007 Book location: The office of the Tarn lawyers, Saal, Saal und Rollen / SeaFire (1994)

Bond book: SeaFire (1994)

Places and locations in the book: Marienplatz, Wasserburg am Inn, Germany

What happens here in the book: The office of lawyers Saal, Saal and Rollen is located here. Bond visits their office.

Visited by 007 Travelers: July 2024

“Another call assured him of a rental car that he could pick up at the Munich airport, and lastly he dialed a final German number – the Hotel Paulanerstuben, in Wasserburg am Inn. Its main draw was the address, Marienplatz 9 – the same square in which the Tarn lawyers, Saal, Saal u. Rollen, had their offices.

After breakfast he returned upstairs, surprised that such an old and beautiful building actually provided telephones in the few available rooms. The local directory was not large, and he found the number of Saal, Saal u. Rollen. Within seconds of dialing, he was speaking to Herr Fritz Saal, explaining that he was a British businessman looking for perhaps a large property in the area. An investment, you understand. For a consortium, you will follow. Naturally, Herr Boldman.

The building from which the Saal brothers and Herr Rollen carried out their business, while obviously very old, had been constantly renovated over several centuries.

Initially, the building had probably been a small town-house for some local worthy. From the half-timbered exterior and the visible leaded windows, he reckoned that it probably had a largish entrance hall, with rooms to left and right, while upstairs it possibly maintained what had originally been three bedrooms.

On reaching the door he found that it was a solid oak panel with metal bindings and hinges, into which had been set a large Yale-type lock – much bigger than the kind of thing you saw on houses in the rest of the world, but still small enough to slip with a thick piece of celluloid or a credit card.

He took a good look at the doorjamb and all the windows, and sought out any telltale wiring or electronic boxes signaling a sophisticated alarm system. There were none, and the telephone wiring came in high, from an overhead pole on the right-hand corner at the front of the building. Bond knew by the size of the telephone input box that it was unlikely to contain any extra surprises.

He pulled himself out of his reverie and looked around, realizing that he would have to examine the lower interior of the building more thoroughly on the way out. His casual glance revealed nothing in the shape of electronic code pads for alarm activation. In fact, all the electronics appeared to be two computers and a large laser printer. The dark girl he had glimpsed briefly was now seated behind one of the computers, rattling away at the keyboard as though her life depended on it, which, he thought, bearing in mind the association of the Saals with Max Tarn, it probably did.

As he had thought, there were three doors that led from a small landing at the top of the stairs, plus a short corridor that slid off to the right and ended in another door, which, he concluded, was a bathroom.

The three doors were individually marked with the names of Herr H. Saal, Herr F. Saal, and Heir K. Rollen. The blonde vision tapped at Heir F. Saal’s door, opening it immediately and announcing, “Herr Boldman.”

Fritz Saal appeared to be sitting behind a huge desk angled into one corner of the room, but it was only when Bond gave him a smiling bow that he realized Herr Saal was standing, prior to coming around the desk.

—

It took less than five minutes to reach the back of the lawyers’ offices, and only thirty seconds to slide a credit card between the curved bolt and its housing. Nobody, it seemed, had bothered to clip down the retainer, which would have posed difficulties.

There was still no sign of life outside the offices of Saal, Saal u. Rollen, and as he quietly made his way down the stairs, Bond at last began to think that maybe he would get away with it.

He reached the bottom of the stairs when the lights came on.

Scooping up her pistol, he headed straight to the rear of the building, letting himself out and quietly closing the door behind him. At a steady jog trot he made for the parking lot, now more conscious of the dog bite in his right forearm. Trying to banish any thought of the pain from his mind, he made the car in three minutes flat, realizing that he did not have the time for such niceties as collecting his luggage or paying the bill at the Paulanerstuben.”

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