God's Formula Read Online Free Page B

“I’ll invite him to supper. We have plenty.”
    Professor Tolkien nodded and smiled. Edith turned and left the room. While she was gone, he pictured the tall, waif-thin, fair-haired Arlie Cavanagh, his former student, now a spy, standing in the foyer in his seersucker suit and repp tie, straw hat in hand, twiddling his thumbs. To Tolkien’s right was a large window, open to the late afternoon sun. Well, he said to himself, gazing out of it, I’ve had one glorious day in my cozy, well-provisioned home in the shire, all the Tolkiens buzzing about. One day at least. What now?

Chapter 7
    London, August 31, 1939, 6:00 p.m.
     
     
    “Welcome to Section D, old man,” said Eldridge White.
    “Are we at war?” Ian Fleming asked.
    Section D, Fleming knew, had been organized by White’s predecessor, Hugh Sinclair, to engage in political and para-military operations on enemy soil in the war with Germany that Sinclair, and everyone else in SIS, knew was coming. Hence Fleming’s question.
    “We’re about to be.”
    “Is this about our man in Berlin?”
    “No, his son. He’s arriving at Gare de l’Est at eleven p.m.”
    Fleming looked around the room. The bartender was polishing glassware, humming quietly. A man in a navy blue suit was talking to a fashionably dressed woman at the bar. Two businessmen-types were having a drink at a banquette in the far right corner. Otherwise the dark, very quiet, exquisitely appointed lounge was empty. Fleming knew that the Caxton Bar was an MI-6 meeting place, that the hotel in which it was located, St. Ermin’s, was rumored to have secret underground tunnels connecting it to the nearby MI-6 headquarters on Broadway. This was, however, his first official invitation here. He had questions of course, but to press the chief of the service, well, that just was not done. Not if he wanted to be invited back.
    “His son,” he said, finally. “I see.”
    “Age fourteen. Hitler Youth type. He has the formula.”
    Again Fleming said nothing.
    “Where is Friedeman,
pere
? you’re thinking,” said White.
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute? It’s in Berlin.”
    “No.”
    “It’s where Friedeman works, where this bomb research is being done.”
    Silence.
    “We’re told it blew up this morning. Quite an explosion.”
    Both men were drinking St. George whiskey neat. They looked at their glasses, then sipped.
    “Who am I?” Fleming asked.
    “You’re still Anthony Harrington, the wine buyer.”
    “And the Duke and Duchess?”
    “You won’t be gone long. They’ll be in good hands until you get back.”
    “What shall I do with him?”
    “He’ll be with another lad. There will be a plane at Orly. The same one that will bring you over. The bartender will fill you in. He’s an old Etonian we call Bix. You and the professor stay with the boys. Bring them both to 54 Broadway. Tolkien can start debriefing on the way.”
    “Tolkien?”
    “Your old friend.”
    “Delighted.”
    “The thing is,” White said, “the formula’s supposed to be in some secret mumbo jumbo only Tolkien can decipher.”
    “Remarkable. What would we do without Tolkien?”
    “Quite. It appears Friedeman père wrote the thing with Tolkien in mind. This was conveyed to Einstein, who conveyed it to the Americans, who conveyed it to us.”
    “The Americans…”
    “They’re not interested. They think it’s nonsense.”
    “So the formula will be ours?”
    “Yes. It’s worth the candle.”
    Fleming smiled and tossed back the remains of his whiskey. He wanted another, but waited for White, who, a second later, did the same and then motioned to the waiter for another round.
Thank you, C
, Fleming said to himself. “Is Tolkien meeting us here?” he asked.
    “No, he’s being briefed and will go over separately. Perhaps you’ll have another story to tell. Amulets, Satan. Explosions in the forest.”
    “Not likely,” replied Fleming. “There and back again in a jiffy.”
    The drinks