Honor Among Spies [Hardcover]

Chapter 1
 
 
It was no great task for a man to disappear on Jamaica.
This wasn't to say in the physical sense, though that, too, presented no insurmountable difficulties. European expatriates, fleeing deeds committed before, during, or after World War II, had from time to time come to the island with the express intent of modifying their identities or leaving them behind altogether. As far as was generally known, no Nazi war criminals had ever fled here. But wars sometimes made criminals of men nonetheless, even those with essentially ethical natures.
Criminal. Ian Fleming, basking in the dazzling sun and succulent humidity of the afternoon on his verandah, considered the word. It didn't, he decided almost too quickly, apply to him. The acts he had committed following the war weren't ones he cherished in his memories, but they also weren't crimes. He had been one of "Churchill's Boys," a select and highly covert group appointed by the prime minister to hunt and dispatch those Nazis who'd escaped their righteous punishments in the war's aftermath.
Such had been the PM's justification for the secret operation, which had actually started out as a program of wartime assassinations but was carried over past 1945 and the war's end. Even though Churchill didn't at present occupy the office of prime minister, it was presumed by many in the British intelligence field that the great war commander would resume his post sometime soon. Fleming, though he was no longer a part of that community, agreed with the assessment. So it was that Churchill's Boys had proceeded with their work, operating under spy chiefs that the once and--likely--future PM had personally appointed.
Fleming's rationalization for taking part in it was even simpler. He had followed his orders. He had done his duty.
During the war he had worked for the Department of Naval Intelligence. He made a successful career of being a spy. It allowed him to bring to bear all his personal assets, his organizational talents, his derring-do in beguiling and outfoxing the enemy. However, during that clandestine postwar operation he had been transformed, gradually but inevitably, into something that didn't sit well with his basic nature. He had become an assassin. The body count rose. The faces of the former Nazis he and his colleagues had erased from existence still bobbed to the surface in his memory from time to time.
But Jamaica was a fine place to lose oneself. The past couldn't be altered, but with a certain amount of determination it could be effectively outrun.
Ian Fleming was a fine specimen of an Englishman. Nearing forty, his physique remained lean and toned. He was long-legged and agile. His handsome appearance, manners, and proper education had time and again proven themselves valuable assets. He was most certainly not sliding toward middle-aged decrepitude.
He had fulfilled a longtime dream when he started construction on the tropical island hideaway of his home. The house, of course, remained a work in progress, a task that didn't daunt him in the least. He was devoted to Goldeneye. He had lifted the title of his home with a mild sense of irony from a wartime operation against the Germans in Spain.
The house had two stories. The luxuriant verandah he was currently lounging upon faced the aquamarine splendor of the Caribbean. His property included a private cove a short distance down a greenery-festooned pathway. The beach's white sands glimmered mirage-like in the brilliant afternoon sun. Only a private drive led to his front yard. His home had no telephone, no electricity. All was bucolic and serene.
In London presently, where he spent the bulk of his year, early February was gripping the United Kingdom in its icy claws. Fleming had suffered his last winter in the nation of his birth. He had made it clear to his employers, Kemsley Newspapers, that for the winter months he would be here, on Jamacia, wallowing in the sumptuous heat. He'd earned a good enough name as a journalist that his employers did not object to his somewhat eccentric conditions. Recently he had bolstered his reputation by penning that exposé of the unethical doings of one Lord Dale Hemmingford, which had caused more than a minor stir.
Fleming, laid out on his cushioned lounge in a swimsuit and green floral shirt, sipped with deliberate ease at his gin and tonic. He planned later to visit his private beach, to take a refreshing dip in those inviting jewel-colored waters. In them swam chalk bass, cardinalfish, those eye-catching royal gramma with their yellow and bright purple bodies, and a host of other sea creatures. Such plans merely filled out the hours of these hedonistic days. He felt no urgency. The present was placid.
The past, however, had arrived twenty minutes ago in the physical form of the blue airmail envelope that Isaiah Hines, Fleming's houseman, had delivered on a tray. Fleming had yet to open it, to even touch it. It sat on the three-legged rattan table alongside his lounge.
He had noted the name above the return address in the lefthand corner. The sight of it had given him serious pause.
Next to the letter was a sterling silver cigarette case, gleaming brightly in the sunlight. He reached for this instead. Opening the cover, he saw, as he always did, the engraving. My dearest Ian…Enternally yours…Nora.
It had been some weeks since the wretched death of Nora Blair DeYoung. Murder, it had been. The immediacy of the tragedy had already receded in Fleming's heart and mind. The pain had taken root at a safer, lower level, well beneath his surface, where he was able to face it in manly fashion. Nora had been both his betrayer and his lover. He had silently forgiven her the wrongs she did him. He had also admitted--alas, only to himself, since Nora was gone--the depth of feeling he'd had for the woman.
He slipped a Players from the case, snapped shut the lid, and lit the cigarette with his gold lighter. He was putting off the inevitable. He was trying to delude himself that if he sat here sunning himself long enough, the envelope would simply vanish. Or, failing that miracle, the name above the return address would drop or gain a mere letter or two, changing it into something else. Someone else. Anyone else.
This wasn't the sort of hesitant behavior he normally indulged in. Fleming prided himself on his ability to face matters in a forthright manner. Life as a government agent had taught him to confront unpleasant facts on an almost daily basis. He had been toughened by his years. Still…there was that name.
Prescott W. Quick.
If there were two or more Prescott W. Quicks in the world, it was highly unlikely one of those counterparts would be writing to Fleming. There was only one man in his past with that name. By Scot, he thought he even recognized the penmanship. Prescott had always had a flamboyant way of drawing his cursive Q's. It was pointless to be stalling like this. Open the blasted letter and have done with it.
Despite this self-admonishment, Fleming drew coolly on his cigarette, alternating now and then with a studied sip from his gin and tonic.
Prescott W. Quick had, of course, also been one of Churchill's Boys, Fleming's, associate in that bloody postwar mission that convinced him, Fleming, to leave behind the spy game forever.
Resentment at this intrusion bubbled up in his chest. This offense wasn't well placed, and he knew it. Did Prescott know that Fleming had taken great pains to bury this portion of his personal history? Unlikely. Fleming had resigned and withdrawn, intending to make his break with governmental work clean and absolute. He didn't want tangible reminders of the rather abhorrent deeds he had committed. He certainly didn't wish to have a chummy correspondence with any of his former fellow assassins. What point would there be to a friendship of that nature? Would he and his bygone colleagues sit about the parlor and reminisce over brandies about those ex-Nazis the PM had been unable to suffer to live? Should they congratulate themselves on seeing justice done, despite the fact that those men--former German officers or not--had not had the luxury of pleading their cases in a lawful Allied court?
He was still loath to open the letter, no matter that only by reading the missive could he ascertain why Prescott was contacting him after so long a spell of silence.
He sighed and glanced up into the sky. There was a ghostly bone-white crescent of the moon visible behind a few gossamer wisps of cloud. The sun burned its welcome heat onto him. He had never objected to Jamaica's sultry, sweat-inducing humidity as other European visitors to the island often did. He had endured one too many English winters. He had picked the site of his tropical retreat wisely.
And now his sanctuary was being rudely intruded upon.
At last the snatched up the blue envelope. The return address was in the States, namely New Orleans in the state of Louisiana. Fleming had passed through the colorful city before. It was a curious place, particularly its celebrated French Quarter--aptly named, since its ambience was decidedly more European than American. The street number next to the Dauphine Street address indicated, if his memory served, that it was indeed within the confines of the Quarter.
"Sah?"
Fleming glanced up, realizing he'd been gazing a prolonged moment at the face of the envelope, even as his innate military instincts had let him hear Isaiah Hines slip quietly out onto the verandah. Isaiah was hovering a deferential two steps away. He wore a short-sleeved khaki-colored shirt and white linen trousers. The tall Negro houseman was as lean as Fleming and, if anything, even firmer in his build. His muscles were sinewy and taut. His natural dark flesh tone was diluted by some European ancestry. He was well spoken and efficient in his duties. His manner betrayed the formal education he'd had, above what was normal for one of Jamaica's native inhabitants. He was roughly five years Fleming's junior.
"Yes, Isaiah?"
"If you'd care for another, sah?" ...