Bond called Brig Leiter from the Fairview. It was after midnight.
‘Red alert, Brig,’ Bond said, his voice heavy. ‘Bad news – your agent has been erased. I’m very sorry.’
‘What? Jesus, no. Aleesha? Where is she? In her house?’
‘No, in a motel. It’s very nasty. Blackstone Park Motor Lodge, suite 5K.’
Silence. Bond could almost hear Brig’s brain working.
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw her.’
‘What was she doing in a motel? And how come you were in her room?’
‘She moved. I think she felt safer in a motel.’
‘Who killed her?’
‘Kobus Breed.’
‘My God . . .’ there was another pause, then, ‘You didn’t answer my second question, Mr Bond.’
‘I went to her room to ask her something.’
‘How did you know she was staying there?’
‘I followed her.’
‘OK . . . Felix is coming up tonight from Miami.’
‘I’m going to miss him,’ Bond said. ‘I go back to London tonight.’ Now Bond paused to let the lie sink in.
‘Brig, I don’t know what procedures you follow in these circumstances,’ Bond said, ‘but I think you should get a team round to that motel now and seal the room. I put a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. Lock it down. I wouldn’t call the police for twenty-four hours, also. Wait till Felix gets here. He can coordinate with them. You don’t want Breed to make a run for it.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Brig said. ‘What time’s your plane?’
‘Nine o’clock this evening.’ Let them think for as long as possible that he was going home, he reasoned. They had more important tasks on their hands than worrying about James Bond.
They said goodbye and Bond hung up. He undressed and stood under the pounding shower as if the water would wash away all his bad feelings, his memories of Blessing and her miserable death. Then he tried to sleep but his mind grew busy with the plan that he was forming. He needed to equip himself better if he was going to attack the Rowanoak estate single-handed. He turned his pillow over and rested his cheek on the cooler underside. Why had Breed killed Blessing? There could only be one answer. Breed had followed her to the motel and had seen Blessing with him – Blessing back in contact with James Bond . . . That would have been enough to confer a death sentence on her. Bond recalled that sixth-sense shiver he’d experienced in the parking lot when he left her suite in the annexe – had Kobus Breed been out there watching in the darkness? And Bond knew that the manner of Blessing’s death had been a warning directed at him. Breed knew that he could read the signs; Breed was saying to him, I know you’re out there – you’re next, Bond.
He thought on. Breed hadn’t done anything immediately because he wanted to wait until after the flight had arrived and was happy to let Blessing continue with her AfricaKIN duties. So: there must have been something on that flight that came in to Seminole Field that was especially important. Twelve sick children? There had to be something more.
Bond ordered breakfast in his room but only smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of coffee, leaving his eggs untouched. He wasn’t hungry. As he left the Fairview he saw Agent Massinette approaching. Bond greeted him amiably enough but Massinette’s face remained impassive.
‘Brig told me to tell you – we’re all locked down at the Blackstone Park. The room’s sealed.’
‘Good. It should buy you some time.’
‘May I ask where you’re going, Mr Bond?’
‘I’m going to do some shopping – some gifts for friends in London.’
‘Yeah? Have a nice day.’
That evening, Bond laid out everything he needed on the bed. Weapons: the Frankel and Kleist, fully loaded and with spare rounds of ammunition; his Beretta with two extra clips; the mugger’s switchblade with its diamond inlay; a small aerosol canister of OC – oleoresin capsicum pepper spray (concentrate of chilli pepper with the brand name Savage Heat) – and, finally, a sock filled with $10-worth of nickels and dimes, knotted tight to form a cosh. As for his clothing, Bond had bought a black leather blouson jacket with big patch pockets, a black polo-neck jersey, a black knitted three-hole balaclava and a length of nylon rope. He was going to wear his dark charcoal trousers from his suit tucked into his socks with a pair of black sneakers with thick rubber soles.
He smiled grimly to himself. A one-man commando on a one-man commando raid.
He had a final telephone call to make then he would check out of the hotel and head for the airport. He sat down on his bed and took out Turnbull McHarg’s business card.
It was dark when Bond drove his Mustang up to the Fairview’s entry-way and the bellhop placed his luggage in the boot. Bond tipped him and glanced around to see if anyone was paying particular attention to his departure. No sign of Massinette but, Bond reasoned, if he were Brig Leiter running this show he’d have a tail on Bond. Routine. Insurance.
Bond drove out to Dulles airport. He couldn’t tell if he was being followed. There was a lot of traffic heading out of town. Not far from the airport he pulled into a gas station and filled the tank, watching to see if cars stopped or slowed. He spotted nothing so climbed back into his car and swung out on to the highway back into town, steadily increasing his speed. At the last minute he turned off at an intersection, changed direction and headed back to the airport again. He began to relax. He sped past the turn for Dulles and veered off into the quiet streets of Ashburn and drove around for ten minutes or so, stopping and starting, doubling back suddenly and unpredictably. No one was following him; he could safely choose his own route back out to Rowanoak Hall.
Bond parked the car down a track not far from the house and changed into his dark clothes. He looked at his watch; ten past eleven. By now Brig and Felix Leiter would know full well that he wasn’t on the plane for London. Bond had vanished – one rogue male agent gone solo yet again. It was a calculated risk, this solitary assault on the AfricaKIN Inc. headquarters, and he asked himself if Felix might second-guess what he was planning. He doubted it. Only a fool would attempt such a thing. He wondered if they would try to capture Breed – but again he thought they would hold off. Blessing had said that she thought Hulbert Linck was the key target; the CIA wouldn’t want to do anything that would scare him away. All in all, Bond reckoned he had this one night to himself. Whatever happened, there would be no second chance for him – his vengeance had to take place in the next few hours before the CIA tracked him down and pulled him in.
He wound the nylon rope around his body and assembled the Frankel and Kleist. Then he filled the pockets of his jacket with his assorted weaponry. He hoped there weren’t dogs – he had seen no sign of them – but he had his OC spray just in case. He had once halted a snarling, slavering Dobermann with a blast of pepper spray – it was infallible.
He drove to the furthest point of the Rowanoak estate and parked the Mustang against the brick perimeter wall. He climbed on to the car roof and shinned over the wall, carefully dropping the rifle (safety catch secured) on to the grass on the other side before he lowered himself down. He pulled on his balaclava and moved off through the wooded park towards the distant lights of the house.
As he drew near the Hall he saw a man standing on the back lawn of the house smoking a cigarette. He appeared to have a walkie-talkie in his hand as he paced about, keeping notional guard. The back lawn was illuminated by a powerful arc light high on the fake battlements. The front sweep of gravel was equally brightly lit – no one could approach the house without stepping into this wide glaring disc of light.
Bond moved easily through the trees and bushes of the park so that he could afford himself a good view of the main facade. Here two big lamps threw a pool of light that extended down the drive to the gatehouses. Bond found his ideal position behind a small sycamore and set the Frankel on a low branch to give him a steady firing platform. Bond clicked the switch on the scope to set it to its night-vision mode. Eugene Goodforth had been right – the dimmed red glow of the reticle did not interfere with the vision beyond. Bond’s eye settled to the lens of the sniper-scope and he cleared his aim and waited. Five minutes to midnight. He hoped his diversion would be punctual.
In fact it was ten minutes late, but no matter. At ten past midnight Bond saw the headlights of Turnbull McHarg’s car pull up at the lodge gates and heard him toot his horn loudly and peremptorily, as Bond had instructed him. When Bond had telephoned him earlier he’d invited Turnbull to a ‘surprise’ birthday party that wealthy friends were throwing for him at a big mansion house out of town, Rowanoak Hall. He’d given Turnbull precise directions and instructions. Should be fun. Lots of caviar and champagne. And girls. McHarg had been delighted. I’ll be there, James. Look forward to seeing you – lots to catch up on. Thanks a million.
Bond knew they’d never let McHarg past the gates but that was all he wanted. A disturbance – something wrong – and his name pointedly mentioned. He could hear McHarg’s voice raised, loudly remonstrating with the intransigent lodge-keeper, demanding entry to the party, insisting he’d been specially invited by the birthday boy himself, James Bond.
Bond drew the Frankel snug against his cheek and settled the cross hairs of the reticle on the first arc light. The sound of the big bulb popping almost drowned the gunshot. He shifted aim and took the second light out. In the sudden darkness Bond heard McHarg’s profane exclamation of shock and astonishment, then he raced off into the darkness towards the rear of the house.
Secure in a position facing the back of the house, he quickly shot out the rear arc. Only the lights of the house now glowed and he could hear the consternation inside – shouts, doors slamming. Bond slipped the scope off the mountings on the barrel of the Frankel and slid the rifle under a bush – its job was done. He retreated into the darkness of the park, taking the Beretta out of his pocket and cocking it. As he left he saw three men race out of the rear door, guns and powerful torches in hand, running across the lawn, spreading out until they were swallowed up by the wilderness of the park, only the intermittent beams of their torches giving their positions away. Bond tracked them as best he could with the scope. Three guards, Bond thought, and no dogs – thank God. He stood with his back to a tree scanning the pulsing night around him, waiting for a guard to come close – once he had one, he’d have the others. Always wait for them to come to you, he told himself, don’t go searching for your prey. He slowed his breathing as much as he could, standing absolutely still, gun poised, waiting.
It was the crackle of a walkie-talkie that alerted him, rather than a torch beam. Then he saw the torch, playing among the trees. He heard the man’s voice.
‘Dawie – can’t see a thing, man. You sure he’s in the park? Over.’
There was the inaudible static of a reply.
Dawie, Bond thought: interesting. Some of Kobus’s RLI buddies from Dahum.
The man drew closer but he never heard Bond, who, as he passed, brought down the heel of his Beretta on the back of his head. He dropped at once, inert. Bond quickly lashed his hands behind his back and then tied his wrists to his ankles, using the switchblade to cut lengths of nylon rope. He ripped up a clod of earth and stuffed the man’s gaping mouth with turf. Then he fired his gun once into the air. He picked up the walkie-talkie, shouted ‘Dawie!’ fired again and switched it off.
Bond could hear somebody blundering through the bushes then saw a swaying torch beam sweeping through the trees. The man – it must have been Dawie – was shouting harshly into his walkie-talkie trying to summon the third guard to join them.
‘Henrick – over here, man,’ he shouted. ‘We’re by the west gate.’
Bond aimed slightly above the torch beam and fired twice. He heard a scream and saw the torch spin to the ground. Dawie started bellowing.
‘I’m down! I’m down! He’s over here!’
Bond crept forward as Dawie continued his shouted instructions, guiding Henrick towards him. Then he saw Henrick’s jerky torch beam as he ran through the trees.
Bond took his time, making sure he advanced in total silence. Dawie was moaning in pain and Henrick was crouched over his writhing body, looking for the wound. Bond took his nickel-and-dime cosh out of his pocket and slugged Henrick full on the crown of his head. He went down like a cow hit by a humane killer. He was so still Bond wondered if he’d delivered some kind of fatal blow. He held his fingers to his throat. There was a pulse – a thready one.
‘I’m dying. Help me,’ Dawie said. Bond turned Dawie’s fallen torch on him and saw that he’d been hit low and to the side of his abdomen – not fatal, though he was already pallid from blood loss. Bond said nothing, grabbing his collar and dragging him – groaning – to a tree, where he bound his arms behind it. He checked Henrick again – still breathing but out cold. He roped his wrists together and turned him on his side so that he wouldn’t drown if he vomited. He fired both their guns into the air a few times then slung them away into the darkness. He wanted whoever was still in the house to think the guards were engaged in a firefight in the furthest reaches of the park. When it all went quiet they would begin to worry – maybe panic: they had no idea how many potential assailants were out there.
He took one last look at Dawie and picked up his walkie-talkie.
‘I got him!’ Bond yelled into the microphone. Then switched it off.
‘If you shout loud enough someone will come for you,’ Bond said to Dawie. He knew it wasn’t true – he just wanted a few distant incoherent bellowings to be heard back at the house.
‘Don’t leave me, man,’ Dawie said plaintively, then added with surprising poetry, ‘I can feel my life flowing out of me, leaving me. I can feel it.’
Bond said nothing and headed off towards the house.
Some of the ground-floor windows were lit up, others had their curtains drawn, Bond observed as he approached. Through a gap in the curtains of the large oriel window of the main drawing room Bond saw Kobus Breed – his jacket off, his tie loosened at his throat – talking urgently on the phone. From time to time he broke off to shout into the walkie-talkie then hurled it away – obviously the lack of response from Dawie’s channel was making him furious.
Bond paused outside – he didn’t want to go into the house as he had no idea who else might be in there. Better to try and lure Breed outside into the darkness. Then he decided it might be a more efficient plan to climb and maybe break in on a higher floor and he began hauling himself quickly up one of the heavy lead downpipes that drained the roof gutters. In a few seconds he found himself up on the faux battlements with their Gothic buttresses, polygonal chimney pots and profusion of carved stone finials. Bond’s mind was working fast – sensing opportunities, weighing up options, minimising risk. He headed for a dark window and accidently bumped into one of the finials decorating a stumpy brick chimney stack. He felt the masonry slide and grate and the round stone ball on the top almost wobbled free. Bond steadied it. It was about the size of a medicine ball and must have weighed close to fifty pounds. He smiled to himself – he had an idea.
He removed Dawie’s walkie-talkie from his pocket and switched it on. He turned the channel frequency selection knob very slightly to one side so that it kept connecting and then cutting out. Through gritted teeth and strangulating his voice he repeated certain phrases into the microphone.
‘Come in – over – Bond – I have him – come in, come in – not receiving – Bond, repeat Bond, I have him, over.’
He assumed this garbled message would be picked up by Breed and others listening in. Then he searched his pockets for loose change in vain, before he remembered he was carrying a sock full of nickels and dimes. He unpicked the knot and helped himself to a small handful. He crept round the battlements until he had a good angle on to the drawing room’s oriel window. He leaned out and flung the small coins down at the glass and heard them rattle and ping as they hit. Then he threw another handful. He raced back to the finial he had nearly dislodged and, with both arms functioning as a cradle, heaved off the crowning stone ball. It was a dense dead weight, incredibly heavy. He shuffled with it to the edge of the battlements that projected out over the wide door that led from the drawing room to the lawn. Come on, Kobus, he said to himself, muscles straining – you must be curious, Bond is out there, Dawie has him.
The door opened slowly and a wand of light from the drawing room fell across the lawn.
Kobus Breed stepped out cautiously, a gun levelled in his hand.
‘Dawie?’ he shouted into the blackness. ‘Where the hell are you, man? You’re not coming through on your radio! You keep breaking up!’
Bond looked down on him, his muscles beginning to ache horribly. Breed’s head was a small target from this height – but he wanted to crush it like a ripe cantaloupe melon.
Breed stepped out another yard, his gun sweeping to and fro, expecting the danger to lie in the park beyond, not from above.
‘Dawie – show yourself! Have you got him?’
Bond dropped the stone ball and took a step back. He heard the impact – the sound of meaty crunching, bone and flesh compacting – and Breed’s bellow of acute, hideous agony and surprise.
He peered down. Breed was on the ground, writhing and moaning, his right arm flapping uncontrollably like some broken wing on a bird. The ball had missed his head but seemed to have landed square on his right shoulder, shattering bone, pulverising it.
Bond slid down the drainpipe and, back on the ground, cautiously approached round the side of the building, slipping his Beretta from his pocket. He should just kill him, he thought, but he wanted Breed to know why he was dying, why his pain and imminent execution were recompense for what he’d done to Blessing. There’d be no point in just blowing him away. Bond wanted to taste sweet revenge.
Bond levelled his gun as he drew near. Breed was face down – the stone ball beside his head – and was clearly in massive, intolerable pain and shock. His whole body was now jerking and twitching spasmodically. The stone ball’s impact looked like it had shattered the shoulder blade – and the collarbone. The down-force of the dead weight had also blasted the humerus into pieces. Three inches of thick sheared bone stuck through Breed’s shirt at the elbow.
Bond turned Breed over with his foot. Breed screamed as his shattered arm dug into the turf of the lawn. But in the good hand that had been underneath his body he had clung on to his automatic pistol. He fired at Bond and missed – his hand was shaking visibly – and fired again, this time the bullet striking Bond’s gun and spinning it off and away in a shower of sparks. Bond threw himself down, knees first, on to Breed’s chest and felt ribs crack and his sternum bend. He side-kicked Breed’s gun from his hand and rummaged in his jacket pocket for the switchblade. No switchblade but the small aerosol can of Savage Heat pepper spray.
Bond sprayed Breed’s un-closable open eye with a thick mist of oleoresin capsicum and heard his scream rip up from deep in his lungs. Breed’s right arm was useless so Bond stood on his left and let him writhe in the full torment of his pain, his legs kicking convulsively, the potent reduction of chilli peppers working on his seething eyeball. Breed wailed like a baby and Bond happily enveloped his head in another mist-cloud of Savage Heat.
‘This is for Blessing, you filth, you scum,’ he said, harshly, bending over him, ‘and this is from me,’ and sprayed his open eye again from a range of one inch.
Bond reached into his other pocket for the switchblade. He shot the blade out and tugged Breed brutally over on to his front again, burying the knife deep in the back of his neck, severing the spinal cord. Breed’s body jerked and then went slack, his screams dying to a burble of popping saliva in his throat.
Bond stepped back, breathing heavily, a little astonished at his own savagery. He massaged his tingling right hand and reminded himself of what Blessing had gone through – no tender mercies from Kobus Breed. He was angry with himself, however: never again, he thought – execute when the moment presents itself. Emotion – desire for just revenge – had undermined his professionalism, and had almost killed him. If you intend to kill – kill. Don’t hang around wanting to embellish the act in some way. He could hear Corporal Dave Tozer’s harsh voice in his ear: ‘DR, you stupid bastard. Disproportionate Response. Any threat – massive overkill. If he spits at you – tear his throat out. If he kicks you in the shin, take his leg off. Take both legs off.’
Bond began to calm. He looked down at Breed’s body – a mugger’s switchblade sticking out of the back of his neck. He could be carted away later. The fact that no one had appeared from the house when the shots were fired was a good sign. Bond roved around and found his gun. Breed’s second round had hit just in front of the trigger, scarring the metal with a raw weal. He cocked the gun, shot the clip out, slammed it back in. It seemed to be working fine.
He took off his balaclava and wiped the smear of sweat from his face. He pushed through the garden door into the drawing room and began to move quickly and watchfully through the public rooms: a library, a smaller sitting room then down a parqueted corridor towards the main hall with its wide solid staircase. Every now and then Bond paused and listened – but he could hear nothing that suggested there was anyone else in the house.
A pair of modern swing doors led off the hall behind the staircase. Bond pushed them open and saw that here the decor changed completely. Another wide corridor stretched before him, painted pistachio green with white rubberised tiles on the floor. It looked like a hospital and from behind closed doors – inset with panels of glass – came the hum of machinery. Bond peered into one room – incubators, centrifuges, sterilisers, freezers. Another room was fitted out like a ward with four beds and a nurse’s station. Other doors were labelled ‘X-ray’ and ‘Dispensary’. There was an office with the name ‘Dr Masind’ on it – a name that seemed vaguely familiar. This was clearly the state-of-the-art receiving clinic for the children from the AfricaKIN flights.
Bond kept listening and kept hearing nothing that alarmed him. He wondered where Gabriel Adeka was – upstairs? Perhaps he should turn back and explore the upper floors. Then he arrived at the end of the long corridor. To the left was a door and to the right a flight of stone stairs that led down to a basement or cellar area. He pushed open the door to find himself in a kind of schoolroom with two rows of desks facing a blackboard. On the floor in front of the blackboard was a pile of what looked like discarded clothing. Bond switched on the light to see that it wasn’t clothing but little rucksacks – the rucksacks the kids had been wearing when they disembarked. Bond picked one up – its bottom had been ripped out. He picked up another similarly torn open. All the rucksacks appeared to have been cut apart.
He turned to switch out the light and saw another rucksack intact on a side table. Beside the rucksack was a Stanley knife. And beside it was a neat stack of what looked like slabs of putty, wrapped in cellophane. Bond picked one up – eight inches long, four wide, one inch thick – about 500 grams, he reckoned. This must have been what Breed was occupied with when Turnbull McHarg had tooted his horn and Bond had shot the arc lights out. Bond picked up the knife and cut away the bottom of the rucksack to reveal in the lining another slab of what he now realised was raw heroin moulded into a flat bar, the size of half a brick. Twelve sick kids, twelve little rucksacks, six kilos of heroin. Who was going to search a malnourished child shivering with fever? Or an eight-year-old amputee? As drug-smuggling went it was heartless, brutal, simple and extremely effective. Each AfricaKIN flight must have its quota of—
Bond heard something – a cough.
He froze, then switched off the light and stepped back into the corridor. He heard the cough again, coming from down the stairs in the basement – lung-racking and feeble. Was there a child down there, Bond wondered? Some sort of isolation ward for the extremely contagious?
He levelled his gun and began to move carefully down the stairs. There was a night light set in the ceiling that gave off a pale pearly glow revealing a wide landing with two doors off it. The cough came again. No child – an adult, Bond thought. There was a key in the lock of the door behind which the coughing continued. He put his ear to the door and heard the sound of laboured breathing. Bond turned the key and then the handle, and shoved it gently open, his gun pointing into the room. The landing light provided enough illumination for Bond to see that there was a man lying on a mattress in the far corner. He groped for a switch, found it and clicked on the light.
The man was shivering, knees drawn up to his chest, lying on a befouled sheet. An African man, naked except for a pair of filthy underpants. He turned towards Bond and muttered something. His head was shaven and he had a small goatee beard. Gabriel Adeka.
Bond stepped forward, recoiling slightly from the feculent smell. Gabriel Adeka in the grip of terrible cold turkey. His face and shaved head were shiny with sweat and his whole body shook with recurring tremors. On a table across the room was an enamel kidney dish, a Bunsen burner attached to a camping gas canister, a length of rubber tubing, some spoons and several syringes still wrapped in their plastic seals. All the paraphernalia required for shooting up heroin.
Bond was thinking hard – so this was why no one saw Gabriel Adeka any more. Breed had turned him into a junkie and kept him locked in this cellar, no doubt on a regime of drug-injection and then deprivation, turning him into this dehumanised, desperate addict.
Gabriel Adeka reached out a shivering hand to Bond, his big eyes imploring, beseeching. Give me more, I beg you, give me my nirvana in a needle.
Except it wasn’t Gabriel Adeka, Bond now saw, and grew rigid at the recognition. The last time he’d seen this man he had been lying in a hospital bed in Port Dunbar. Brigadier Solomon Adeka, military genius, the ‘African Napoleon’, begging for a syringe full of heroin.
‘It’s a terrible thing, addiction,’ a voice said. ‘Put your gun down on the table and turn round very slowly.’
Bond did as he was told and laid his gun down beside the syringes and swivelled round carefully.
Standing in the doorway was the tall lanky figure of Hulbert Linck – except his blond hair was cut short and dyed black and he had a full beard. He was wearing a tan canvas windcheater and jeans and was covering Bond with an automatic pistol. He stepped into the room, glancing at Adeka.
‘Forgive the precaution, Mr Bond – I hope you understand. This is all Kobus Breed’s doing,’ he said. ‘Breed has kept me and Adeka here prisoners while he and his men use the charity to smuggle drugs into the USA. He’s becoming extremely rich extremely fast.’ Linck smiled. ‘Funny that it should be you, Bond, who’s come to our rescue.’ He lowered his gun and put it on the table beside Bond’s.
‘We are very happy to surrender ourselves to you,’ Linck said. ‘Very happy.’
The first shot hit Linck just in front of his left ear sending a fine skein of blood spraying from his head and the second smashed into his chest, slamming him heavily against the wall. He slid down it, leaving a thin smeary trail of blood and toppled over. Adeka screamed and gibbered, huddling in the corner.
Agent Massinette irrupted into the room, gun levelled at Adeka. He was followed immediately by Brig Leiter. Bond heard the clatter of other footsteps coming down the corridor overhead.
‘You OK, Mr Bond?’ Brig Leiter said.
Bond had his eyes on Massinette, who was crouching over Linck’s body searching his pockets.
‘Why the fuck did you shoot him?’ Bond said, his voice heavy with fury.
Massinette turned and stood up.
‘He had a gun and was going to kill you.’
‘He was putting his gun down. He was surrendering to me.’
‘It didn’t look like that from the bottom of the stairs,’ Brig said. ‘We couldn’t take any chances.’
Massinette stooped and took something from Linck’s pocket. He had another gun in his hand, a little Smith and Wesson .22 revolver, it looked like.
‘This was in his pocket, Mr Bond,’ Massinette said. ‘He was fooling you. He had other plans.’
Bond looked at the two agents.
‘I apologise,’ he said, though he knew full well that Massinette had just planted the second gun on Linck’s body. But why? He stopped himself from trying to answer that question as Felix Leiter came into the room.
‘You took your time,’ Bond said. ‘Still, very pleased to see your ugly face.’
They shook hands warmly. Right hand to left hand.
‘The company you keep, James,’ Felix said, tut-tutting with a smile. ‘Where’s Kobus Breed?’
‘Out on the back lawn – dead. I’ll show you. You’d better get some medical help for Adeka here. He’s in a bad way.’
‘I’ll get on to it,’ Brig said, taking a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and calling for an ambulance and medics.
Bond and Felix climbed the stairs and moved through the clinic towards the hallway.
Felix clapped Bond on the back.
‘Your friend Mr McHarg called the police with some story about a mansion, gunshots and someone called James Bond. When we’d discovered you weren’t on the plane to London we’d put out an APB on you. The police called us and asked if this Bond fellow was part of our operation. Very clever, James.’
‘Sometimes you earn your own luck,’ Bond said, deciding not to mention his suspicions of Massinette just at this moment. For all he knew Brig Leiter may have been a part in the assassination of Hulbert Linck and he wanted to ensure his facts were right before any accusations were made.
Bond paused in the hallway and looked up the stairs. Linck must have been waiting up there somewhere, he supposed. But why would the CIA want Linck dead . . . ?
‘Got a cigarette?’ Bond asked.
Felix reached into his pocket with his good hand and shook out a packet of Rothmans. Then with the elaborate titanium device that had replaced his other hand – a small curved hook and two other hinged digits – he took out a book of matches. Bond watched in some amazement as the claw selected, ripped off and lit a match before applying it to the end of Bond’s cigarette.
Bond inhaled deeply, relishing the tobacco rush.
‘That’s quite a gadget you’ve got there,’ he said. ‘New model?’
‘Yeah,’ Felix said with a grin. ‘I can pick gnat shit out of pepper with this baby.’
Bond laughed. ‘Thank God you’re here, Felix. Have I got a tale to tell you. Come on, I’ll show you Breed first.’
They went to the main drawing room and Bond pushed through the garden doors and stepped out on to the lawn.
Kobus Breed had disappeared.