Like some gigantic bird of prey, the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser came dropping out of the sky over Los Angeles, its wings stretching out and its wheels searching for the two-mile strip of concrete runway. The palm trees on either side bowed briefly in obeisance as it roared past, disappearing into the heat haze. It was midday and the sun was at its most intense, the air thick with the fumes of oil and methanol. The wheels made contact. The pilot slammed the engines into reverse thrust and with a howl of rage the great beast allowed itself to be steered back into captivity. As it reached Hangar Number One, an armada of little vehicles congregated from every direction: baggage tractors, container loaders, dollies and service stairs. By the time the plane had reached its destination, it was surrounded. The twenty-eight-cylinder engines were switched off. The four propellers slowed down and shuddered to a halt.
The door was unsealed and a blast of warm air came rushing in. James Bond, seated close to the rear on the upper floor, was the first to feel it. For the past twelve hours – the last leg of the journey from New York – he had sat silently in the pressurised, air-conditioned stillness of the cabin (the woman next to him, on the other side of the aisle, had soon given up any hope of conversation). Now the noise, the heat and the smell of the airport reminded him where he was and why he had come here. He could already feel the sweat patches underneath his shirt. His sense of discomfort was made worse by the bandages tightly strapped across his chest. The broken rib was already healing but it would be a while before he was fully fit.
A week had passed since he had returned to London from the south of France.
M had been pleased with the way things had gone. ‘You’ve taken out the number-one trafficker in the narcotics business and you’ve sent five tons of his product to the bottom of the ocean . . . best place for it. This will deal a major blow to the international syndicates and with a bit of luck it will allow the Americans to get on top of the problem of heroin addiction. The truth of the matter is that once the war ended, they could have eliminated it altogether if they hadn’t allowed themselves to get sidetracked. Maybe this will give them a second chance.
‘You also achieved exactly what you were sent out to do. When you confronted Scipio, he told you that it was he who killed our man.’
‘Yes, sir. He was quite clear about it.’
‘Then I’m very glad he’s been dealt with.’ M always chose his words carefully. Violence and death were often part of his remit. But that didn’t mean he had to articulate it, here in this office.
‘I was wondering about Wolfe, sir.’
‘Yes. I’m afraid that part of it didn’t work out quite as well as we might have hoped. He managed to get into one of the lifeboats and they took him ashore. He was driven down the coast to Perpignan and slipped over the border into Spain. He was on a plane back to the US before anyone could speak to him. Now he’s resurfaced at his home in Los Angeles and we’re not going to be able to do very much about him . . . not officially, anyway. He’s surrounded himself with expensive lawyers. Claims that he knew nothing about Scipio or the drugs or you, for that matter – and unfortunately, as to what happened on the Mirabelle, it’s your word against his. The police raided the factory outside Menton but again he’s pleading ignorance. According to him, it was all down to Scipio.’
‘So he’s not going to be prosecuted?’
‘I’ve spoken to our friends in the CIA but they’ve been surprisingly unresponsive. They’ve made it clear that they want to handle things their own way.’
M’s voice was bleak. If the Mirabelle had made it to New York it would have been the start of an epidemic that could have decimated the country. He would not have enjoyed being cold-shouldered by the Americans after everything Bond had done.
‘I did want to ask you about Joanne Brochet,’ M went on, a little softer now. His clear grey eyes were examining Bond carefully. ‘I understand that, contrary to what we believed, she was actually very helpful to you.’
‘Yes, sir. I certainly couldn’t have got away with it without her.’ As he spoke, Bond’s thumb pressed against the wound on his wrist and the bandage wrapped around it.
‘And she died.’
‘Yes. For what it’s worth, she died helping me and I’d like to think you’ll amend the records to show that, although she had gone into business for herself, she was never an enemy of this country. Quite the contrary. I learned something of her experiences during the war. We owe her a great deal.’
‘I’ll see to it. And that son of hers, the one in the Bahamas. I understand that he’s with relatives but we’ll make sure he’s looked after.’
Bond nodded, satisfied.
‘Is there anything else?’ M asked.
‘I’d like to take a week’s holiday, if that’s all right, sir,’ Bond said. ‘The doctor patched me up but the rib still hurts like blazes and it’ll be a while before I’m fully operational.’
‘Absolutely.’ M lit his pipe. He seemed to be searching for the right words, as if he had something difficult to say. ‘As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you might like to spend some time on the west coast of America. I’ve been thinking about this man, Irwin Wolfe. We obviously can’t involve ourselves in CIA business, but I’ll be damned if I’m just to sit back and do nothing. I wondered if you might like to have a word with him?’
Bond thought for a moment. ‘Yes, sir. I’d like that very much.’ He paused. ‘Although I don’t think a loaded revolver and a glass of whisky would be something Mr Wolfe would consider.’
M smiled. ‘I’m not surprised. I’m afraid the Americans don’t quite have our sensibilities when it comes to these matters but at the same time, it can’t hurt letting him know we’re not giving up on him, and at the end of the day all the lawyers in California won’t protect him from justice.’
‘That’s a lot of lawyers,’ Bond muttered.
‘Just see what you can do. You might find it personally helpful coming face to face with him again. And I want you to understand that whatever results from such a meeting has my full sanction.’
So there it was. M was effectively giving Bond carte blanche. The visit would be unofficial. Bond could take whatever action he saw fit.
‘I want you to know that you handled yourself extremely well, 007,’ M concluded. ‘You fully justified my decision to promote you to the Double-O Section. Enjoy your week off. You deserve it.’
Loelia Ponsonby had made an international call before Bond left and had spoken to one of Irwin Wolfe’s assistants. Although at first there had been a great deal of reluctance at the other end, a meeting had finally been arranged at the film mogul’s Los Angeles home at seven o’clock on the evening of his arrival. Bond was surprised that Wolfe should have agreed to see him, but then what did he have to lose? He was dying anyway. And he would doubtless be protected.
At the airport, Bond presented the passport provided for him, made out under a false name. He collected his luggage and made his way through customs, presenting himself to a young, enthusiastic man in a grey uniform shirt.
‘How long are you here for, sir?’
‘A week.’
‘A business trip?’
‘I’m seeing a friend.’
‘Oh. A special occasion?’
‘It might be.’
There was a car waiting for Bond at the airport and he drove himself up La Cienega Boulevard to the hotel he had booked for the few days he actually planned to remain in the city. The Beverly Wilshire suited his needs exactly: grand and comfortable, close to the best shops and restaurants, it was somewhere a wealthy Englishman travelling on his own wouldn’t be noticed. It also had an Olympic-sized swimming pool which he would use twice a day, coaxing his body back into shape.
Once he had been shown to his room, Bond took a long, hot shower followed by an icy cold one with needles of water pounding down on his shoulders and back. He had ordered a negroni – made with Gordon’s gin – from room service and drank it on his terrace, allowing the sunshine to dry him, wearing only a towel. Feeling refreshed, he wrapped a new bandage round his wrist, got dressed again and called down to the valet to bring round his car. Before he left the room, he opened the hinged compartment concealed in the base of his travel bag and took out the .25 Beretta that he had brought with him from England. He loaded it, slipped it into his back pocket and left.
Sunset Boulevard runs for twenty-two miles, all the way from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific West, but there is a specific point where it stops pretending to be an ordinary east–west thoroughfare and becomes something quite different; the home of movie stars, moguls and assorted millionaires. You know you have entered the world of Billy Wilder’s famous film just after you turn the corner at Doheny Road. Suddenly, you’ve left the shops and the offices, the huge billboards and the traffic behind you. Even the houses begin to disappear, lost behind high walls and clumps of cedar trees. More and more space stretches out between the various entrances with their gates, mailboxes and perfectly maintained front lawns . . . or front yards as the Americans call them. The air smells different, more countrified. You soon get the feeling that you are not in Los Angeles at all.
Bond drove for about half an hour, following the twisting road towards the village of Westwood and the University of California at Los Angeles, before he came to the address he wanted. He saw a pale yellow wall with a fantastical metal gate – all birds and flowers hammered out in silver. The front yard was crowded with evergreen sumacs, which put Bond in mind of the deadly nettles he had encountered at Menton. These plants, too, were far from their natural habitat, the brilliant crimson leaves exploding in the evening sun. He pulled up to the gate and got out of the car, noticing a television camera trained down on him. He found an intercom box with a single button and pressed it. After a long wait, he heard a burst of static as he was connected.
‘Yes?’ The voice was distant, metallic.
‘My name is James Bond. I have an appointment with Mr Wolfe.’
‘Come in.’
Bond heard a buzz and the gate slid open, revealing a pink tarmac driveway beyond. He got back into the car and drove in.
There was no sign of the house. He was surrounded by a garden so extravagant that it might have been used to illustrate a Victorian fairy-tale book or a Bible. Everything was green and heavy, a mass of different leaves blocking out the light, flowers of every shape and size bursting out of the earth, over-ripe and odorous. It was the garden of a man who wanted everything and had the money to get it. Statues, lamps, hedges cut into the shapes of pyramids and elephants, palm trees, rose bushes, cacti, conservatories and greenhouses . . . they had all been jammed together into not quite enough space, so that the overall effect was stifling. In the mirror, Bond saw the gate sliding shut behind him and felt completely trapped.
He drove round a corner and passed the obligatory tennis court, the one well-defined space in all this clutter. It hadn’t been used for a while. The net was sagging and weeds sprouted out of the clay. And there ahead of him was the house, built in the style of a Spanish hacienda, two or three times larger than any similar house in Spain. According to the records, Wolfe lived here alone – but even when his wife was alive, with a cook, a butler, a tennis coach and half a dozen friends it would have been surplus to requirements. How many bedrooms did it have? Eleven? Twelve? The walls were thick and white, curving and rippling as if struggling to hold back the interior. Many of the windows were stained glass. The roofs were square, circular, rectangular . . . all made from Spanish tile. There was nothing welcoming about this house. It seemed to be hiding from the world.
Bond parked between a turquoise Buick Roadmaster – the latest model with its two-piece, convex windscreen – and a black Pontiac Chieftain. The first car was more likely to belong to Wolfe, he thought. So what about the second? A bodyguard, perhaps. It was unlikely that the millionaire would have agreed to see him on his own. He walked to the front door, his feet crunching on the gravel, and pulled the heavy iron bell chain. He heard the bell ring out inside the house but nobody came. He looked behind him and saw the sun sinking behind the trees. It wouldn’t be dark for a few hours.
He rang a second time. Still nothing. Annoyed now, wondering if Wolfe had decided not to see him after all, he reached out and touched the door. It swung open. There wasn’t a single sound coming from the building. Bond hadn’t seen any gardeners working in the grounds. Everything was still. If it hadn’t been for the monosyllabic voice that he had heard on the intercom, he would have thought the place deserted.
He stepped inside, into a cavernous hall with wooden floors, exposed beams, a minstrel’s gallery with a twisting rail. Just like the garden, there was too much clutter in the room, too many antique tables, too many faded tapestries covering the walls, too many clocks, potted plants, oil paintings in gilt frames. An arched doorway led down into what might have been a kitchen area. Other doors, dark wood, were closed. Ahead of him, a grand, double-width staircase invited him up to the second floor. Halfway up, he was faced by a nineteenth-century banjo clock fighting the silence with its sonorous ticking. Its hands, twisted into overly ornate shapes, pointed to six forty-five. It was ten minutes slow.
Bond had already decided to take advantage of the situation and began to explore the different rooms, moving from the study to the dining room, to the library, to the sitting room, to the bar. The floors were uncarpeted – either wood or tile – but his footsteps made no sound. It was darker inside than out. All the furniture and bric-a-brac seemed to swallow up the light. Everywhere, in every room, Bond saw photographs in gold and silver frames and Wolfe appeared in nearly all of them, sometimes with a woman – presumably his dead wife, Mirabelle – sometimes with two young men who must have been his sons, but most often with celebrities; film stars and politicians. There was Wolfe in a dinner jacket, Wolfe in swimming shorts, Wolfe on horseback. Just no sign of Wolfe himself.
Bond went upstairs. He took out the Beretta and held it in front of him, knowing instinctively that there was something wrong, that something bad had happened in this house. The silence, punctuated only by the banjo clock, was too oppressive, the lack of any sort of welcome a statement in itself. He did not call out. He had already announced his arrival at the gate and whoever had answered knew he was there.
He reached the first floor, where a carpeted corridor stretched into the distance with old-fashioned candelabras overhead and arched windows high up on either side. Two floor-to-ceiling doors stood open at the far end – surely the master bedroom – and he made for them, with the uneasy feeling that he had become a player in somebody else’s game and that – although he should have had the advantage – he was being sucked into this against his will. He stopped in front of the doors and pushed them wider open. No sound came from the other side.
He’d guessed correctly – it was the bedroom. Bond stepped into a wide chamber with high ceilings and windows looking out onto a swimming pool. The bed was a four-poster, the sort of thing that might find its way into a museum, or which might have been bought from one. It had an oak frame with gold ornamentation and a canopy that was a heaving sea of antique, mauve satin. Pillows and cushions were piled up against a velvet, studded bedhead. It was, Bond decided, a nightmare of a bed – made more so by the man who was lying in it, a gun lying in his open palm, blood seeping out of the hideous wound in the side of his head.
Bond had got here too late. Irwin Wolfe had shot himself. That at least was the picture that presented itself to him. The dead man’s eyes were still open, staring glassily into the mid-distance. He was wearing pyjamas and a silk dressing gown. The sheets, stained dark with his blood, were bunched around him. The hair that had impressed Bond when he had first met the millionaire at the house in Cap Ferrat now seemed to be in full flight from his head, sprawled across the pillows. His skin was grey. He was the most corpse-like corpse Bond had ever seen.
So if Wolfe had killed himself, who had answered the intercom?
The answer to that question came a moment later as a hand with a gun stretched out from behind the door, pointing in his direction, and a gravelly voice said: ‘We really shouldn’t make a habit of this.’
Bond had raised his hands. Now he turned his head and smiled. ‘I was rather hoping we’d run into each other again. But I have to say you’ve taken me by surprise.’
‘I’m the one who’s surprised, James. What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Can I put down my hands?’
‘Of course. Just don’t hit me again.’
The last time Bond had seen Reade Griffith had been over a bourbon at the Hotel Negresco in Nice. As the man stepped out of the corner where he had been concealed, Bond recognised the neatly cut dark hair and blue eyes of the CIA agent. He lowered his hands and slipped the gun into his jacket pocket. ‘I don’t need to ask what you’re doing here,’ he said.
‘Supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic,’ Griffith replied, quoting the CIA oath. He grinned. ‘As a matter of fact, Wolfe asked me to come out to the house. Quite ironic when you think about it. He had this idea that he might need protecting.’
‘From me?’ Bond sounded innocent.
‘I can’t imagine why.’
‘And you’d been given orders to take care of him.’ Bond glanced at the dead man sprawled out on the bed.
‘Wolfe was an embarrassment. He was also an enemy of the country. We like to keep things tidy. This seemed the best way.’
‘Suicide.’
‘The easy way out.’ Griffith paused. ‘Out of interest, why did you want to meet him?’
‘My people wanted to put pressure on him. I think the idea was to achieve exactly what you’ve accomplished.’
‘Then you owe me a drink.’
‘I owe you more than that. I was hoping to see you again. I’m sorry we didn’t catch up before I left Nice.’
‘Yeah. I heard you killed Scipio and closed down his entire operation. That’s quite an achievement.’ Griffith put his own gun away. Bond noticed it was the same US Army Remington that he had carried at the Rue Foncet. ‘So where are we going to have that drink? There’s a place I know down in Westwood . . .’
‘That sounds good.’ Bond thought for a moment. ‘But before we head off, there is one thing I wanted to ask you.’
Bond took out his gunmetal cigarette case and extracted a cigarette with three gold bands. This particular mixture of Turkish and Balkan tobacco had been recommended to him by the man at Morlands, the cigarette maker in Grosvenor Street that Sixtine had told him about. It was stronger than he was used to but he already preferred it to the Du Mauriers he had been smoking before. He glanced inside the lid, then closed it.
‘You were working for Scipio all along,’ Bond said.
He lit the cigarette.
Reade Griffith frowned but made no attempt to deny the accusation. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way,’ he said. ‘I was working for the CIA. But that meant cooperating with Scipio. Yes. How did you know?’
Bond had been warned from the start. The report he had read in London had made it clear that the CIA had chosen to support the Corsican crime syndicates in return for their help combatting the communists in the Marseilles docks – even if it had been something that Reade Griffith had denied. But it had still taken him a while to work it out.
‘When I first met Sixtine, she knew who I was. My name, my number, my recent history – everything. I assumed she must have got the information from her own network, and that of course was very disturbing. But later on, she told me that it was actually Irwin Wolfe who had warned her about me. So the question was, who had told him?’
‘That wasn’t me.’
‘No. But he was working with Scipio. So someone must have told Scipio, who had then passed the information across. And that person could only have been you. Nobody else knew I was there.’
‘I hope we’re not going to fall out over this, James.’
‘Not at all. You were doing your job. I understand that. And the truth is, I should have seen it. When you and I drove to the dock at La Joliette, the man sitting at security asked to see my ID. He checked me out but he ignored you. There had to be a reason for that and the reason was simply that he knew who you were. He had seen you before.’ Bond paused and blew out smoke. ‘We lost a man at La Joliette. I’m going to assume you were there when it happened.’
‘I didn’t have anything to do with his death and I’m sorry that it occurred.’ Reade Griffith shook his head, remembering. ‘The thing was, he’d worked out something of what was going on. The connection with Ferrix Chimiques, for example . . .’
‘That was why he had the invoice,’ Bond said. ‘I have to congratulate you. You completely blindsided me on that.’
‘Did I?’
‘It was an invoice for thirty gallons of acetic anhydride. You told me it was the principal component of photographic film.’
‘It is.’
‘I know. But as it happens, it’s also used in the production of heroin. At the start of the process an equal amount of morphine and acetic anhydride are heated together. The chemical is known as a heroin precursor.’ Bond had checked it out when he got back to London. He was annoyed with himself for not having done so before. He had allowed Griffith to spoon-feed him the lie.
‘Your guy was smart but he still got it all wrong,’ Griffith continued. ‘He decided that Sixtine must be working with Wolfe. It made sense. She was a major operator and they were practically living together. He needed information and he decided he could get it from Scipio. After all, he’d seen the two of them sitting together in that café in Marseilles. He’d even taken photographs. He figured he could persuade Scipio to tell him what she was up to.
‘For what it’s worth, I warned him against it but he asked me to set up a meeting on neutral ground. I said I’d come along just to make sure that everyone played fair and that’s why he wasn’t packing a gun. I arranged the meeting at La Joliette . . . white flag and all the rest of it. I was genuinely trying to help. The only trouble was, Scipio hadn’t read the rules. When he realised your guy knew too much, he took out a gun and shot him three times in the chest. It all happened so fast, there was nothing I could do. It’s like I told you the first time we met: you can’t trust these people.’
‘Scipio knew I was coming to Ferrix Chimiques. You told him.’
‘I also told him not to hurt you, buddy. That’s why it was water and not acid in that flask they threw in your face.’
Bond had worked that out too. Scipio had almost admitted as much when they had met that second time, on the Mirabelle. He had said that he wanted to deal with Bond – ‘without restraint’. Those two words had told Bond someone must have been protecting him when he was at the chemical factory.
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ Bond said. ‘Irwin Wolfe was planning a lethal strike on your own country. American gangs sell about 600 pounds of heroin every month across the United States. Wolfe was delivering twenty times that amount and he was giving it away almost free. Was Scipio so important to you that you were prepared to go along with the consequences? Or were you planning to stop the Mirabelle when it arrived?’
‘I knew nothing about the Mirabelle,’ Griffith said. ‘I didn’t know what was going on in Wolfe’s head. Scipio didn’t tell me. But why would he? For him it was a whole new business opportunity. I have to say, my government is very grateful to you, James. You saved us from a whole load of trouble. I hear you’re being recommended for a Medal of Honor. You certainly get my vote.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
Griffith glanced at the dead body that had been a silent witness to the entire conversation. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here, James. And make sure you take that cigarette butt with you. We want to leave things nice and clean for the police and the paramedics.’
Bond didn’t move.
‘You’re not sore with me?’ Griffith asked.
‘There is just one other thing I want to know,’ Bond said. ‘Did you know that Sixtine and I were on the Mirabelle at the very end, when it went down?’
‘No. I didn’t. What happened to her?’
‘She died.’
‘That’s too bad.’
‘Yes. It is.’
Bond’s hand had slipped, casually, into his pocket. When he took it out, it was holding the Beretta. In a single movement, without hesitation, he turned and shot Reade Griffith in the middle of the forehead. The CIA agent stared at him as if in disbelief, blood trickling down between his eyes. Then he pitched forward.
Bond moved quickly. Lifting him up by the armpits, he dragged the dead man closer to the bed and left him there. He took the gun out of Irwin Wolfe’s hand, noticing that it was a Webley & Scott .45. He wondered, vaguely, why that weapon had been chosen. But it didn’t matter now. Using a handkerchief, he wiped it clean, then pressed it into Reade Griffith’s hand. He removed the CIA agent’s gun and slid it into his pocket. Finally, he wiped his own gun with the handkerchief and placed it in Irwin Wolfe’s hand, closing the dead man’s fingers around the trigger.
When he had come into the room, he had been presented with the scene of a fake suicide but he had transformed it into something else. Reade Griffith had been sent here to kill Irwin Wolfe. He hadn’t realised that the older man was armed. In the end, the two of them had shot each other. That was what it would look like. Of course, the CIA would be suspicious but they wouldn’t be able to ask too many questions, not without admitting why he had been there in the first place. Nobody knew anything about Bond. He was travelling under a false name. They didn’t even know he was in America.
He finished the cigarette he had been smoking and pinched it out. He slipped the butt into his top pocket, then wiped the ashtray clean. He hadn’t touched anything in the room. He had left no fingerprints. He took one last look around, then left, walking out of the silent house. The police and paramedics would arrive eventually but by then Bond would be long gone.
He climbed back into the car, thinking about the man he had just killed. Reade Griffith had lied to him from the very start and had been lying all along. He had been hopelessly compromised by his relationship with Scipio and had been blind to the consequences. Whatever he might say, he had been responsible for the death of a British secret agent. He had almost certainly told Scipio about Monique de Troyes, the girl who worked at Ferrix Chimiques, and had caused her death too.
And it had been thanks to him that Sixtine had died.
Once again Bond saw her, one last time, slipping away from him into the blue.
Slowly, he drove back through the overcrowded garden, heading for the gate. He knew that although he had been given a licence to kill, it hadn’t extended to this. There would be no official report. He would never speak of it again. He had committed murder. Pure and simple.
Ahead of him, a sensor picked up the movement of the car and the electric door swung open, revealing Sunset Boulevard on the other side. Bond drove out, leaving behind him the memory of what he had just done.
He felt nothing.