Icebreaker

Publisher
 Pages

***Icebreaker***, first published in 1983, was the third novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape.

## Plot

Bond reluctantly finds himself recruited into a dangerous mission involving an equally dangerous and treacherous alliance of agents from the United States, the Soviet Union and Israel. The team, dubbed "Icebreaker", where Bond is to collaborate with Brad Tirpitz of the CIA, Koyla Mosolov of the KGB, and Rivke Ingber of the Mossad. Ostensibly their job is to root out the leader of the murderous National Socialist Action Army (NSAA), Count Konrad von Glöda. The Count used to be known as Arne Tudeer, a one-time Nazi SS officer who now perceives himself as the new Adolf Hitler. The National Socialist Action Army is essentially a new wave of fascism as a means to wipe out communist leaders and supporters around the world.

Following his meeting with his future collaborators, Bond requests M to provide him a photograph of Anni Tuder, von Glöda supposed daughter. He subsequently rings an old acquaintance, Paula Vacker, at her apartment with no response. When he arrives at her apartment again, he finds her apartment ransacked, but finds a German Knight's Cross with SS-OBERFÜHER AARNE TUDEER engraved on the reverse side of the metal and a Wehrmacht service metal.

He takes the items with him, and rejoins his Icebreaker colleagues following a snow plow chase in Salla, Finland. He eventually receives a photograph of Anni Tuder at the hotel, which is an alias name for Rivke Ingber. Shortly after Ingber reveals her past, he learns from an operator he had dialed that Vacker is on holiday leave. Bond then talks with Tirpitz until he is interrupted by a waiter who has a call from Vacker for him.

On the other end, the voice tells Bond to "say goodbye to Anni" followed by a sinister laugh. Suddenly, during a ski run, Ingber is injured in a land mine, and quickly taken away by hospice officials. Along with Mosolov, Bond and Tirpitz accompany him to Count von Glöda's Ice Palace inside the Soviet Union.

Upon arriving at the Ice Palace, Paula is there, and appears to be associated with von Glöda. When the Nazi mastermind reveals his plans to establish a Fourth Reich, von Glöda desires for Bond to reveal whether MI6 has custody of a NSAA member. Bond repeatedly denies knowledge of this, and is subjected to water torture to reveal the answer. When the procedure fails, Bond finds himself in bed next to Rivke, who was never injured during the land mine explosion, and reveals that London indeed has a NSAA official in custody. Paula reappears, kills Rivke, and reveals to Bond that Rivke was affiliated with her father after all being groomed to be the next Führer.

Vacker escorts Bond to her headquarters where she reveals to Bond that she is an intelligence officer of SUPO (Suojelupoliisi). When Mosolov finds their hide-out, he tells them that Russian forces are launching airstrikes to destroy the Ice Palace, which they later witness, and return back to Helsinki.

On their way back, Paula clears up that her intelligence agency knew Rivke Ingber was Anni Tudeer all along, she worked under orders of Koyla and SUPO, and the knife incident occurred when SUPO informed Kolya of Bond's arrival (in which the knife men were to take him Department V, formerly known SMERSH). That same night, Bond is confronted by Koslov again who had administrated Vacker with a small injection that will leave her unconscious for six to seven hours. Bond kills the KGB agent, and von Glöda at the airport where he attempts to escape Finland. At the hospital, Bond is reunited with Vacker.