CHAPTER TWELVE
The Good Doctor (Part 1)
The hammering on Bond's hotel room door began at 8:30 that morning, and wouldn't let up until Bond dragged himself out of bed and opened it.
Theodor Ackermann stood in the doorframe, both angry and sad.
"Come in," Bond invited.
He turned and backed into the room, then looked back at the doro to see Ackermann still glaring at him.
"What?" Bond asked, all innocence.
"I've been at the police station."
"That's great, Theodor, but let's discuss it inside."
"They arrested her."
"Not in the hall."
Ackermann hissed in anger, then stomped into Bond's room, slamming the door behind him. His cashmere overcoat was slung over his shoulders. The sleeves hung limp like broken limbs.
"The police station," Bond prompted. "Why?"
"I don't know, damn you, they gave me the runaround." He ran a hand through his fine luxuriant hair and inspected Bond's room for hidden policemen.
"What are you angry about?"
"They arrested Shiri! Didn't you hear me?"
Bond said, "Well she must have done something to deserve it. Did she irritate them?"
"Irritate them!" he barked. "We work for your government!"
"And? Last I checked, we're in France."
"And I think you had the police arrest her." He punctuated this by stabbing a finger at Bond.
"Don't be ridiculous, why would I do that?"
"We work for your government!" he repeated
"You didn't tell them that, did you?"
"Of course not! I didn't tell them a thing." He was getting angry all over again. "They asked me all sorts of questions. In an interrogation room. For four goddamned hours."
"Then you need a drink." Bond indicated an opened bottle of Haig on his dresser.
Ackermann regarded the whisky, then checked his watch ⸺ early morning ⸺ then with a dismissive gesture indicated that he would accept one.
Bond picked up a tooth glass from the bathroom. "What did you tell them?" he asked as he poured Ackermann two fingers worth of whisky.
"Of course not," he said. He downed the whisky like a man dying of thirst. "I'm not staying here," he announced. "I'm going back to Berlin."
"All right."
He gave Bond a spiteful look.
"Come on, Theodor, either tell me what this is all about or don't tell me anything, but you can't expect me to believe that the police interrogated you for four hours at the police station because you're such a wonderful conversationalist."
From downstairs sounded a little bell to alert them that breakfast was ready.
Ackermann finished his second whisky. "One of the policemen told me that Shiri was asked to leave the country."
"Whatever for?"
"Her papers weren't in order."
"What papers?"
"What's what I kept asking," Ackermann said, "asking and he really couldn't tell me." He held the tooth glass in two hands and tapped fingers on its side. "Everything has gone wrong on this job."
Bond said nothing, knowing that in an interrogation, silence can be as effective a tool as probing questions.
He was rewarded. Ackermann stretched out his legs and studied the toes of his expensive Oxfords. "I try to keep everyone happy," he mumbled to himself.
"Try to make everyone happy and you'll never get anything done that is worth doing."
Theodor stared at him for a long time, until Bond began to think that Ackermann had gone off the bend.
"You're right," he agreed. He studied his shoes again and said, "You're right," two more times.
Ackermann let Bond pour him another Haig. "So why did you come here?"
"I came down here to consult a man. I saw him last night. He lives in Spain." He looked at Bond and added, plaintively, "You don't know how much time I'm putting into this, and how much work is involved."
Bond tried to look like a man who was just listening to someone else's trouble to be polite.
"This man," Theodor continued, "I knew him from my earlier days."
"In East Germany?"
"I've known him for years. The French got their hooks into him. When he was driving me back here, they refused him entry at the frontier."
"Oh? Why?"
"I don't know," Ackermann said. "And they hauled me out of the car and drove me here."
"I'm sure it was just a routine check."
"Four hours, Neydermeier. Four hours."
"So you were across the border into Spain and they stopped you at the border coming back."
"Yes," said Theodor.
"Who is this man? Why did you consult with him?"
Ackermann was quiet for a moment. "He says he knows about Kronsteen."
It felt like a lie, but Bond didn't probe it further. "And did he?"
"The whole thing is falling apart," Ackermann said to himself as if by answer. "Will London be upset with me now?"
"Falling apart in what way, Theodor?" asked Bond pleasantly, but the phrase has raised every warning within him.
"Just... just it's so hard." His mouth worked as if he wanted to give a different answer. As if the truth and the lie were competing and it was the lie that won. "It's just so hard. Will London be cross with me?"
"What on earth for?"
"For messing about down here instead of being in Berlin."
"I shouldn't imagine so," said Bond, still pleasantly. "What's falling apart?"
But the whisky was working its wonders, and Ackermann was in that netherworld of not sober but not quite drunk either. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not cut out for this life."
"No one is," said Bond. "You have to look at it like a sausage-making machine. Put a success story in one end, and money and promotion come out the other."
"Okay," Ackermann interrupted. He glared at Bond. "They want a success story, we'll give them one."
"Atta boy," said Bond with an Americanism that he'd picked up years before.
# # #
Bond didn't know if it was the labyrinthine French phone system, or if it was on London's end, but the connection to M was staticky and prone to fade-out. "Hello? Can you hear me?"
"I hear you loud and clear, 007," growled M ⸺ or Bond assumed it was a growl ⸺ "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir. For the moment."
"As I was saying, it's no good blaming Ackermann. He's given you more co-operation than you could reasonably ask for."
Bond had booked the call shortly after ushering a now-half-drunk Ackermann out of his room. He had agreed to go to his own room to sleep off the effects of the whisky and the loss of Shiri Ritchfield. Bond had made sure he downed two more tooth glasses worth of whisky, so that he would snooze for a time.
The line faded out again, and when it returned, M was in mid-harangue. "... bringing in the Hendaye police force. Seriously, 007, contacting Station P-Paris for a number four. A grave error of judgment."
For this operation, a 'number four' was a special request of the residence staff to arrange for the arrest and detainment of a person for an undefined length of time. By law, the French Code of Criminal Procedure allowed for a garde à vue ⸺ 'police custody' ⸺ for a maximum of forty-eight hours barring unique circumstances, which they were allowed to extend for up to sis days for complex criminal cases, of which espionage was considered one. Add to that a special arrangement between MI-6 and the SDECE, or France's counterintelligence service, and the paperwork for a suspect might get lost, the suspect might disappear into the maze-like jail and prison system, sometimes errors in name or arrest date make it hard to find the suspect or the paperwork, and with the whole cumbersome bureaucratic apparatus working against you, a suspect could remain in police custody limbo for months at a time.
"The SDECE should be happy," Bond said. "I gave him that girl and said she was working for Bonn."
"Which was a lie."
"Which was the truth. I didn't say which side she was working for. In any case, there's quite enough to keep them busy."
"You're not the one having to sort it all out," M growled again. He was growling a lot. "You make a lot of trouble and leave it to this department to apologize, explain that we all make mistakes, and promise that you won't do it again."
"Yes, sir," said Bond curtly.
"According to the PM, Bond, I am not to encourage these sorts of actions. The PM, mind you."
"Yes, sir."
"The reason we are involved in this operation is because we want to learn as much as we can about Karlshorst in general and Pushkin in particular. Whatever else you conclude, right or wrong, don't make any mistake about Ackermann. He's a damn good chap; whatever you may feel about him." The voice faded out again, and when it returned it was flanked by a rich background crackle. "... in future you, don't request such actions in the field without permission..." It disappeared again.
"Yes, sir," Bond said, figuring from the timbre of what he was saying and reacting accordingly.
"... ack to Miss Moneypenny. She can fill you in on that car license number."
"Very good, sir."