheet down to her shoulders again. She knew that she had been forgetting her job. It had just been that … Oh well. If only he had said the machine didn’t matter to him so long as she would come. But that was too much to hope for. He was right. He had a job to do. So had she.
She looked up at him calmly. ‘I will bring it. Have no fear. But do not let us mention it again. And now listen. ’ She sat up straighter on the pillows. ‘We must go tonight.’ She remembered her lesson. ‘It is the only chance. This evening I am on night duty from six o’clock. I shall be alone in the office and I will take the Spektor. ’
Bond’s eyes narrowed. His mind raced as he thought of the problems that would have to be faced. Where to hide her. How to get her out to the first plane after the loss had been discovered. It was going to be a risky business. They would stop at nothing to get her and the Spektor back. Roadblock on the way to the airport. Bomb in the plane. Anything.
‘That’s wonderful, Tania.’ Bond’s voice was casual. ‘We’ll keep you hidden and then we’ll take the first plane tomorrow morning. ’
‘Don’t be foolish. ’ Tatiana had been warned that here would be some difficult lines in her part. ‘We will take the train. This Orient Express. It leaves at nine tonight. Do you think I haven’t been thinking this thing out? I won’t stay a minute longer in Istanbul than I have to. We will be over the frontier at dawn. You must get the tickets and a passport. I will travel with you as your wife. ’ She looked happily up at him. ‘I shall like that. In one of those coupés I have read about. They must be very comfortable. Like a tiny house on wheels. During the day we will talk and read and at night you will stand in the corridor outside our house and guard it. ’
