While England's Dreaming: A New Fan Fiction Serial

jetsetwilly

A new fan fiction serial, to be told in a number of parts, by Jetsetwilly

Discuss it here:

http://www.ajb007.co.uk/index.php?topic=18787

jetsetwilly

Chapter One

THE BODYGUARD

The drizzle that hung over New York still could not diminish the city’s power. The grey skies and threatening clouds only seemed to enhance the drama of her towering skyscrapers and roaring traffic.

James Bond stood beneath the slab of the United Nations building and watched the swirling skies above. The light rain pattered against his face and clung to his heavy woollen overcoat. He didn’t want to be here, could think of a thousand other jobs he would rather be doing, but somehow the potency of his location slipped under his clothes and swelled his heart. He loved New York, and here, on a terrace overlooking the river at the base of the legendary building, with the wild salty winds battering at his face, he loved it even more.
He had been here on assignment for eight days now. Normally an assignment here would have allowed Bond time to visit a few of his favourite bars and restaurants – perhaps the Bologna, off Fifth Avenue, or the Melazzi House, a wonderful old-style Italian restaurant he had recently discovered in SoHo and which he had guarded carefully in the hope it wouldn’t be “ruined”. There had been no time for that on this occasion. Bond was here as a bodyguard, and he hated every minute of it.

The body Bond was guarding was that of Doctor Angus Catchlove, quite possibly one of the worlds’, and certainly Britain’s, greatest minds in the field of genetic research. He was here in New York to address the UN on the subject of genetic screening and alteration. It was the Doctor’s belief – his passionate belief – that positive genetic screening could wipe out a whole host of genetic diseases and handicaps within a generation, and he had become one of its most powerful advocates. Appearances on CNN and the BBC had advanced the Doctor’s fame and notoriety, as had his dismissive manner toward those who objected.

His uncompromising views and manners had earned him a variety of death threats, from the religious right denouncing him for “interfering with God’s will” to left-wing groups condemning him as a “Nazi” and a “Eugenecist”. Catchlove seemed to thrive on his notoriety, revelling in the attention his seminars gained. Famously, when the baying protest groups outside disrupted his lecture in Oxford, Catchlove had gone out onto the balcony above them and delivered an hour long speech on his theories and beliefs.

M had practically thrown the file at 007 back in London. “I don’t want you to do it,” she had said. “I have far more important things to do than send a Double-O to New York for protection duties. But the Prime Minister has intervened. Some of these death threats were from groups with known terrorist links, and he wants Service eyes watching for them.”

So Bond had watched, standing at a discreet distance while Catchlove had talked to the media. He had scanned the protest groups, watching for faces from dossiers, but as far as he could see the protesters were all the usual group of demented evangelists, no matter what side of the political spectrum they came from. He doubted very much that any of them could even use a gun, never mind successfully carry out a terrorist attack.

He stubbed out his cigarette beneath his heel and watched a police boat bounce along the river. Soon it would all be behind him anyway. The helicopter would soon arrive to take them to JFK, and then he could leave the dull routine task behind him.

The fire doors behind him burst open, and Catchlove stormed out. His face was thunder. “Where the hell have you been?”

“The building is a non-smoking area. I came out for a cigarette. Your wife suggested it.” Bond indicated the lovely Samantha Catchlove, stood slightly behind her husband with a half-smile on her face. Her blue eyes bored into Bond’s.

“It’s not my wife you’re here to protect, it’s me.” Catchlove was a short man, only around five foot six in height, and like many small men he felt the need to make up for his lack of stature by barking at those around him. He pulled a box of Marlboro cigarettes out of his coat with yellowed nicotine-stained fingers. “I would like a smoke too, and if you’d waited five minutes we could have both puffed away and you wouldn’t have been disobeying your orders. I shall have to report this you know.” He snapped at the disposable lighter, but the drizzle put the tiny flame out. “For God’s sake! This bloody country. If I’d wanted to carry a machine gun into that building it probably would have been fine, but lighting up a single cigarette, oh no. That would be terrible.” He stormed across the terrace to the riverfront, waving away Bond’s offer of a light with a flap of his hand.

Bond turned to Samantha. “I take it his final meeting didn’t go well.”

She shrugged. “He lost his temper, as usual. And when he does that, he starts saying the first thing that comes into his head, and… He’s a genius, a brilliant mind. But his interpersonal skills are severely lacking.”

“He’s your husband.”

Samantha laughed, a delicate giggle. “Don’t remind me. I fell in love with his brain, not his charm. Not like you.” For a moment, Bond felt a pang of guilt. Three nights ago, Samantha had slipped into his room at the Plaza, and they had made wild, uninhibited love. It had not been part of his plan – though obviously, taking one look at her, it had occurred to him. She had long, blonde hair, which hung around her throat like a glamorous 40s film star. She wore little make up, but for shocking red lipstick which enhanced her pale complexion and drew you to her lustful pout. In addition, she possessed an acute mind – she too was a Doctor, in biotechnology, and over the course of her thirty-four years had carved out a reputation for genius almost the equal of her husband’s. Bond could not work out why she stayed with the grubby man in his late forties, when she could clearly have her pick. Certainly in bed her passions had been uninhibited, unreserved. She had been vocal and imaginative, as though she had been released and could finally achieve the pleasure she had not gained from her husband.

Now she reached up and stroked Bond’s cheek. He sent a furtive glance over his shoulder at Catchlove, but he was too busy muttering to himself while pulling on his cigarette to notice. “I’m going to miss you when this is all over, James. I’ll miss you so much. I don’t suppose, that when we get back to London..?”

Bond took the hand down and shook his head. “We both knew that when we got to London it would all have to end. It’s always been a fragile affair. Let’s not stretch it beyond its limits.”

“Of course you’re right.” Her smile became wicked, and she stepped backwards into the doorway. “While we’re still in New York, though, we can do what we like. And the helicopter won’t be here for ages.”

Samantha slipped her heavy raincoat to one side, and pulled the hem of her skirt up to reveal a black garter belt atop her creamy white thigh. Bond glanced at Catchlove, leaning against the railings, then stepped forward and slid his hand up her soft skin. “You are a bad woman, Mrs Catchlove.”

“That’s Doctor, to you.” He pulled her close, and forced his mouth onto hers.

The sound of the distantly approaching helicopter made him pull away. “It sounds like we have to go.” She grabbed his lapels and pulled him close, her soft perfume filling his mind and stirring his body. “Just one more minute.”

The helicopter flew low, over the river, its runners barely above the grey waters. Catchlove, on the riverfront, raised a hand in greeting, then turned towards the UN building. “Where the hell are you two?” he yelled over the chopper’s roaring rotor blades. “We have to leave.”

The helicopter swung round and landed between the building and Dr Catchlove, as Bond began to disengage himself from Samantha. His body ached for her, but the job would have to come first – however reluctantly. He turned to walk to the helicopter.

It happened incredibly quickly. The rear door to the helicopter swung open, and the dark barrel of a powerful machine gun was raised towards Dr Catchlove. Before Bond could react, a series of loud bursts of gunfire erupted from the weapon and struck the doctor in the chest. His body shook with the power of the bullets, and he was pushed backwards.

Bond pulled his Walther from his shoulder holster and ran towards the gunman as Samantha’s scream registered behind him. He let off two rounds which barely dented the helicopter.

Catchlove’s body was still being punctured by gunfire, driven back and back towards the railing of the terrace, a puppet shaking on jerkily pulled strings. There was another burst, and then the body was pitched backwards, over the railing and into the East River.

Bond fired again, as the helicopter lifted into the air. He threw himself at the aircraft, and managed to grasp hold of one of the runners beneath it as it lifted off and headed over the river.

Bond struggled to keep hold. The drizzle clung to the steel, making it impossible for him to find any purchase. He pushed up, trying to get his arm around the bar connecting the runner to the body of the helicopter, but he didn’t have the reach to grasp it. The tips brushed against the cold metal, but there was no hope. With sickening clarity Bond felt his hands slip, just a little, then more, and then he was falling, falling down, away from the helicopter and down into the gunmetal river. He got only a brief taste of the rancid water before he pushed his head above the surface. His eyes watched the helicopter as it twisted away into the distance, leaving him cold and wet and alone in the New York rain.

jetsetwilly

TWO YEARS LATER

Chapter Two
THE TWIN SNAKES CLUB

James Bond sucked in the acidic taste of the rancid Morlands cigarettes, and enjoyed every moment of it. For all the anaesthetised, safe, homogenized experiences in the modern world, nothing could quite beat the pure thrill of lighting up a stick full of cancer and pulling it into your lungs. It was the very definition of living vicariously.

Bond was stood outside SriGhana, the kind of “restaurant” which gave the concept of fusion food an even worse name than it already had. The occasion was the annual meeting of “The Twin Snakes Club” – an establishment formed to give former secret service agents something to think about once Her Majesty stopped requesting their services. For as long as Bond could remember the elderly members of the secret community had gathered to talk about the good times and to display various scars to people who really didn’t want to see them.

One of the first actions “M” had taken upon assuming her role had been to try and outlaw the Twin Snakes Club and remove its annual dinner from the Service calender. Some said that this was a symbolic move, intended to show her passion for the new and her rejection of archaic principles; others said that she just didn’t want to spend a rare free evening with a load of veterans with past glories on their mind. The result had been a pitched battle unseen since the Second World War. Miss Moneypenny, M’s desirable secretary, had confided to Bond that the amount of memos passing through her office had lead her to believe that there was a war on – when in fact it was just former agents with varying degrees of influence attempting to force M’s hand.

The result was a compromise. The Twin Snakes Club Dinner would continue, it was decided, but as a concession to the modern age, it would no longer be held at Blades – that venerable London establishment whose adherence to a “men only” membership policy had made it persona non grata among the city’s elite, and certainly to the female head of the SIS – but instead would convene at a suitably chosen establishment.
This year, the restaurant was SriGhana (a venue communicated to all guests in an e-mail that had far too many excited!!! exclamation!!! marks!!! for Bond’s liking), and so over fifty men and women had ventured to Southwark with the express aim of telling all those around them how things were better in their day and how they managed to be the best of the best on guile alone without relying on technology and gizmos to get them through.

At the earliest opportunity – somewhere after the main meal, but before the sweet menus had appeared – Bond had assumed the role of smoking pariah and had slipped onto the deserted street outside for a blessed cigarette.
Perhaps the worst thing of all about the Twin Snakes Club for Bond, worse than the reminders of how he could be spending his time more productively, worse than the pathetic unloved ribbons of his CMG hanging from his breast, was the acknowledgement in his mind that the doddering children of the Club were, in many ways, right. Things had been more fun in the old “blood and thunder” days. Now that a satellite could read a newspaper from two miles above the earth’s surface, the stock of the human intelligence had diminished – a great loss, to Bond’s mind. A computer could not pick up on the subtle body languages and turns of phrase that indicated danger to an experienced agent. A satellite, for all its brilliance, could never be anything more than a voyeur on the world of humans below. Bond knew, deep down, that his time was passing, and that the new blood who surrounded him saw him as a dinosaur to be patronised and flattered; it was only the presence of his predecessors that brought it into bloody relief.

To hell with them! he thought angrily. He hurled the stub of his cigarette down and crushed it beneath his heel. To hell with all of them! Bond had better ways to occupy his time than to return to this world of bitterness and regret. He hunched the heavy raincoat about his shoulders and plunged into the dark February night.

The lampposts shone their oily glow upon anonymous, rain-slicked pavements, and Bond quickly found himself disorientated. SriGhana was in one of those streets that was only tentatively gentrified, and Bond’s knowledge of South of the Thames was shaky at best, meaning that he soon discovered himself in a world of broken down garages and council flats. Youths loitered on street corners with implied malevolence as Bond scoured the streets for a taxi.

And suddenly, there he was. It took even him by surprise. The gentrification of Southwark was less a progression, more a lurch, with no-go areas still comfortably exisiting beside million-pound apartments. Now, suddenly the vast bulk of the Tate Modern loomed up before him. Its impassive brick form was an island of sophistication amongst a sea of dread. Across from its vast bulk, the dome of St Pauls was highlighted, the evening frosts glistening upon the copper dome. London is always at its best when it is discovered – when a wander through back roads turns up a picturesque garden square, when an escape from hectic City thoroughfares leads you to a tiny Wren church where time is non-existent – and the sharp contrast between the grimy industrial streets and the twin visions of the capital’s legendary centre of worship and its greatest centre for art reminded Bond once again of why he loved London, and by extension, his country, so much.

A decision came to him. He would cross the Millennium Bridge, the glistening spear that linked St Paul’s and the Tate, and hail a taxi from Cannon Street station. Even this late, there would still be cabs waiting outside the tiny terminus to ferry exhausted execs home from the City.

As he climbed the ramp, Bond’s eye was drawn to its centre. The sharp winter wind had kept the tourists and lovers away from the bridge, and it was almost deserted. Almost. At its centre, he could see a tiny figure, a woman, her blonde hair floating around her head on the wind in yellow wisps. She wore a long, heavy fur coat, which enveloped her tiny frame. Bond felt the distinct arousal as he approached her, that same feeling he always felt when he saw a beautiful girl.

He approached quietly, wondering what she could possibly be doing out alone on such a bitter night. She was staring into the water, letting the elements beat her while she remained stoic, unmoving. Then, in one movement, she dropped the fur coat from her body. Beneath it she wore only a thin, gauzy dress that barely skimmed the tops of her thighs. Bond felt a lurch within his stomach. She had not come here to sight-see. She had come here to die.

Even as he broke into a run, she was clambering onto the side of the bridge, her feet slipping onto the taught wires that formed the handrails. Bond reached her as she swung her leg over the edge. He scooped her up, his arm sliding around her waist and pulling her backwards, off the barrier and into the safety of the bridge’s centre. As he did she let out a sob, a horrible inhuman cry of pain. Her legs kicked feebly, but there was no fight left in her. She was weak in his arms. He placed her on the steel bridge floor and pulled the wet strands of hair away from her face to reveal two shocking blue eyes. Familiar blue eyes. Bond would have stepped away to avoid the painful blow that coursed through his body if he hadn’t been afraid that letting her go would see her try to die again. Instead he stared. She spoke first, hopefully, disbelievingly. “James? James Bond?”

It all came back, in sickeningly heady waves. New York, the rain, the taste of her kisses. The blood on the asphalt. The subsequent disciplinary, and permanent stain on his record. The hideous one month “holiday” – read “suspension” – where he had tried to lose himself, driving in France, only to run into memories at every corner. All of it washed over Bond and drowned him in melancholy. The Twin Snakes Club had shown him his depressing future. Now this was showing him his unpleasant past.

Samantha Catchlove reached up with a single weak hand and stroked the side of his face. “Oh, James,” she whispered, again and again, a mixture of shock and pleasure coating every word. Bond held her close while his mind span a whirlwind. Finally he whispered, “Samantha. What are you doing?”

“I didn’t think there was any hope,” she whispered, “I thought I couldn’t go on.” She buried her head in his jacket. “I thought – I thought I had to go. And now I’ve seen you!” Again those blue eyes bore into Bond’s. “Now you can help me!”

Bond detached himself, reached over and pulled the heavy mink around her frail shoulders. Careful, he reminded himself. Always be wary of birds with wings down. “Samantha,” he said decisively. “What’s happened to you?”
“Oh, James,” she murmured, “You don’t know! You don’t know what I’ve felt, what I know. All of it. All of the research, the planning… Angus…”
At the mention of her late husband’s name, Bond felt himself harden. Two years had passed since he had allowed his guard to drop and let Angus Catchlove die. He had turned away from the case, wrapped himself in self-analysis and anger. He hadn’t spoken to Samantha. He hadn’t been to the funeral. He had abandoned her, because to see her again would have reminded him of his own role in Angus Catchlove’s death. Now he looked down at her and whispered, barely audible above the whistle of the night winds, “Samantha. I am so sorry. I’m sorry I let Angus die.”

She moved away from him. Her tears were mixing with the rain on her face. “But don’t you see James? Angus isn’t really dead.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter Three
MORNING REFLECTIONS

Morning crept across London, turning the blue-black night to grey. The weak wet sun coated the buildings, stirring them from the darkness and bringing activity and warmth into their empty husks.

Bond watched the sun rise from Samantha’s Barbican flat, but his mind was away from it. His mind was a whirlpool of thoughts and regrets and anger. She had collapsed, almost as soon as he carried her through the door of her apartment, a limp exhausted body in his arms. He had carried her to the bedroom, tucked her away, almost tenderly, then slipped into the kitchen to brew himself a cafetiere of thick black coffee. The potent stench of caffeine still dripped from the air as he reassessed every moment in New York.

There had been no body; no concrete evidence that Angus had been murdered save the witness testimonies. This was hardly unexpected. Bond himself had watched Doctor Catchlove pitch into the murky river waters, a body of water which had a long and not so distinguished history of swallowing bodies of men. He had seen the bullets tear into the Doctor’s chest, seen the red flowers bloom amongst his white shirt. But what had he seen? As Bond replayed the moments, over and over, he could not find a moment that could not have been faked. The blood? “Squibs”, Hollywood’s term for prophylactics filled with a thick fake blood. The bullet wounds? Either triggered by tiny explosive charges, or, more likely, by genuine bullets passing through the squibs before slamming into a thick Kevlar vest beneath the cheap suit. All Catchlove had to do was topple over the barrier into the water, where a scuba team, perhaps, or maybe just Catchlove’s own determination and swimming skills carried him away to a relatively safe harbour a few hundred metres away. From there, he could have been anywhere, smuggled away from the US under false names, passports, identities. It all made sense.

What held Bond back, what gnawed at Bond from the inside was Samantha. When did she know? His mind rotated backwards to their illicit trysts at the Plaza, their wild, passionate love making. He thought of her body, writhing in pleasure and ecstasy. Move forward, and she was on the terrace by the UN, her stockinged thigh beckoning, her body willing and seductive. Had Samantha been an act?

Certainly it seemed difficult to reconcile that confident sexual being with the woman who slept in the next room. Bond had felt her desperation and pain radiate from her body on the taxi ride home – the way she clung to the lapels of his coat, the way she whispered his name. Bond despised needy women; their lack of independence and capacity for joy destroyed any sexual desire he could feel for them. Samantha’s soft murmurs had held other promises, however; promises of the truth.

He needed to sleep. The cheap wine provided at the SriGhana, a noxious fruit that had offended his palate like a glass of tar, still lingered in his mouth and head. Combined with the thick coffee, Bond could feel his head turning around itself. Again he returned to that question: what did Samantha know?

There was a soft whistle as the door to the bedroom and Samantha appeared in the doorway. She wore a heavy French peasant’s jumper in soft grey wool; it fell from her breasts to a hemline that barely skimmed the tops of her thighs. Her tousled blonde hair lay loosely on her shoulders. Shyly she looked up at Bond from the doorway, and stammered, “I wasn’t sure you were really here.”

“How are you?” he asked, crossing to the tiny kitchen area of the room.

“Embarrassed. Ashamed.” She cast her eyes down, then looked back up with a smile. “Happy to see you again.” Bond opened the fridge, trying to mask the awkwardness of the moment. It was empty, save for a bottle of Perrier and a lump of congealed cheese. How bad was she? he thought. How long has this gone on for?

“I need to go to the shops,” she blurted. “I’d offer you breakfast. There’s a Sainsbury’s down the road, I’ll go…”

He closed the fridge, took her hands and led her to the pine dining table by the balcony doors. Her fingertips curled around his hands, clutching them tightly. They took seats opposite one another. Bond said softly, “I think we should talk about last night.”

Samantha averted her eyes, looking out of the window. “Must we? I don’t… It was a mistake. A silly thing. I shouldn’t have... I wouldn’t have jumped you know. I was just feeling low.” Her mouth dried. “Could I have a drink of water or something?”

“In a moment. Afterwards.”

“Afterwards.”

“After you explain what you meant last night. About Angus. About him being alive.”

A veil crossed her eyes, and she looked down at the table. Bond felt her hands try to detach themselves from his, but he kept hold of them. If it had to be an interrogation, then so be it.

“That was just… I shouldn’t have said it. I was wrong. I was emotional and silly.”

“You seemed very sure last night.”

“I was a lot of things last night.” Again she tried to pull away, and again he held them. She bit her lip. “It was just wishful thinking.”

He looked at her body, her averted eyes, her nervous shifting in her chair. He felt her rapid pulse through their entwined fingers. “You’re lying Samantha. Please. Talk to me.” He sighed. “If you don’t talk to me, there’ll be others. I’ll have to report what you told me. Once my people are involved, they’ll not stop until they get the truth. They won’t listen like I will. They don’t understand you like I do.”

He watched as a tear slipped from her eye. Perhaps he was being too harsh. This girl was already at the edge. There was no need to take her any further unnecessarily. “I can protect you, Samantha. Whoever you’re protecting – I can shield you from them. But I need you to be honest with me. Do you understand?” She nodded slowly, like a child.

“Can I have that drink? Please? I’ll tell you, but please. Just a glass of water.” He nodded and fetched her a cold glass of Perrier from the fridge. She took the glass in both hands, cupping it to her mouth and sipping. Then she fixed her eyes on his, and said,

“I want you to know. New York. Everything that happened there… I meant everything I said and everything I did. I didn’t lie to you, not ever. That time we shared was wonderful, and I’ll never forget it. Only now do I realise…

“It was Angus’s idea that you and I be lovers.” Seeing Bond’s quizzical expression, she gave a giggle, a tiny gurgle from her throat that reminded him of the old Samantha. “He couldn’t… Our relationship had always been cerebral, never physical. He had always encouraged me to take lovers, for that side of things. There weren’t many times when I did it. There was a student of his at Oxford. There was a colleague at my research institute. I had a brief affair with a married man. All with Angus’s encouragement. I think he understood that it was just physical.” She smiled shyly, and peered over the rim of her glass at Bond. “You were the exception to that. I think, if I had met you without Angus being around…”

Bond’s face was impassive. “We would never have met if Angus hadn’t been around.”

“True.” She took another drink. “I never stopped thinking about how I had caused him to die. That you could have protected him if I hadn’t been there to distract you. I blamed myself. I came back to London and hid myself away. My guilty conscience took me away from the world.”

“I was the same,” Bond admitted. “I went to France to escape my guilt.”

“You never can escape though, can you? It’s here – “ she tapped the side of her head – “it’s inside you. It made me want to just… Then Rufus came and took me out of it all. He’d been a friend of ours for years, he’d helped fund Angus’s work, he’d sponsored lecture tours. He came to the house where Angus and I had lived, and just dragged me back into the world. I couldn’t help but be swept along. He’s so powerful, so dominant. It becomes impossible to resist his charms.”

“Rufus?” asked Bond. Samantha looked a little downcast, then murmered, “Rufus du Lyonne. The property developer. Man about town, playboy, patriot. The twelfth Earl of Coldham.” Her voice was filled with bitterness and regret. “I fell for him. I fell for him badly. He was good to me at a time I needed it most.” Bond was silent. He didn’t want to intrude on her thoughts.

After a while, she said, “It seemed so adult. Friends who became lovers. The occasional night at his, the odd date. Someone to talk to, someone who cared, but no ties or commitment. But I was falling. I was falling for him every moment, even though I tried not to. And then yesterday he told me he was going away, and it was New York all over again. My whole body twisted and turned inside because of the pain. And he laughed. He laughed at me.” There were heavy tears hanging from her eyes now.

“That was when he told me. It was all a lie. He was keeping me close, because Angus was alive. Rufus and Angus had been working together. They’d planned it all. The whole faking of his death. They used me as bait, to keep you busy. They wanted an expert witness. A man from MI6 to vouch for Angus’s death. Then it was just a matter of keeping me alive for a while to avoid suspicion.”

Bond felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen. Up until now, it had been a standard tale of a love gone wrong – with a slight twist. Now he could feel the darkness ebbing into her story.

Samantha sobbed, “Rufus said, We couldn’t make two bodies disappear from the Hudson. There was only room for one. They needed a grieving widow – for verisimilitude, he said.” She wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater. “Rufus never mentions it in his interviews in the Times or Hello! or Country Life, but he collects knives. All sorts of knives. Ancient ones from Greece and Rome, famous knives. He has Napoleon’s pocket knife. Things like that. And then I saw he had a knife in his hand, a long curved hunting knife, and I realised that my usefulness was up. He was going away and he wanted to cut off all the loose ends.”

“How did you get away?” he whispered.

“I managed to fight him off for a while. I used everything that came to hand. We were in his house in Belgravia, and I used everything, ashtrays, lamps. Once, he caught me with the knife, just on my arm. He was enjoying it. He liked playing with me. He was like a cat playing with a mouse it had caught. I was screaming and screaming, and he was talking all the time, talking dirty. Really filthy sexual words. He was getting aroused, I knew. Finally he had me pinned, in a corner. I didn’t know what to do.

“There was a window, a huge Georgian window with a wooden frame. I just threw myself through it, and landed in the garden. My body’s covered with tiny cuts. I could feel pieces of glass throughout my body but I just ran, I ran through the garden and out into the street. I wanted to get away.”

Bond walked around the table, and gently kissed her on her soft pink lips. He cupped her face in his hands. “I want you to get a back packed, just a small holdall. I’ll get you away. I’m going to protect you Samantha. I’ll be your bodyguard again.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 4

THE BARBICAN

The lift smelt of dried sweat and wet dog. It was packed with people, commuters heading to their jobs in the City, to the Underground. Eyes looked in a thousand directions in an attempt to avoid contact.

Bond racked his brains. He should have realised, when Samantha told him that Angus was still alive, that taking her back to her apartment was a mistake. He had to get her away, somewhere safe. He felt her shiver beside him, and slipped a protective arm around her waist as the elevator stopped on the eleventh floor to allow more tired drones to come aboard. Even in this grim aluminium box, Samantha shone. Her hair and skin glowed amongst the grey people. Only the deep circles beneath her eyes betrayed the traumas of the last twenty-four hours.

Where to take her? It needed to be close. A taxi in the City at eight on a weekday would be a nightmare. The tube? Again, too many people. Bond sensed that there may be people on the way already, and a crowded underground station was a wonderful killing ground. Bond himself had once despatched a Hungarian spy on the Budapest Metro, taking advantage of the crowds to push the man in front of a train, then using them again to slip away. Too vulnerable. Too easy.

It came to him. Ruthie Henderson. Or rather, Ruthie Rayment now. She had been his secretary for a time, a delicious redhead whom he had seduced after a late night at the office and who had been the epitome of grace the next morning in the office – no hysterics, or demands. She had left the service to marry a colourless broker and their contact had since been limited to the habitual Christmas card. He remembered her address from the book which all good spies keep closeted within their head. It was a converted meat packers' just behind the old Smithfield market. Good old Ruthie, Bond thought. He knew that with the minimum of explanation she would accept Samantha in and provide him with assistance and cover – enough time for him to arrange something more secure from the Service.

The lift doors opened and they were carried out by the throng onto the podium. The Barbican was built in the 1960s on the bomb-devastated streets of Spitalfields. Its concrete mass was intended to be a city within a city. It housed homes, shops, the Barbican Arts Centre (former home of the Royal Shakespeare Company), the Museum of London, a convention centre – even a secluded Winter Garden. The whole estate was constructed out of concrete on a series of vast podia, huge concrete bases for the apartment blocks, connected with one another some six metres above the street level by “highwalks” – pedestrian bridges and staircases.

Bond took Samantha’s arm and guided her across the podium, away from the people headed for the tube station, and towards the Arts Centre. In theory, this should have been a simple few minute’s walk, but in their desire to make the Barbican interesting the architects had also made it virtually impossible to traverse with ease. They climbed a staircase, followed a highwalk across a dizzying gap, and appeared on a different podium. This one was bedecked with evergreen plants and bushes, to create a garden in the sky.

“Where are we going?” asked Samantha, hurrying to keep up with Bond’s rapid pace.

“To see a friend,” he replied. “She’ll be able to help us until we can get more permanent help.” Bond cursed himself for not having Ruthie’s telephone number programmed into his Ericcsson phone. They would just have to be unannounced.

Samantha suddenly stopped dead. It took Bond a moment to realise, and he turned to her. Her face was ashen. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Henk,” she said, in a terrified whisper. “It’s too late. He’s here to get me.”

Bond turned and followed her petrified stare. Advancing towards them at a rapid pace was a beast of a man. Well over six feet in height, tautly muscled with a shaven head and a vindictive stare. He wore a tight black jogging suit that barely concealed the hefty bulk within. Across the entire left hand side of his face, was an intricate, complicated tattoo that darkened his features and cast a blue shadow across his head. At the sight of Samantha, Henk broke into a run, his fit body covering the ground in heavy, powerful strides.

“It’s too late,” Samantha whimpered. She dropped the sports bag to the floor and backed away. “I can’t escape from him.”

Bond did not bother arguing with her. He grasped her arm and dragged her away, back across the grey concrete towards the highwalk. Behind him he could hear Henk’s heavy boots closing in on them. They ran, hand in hand, Samantha sobbing as she struggled to keep up, Bond feeling the footsteps coincide with the rapid beats of his heart. As they reached the top of the stairs, he felt Samantha jerk away from him.

He span, launching himself at Henk, who had Samantha gripped by the back of her throat. Bond punched twice at the man’s face, but he was at least two inches taller than 007, and he barely reacted. Instead, he punched outwards with his left hand, depositing a heavy blow into Bond’s stomach. The man’s strength was astonishing. He felt the breath as it was expelled from his body. To follow, Henk punched at Bond’s face, knocking him backwards and over the banister rail of the staircase into the stairwell.

Bond span through one hundred and eighty degrees, watching the concrete stairs twist below him then above him like an Escher drawing. He crashed into the harsh steps, feeling the ridge of each stair smash into his body. His arm and hip took most of the impact, and he felt them scream through his muscles, heard them yell into his brain in agony. Bond turned himself level, and pulled himself to his feet. The pain subsided a little, then came roaring back in a rush that made him cry out loud. He bit down, hard, and pulled himself back up the steps. With each footfall his strength returned, the pain subsided, the need to stop Henk from getting away with Samantha overriding everything. He pulled himself back onto the podium.

There was no sign of them. They had disappeared. The highwalk continued beyond the staircase, onwards to another part of the warren. Bond barrelled along it, his ears straining for sounds ahead. He tasted blood in his mouth, maybe from Henk’s punch, maybe from his bite, as he reached the end of the highwalk. To the left, another podium took you towards Moorgate station; ahead, a staircase took you down towards the Museum of London. Bond played a hunch and headed towards the station, guessing that there would be more avenues for escape for Henk that way.

He sprinted along the high podium where it ran parallel to the busy dual carriageway that formed the London Wall. The traffic was, as to be expected in rush hour London, stationary, a chain of cars, taxis and vans trapped by one another. Their idling engines provided an incessant soundtrack to Bond’s run.

“James!” It was a scream of hope and desperation from below him. Bond stopped, and saw her. They were weaving amidst the stilled traffic on the road twenty feet below him, trying to cross to the other side. In the centre of the highway there was a set of roadworks, cones barring parts of the road, and a vast hole in the centre. Henk was having difficulty manoeuvring Samantha across the rough road surface. He had her in a tight grip, so that she couldn’t struggle, but her face pleaded with the distant Bond over her shoulder.

On the other side of the road, double parked behind a service entrance to a large office building, was a blue Rover, its engines idling.

Damn! thought Bond. By the time he had headed back, and dashed down the stairs, they would be away. He wished he had his P99 with him, but he was prohibited from carrying a concealed weapon in the United Kingdom. Only his bruised body could stop Samantha from being driven away.

The traffic made one of its period lurches forward, carrying the cars forward a few dozen yards. A heavy white transit van, its battered engine grinding away, started to move beside the wall.

Bond took his opportunity. With his good, right hand, Bond vaulted over the concrete wall, dropping through space before hitting the roof of the van with a heavy thump that travelled up his legs. He landed on his feet, and a moment later was throwing himself off the moving vehicle onto the roof of a slow moving Escort beside it. From there it was a simple leap onto the central reservation, a matter of metres from Henk and Samantha.

Bond was ready for the man’s strength this time. He hurled himself at Henk’s body, knocking him off balance, and forcing his grip on Samantha to loosen a little. She wriggled in his grasp, but he still had her. Bond rammed him again, and Henk took a step backwards, into the mass of roadworks. His foot landed, not on solid ground, but instead on a road cone. He stumbled, and let go of Samantha.

She wrenched herself away, and dashed across the road, disappearing into a side street. Bond couldn’t help but smile as he saw her nimble body vanish between the buildings.

The pause gave Henk the advantage. He grasped Bond by the collar and hurled him sideways, into the traffic as though he were little more than a rag doll. Bond felt his feet leave the ground and hurtled into the path of an oncoming BMW. He heard the scream of the horn, and looked up to see the car’s licence plate hurtling towards his face. Uselessly, pathetically, Bond raised his arms to try and stop the oncoming vehicle, his body once again revolting in pain at its contact with the hard tarmac. But it was the car that moved, swinging to the right and crashing into the road cones beside the works.

Bond rolled to his feet in time to see Henk’s hefty frame disappearing into the street Samantha had vanished down. Bond spat out a lump of thick red blood, then made off after them, ignoring the frenzied protests of the BMW’s driver. His body was aching, crying, but Bond’s mind and resolved commanded his weary frame: come on! Come on! He leapt the low concrete kerb of the central reservation in painful pursuit, his determination to save Samantha his only thought. He was the only thing that could keep her alive.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 5

A WHISPER OF HATE

Bond swung left and right through the streets in pursuit. The roads here were medieval in form and name, and their irregular patterns and sudden twists seemed uncomfortable beneath the glass and gold towers of the modern city.

He felt the breath rasp within his lungs, but Bond was confident. Henk was faster and fitter than him, that was true, but he was following Samantha through the streets exactly. Bond, on the other hand, knew this area well. He knew the side streets and alleyways that would allow him to cut across and shave valuable seconds off. At one point, he saw Henk vanish round a corner. It was simplicity for him to make a dash through the glass foyer of a merchant bank, sliding through one side of the building and out the other to the chagrin of the security guards and workers, and managing to emerge at the other side as Henk came round the side. Not soon enough though; there was still a good ten metres between them.

Now the ground was dropping away, as they headed down the hill towards St Paul’s. Bond thought he saw, about fifty yards ahead, Samantha’s golden hair amongst the commuters, before it disappeared again in the midst. Henk was easy to follow, his head floating inches above everyone else’s.

God it was hard work! Bond felt the sweat running down his back under the heavy woollen overcoat. He could taste the salt on his lips. But his determination, his fury, drove him onwards, down St Paul’s Churchyard and into the wide plaza in front of the cathedral.

He stopped suddenly. Henk was stood in the centre of the open space, looking around. He had lost her! Good girl! thought Bond. She was hiding, instead of running. She had bought them time.

Henk turned towards Bond’s direction, and he flattened himself against the cold grey stone of the Cathedral. Now it was his turn to watch the crowds, to try and pick her face out.

The mighty bell above him tolled eight-thirty. The monochrome suits of the workers were now speckled with colour, as tour buses began depositing visitors into their midst. At this time of the morning, the tourists were that most hardy of breeds, the pensioner, keen to tick another sight off their list of London attractions. Above him, climbing the steps, a whey-faced man with an umbrella was leading a group of Americans through his patter. They cooed and aahhed as his words unveiled Wren’s masterpiece to them, like a magician pulling away a cloth.

And there she was! Samantha was bending her shoulders, trying to make herself inconspicuous as she advanced up the steps with the rest of the tour group. She had tucked her long flowing hair into her collar, but Bond still recognised her stunning profile from his position below her. Then the group disappeared from view into the cathedral entrance.

Henk was pacing down Ludgate Hill, towards the City Thameslink railway station. His back was to Bond. He took the moment, and ran up the steps, two at a time, into the body of the mighty building.

Though it violated his own personal credos, Bond paid the entrance fee for the cathedral, and stepped inside. Once again he found himself marvelling at London’s beauty and brilliance, as the building glittered and shone before him. Even the chattering Americans had fallen silent as they entered the nave. The only sound was the choirmaster, distant at the opposite end of the building, giving stern instructions to his boys. He paused, and then their tiny soprano voices rose together to fill the space with beauty.

Samantha had disappeared again. The tour group she had gone in with were following the march of their leader’s umbrella along the aisle. She had slipped away. Bond took the left hand of the building, advancing towards the transepts and glancing into the archways as he passed them. There was no sign. He felt the prickles of tension in his throat rise again. At any time, Henk could double back. Bond knew that without his help, she was as good as dead already.

There was no sign of her as he reached the colossal crossing beneath the dome. He allowed himself a look away from the world of shadows and into the heavens, staring up at the interior of the copper dome that has signalled God’s presence in England for over three hundred years. St Paul’s is resolutely Protestant in its decoration; its interior pales alongside the great Catholic cathedrals such as Notre-Dame or Chartres, but its understated beauty and power uplifted Bond’s British heart as it did for millions before him.

And, almost as if he had received divine inspiration, Bond realised where Samantha had gone. Her sense of humour had not entirely left her. He knew she was in the one spot in the Cathedral built for spies – the Whispering Gallery.

There was already a stream of people working their way up the narrow staircase to the gallery. Bond found himself, quite by chance, trapped amidst a gaggle of French schoolgirls, all in their late teens, all chattering excitedly. He pretended not to understand their giggling French as their bodies and eyes flirted with him outrageously. It was almost a relief to find himself in the gallery itself.

The Whispering Gallery is the name given to a quirk of the Cathedral, the acoustically perfect balcony that runs around the base of the dome. For centuries tourists have gathered here to exploit it, whispering into the walls to friends on the other side, a hundred feet away, and hearing their replies come through loud and clear. Bond had visited here once before, as a child with his parents. He could barely remember it, only the pain as his mother had scurried away from him, and then the peculiar pleasure as he sat on the iron bench and listened to her whisper endearments from the other side.

Bond moved to the edge of the balcony and looked around him. The gallery was too famous to be empty, and the multitudes crisscrossed about the narrow walkway, obscuring his vision. He moved around forty-five degrees around the circle, and tried to see again, but still the moving heads, the people pushing past, blocked him from seeing clearly.

Instead he took a step backwards, up onto the metal bench that circumnavigated the dome, and tried to look again. He caught a glimpse of the dizzying drop to the crossing below as he did so, and found that he pressed himself against the stone wall for support. Even as he did so, the spiders web of whispers that had surrounded him since he entered the gallery rose to a crescendo.

Suddenly he could hear a hundred thoughts, a thousand whispers, a million words as they passed his ears around the dome. The choirboys below provided a soundtrack to the giggles and secrets and declarations of love that now seemed to surround him. And amongst them, he heard Samantha’s voice, “James? Can you hear me? Where are you? I’m by the staircase down. Please hurry!”

Bond pressed his lips to the cold wall. “Samantha!” he whispered. “Stay where you are. I’m coming for you.”

He pulled away, and started pushing through the crowds, deaf to their protests and angry mutters. He moved through the schoolgirls, who all giggled behind their hands again, and was attempting to move past the heavy form of a particularly overweight tourist when a chill ran through his body.

He could see the back of Henk’s head, moving towards the exit. Henk wasn't bothering with “excuse me’s” and “pardon me’s” like Bond; he moved through the crowd like a tornado, scattering the people aside. Bond’s stomach lurched. Just as he had heard secrets pass from one side of the dome to the other, so Henk had heard Samantha pinpoint her location from the opposite side. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he pushed through, trying to get closer, trying to get to her before him.

And now the crowds parted, and from his position Bond saw Henk catch up with Samantha. He saw Henk reach out with his hand, and the glint of metal as it flashed through the air towards her throat. And he heard her scream.

Her scream rose up into the dome and echoed around them. Her scream stopped the whispers from the tourists. Her scream stopped the singing of the choir. Her scream stopped the world. It bounced off every surface in the cathedral, every archway, every window, every floor, and each time it came back to Bond. All he could hear, round and round in his head was her scream, and all he could see was the red slash that appeared on her throat as Henk’s blade sliced into her flesh. Then all he could see was her body toppling backwards, over the low fence around the gallery, and her dying, beautiful, fragile form was plummeting away from him, downwards, so far, so long, downwards, before crashing into the marble floor below.

And suddenly Samantha’s scream was replaced by his own. A primitive roar echoed from Bond’s mouth as he ran round the gallery, pushing people aside, running for Henk. He was surprised to see Bond, and 007 launched himself at the man. Their bodies toppled backwards, into the spiral stairwell, and for the second time that day Bond felt himself being buffeted by harsh stone steps. But this time he was clinging to Henk, and their bodies twisted down the well together, Bond using the larger man to shield him from the worst.

At the bottom, they parted, his grasp on Henk’s collar slipped away. They sprawled into the centre of the cathedral. Both men were dazed, stunned by the fall.

Henk was the first to react. He dragged himself upwards, clinging to a pew to give himself the energy to become vertical again. His knife had been lost somewhere in the fall. He struggled to regain his vision, his strength.

Bond rolled over onto his front, and began to pull himself to his feet. His body felt like a mass of bruises, a hundred pain spots scattered all over him. Sickness welled up within his stomach. His dizzy vision picked up the sight of Henk, dragging himself towards the exits. He seemed to exist within a white pinprick of light that was shrinking, faster and faster. Bond could only manage a painful “No!” before unconsciousness took hold of him.

jetsetwilly

Chapter Six

SACRIFICIAL LAMB

Bond shifted from side to side in the chair. The seats outside M’s office were uncomfortable enough as it was, with their hard backs and unsympathetic fabric. In his current physical state however, they were doubly so. His left hand side was a mass of bruises which protested at the slightest touch.

He was livid inside. His stomach turned with fury and rage with every second M kept him in the outer office. This was punishment. When he was released from the police station, after hours of pointless cyclical questioning, there was a message awaiting him on his mobile; Miss Moneypenny, M’s desirable secretary. “She wants you James. Quick as you can.”

He had returned to his Chelsea flat first, to shower and change and to check the welter of purple marks that covered his body. Then he had sped across Vauxhall Bridge to face the music.

Now he waited. The red light above M’s door seemed to burn all the more furiously. Bond felt his stomach churn. He had eaten barely anything since the previous night, only some hastily grabbed gruyere at his apartment. He leaned back against the harsh chair. Every time he closed his eyes he could see her fall. Her scream underlined his thoughts. Her immobile, bloody body hovered beneath his emotions. He crushed his hands into fists to hide the rage.

The light clicked to green, and the door opened. Moneypenny walked through, a sheaf of papers under her arm. She stopped Bond as he stood up. “She’s ready for you James. But she’s not happy.”

“Neither am I.” Bond strode into the office. M was pouring herself two fingers of bourbon. She turned and watched Bond as he came in, then motioned for him to sit down. Her lips were pursed tightly.

“You’ve had a busy day.”

Bond stared at her, ignoring the sarcasm that dripped from her comment. His eyes followed her as she settled in behind her desk. For a few moments, two pairs of blue eyes bore into one another. Then she spoke.

“I have had the head of Scotland Yard on the telephone, 007, asking for an explanation for your antics in the cathedral today. I have two answers prepared for him. The first is that you were involved in an unauthorised Secret Service operation in the City of London, an illegal act which is forbidden by various acts of parliament and which would trample rather forcefully on the Yard’s toes. The second is that you were in some way involved in the murder of an ex-lover of yours in one of this country’s most sacred, and most public, sites. Either way, neither you nor this organisation come out particularly well.” She sipped at her drink. “Which answer is it to be?”

“You know who the victim was?”

“Doctor Samantha Catchlove. Your first dalliance with her hardly ended in the best of circumstances. It appears that you and the Catchlove family really should not mix.”

At that moment, Bond would have gladly told M where to put the service, where to put her opinions, where to put her loathsome sarcasm. Instead, he said, with great control and force, “Angus Catchlove is not dead.”

M didn’t react. She pressed the rim of the glass to her lips, but did not drink. There was a pause in the tensions between them. She said, slowly, “Why do you think that?”

Bond told her the whole story, beginning with his departure from SriGhana what seemed like an age ago but was really less than twenty four hours. He left nothing out, describing Samantha’s conversations in detail. M listened carefully, occasionally making notes on the pad before her, but mostly just watching Bond as he lost himself in the story.

As he finished, the distant chimes of Big Ben managed to penetrate the bullet proof window and signal six p.m. Silence filled the room, but a different silence to the tension when he had first entered.

M said, “What happened to Henk?”

Bond bristled in his chair. “He broke the neck of the one security guard who tried to stop him. The police have a watch out for him. Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton. The Channel ports and the tunnel.”

“And the City constabulary? Are you under any kind of arrest I should be made aware of?”

“I was released without charge. After several hours of fruitless questioning, I might add.”

“No you may not add, 007.” M leaned forward and banged her glass down on the desk. “You seem to misunderstand the gravity of the position you have placed this organisation and myself in. For the second time, a prominent British scientist has been very publicly murdered while in your care-“ she raised a hand to halt his protestations – “and murdered in a way which causes your skills into question.

“You are a capable and highly efficient agent, 007. For many years, the Service and, by extension, the nation and its allies have benefited from your talents. When you fail to prevent a murder in St Paul’s, however, questions are asked. When that failure is intimately related to a previous failure, more voices join the criticism. And those voices carry great weight. Especially with the more hysterical elements of the British media baying for a head.

“We live in precarious times, Bond. A Secret Service must be seen to be accountable. And in the absence of Mr Henk’s presence at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, heads begin to be called for.” She sighed and returned to a more relaxed stance in her chair. “Particularly when the head belongs to an agent who has already passed what is considered the normal retirement age for active service.”

Bond glowered within. “Is my position within this service at stake? Is my record to be so easily dismissed?” Again, the rage simmered beneath him. He understood what was happening here. He was being scapegoated. He was being made to pay to stop questions from being asked, questions which might reflect badly on the government. He had seen the headlines on the Standard and the Metro – “Murder in the Cathedral”, “Death at St Pauls”. The tabloids in the morning would be baying for blood in their usual self-righteous manner. Bond was to be the sacrificial lamb, pensioned off before his time. Or at least, before what he considered was his time. Once again he felt the dread fingers of age at his neck.

M seemed to read his mind “It is your record which means we are having this conversation, 007, instead of you being on the first plane to Nepal as the new head of station. It is your record which has allowed you to justify yourself, and, if what you say about Angus Catchlove is true, it is your record which will give you the chance to right this slur against you. But I want you to realise that you are in a very priveliged and very precarious position here.” She took a deep sigh, and rolled her head back in her chair. “This government cannot admit that mistakes have occurred; it cannot ask the public to simply accept that errors can happen. The British people demand that every slight be accompanied by someone being made a scapegoat. Such is the twenty first century government. Until I provide them with an alternative head for the guillotine, 007, both you and I have our heads on the block.”

“Then finding Angus Catchlove, and proving he is still alive and in some sort of league with Rufus du Lyonne, would seem to be a priority.”

“It would. Which is why I expect you to give MI5 your full co-operation in their investigations.”

“Five?” Bond practically exploded. He had felt that he and M had reached a common ground. He thought that they both knew the importance of finding Catchlove. And now it seemed that it was being taken away from him and given to the men at MI5, men who, in Bond’s opinion, could not run a weekend of debauchery in Amsterdam. With great control, he said, “I was under the impression that I would be able to clear my own name – not rely on others to do it for me.”

“As I made clear 007, it is not within this Service’s remit to operate against British citizens on British soil. Those are the duties of the Security Service. I’ll make the arrangements for you to brief them in the morning. The Earl of Coldham is a significant public figure. Any investigation of him would already involve treading on eggshells. The odds on the Government permitting a potentially explosive agent to enter the mix are highly unlikely.”

She looked away from him, back to her laptop, closing her body to further discussion. Bond was incandescent. He wanted to wrench the PC away and demand that he be allowed the opportunity to fight for himself, to fight for the Service, to fight for Samantha, Instead, he took a deep, cleansing breath. Then he said;

“Forgive me for asking, but my original assignment in New York; was that not at the Prime Minister’s personal behest?”

M slowly raised her cool blue eyes to meet his. Was it his imagination, or was there a slight smile dancing at the corners? “It was.”

“Then, surely, one could argue that an investigation into Angus Catchlove’s disappearance would be an extension of that original assignment. One in which Number 10 specifically requested MI6 involvement.” He allowed himself a half-smile, watching for a response from his superior.

There was a heavy pause. Then M’s mouth also crept into a smile. “I suppose one could argue that.”

“And equally, one could argue that the original agent assigned to the case would be best qualified for any follow-up investigations?” Bond could feel the heady thrill of anticipation behind him. He had it! He had the case. He would find Angus, and by God he was going to make him pay.

“That would be a difficult, but not unreasonable case for me to present to the Prime Minister.” M sighed, then fixed Bond in her gaze. “This department does not advocate missions of personal vengeance, 007. If Angus Catchlove is alive, I want to know what he is up to, and I want him to answer for it. While he is alive, the situation is altered. If he dies, we are back at the status quo, and that will not help any of us.”

Bond nodded slowly. “I understand. As long as you also understand; Samantha Catchlove's death will not be in vain.”

To his surprise, M nodded her agreement.

jetsetwilly

Chapter Seven

MORGUE

Samantha’s apartment felt like a plane after depressurisation. It was as though every piece of life, of vitality, of energy had been blown out, and it had been refilled with cold stale air. If Bond had been a superstitious man, he would have shuddered as he felt the death that pervaded every corner claw at his face. Instead, he turned up his collar and closed the door shut behind him.

He had one hour. That was all he had managed to wheedle out of Scotland Yard. The Prime Minister’s letter had carried the necessary gravitas to get Bond onto investigating Samantha’s death, but it had been made abundantly clear to him that he was not part of the Yard’s team, and that they would fight and object to every one of his requests. Petty men with petty lives. Bond had argued and cajoled and finally gained the concession. One hour to look around Samantha’s apartment, alone, and check it for anything he saw as important before the police’s own men would do their own search. Anything he removed had to be shown to the two uniforms waiting outside the door, so they could bag and number it.

There were still the pathetic remains of their minimalist breakfast on the table, cups with the coffee dried brown inside. Samantha’s fur coat still lay on the floor where it had fallen from her shoulders when Bond had carried her through. He lifted it to his nose and breathed in her soft perfume, a gently flowered scent with a hint of exotic spice beneath. He laid the coat over the back of her clean white sofa and tried not to remember. To work.

Bond realised he was looking at the flat with new eyes. No pictures on the walls. No flowers in the vase on the sleek side board. A three week old celebrity magazine on the coffee table. So clinical and impersonal. He realised that yesterday, he hadn’t seen these cold edges in the same light. The life that filled the rooms had blunted and obscured them. They stood out as harsh elements of an impersonal space. Bond realised he had no desire to stay in this morgue beyond his allotted hour.

He hurried into the bedroom. Again, the cold impersonality of the space struck him. If Samantha had been curled within those crisp white sheets on the bed, it would have been a comforting cocoon. Now they just seemed like empty shrouds.

On the bedside table, a sign of humanity; the comforting debris of a woman’s life. Discarded tissues, some forgotten Euros, a Margaret Atwood. Unwillingly, he opened the drawer on the simple wooden cabinet. More feminine remains: some more coins, long-forgotten keys, lipstick cases with no sticks. And a diary.

Bond picked up the book and sat on the edge of the bed, cradling it in his hands. It was an academic diary, leather bound and bursting at the seams. Feeling ashamed of himself for violating her thoughts, Bond riffled through the pages. Samantha kept her memories close. There were ticket stubs, invitations, photographs, all stuck into the diary with sellotape. Incidents from her life flashed before him as the pages flickered to his touch. Happy smiles in pictures. A different, old Samantha, with friends, colleagues. Her eyes looked out at him from a Christmas party, from a trip to Paris, from a comfortable sofa in a friendly home.

He closed the book suddenly. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sit here, in her bedroom, and invade her privacy in this way. Bond took a plastic bag from his pocket and slipped the diary into it. He would take it to the office and consult it there – somewhere a little less personal, a little less imbued with Samantha.

The bathroom was like the bedroom – neat, tidy, cold. He checked inside the medicine cabinet. There were two bottles of antidepressants, issued a few months. Both were nearly empty.

Bond retreated to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water from the fridge. He had used up only half of his allotted hour, but even that was too much. He wanted to be out there, finding Angus, finding Henk, not rooting through the personal effects of a dead friend. He sipped at the Perrier and listened to bubbles hiss in the glass, the only sound within the tomb.

There was a stainless steel notice board on the wall, with magnets holding up bills and receipts. Bond glanced over them, but there was little of interest. His eyes were drawn to a piece of blank white card, tucked into the corner.

Not quite blank. As Bond tilted it in the light, he saw that it was embossed, so that the letters barely stood up above the surface. It was an invitation. Rufus du Lyonne requests the pleasure of your company at his 14th annual charity ball, in aid of the NSPCC. It was being held at du Lyonne’s house, in two days time – the same house where he had made his aborted attempt on Samantha’s life.

Bond pocketed the invitation. Perhaps it was time to meet the legendary Rufus du Lyonne.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 8

BLACK IN WHITE

Bond could see the party long before he reached it. As he turned into the elegant, tree-lined street that housed Coldham House, the London home of the du Lyonnes for over two hundred years, he was dazzled by the exploding starbursts of paparazzi flashbulbs midway down the street. Heavy searchlights illuminated the front of the building with an ice white glow. He gritted his teeth. This was going to be worse than he had thought.

Bond had walked to Belgravia from his Chelsea home, a fifteen minute walk but one that allowed him to gain some estimate of du Lyonne. His family had constructed the streets of SW1 during the era of George the Fourth, long white terraces of fine town houses, with ash and elm trees gently swaying in communal gardens. The gardens remained private to this day, and sometimes as he walked Bond caught a glimpse of winter flowers through barred gates. The street names were chosen by the du Lyonnes themselves, and still carried the hints of distant family members.

Most of the houses had since been divided and subdivided, turned into offices and flats, but the four-storey Coldham House had remained, directly in the centre of a row of houses, but three times as wide. Its hefty front was crowned with a portico depicting the Graces, and solid columns commanded the street. This was the centre of the lands around it; its’ landlord and protector. Indeed, most of the rents for the area still flowed into Coldham House, as the du Lyonnes retained ownership of the majority of the buildings in Belgravia – the foundation of their colossal wealth.

Bond’s refusal to take a car to the party gave him an advantage. The press were angled towards the roadway, waiting for yet another limousine to deposit more of the great and good onto the red carpet. He was able to slip through them, making the last movement through the entrance as a Rolls Royce arrived to disgorge a minor pop star.

The foyer was tastefully decorated in a crisp white, with lilies arranged around the room. The doorman, dressed in white to match the décor, looked Bond’s tuxedo up and down with a look of barely disguised distaste. Bond rankled at the man’s superior sneer; the tuxedo had been prepared for him by Creed & Thurlow, one of the finest tailors on Saville Row, who have been preparing suits for gentlemen since 1723. He handed the man the invitation card, which caused him to smirk all the more.

“You’re a braver man than I, sir,” he said, and indicated for Bond to proceed through.

There was a long passageway, draped in fine white satin, and then Bond stepped into the ballroom. At once he cursed himself. The secret agent, the man in the shadows, was now the most conspicuous man in the room.

Everything was white. The walls, the floors, the ceilings. All a crisp shade of pure white. It was as though gloss emulsion had simply been applied to every surface in the room. Picture frames still hung on the walls, but they were white frames around white canvases. The furniture around the centre of the white dance floor was antique, intricately carved chairs and tables, and they were all painted a single shade of white. White lights bounced off the white-framed mirrors.

Every single guest wore white. The men were uniformly in white suits, three piece, two piece, double breasted, tuxedo, but all in white. The women wore every variation of outfit possible in white. Some wore a slightly off-white, some edged perilously close to cream, but all had a unifying concept of colour.

And now Bond stood at the head of the white steps into the room, in his black tie. Eyes turned to greet the new arrival. Eyebrows were raised. Hands covered tittering mouths.

Bond felt like a child on stage at a nativity, a boy who had forgotten his lines and now the whole audience stood and waited for him to speak. He felt a surge of embarrassment well up within him.

Then he stopped. He inhaled slowly. James Bond marched across the dance floor, through the giggling crowds, not pausing or hesitating once. He strode purposefully to the bar, and said, “A medium dry vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.”

It broke the spell. Bond’s failure to blush, or collapse, or run away defused the crowds. They lost interest. Those dozens of pairs of eyes twisted back into place and left Bond to himself.

The room was filled with the beautiful people. Everywhere Bond looked, a famous face looked back. In a corner, the latest addition to the burgeoning ranks of Anglophile Hollywood actresses swapped bon mots with a legendary pop performer. Two grande dames of the theatre held court on a sofa, entertaining younger performers with indiscreet tales of the West End’s past. A clutch of Premiership footballers shifted uncomfortably in their suits as they drank their Hoegaardens. Weaving amongst the dancers on the floor, a pencil-thin “It girl” and her equally skinny supermodel friend.

Around the famous faces stood the money, and the power. Titled heads Bond recognised from their infrequent appearances in the Lords; dull businessmen with millions falling from their wallets. And in amongst them all, a photographer and reporter from Hello! magazine, trapping a figure for a paragraph’s worth of gushing sycophancy.

Bond felt repulsed. He had entered “society”, that most dreadful of all social classes, where humanity was judged on its designer labels and its column inches. James Bond was an unabashed, unashamed snob about many things. He considered wine with outrageous care. He could not conceive any circumstances under which he would turn to a commercial channel, and not the BBC, for his news and entertainment. He found that music with more than 80 beats per minute was “music” in only the loosest possible terms. These were opinions which made him out of synch with many others in Britain, and which, he admitted, allowed him to feel more comfortable and pleasured in his life. They were snobberies that made him James Bond.

These people however, glanced over the cut of one’s Armani and dismissed you if it was deemed unsatisfactory. They moved in high, exalted circles, whose air was so thin it had made them unable to dwell back on Earth. They spoke to people in their orbit; they dismissed people who had not yet attained their lofty heights. Bond watched as an Oscar winning actress casually dismissed a conversational overture from a highly talented, but relatively unknown Shakespearian actor, and felt repulsed. He ordered a second Martini, swallowed it swiftly, and requested a third. A perverse part of him revelled in the commotion his black tie had caused among them, and spurred him on to irritate them further.

At that point, the lights in the room suddenly dropped, and the band went silent. There were a few moments of tense, nervous chatter, and then a single powerful beam of light, like a glowing column on the stage, broke through the black. Into the light stepped Rufus du Lyonne.

“My friends,” he said, honeyed tones ushering his words out into the crowds. “I am so very, very pleased to see you here. This is the fourteenth year that I have opened my home to you all, and once again you have honoured me with your presence for such a very good cause. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a charity who should not exist. I am hoping that with your support here tonight, we can help to end the concept of child cruelty, and make this a better world.”

As he spoke, Bond allowed himself the opportunity to size up Rufus du Lyonne. He was tall, just a hair over six feet, with thin, aquiline features. His black hair was slicked back against his head, and this, combined with his high and noticeable cheekbones, gave his head something of the appearance of a skull. What belied the impression of a death’s head, though, were the eyes; two emerald green pools that radiated from within their sockets, scanning the room. Bond recognized that the eyes would be seductive to a lover, and destructive to an enemy; two direct paths into du Lyonne’s soul. The hollow cheeks lead ones eye to the thin lips, which moved only slightly as he talked. It was as though the corners of the mouth were superfluous to requirements, they were used so little; only the centre parted to allow the words out.

It was only when du Lyonne paused to smile at a round of applause that Bond realised why he would speak this way. His teeth were terribly irregular, sharp and twisted and ill-formed within his mouth. His two canines erupted from high in the gums, giving them an undue prominence which brought to mind a vampire’s teeth. Bond pictured the young Rufus at public school, putting up with the cruel taunts of his school mates, and how over time he opened his mouth less and less to conceal his malformed teeth. Perhaps that was also the reason why he had grown a pencil moustache, a long narrow black strip that hugged his top lip – another distraction technique from his open mouth. It gave him the air of a cad, a debonair charmer who would woo a woman in the evening and leave her in the morning - but with a smile across her face.

Bond knew from the newspaper reports that Rufus du Lyonne was in his late forties, but the only signs of aging on the man were subtle flecks of grey that peppered his hair. There was, however, a stillness to his face, an immobility that Bond attributed to Botox, the legendary botulism derivative that paralyses the facial muscles. Certainly his ostentatious Alexander McQueen suit, made out of white silk with a delicate cream vine motif on the lapels, hinted at a vanity that had not been mentioned in the various profiles.

Du Lyonne was a man who was greatly profiled. He was such a public figure – “The Great Patriot”. It was du Lyonne who had captured the headlines by bailing out the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations when they seemed to be on the verge of collapse, firstly with money, then by taking hold of the project and reshaping it. Many said the weekend of patriotic fervour which resulted would not have been achieved if he had not been there, an inspiration to all. His money flowed into projects of national importance – purchasing valuable works of art, then donating them to the National Gallery or the British Museum, funding restoration works on ancient castles, pumping cash into the British Olympic team. The Coldham Organisation was also a valuable charitable trust – this NSPCC ball was one of a string of functions and fundraisers that raised millions every year. He was a hero.

And, Bond reminded himself as he watched du Lyonne winding up his speech, he was a man who had threatened Samantha Catchlove, who had worked to fake the death of a renown scientist, who was probably the man who ordered Samantha’s death. The police had not established any link between Henk and du Lyonne – had not found anything on Henk at all, in fact, besides a spell in a South African prison for aggravated rape – but Bond knew that he was involved.

“I will be leaving you all tomorrow,” said du Lyonne, and the crowd responded with moans and sighs. “Off to the plains of Africa to oversee my newest projects. But you know I will always be thinking of you here, my friends. There will always be a part of me here with you. Just as there will forever be a part of me in England.” He smiled his razor-filled smile and raised two silk-gloved hands. “Now please; music!”

The light around him collapsed, and different lights picked up the band on the stage – an impossibly fashionable four-piece who erupted into the current number one. Bond did not applaud. Instead he watched as du Lyonne slipped into the crowd, glad handling and back slapping, hugging and air-kissing. A slim girl slipped beside him, into the crook of his arm, and Bond watched his hand slide behind her and rest on her perfectly formed behind.

He wanted to get out of here. Bond finished his martini and plunged into the dance floor. The lights had been turned to a strobe, and Bond picked his way through the jerkily moving dancers, their zoetrope forms shifting frame by frame. He suspected that the white fabric tunnel he had entered through had been built within the entrance hall as a way of keeping the majority of the house separated from the party. If he was to investigate du Lyonne, the secrets would be held beyond there.

The band shifted their song, so that powerful electric guitars suddenly pounded onto the stage. The shifting bodies moved too, twisting away from Bond. The strobe was beginning to burn into his eyes. The light flashed on, and off, and on, and off, and there he was.

Suddenly he was face to face with Rufus du Lyonne.

jetsetwilly

Chapter Nine

BEHIND THE VEIL

Du Lyonne pressed a giant Cuban cigar between his teeth and grinned. In the harsh strobe light, it looked like the rictus grin of a corpse. “Ah,” he said, half to Bond, and half to the group of hangers-on who surrounded him, “it’s the man in black. I had a wager with my publicist about who would be brave enough to break the dress code. I thought it would be one of the more flamboyant pop artistes; he thought it would be one of the dour suits from the business world. As it turns out, it was neither.” He extended a hand to 007. “Rufus du Lyonne.”

“Bond. James Bond.” He took the gloved hand and shook it slowly, never taking his eyes from du Lyonne. The other man raised a single eyebrow as Bond said his name. Was there a glint of recognition in his eye?

“Bond?” he repeated. “I don’t recall your name on the guest list, Mr Bond. Don’t tell me you’re a gate crasher as well as a fashion pariah.”

“I used a friend’s invitation to get in. I was interested at the prospect of meeting you.”

“So many people are.” Du Lyonne, and his acolytes, laughed. The petite blonde who clung to his side raised a hand to her mouth and giggled.

“I believe you and my friend were very close,” Bond continued. “Doctor Samantha Catchlove.”
At the mention of Samantha’s name, du Lyonne’s face dropped. The smile vanished, and he cast his eyes downward. “Poor Samantha. Such a beautiful soul, such a kind heart. Her death was a great blow to me. And in such horrendous circumstances too.”

“I understood you and she were more than friends..”

The eyes came back up to Bond’s. “We had been friends for many years. Both she and her late husband possessed fine minds, and I believe in surrounding myself with kindred spirits. After Angus’ death, I helped her to recover, to rebuild her life. I was privileged to be in her world. But more than that… no. I sometimes thought she wanted more, but…” He sighed. “Sadly, Samantha was a very ill woman. Her mind – it was not what it had once been.”

Bond bristled as he watched the man lie. He resisted the urge to strike him with a single blow, and said through gritted teeth, “She told me of your relationship just before she died. One would think that, given the circumstances, holding a lavish party might be construed as… distasteful?” There was a shift in the air between the two men now, a harsh electricity of anger. Each stood his ground, challenging the other. The blonde girl’s smile had fractured now, and was nervous. She was caught in the cross fire.

“Mr Bond, this party will raise thousands for underprivileged children. I may have my own personal grief, but the show must go on. For the good of the children.”

“I see.” For a moment, there was a silence. Then the smile returned to du Lyonne’s face.

“But I’m ignoring my other guests. Try and enjoy yourself, Mr Bond. Put the past behind you. It’s all for the best.” He swept past Bond, carrying his fawners along behind him. Bond felt his lip curling as he watched him recede into the dancing throngs. There was a flinty quality to the Earl of Coldham, a hardness beneath his empathetic comments. He had watched du Lyonne as he professed his sadness at Samantha’s death, and he felt like a TV. audience watching well-rehearsed platitudes from a politician at a disaster scene. Written words that convey the blood but miss the fire.

He turned away, barrelling towards the exit. There was more to his relationship with Samantha than friendship and support; there were clues in this house to Angus’ location. Bond knew these facts. He could feel them. And he would prove them.

The silk entrance-tunnel was cold and low-lit now that the party guests were here. A token bouncer sat by the door, but his attentions were on the newspaper in his lap.

Bond ran his fingertips along the fabric, feeling for the joins. Ah. There it was. Two pieces of heavy silk were joined together by Velcro.

The key with Velcro fastenings, like creaky doors and aged floorboards, is to get by as quickly as possible. Bond withdrew a credit card from his pocket and slipped it into the top of the Velcro strip. In one swift move, he pulled the credit card down, separating the hard nylon strands with only a single swift cry. Then he was through before the two hook and eye fastenings reconnected.

Bond smiled wryly as he put the credit card back into his wallet, remembering the good old days when a piece of plastic could open more secure fastenings.

The hallway behind the silken tent was a classic nineteenth century construction – marble, chandeliers, heavy carpeting up the stairs. Samantha had spoken off falling from a window into the garden. He theorised that would make du Lyonne’s parlour – the room where he had attacked her – upstairs, and to the rear of the house.

Bond advanced up the stairs, feeling the familiar tautness in his throat with each step. Infiltration grasps hold of an agent’s body; it pinions it, and fills every sinew with tension. Bond loved to hear his blood pounding in his ears as he crept along a darkened hallway.

There was a long wide corridor at the top of the stairs, and a balcony running around the upper level of the hallway. Bond moved silently along it, his ears alert for patrolling security. He hoped he would be able to hear the advance of someone amidst the muffled cacophony of the band downstairs.

Infrequent doors lay on either side of the corridor, but Bond guessed that his prize was behind the double doors at the end. They were slightly ajar. He pressed his ear against one of the doors, listening. Nothing. A move, and he was inside.

Winter moonlight streamed in through two open windows at one side of the parlour. It was a dark, masculine room, heavy with Empire wallpaper and thick leather sofas. An ornate writing desk stood against one wall, while a door behind the desk hinted at a small wash room. Strewn across the coffee table in the centre were a selection of broadsheets.

Floating in the air was a vaguely plastic scent, mixed with the cold tang of fresh paint. Bond crossed to one the windows and ran his fingers along the frame. The putty holding the glass in was still slightly malleable. The glass had been replaced, and recently.

This was where du Lyonne had attacked Samantha. This was where he had told her that Angus was alive.

Bond allowed himself a grim smile. But only momentarily. The noise of the band had paused between tracks, and in the relative silence Bond could hear voices. Deep, male voices – getting closer.

The only way open to him was the door behind the desk. Bond ran across the study, listening as the muffled sounds became identifiable words, became sentences, became a conversation that was closing in on him. He ripped the door open and jumped inside.

Two facts registered as the door clicked shut behind him. Firstly, this was not a bathroom. It was an alcove that had been closed off with a door to form a cupboard. As such, it was barely eighteen inches wide, and filled with dead, stale air.

Secondly, there was already someone else in there.

jetsetwilly

Chapter Ten

INTIMACY

Bond caught an impression of little more than a shocked mouth and two wide eyes before the door clicked shut behind him and plunged them into darkness. He slapped his hand across the lips and pressed the body backwards, forcing the two of them into the farthest corner of the cupboard. As he did so he hissed: “Not a word.”

There was no response. Bond’s senses were suddenly assaulted by a variety of sensations. An exotic perfume filled his nostrils, heavy with jasmine and passion flower, and his fingertips at the small of his companion’s back slid over soft satin. He felt the heavy movement of a woman’s chest against his own, as their two heartbeats pounded with tension in unison.

Memories of childishly erotic games of sardines came back to Bond, the nervous crouching in darkened holes, the thrill as you were joined by another. The strange sensations as your figures clung to one another in the darkness. The feel of this woman against him was undoubtedly powerful. But who was she? Why was she here?

Their two bodies held close as the door to the lounge clattered open. Bond could hear one – no, two, figures entering, their footsteps clattering on the hardwood floor.

“Any sign?” The voice was muffled, but still audible, through the cupboard door.

“Nah, nuffin,” came the thick Cockney of his companion. “Let’s try downstairs again. I fancy another drink while I’m down there.”

The door clicked shut again, and Bond and his companion were alone once more. He relaxed a little, but the feel of the girl pressed close to him in the cramped space was as exciting as ever. Slowly he released his hand from her mouth. “Sorry about that,” he whispered.

“You know, normally I ask a man to buy me a drink before I let him press up against me in a cupboard.” There was an unidentifiable accent to the woman’s voice. The English was excellent, but there was a tightness of the vowels that hinted at the Southern hemisphere. What shone beneath the words was a smile.

“I’ll treat you the minute we get back downstairs,” grinned Bond.

“That could be a while. In your rush to join me, I don’t suppose you noticed that there’s no door handle on the inside.”

It was impossible for Bond to turn round and confirm this without making both their positions considerably closer. Instead he reached his left hand behind, to feel the crack between the doors, and he slid his fingertips down. He could feel a simple key hole but, as she said, there was no sign of a handle. He pressed against it in an exploratory fashion, but it refused to yield.

“Hmm. Looks like we’re stuck in here together then.”

“Indeed.”

“I’m sure we’ll find some way to pass the time.”

“I bet you’re full of suggestions.”

“I spy, perhaps.”

There was a tiny tinkling giggle, a mere rhapsody of sound that none the less sounded highly desirable. “It’s darker than a coal mine in here. What do you expect to spy?”

“I thought we could play the alternative version. Let our other senses do the work.” He grinned rakishly despite himself. “Touch, for example.”

“Hmm. Perhaps you’d be better off putting your sense of touch to work on the door. I’m sure if you pushed hard enough you’ll be able to pop the lock, or something.” Her voice seemed to dance through the darkness. Bond couldn’t help but picture an incredibly attractive owner. He made an attempt to shrug, but the restrictive space limited him. “I would do my best,” he said, “but this isn’t exactly a space that’s conducive to extreme physical activity.”

“That’s not what you was implying a moment ago.” Again, the smile underscored her words. “Perhaps if you could turn around, you might get a better look at the situation? Don’t worry about pressing up against me in your efforts. Judging by our positions right now, we’re practically engaged.”

“Alright,” Bond said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He moved back as far as he could – a matter of centimetres – then slowly revolved through one hundred and eighty degrees. He heard the soft swish as her gown slid over his legs, and for a moment, their hands brushed against one another as he shifted into place. As he settled into position, her legs settled either side of his, straddling him from behind. He couldn’t help but reflect that in another place, and at another time, this would be an incredibly erotic moment. As it was, he could feel a quickening of his heart beat as the girl settled into place behind him. He felt her warm breath on the back of his neck.

Now he could see the lock for what it was, a plain and simple cupboard clasp. The rasp on his key ring would make simple work of it. He said over his shoulder, “We’ll be out of here in a moment. I have something that’ll get this open.” He pulled the lock pick from his trouser pocket, and guided it down to the hole in the door.

As he bent slightly to get to work, his back slid into her, so that they became two angled spoons, slotted into one another’s bodies. He felt her hands shift behind him, then a pencil-thin beam of light was illuminating his work. He glanced backwards. “You’re well prepared.”

“You’d be surprised at the things a girl keeps in her handbag.”

“Not all girls. Could you lean in a little closer? The beam isn’t quite in the right place.”

There was a cynical snort, but she pushed in closer, her left arm sliding around his torso and holding him across the chest for balance.

“You still haven’t introduced yourself, by the way,” said Bond.

“Nor have you. And you haven’t explained what you’re doing skulking in wardrobes, either. It makes it all the more interesting, don’t you think?”

Bond grinned, as a click signalled that the lock was open. “Looks like we’re free.” He stood up, and his movement sent her slightly off balance. He felt her handbag fall between his legs.

With one hand, Bond pushed the door open, and with the other he snatched the bag up. He stepped into the lounge and felt around inside. There it was – a soft leather purse. He flipped it open to the credit card holder, and read the name on the Visa. Ms K Sinclair.

Pleased with himself, Bond turned to get his first glimpse of the girl as she left the cupboard. What he saw was one of the most beautiful girls in the world.

She was tall, and amazingly slender. Two magnificent breasts nestled within the deeply-cut v of the soft violet dress. The colour of the silk reflected off her dark brown skin, the colour of mahogany, and made it glow. As she walked from the cupboard, her full red lips curled into a wicked smile.

Her face was proud, and inspired. Bond was reminded of a bust of Nefertiti he had seen in a museum; the upturned chin and thin nose carried the same command and power. She would be a forceful woman and a physical lover. The wide eyes that he had glimpsed in the darkness now shone under the lights, deep brown pools that looked into Bond’s own eyes and connected. Her hair was closely cropped to her head, accentuating her profile.

As she walked forward, her hands demurely placed behind her back, long, powerful legs were glimpsed through the slits in the side of the long dress. She came within a few feet of Bond, and stared at him. The curl of her smile, the movement of her hips, the defiant thrust of her breasts, carried a powerful sexual challenge to him. “I believe that purse is mine.”

“Certainly, Miss Sinclair.”

She raised a single eyebrow then, from behind her back, produced Bond’s own wallet. Like him, she read the cards inside. “My pleasure, Mr Bond.”

Bond shook his head, mostly in admiration. She must have pulled it from his inside pocket when she slipped her arm around him. They swapped wallets, and he said, “So I take it from the colour of your dress that you weren’t officially invited either. How did you get in?”

She shrugged. “Du Lyonne may have paid the gorillas on the door a fortune, but he pays the asylum seekers who staff his kitchens a lot less. Minimum wage doesn’t buy much loyalty. I just…”

“Showed them a little kindness?”

“And if you wasn’t invited either, why are you here? Let me guess: from the tuxedo, I’d say gentleman thief. Are you a cat burglar, hoping to score?”

“Maybe not the first part,” he grinned. “Why don’t we go somewhere and discuss this?” Though Bond wanted nothing more than to talk to this woman in privacy, he still hadn’t had a chance to search the house. He was sure that if he looked hard enough, he could find some indication as to the location of Angus Catchlove. But he couldn’t do it with Miss Sinclair around.

“It’s a tempting offer, but I have to be elsewhere.”

“We could meet later on.”

“Thank you Mr Bond, but if I don’t get home soon this dress will turn to rags and my car becomes a pumpkin.” She brushed a speck of dust from his jacket with a smile, then walked to the door. Bond watched her walk away, a fantastic movement that shifted the silk over the elegant curve of her behind, and then she slipped out of the door and was gone.

Bond caressed the memory of her for a moment, then reluctantly turned his mind to the search. There would have to be an office somewhere in the house. This was more of a parlour, an informal place for relaxation. Perhaps one of the other doors in the corridor? He pressed his ear against the door, to make sure there was no-one outside, then slipped through and tried the first door handle.

It was a perfectly ordinary bedroom, probably a guest room, decked out with soft country furniture and with a view over the gardens. He presumed that the designers had decided upon a French feel. The only unusual feature was a large map over the head of the bed, quite at odds with the rustic feel of the room. It was a facsimile of the famous Hargraves’ Map of The British Empire, depicting the world with British colonies and dependants coloured pink. He could not understand why such an incongruous item should be allowed to intrude upon the “theme” of the room.

Bond opened the door to leave, and jerked backwards in shock. Standing outside, smiling at him, were two large, heavy men in dark black outfits. The man on the left held a revolver in his hand, pointing at Bond. “Evenin’”, he said, and Bond recognised his voice. He was the Cockney who had searched the room earlier. “If you could come with us, sir. His Grace would like a word.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 11

MAN OF FIRE

The garage was beneath the house; cold and wet. Two black Land Rovers were parked beside a Jaguar XJS in British Racing Green. Tools hung from the wall, and a single shaded light in the ceiling cast a cone of yellow light over the vacant centre of the space. Beneath the light was a low tin bath on the concrete floor.

The two men hurried Bond down the stairs into the garage with the gun, then stood either side of the bath. He looked around at the murky blue darkness, sizing up angles of escape. If it weren’t for the unblinking eye of the revolver, trained unwaveringly on his stomach, Bond thought he could break out. The two men were large, but carried the paunches of men who have lived the soft life for two long. Their muscles were becoming lax through paucity of use. In a straight fight, he would have the advantage of speed and agility to counteract their numbers.

“It seems your boss was enjoying the party too much to come down for a chat,” he said. “Tell you what; why don’t I just get going, and leave you boys to it?”

The thug with the gun raised it so that it was level with Bond’s face, then whipped it across his cheek. Bond felt the heavy metal crash into him, and was knocked off balance. The other man took the opportunity, and forced him downwards, onto his knees, as 007 tried to regain the feeling in his jaw.

“Well done, my good men,” came the voice of Rufus du Lyonne from the staircase behind him. “I take it there was no trouble?”

“He couldn’t wait to talk to you, Boss,” said the man with the gun. Du Lyonne walked down the stairs, and stood in front of Bond, across the tin bath.

“James. Bond.” He pronounced each word as a distinct clause. “Somehow, I knew our paths would cross once again. I’m a firm believer that history is cyclical.”

“You mean, what goes around, comes around,” said Bond through a mouthful of blood. He spat it into the centre of the silver bathtub.

“In a manner of speaking. Alfie, would you get me a chair? And then start filling the tub for Mr Bond’s bath.”

“Yes sir,” said the unarmed thug. He returned with a wooden chair for du Lyonne, then disappeared into the shadows once more. “Thank you,” said du Lyonne, settling into the seat. “Now Joseph, if I could have my gun back? I don't think we'll be needing it any longer. Mr Bond appears to be quite a reasonable man.”

Joseph passed the revolver over to du Lyonne and he stowed it in a shoulder holster beneath his extravagant jacket. Before Bond could move, however, Joseph’s hands clamped around his upper arms, holding him in place.

“Why are you here, Mr Bond?”

He looked up into du Lyonne’s cold eyes. There was little point in lying. Perhaps a little of the truth would pay dividends. “I’m looking for Angus Catchlove.”

“Angus Catchlove is dead. I believe you saw that first hand. His widow told me all about your attempt to protect him. I understand he is somewhere at the bottom of the Hudson River. Or is it the East River?”

“Samantha seemed to think differently.”

“Samantha believed a lot of things. Samantha was not a well woman.” Alfie had returned, with a five-litre canister of petrol. He unscrewed the lid, and began pouring it into the bathtub. “Does Her Majesty’s Government make a habit of investigating the ramblings of emotionally strained neurotics? As a British taxpayer, I think I should be told.”

“They do when that neurotic, as you so delightfully put it, is murdered in cold blood on the orders of her former lover.” Bond stared into the man, bile mixing with the blood in his words.

“I take it from your venomous stare that you’re referring to me.” Du Lyonne’s lips shifted into a smile. “I also take it that you have evidence to support your claims before I make an official complaint.”

Bond was silent. The noxious scent of the fuel in the tub drifted upwards, and brought water to his eyes. Alfie had retrieved a second canister, and was now adding it to the first.

Du Lyonne nodded to himself. “I thought not. So what we have here is an uninvited member of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, gate crashing a private party with the intent of wreaking revenge on a man he believes to be responsible for the death of his former lover. And all without a shred of evidence.”

“I know about Henk.” Bond thought back to the Barbican, to Samantha’s terrified face. She knew Henk. She knew Henk through du Lyonne. “Samantha told me he was your factotum,” he lied.

Du Lyonne expelled the breath between his ogre’s teeth in a long hiss. “I see.” He shook his head. “Mr Henk is superb at his job, as you saw for yourself Mr Bond. That’s why I used him for this most delicate of tasks. Unfortunately, he is rather easy to identify. That tattoo is a badge of honour to him.”

“Where is he now? Hiding upstairs?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I had Mr Henk out of the country before Samantha Catchlove’s body was cold. I am a very powerful man, Mr Bond. There is very little that is out of my power.”

Alfie had filled the bath to the brim now with thick, brown petroleum. It glistened under the light, rainbows fracturing and reforming on its surface. Du Lyonne reached down and ran his hand through its depths, stirring it into whirlpools.

“You have no idea what power I have in my hands, Mr Bond. You and I are not so very different. We are both working for our nation’s future. We have the interests of England at heart. But I operate on a somewhat larger scale. You kill a man in a foreign land, and a stream takes a slight detour. It wanders a little off course. I, on the other hand, possess so much more. My wealth flows through the banks of this country, through the Stock Exchange, through the pockets of my many employees. My voice speaks to Ministers and Princes, and they listen and work. I have spent decades influencing the flow of the river, turning it, twisting it, making its waters carry me to ever greater riches and success. Do you understand me, Mr Bond?”

“I understand that you have delusions of grandeur. I understand that you and I have nothing in common.”

Du Lyonne pulled his wet, oily hand from the bathtub and slipped it behind Bond’s neck. With one sharp movement, he pulled Bond’s head downwards, into the petrol. He felt a rush of nausea as the thick substance flowed around him, its noxious taste filling his mouth and nose. He struggled to break free, but the hands at his head and arms held him fast. Then du Lyonne was pulling his hair, and Bond was pulled free from the vile substance. He coughed and hacked for breath, desperately trying to refill his lungs with fresh air. His eyes were obscured by a thick brown film, and stung madly. There was a roaring in his ears as the liquid swam around inside.

Du Lyonne was laughing to himself. He had retained his hold on Bond’s scalp, and twisted his fingertips deeper into his hair, tightening his hold. He turned to Alfie and said something. Bond couldn’t hear, but a moment later a rag that stank of oil was wiping at his eyes and clearing his ears. Still Bond coughed though, trying to rid his mouth of the nausea. His body racked with the urge to vomit, but he held it back.

“We are alike, Mr Bond. We are patriots. We believe in justice and truth. We believe in the concept of a Great Britain. Your methods differ from mine. That is all. While you react, taking orders in your role as a blunt tool, I innovate, I initiate, I begin the processes. Look at your reasons for being here. You are following up on the death of a man two years ago, following his wife’s death, following a trail of clues and coincidences.

“I, on the other hand, am the man who initiated this little path. Two years ago, I had the foresight to realise that if a man truly wished to work without distractions and outside influences, he had to disappear. And the best way to disappear, is to die. And that if he was to be really considered gone, he needed an expert witness. Perhaps a man who had seen so much death, he would see it where it didn’t exist. A man like you, Mr Bond. And my subtle influences saw you assigned, and my innovative genius saw Angus Catchlove spirited away from right under your nose.”

“Where?” spat Bond. “Come on du Lyonne. Where to?”

Du Lyonne plunged Bond’s head back into the thick vat of fuel. But Bond was better prepared this time. He managed to grasp a lungful of air and held it there, his aching jaw clamped shut, trying to ignore the rush of sickening scents that entered him. Then he was out again, gasping for breath once more, and the cloth was back to clear his vision and his ears. He felt salt water running down his cheeks as his body tried to clean his eyes.

“An irrelevance. Angus Catchlove is away, and working for me. You’ll soon witness our work. The whole world will.” He released Bond’s hair, and sat back. “Or perhaps you won’t.”

Du Lyonne removed the two silk gloves from his hands. The right was now ruined, black and dripping. Bond gasped as he removed the left. Protruding slightly from the side of the hand was a length of flesh, perhaps little more than an inch. A sixth finger. Du Lyonne caught Bond’s stare, and held his hand up so that he could see it more clearly. It was ill-formed, with no fingernail, just a section of skin and bone that protruded slightly from the side of his hand. Du Lyonne flexed his fingers, and it moved a little too, a malformed digit accompanying its more typical brothers. “My birthright,” said du Lyonne proudly. “A congenital abnormality passed through generations of du Lyonnes. A symbol of our family. A sign of my heritage, and my proud past.”

“A deformity,” said Bond, through clenched teeth. “A symbol of generations of genetic mutation caused by sexual relations between closely allied gene pools. Speak to your friend Doctor Catchlove about it. Get his opinion on genetic defects, and find out what he believes the cure is. Your pal Angus would see that “birthright” for the error that it is and he would remove it without a moment’s thought. And where would your family’s proud history be then?” Even as he said them, Bond knew that his words were unwise. He knew that damning du Lyonne’s aristocratic history would cut to his centre. He watched his face glow with anger as he spat out each successive insult.

Du Lyonne grasped Bond’s head with both hands and pushed it into the tub. Again the heavy liquid poured over him, and he clasped his lips shut to try and minimise the invasion. He felt his chest heave once more, trying to expel the petrol. Seconds passed, and Bond felt his lungs start to strain. He had managed only a brief gasp of air, and now they were finding it harder and harder to work. Come on! he willed them, come on! But now he was starting to feel dizzy. Whether it was from the lack of air, or the repulsive fumes, he couldn’t tell, but he began to see colours shift beneath his closed eyelids. He struggled to break free, but the man’s hold was hard against his skull, and he couldn’t move. Come on! he shouted to his fading body. Not much longer!

And then he was free, and he was tasting the sweet stale air of the garage again. He sucked it in, pulling great lungfuls into his body, feeling it recharge himself. His eyes felt like hell, and all he could smell was the nauseating residues of the petrol, but as he tasted the oxygen once again, none of that mattered.

The cloth came across his face once again, and he looked at du Lyonne through reddened eyes. He had put on a fresh pair of gloves. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr Bond, I have a party to host, and my prolonged absence may provoke questions. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Alfie and Joseph. They have a lesson to teach you. A lesson in physics.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a silver cigarette lighter, heavily etched with an ornate design. Bond felt his muscles tighten with fear. “There is a very good reason why petrol and flames are kept apart from one another. Alfie will demonstrate.” Du Lyonne handed the lighter to Alfie, and then retreated up the staircase.

Now Bond was alone with the two men. Joseph still had his arms gripped firmly behind him. If, as was obvious, the plan was to set light to Bond, then he would have to be released to stop Joseph being caught up in the conflagration. A plan began to form.

Alfie clicked open the lighter, and flicked the rasp to produce a small blue flame. With his fingertip, he manipulated the lighter so that the flame grew to around three centimetres. It danced back and forth beneath Alfie’s heavy breathing. The thug smirked. “You ready for a hot time, then, mate?”

He advanced slowly. As he did, Bond felt Joseph’s grip loosen slightly, as he made ready to release him to the mercy of the fire. He took the chance. Bond yanked his head backwards, feeling it slam heavily into Joseph’s crotch. There was a roar of pain, and his hands came free from Bond’s arms. Bond leapt to his feet, and brought his elbow into Joseph’s stomach, doubling the injury and causing him to stagger backwards.

Alfie lunged forward with the flaming lighter, but Bond grabbed his hand, and squeezed it, trying to force him to drop it. But the man was fighting hard, pushing forwards, and he saw the little tongue of flame licking closer and closer to his petrol-soaked face. With a heave, Bond wrenched Alfie’s hand downwards, and the lighter stumbled from his fingertips into the bathtub.

There was a sudden roar, and the tub exploded upwards, a ball of fire. Bond managed to throw himself away from the danger, into the side of one of the Land Rovers. And then Alfie was there, landing heavy blows on his face. Bond raised his arm to block them, and punched back. His fist caught Alfie’s nose, and there was a wet crunch as the bones broke beneath it. Alfie screamed in pain, and Bond pushed him away. The man stumbled, his feet scrabbling on the concrete floor, and then he had stumbled into the flaming tub. There was a hideous scream as he erupted into a burning mannequin.

Bond tried to move away, but now Joseph had launched himself at him. His hands grasped Bond’s throat, and he began to throttle him. Bond punched, once, twice, his blows crashing into Joseph’s face, but they seemed to have no result. He punched again, his already weakened lungs starting to beg for mercy, and this time he managed to get a slight release in the pressure on his windpipe. Bond reached up and grabbed the man’s scalp, yanking his face downwards onto the roof of the Land Rover. The heavy thud caused Joseph to let go of Bond’s throat, and he was able to punch a final time. The blow sent him crashing to the floor, unconscious.

Bond rasped once again, and backed away towards the wide garage door. Already the flames had begun to die down, leaving Alfie a blackened corpse on the floor. He pushed open the door, and welcomed the soft February night air outside with every part of his body.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 12

UNDER A NEW SUN

Bond watched the rubber plates of the baggage carousel whirr and grind into action. They jerked, and slipped, then slowly began their tedious revolutions. Dozens of tired eyes watched the plastic-fronded hole at the conveyor’s start, waiting expectantly, all making a silent prayer to the baggage gods for theirs to be first.

James Bond was old enough to remember when this had held a modicum of glamour. When each passenger watched as their trunk was unloaded from the underbelly of a DC-10 and carried slowly across the apron to their waiting arms. When they stood beneath a hot sun on a baking tarmac, rather than loiter in anonymous, air conditioned rooms.

There were some who said that airports were the railway terminals of today, that they now carried the allure and excitement once held by Paddington or the Gare de Nord or Grand Central. But all Bond was reminded of when he stepped into any international airport was a bland, inoffensive shopping mall from a dull American suburb. Room after room of carefully segregated, cold cubicles that held off the regular human being from the alleged excitement of international air travel. Each bland space a hole that only carried any pleasure because of the hopes of the travellers within. Like the aeroplanes themselves, mink-lined tubes that mollycoddled the passenger without personality or affection, airports treated their users with passionate surfaces and disdainful interiors; a lover waking up the next morning with an unwanted one night stand, eager to push them elsewhere.

But for once, Bond embraced this inattention. He was escaping. Fleeing from the bloody mess that he had left behind in London.

Du Lyonne’s reaction to the incineration of his employee had been swift and predictable. He had bellowed at weak parliamentarians, he had leaked to lower-order tabloids. The result was a cacophony of front pages and an incandescent M.

“How am I to be expected to defend you 007?” she demanded. “I stepped on a good few toes to allow you to investigate Angus Catchlove’s repayment. In return, you gatecrash a party, filled with the great and good, and murder one man and put another in hospital. All in the house of a popular, powerful man whose influence is beyond both our range. It’s lucky for you that I have managed to use the last fragments of influence I still have left and stopped you from ending up in Wormwood Scrubs.”

Bond sat silent, feeling ashamed. M had not had to support him after the debacle in St Paul’s, but she had. His response had been to make a bad situation into a disastrous one. The idea of letting M down in so public and cataclysmic a fashion was the true pain in this. He didn’t care about du Lyonne, or even his career, at that moment. He cared about the anger and betrayal that lurked in M’s voice.

She sank into her seat with a defeated air and took a long deep drink from her bourbon. “It’s out of my hands now. You have been suspended from the Service. The Minister of Defence called me personally the minute the Telegraph printed its story with dark hints about the Government’s involvement.”

“Du Lyonne is involved with Angus Catchlove. The two of them are deeply mired in something. With just a few more days of investigation, I may be able to –“

“Absolutely not. The investigation into Rufus du Lyonne is closed, and will not be reopened. Not as long as he is providing his Italian villa for the Prime Minister’s Easter breaks.” Then, tinged with bitterness; ”And with it goes any hope of finding Angus Catchlove. I’m afraid your actions have destroyed this case.”

“I can pass my information to Five, let them have a look…”

“No, 007. No.” She looked away, out at the seagulls dancing over the river. “Your disciplinary will be one month today. Until that time you are suspended from active service. I would suggest you lose yourself somewhere.” M picked up a folder from her in tray and began to read, closing the conversation.

Bond had said nothing, had simply left the office filled with anger and regret. He understood the pressures that had forced M into her actions; he knew that, presented from a particular angle, his own actions could appear misguided. And what was the word of a single discredited spy against the Great Patriot himself?

He had fallen into a favourite bar of his, not far from his Chelsea flat. Querelle’s was small, classy, and undiscovered by the majority of people who passed by. A bottle of burgundy began the afternoon; by the second, he had begun to think more clearly.

He couldn’t let the investigation end there. Samantha, Henk, du Lyonne, Angus – the names swirled in his mind to form an inescapable path. Du Lyonne had told Bond that there were plans afoot; that soon everyone would witness their work together. That was reason enough for him to continue. He was James Bond, agent 007 of Her Majesty’s Secret Service; he was licensed to kill for the honour and defence of his nation. He was sworn to uphold his country, no matter who constituted the enemy.

And somehow, through blurry calls to the British Airways ticket line, through hazy travels on red eye planes to Johannesburg, and then a connection to Windhoek, somehow Bond had found himself on the trail of Rufus du Lyonne. Here, at the other end of the planet, Bond at least felt he was out of the reach of the Cabinet. A couple of calls to old sources and Bond discovered Rufus du Lyonne had flown to Namibia on his private jet from an airfield outside London. The trail was still warm.

With a sigh of hydraulics, the conveyor disgorged its first piece of baggage. The passengers gathered around its leathery trail, feigning disinterest, but each secretly saying a silent prayer for their piece of luggage to come through. Bond amused himself by counting colours of suitcases; blue, blue, blue, black, blue. A red to break the monotony, then another black, then his battered leather Remington showed its weary battered head.

He dragged the suitcase from the belt, bending to take its full weight. As he looked up, his eyes rested on the tight blue denim of a pair of Levis, wrapped around two elegantly shaped thighs. He shifted his gaze upwards, taking in the tight white t-shirt that strained to contain the full breasts, finally to rest on the ironic smile.

Miss Sinclair said, “You know, there are laws against stalking.”

Bond righted himself and said, “Don’t worry. If you’re very nice to me, I won’t report you. What brings you to Namibia Miss Sinclair – besides my obvious charms?”

She snorted dismissively. “For your information, Mr Bond, I happen to live here.”

“Another good reason to visit.”

With a raised eyebrow she reached past him to retrieve her Nike holdall off the conveyor, then turned and made for passport control. Bond moved alongside her and said, “Actually I’m here to see our mutual friend.”

“And that would be?”

“Rufus du Lyonne.”

The corners of her mouth twisted downwards. “Du Lyonne is no friend of mine.”

“I thought as much.” He held her arm, holding her back. “Perhaps you’d care to talk about it? See if we have some common ideals.”

She fixed a steely gaze on him. “Who are you?”

007 extended his right hand. “Bond. James Bond.”

There was a pause, and then she took his hand. “Kindie Sinclair.”

“Interesting name.”

“I’m an interesting girl. And I’m not the kind who spills her story to strange men she met in cupboards.” A pause, then she added mischievously, “Not unless there’s something in
it for me.”

“Quid pro quo. Neither of us appear to be on Rufus du Lyonne’s Christmas card list. Shortly after you left the other night, he caught up with me. He doesn't take kindly to uninvited guests. I only just managed to get away without being flambéed.”

“That sounds like du Lyonne’s style,” she said. He detected a layer of bitterness to her voice.

“If we worked together, we might achieve our objectives quicker. Whatever your objective might be.”

“And what’s in it for you? Why are you after him?”

He smiled. “I asked first.”

Kindie looked him up and down. Then she hoisted her holdall over her shoulder and said, “I’ll think about it. See you around, James.” She turned and marched through the Namibian passport holder channel, leaving Bond to admire the elegant swing of her behind.

Damn! He thought. He didn’t know who she was, or what she wanted. A spurned lover perhaps? Someone du Lyonne had got pregnant and abandoned? There was a determination to her, a drive that could be so useful to him. He had seen the flint that entered her deep brown eyes when he had mentioned the Earl of Coldham’s name.

To be mercenary, Bond needed all the help he could get. He had never been to Namibia before, and a local’s perspective would have been invaluable. Especially since he could no longer rely on the Service for backup.

All that was in addition to Kindie’s powerful sexual charisma. She held an erotic challenge to her that he longed to fulfil. He could imagine her to be a partner in the bedroom, one whose body writhed beneath his own, fighting and battling with him for dominance until they both acquiesced and melted into one another.

His mind dancing with the prospect of the contest, Bond joined the straggling queue for foreign nationals.

He emerged into the marble-floored arrivals hall, lazily scouring for the Avis desk. And there she was.

Kindie stood in the centre of the hall, looking straight at him. He walked over with a grin on his face.

“I’ve thought about it,” she said. “You’re on.”

jetsetwilly

CHAPTER 13

WHITE IN BLACK

They drove in silence, Bond piloting the Land Rover Defender through the hubbub of traffic from the airport. He had been inclined towards renting a smaller vehicle – a Mercedes, perhaps – but Kindie had overruled him. “Those European cars look wonderful,” she said, “but you wait until you’re stuck on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Your cup holders will be no use to use to you then.”

So he had picked the Defender, a good deal more expensive, but with the advantages of traction and bulk that only a Land Rover could provide. On the streets of Windhoek, however, he felt out of place, the gleaming vehicle towering over tin boxes driven by Namibs.

Such a curious place, thought Bond, as he took in the city’s distinctive architecture. It was as though a Bavarian hill town had found itself transplanted to the African veldt. Buildings with elaborate gables and bierfest fronts – a legacy of the German colonisation of the country – stood cheek by jowl with more traditional African architecture, as well as harsh concrete and glass twentieth century intrusions. It was an invigorating mish-mash, quite unlike any other city Bond had ever seen.

And so small, too. Though it was the capital of a vast nation, twice the size of California, the city had a laid-back, country air, like a market town. Bond could picture it quietly stirring into life every morning rather than launching into the insanity of rush hour like most capitals. Such a contrast to the hectic London he had left behind.

Kindie directed them along Independence Avenue, through the centre and to the north. He had suggested that they go to his hotel, perhaps talk in the hotel bar, but she had laughed. “This is Africa, James. There’s only one kind of girl that hangs around in bars talking to men. I have my reputation to keep.”

“So I suppose discussing it in my hotel room is also a no-no?”

“Without a doubt. We’ll go to my house. I’ll make you a cup of bush tea and we’ll sit in the garden and talk like respectable people.” Kindie smiled. “I’m assuming you know how to be respectable sometimes.”

“I normally like to have some advance notice, but I’ll do my best.”

As they crossed the railway line into the north of the city, however, the picture changed. The modernity and wealth that he had seen in the centre dropped away sharply, and in its place came small, ramshackle structures, and obvious poverty. The streets became dustier, the houses became poorer. Bright purple bougainvillea was the only colour amidst the browns. It was not squalid, or dirty; indeed, the pride of the residents was clear in all of the carefully scrubbed doors, or the tended patches of garden outside them. But he still felt the downward shift in prosperity. One word came to Bond’s mind: township.

He knew little of Namibia beyond what he had seen on the news over the past few decades, stories of guerrilla fighting, of terrorism, of street battles. Annexation by South Africa meant that their policy of apartheid had crossed the border into this country too. This area reminded him of the black townships he had seen in Soweto years earlier. The years since independence and freedom from South Africa had softened the edges, removed the oppression, but he still knew that the power lay away from this quarter.

As he drove the Land Rover through the narrow streets, he felt the eyes of the passers by turn and study him. What was behind them? Fear? Resentment? Anger? His white face became a barrier. Once again, the spy found himself nakedly conspicuous.

“Up here,” Kindie directed him, “on the left.” Bond pulled over at a structure that was a house in name only. The entire eastern half of the building was in ruins. There had been a terrible fire here, which had destroyed much of the house and never been properly cleaned up. The tin which had once formed the roof, now covered in soot, had been brought down to form a barrier between the remains and the still intact western half. That part was constructed from breeze blocks, which had been roughly plastered over, and was only a few metres square.

Still, it was lovingly tended to. More of the bougainvillea flowered around the doorway, and a large, heavy tree of a species Bond could not identify cast a shade over the whole house. It was intensely hot, even in this late afternoon, but as Bond stepped inside it was cool and comforting. The inside was also impeccably attended to, with simple furniture scattered around, and various fabrics used to provide splashes of pleasing colour. Only the metal wall at one end reminded you of the ruins at the other end.

This was Kindie’s home? It seemed incredible to Bond. He could not reconcile the sophisticated, elegant woman in front of him with these poor surroundings. He pictured her reclining amidst furs and leather, a champagne flute in hand, her dark skin elegant against soft white backdrops. Not here. It was a further level of mystery to the woman.

She dropped her holdall on the floor and said, “So. Bush tea?”

Bond attempted to feign enthusiasm. He found tea in its ordinary form to be the most offensively drab substance in existence. Somehow he doubted that its African counterpart would be any great improvement.

Kindie saw the look on his face and smiled mischievously. “Or would you prefer whiskey?”

“Ah. Now we’re talking the same language.”

They went out to the back of the house, where two chairs had been set up beneath the tree. Kindie poured them each a generous glass of whiskey and said, “So who goes first?”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense that we obviously both have axes to grind with Rufus du Lyonne, and we need to talk about them.”

Bond smiled, and sipped his whiskey. It was raw and unrefined, quite unlike the pure bred whiskeys from Scotland he was used to, but there was a fire and vivacity to it that made it come alive. “I was brought up to believe that ladies should always come first.”

Kindie sighed. “If you insist.” She took a drink of the whiskey, and her eyes drifted away. “What do you know about Namibia’s geography, James?”

Bond told her what little he knew. A large, mostly arid country, dominated by the twin Namib and Kalahari deserts, with a high plateau at its centre. Sparsely populated.

“The simple view. This is a beautiful country James, astonishing sometimes. And we try to protect its beauty wherever we can. It was the first country in the world to put the preservation of its environment in its constitution, and it has vast areas of the most beautiful, amazing scenery. We try, wherever we can, to maintain this country where we can.

“There are national parks and wilderness areas across the country, holding valuable areas from being exploited or corrupted. The most famous one of these is the Skeleton Coast. It’s divided into two parts, alongside the Atlantic. To the south, there’s a national park, which is open for tourists to drive into. That’s held firm with strict visitor quotas, and wardens to ensure it is kept preserved.

“To the north though, is a wilderness area. There are no tourists allowed through there. The whole region is kept inaccessible, to preserve its beauty, and to preserve the way of life for the Khosi people who live there. It’s an amazing place.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Only on a fly-in safari. You have no idea how…” She paused, unable to find the words. “We were in a tiny Cessna, and it swooped low over these vast crescent sand dunes, that stretched right up to the ocean. There, the seas crashed on untouched beaches that teemed with seals. James…” Her eyes were alight with the memory. “When you see it, all you can think is, it must be preserved.”

He nodded, caught up in her passion for the subject. “It sounds wonderful.”

“It is. And after independence, it was kept that way. There was a small, local company, who ran these flying safaris – taking tourists on aerial tours of the region so they could see its sights without disturbing the ecosystem. They operated a good, efficient service, they were well-liked, they were turning a tidy, but not exorbitant profit.

“Then, three years ago, their tender to operate the safaris expired. They put in a new bid of course, and there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t get it. Until Rufus du Lyonne appeared on the scene.”

“I’m guessing he outbid them.”

Kindie refilled his glass, and nodded. “By hundreds of percent. The Coldham Organisation offered First World money to a Third World country, and the government practically bit their arm off.” She shrugged. “I don’t blame them. When someone is offering to pour money into your coffers, and you don’t have to do anything, why object? But it put the old, well-established firm out of business. They were no longer permitted to run any kind of route into the Skeleton Coast, and it destroyed the company.”

Kindie leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes. The sun had begun to turn purple as it set amongst the rooftops of the town. Its light reverberated amongst the streets. Bond watched her gather her thoughts. He sympathised with her, understood her resentment towards du Lyonne. He had no doubt put some good Namibians out of business. But that was the nature of the corporate world. Those Namibs would no doubt suffer; but the extra monies du Lyonne was paying for the licence would benefit millions as they poured into the national budget. He wondered why Kindie had become so angered from a simple business deal. He prompted, “How did you get involved?”

“At the time, I was a reporter, for the Namib Sun-Herald. A damn good reporter too. The Sun-Herald’s only a small paper, and it was only established quite recently, after independence, but it’s got a reputation. It’s like a terrier. It gets to the heart of stories, reports things the other papers won’t.

“I looked at this deal with du Lyonne, and it just didn’t feel right. If Coldham was such a good, efficient, business organisation, why were they making such a ridiculous bid for the contract? I did some sums, and it didn’t add up. They would actually be operating at a loss for every tourist they flew into the Wilderness Area. A loss. Who wants to get in debt, when they don’t have to?

“I dug around some more. I asked questions, I looked into places I wasn’t meant to. All I was operating on was this.” She placed a hand between her breasts, over her heart. “I could just feel that there was something wrong.

“No-one would talk to me. Not in the government, not in Coldham, no-one. But I carried on looking. And that was how I found out the real terms of the deal. He hadn’t bought a safari concession. He’d bought the whole park.”

Bond frowned. “Du Lyonne bought an entire national park?” It seemed absurd. To what end?

“Oh, he didn’t literally buy it. What he bought was the right to run it for the next thirty years. The government privatised an entire chunk of the country and handed it over to him. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that at heart. Private-public partnerships are very popular I believe. The government told me, they said it was the way of the future.”

“What exactly did he buy?” There was a prickling at the back of Bond’s mind. If you had a man like Angus Catchlove who wanted to disappear from the world, where would be better than an untouched wilderness?

“He bought the operating rights. Within six months, du Lyonne made his first move. He fired all of the game wardens who’d worked in the park for years, and replaced them with his own staff. He claimed that the men had been working with the poachers. That they had been taking bribes. Which was patently untrue. Those men would never, ever co-operate with anyone who harmed their animals.

“The men he brought in, too. They were all from South Africa. As you can imagine, we’re sort of sensitive about the idea of South Africans coming in and taking over part of our land.” Kindie smiled ruefully. “But du Lyonne spread some money around, built a school here, funded a hospital there. Played the charity king. And people believed him and let him get away with it.”

“The Great Patriot act,” Bond murmured.

“Exactly. Now he’s building a hotel out there, an exclusive resort for the rich and famous. Right in the centre of the protected zone. Somewhere for the beautiful people to retreat and pay more for a single rub-down than an average Namib earns in a year. He’s been building it for two years, using his own construction workers brought in from England, and it’ll be fantastic I’m sure. If he ever finishes building it.”

Somewhere in the distance, a dog began to bark. Kindie stretched her arms and yawned. “I need some exercise,” she said. “Walk with me?”

They strolled out into the street. Bond removed the light linen jacket of his suit and carried it over his shoulder as they slowly climbed the hill through the township. As he walked, people stopped to study him. Watching to see what he was doing. Keeping an eye on this stranger in their midst. He saw jealous stirrings from two men when they realised he was with Kindie, and readied himself for a fight. Kindie saw them too, though, and she went over and spoke a few words to them in a low voice. She returned to him with a smile.

“Protecting your honour?” said Bond.

“They were worried for me. We don’t get too many tall light handsome men round here. They thought I might be in trouble. I grew up here in Katutura. People look out for you.”

“You’ve lived here all your life?”

“No. I won a scholarship when I was at school. I was very lucky. I had a wonderful teacher who realised I might have potential and submitted me in a writing contest. So I was able to go to Unam, the Namibian University, to study English. After that I managed to get a job on a newspaper in Gaborone.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Have you ever been to Botswana, James?” He said that he hadn’t. “Don’t bother. It’s the most boring country in the world, especially if you’re a journalist. No wars, no coups, no corruption. Just lots of thoroughly nice people going about their daily business. After a while I managed to con my way onto a paper in Angola, and that was a very different story.”

“Was that during the civil war?”

“Which one?” she laughed. “It was actually during one of the few periods of cease fire, but there was still plenty going on to keep my heartbeat going. I loved it. Until I got word that my Papa was dying, and so I returned home to Windhoek to take care of him.”

They had reached a playground on the top of the hill. Metal swings drifted slowly in the reddening evening. Bond looked around him as the sun bounced and refracted off a thousand rooftops to create a dazzling effect. Everything was so peaceful here. He could understand some of the patriotic love that showed in Kindie’s eyes as she talked.

He looked at her eyes now, and realised there was some darkness behind them. It was talking about her father. He had been about to ask her about him, about her family, but he could see there was pain there. She leaned on the metal frame of the swing set and stared at him.

“Tell me why you’re after du Lyonne, James.” Changing the subject.

Bond told her. He left out any official
involvement, and especially the events in New York, instead referring to Samantha as an old friend. He was looking for her missing husband, and he knew that du Lyonne was involved in her death. When he mentioned Henk, Kindie laughed.

“Ah, the famous Mr Henk. Head of the Skeleton Coast Park Rangers. And, from what I’ve heard, a thoroughly unpleasant and nasty man.”

“I can’t say I disagree with that evaluation.”

“They say that he likes to take poachers apart piece by piece and scatter their limbs across the dunes for the jackals.” She lowered her voice. “And they also say that the Earl of Coldham rewards him with a nice young girl for him to play with every time he does. Of course, these are all scurrilous rumours. Perhaps put about to discourage poaching. But it makes you think.”

“It does.” Bond said, “Why do you need me, Kindie? You have a newspaper behind you. If there’s corporate wrongdoing, you have the greatest weapon against du Lyonne. One article and you’ll send his share price plummeting.”

“There’s the problem, you see. I don’t work for the Namib Sun-Herald any more. Not since it was acquired by…”

“Rufus du Lyonne?”

“You must have clairvoyant powers, James. He bought the paper, but he said he wouldn’t interfere with its editorial stance. Apart from one thing. He made one sacking.” She pointed at herself. “Makes a girl feel so special to be singled out. For the past three months, I’ve been doing my best to carry on. I’ve been living off my savings and looking into every nook and cranny I could to get any dirt on du Lyonne. Any indication that he’s not just running the Skeleton Coast out of the goodness of his heart. That flight to London used up the last cent I owned. I thought I’d be bound to turn something up on his home turf. But there was nothing.

“So now I’m penniless and desperate and I’ve nothing to show for my efforts. And now you showed up. If the ground round here wasn’t quite so hard and dusty I’d throw myself on your mercy.”

Bond laughed. “Perhaps later.”

She looked at him seriously. “I know there’s something going on out there, James. I know it. I just don’t know how to prove it.”

He smiled, and placed his hand over hers on the metal pole. “I have an idea.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 14

THE SKELETON COAST

In London, February was a blur of greys and blacks. Heavy rain blanketed the city. The taxis on Holborn sped through sheets of water, and the green expanses of St James’s Park became scarred with mud. The city’s denizens sank into the weather, and let it drag them down into a state of misery.

In Namibia, the bleaching hot sun coated Bond’s body. He leaned against the Land Rover, flinching slightly at the hot metal, and took it in. For a moment he closed his eyes. Felt it wash every centimetre of his flesh. Here it was late summer, and the cold and wet was a mile, a world away. London was so distant to Bond now.

From somewhere, a tiny breeze drifted up and whisked the sand at his feet into small wisps. The soft linen around his legs fluctuated in the wind. Bond remembered times in Jamaica, in other islands in the Caribbean, when he had done the same thing – done nothing except take in the sun. Was this a British trait? Were his Scottish genes crying out for the heat and warmth wherever he could take it? He remembered a time, too long ago now, when he had been at a particularly low point in his life. Everything, the world, his job, his private life, it had all climaxed in a horrendous cataclysm. He had tried to escape. Bond had travelled across the world to Jamaica again. And it had worked. Somehow when he found himself under that new sun he sloughed off his concerns and his agonies and his traumas and he closed his eyes and felt it.

He opened his eyes again to look out at the empty desert scene. A long wooden fence stretching off either side. An empty roadway with a yellow and black striped barrier barring passage. A tiny wooden hut, through the window of which Bond could see Kindie deep in discussion with a heavy set man. And above it all, a rough-hewn sign with fake-ethnic writing: Skeleton Coast National Park.

It was a different place, a different time, but Bond felt the same release here in the Namib Desert. He was in another world and he could reshape himself to anything.

Kindie emerged from the hut, and grinned when she saw him. She waved a piece of white paper above her head like a trophy. “Here we go then,” she said. “Our three day pass into the wonderful wildlife reserve.”

“There were no problems, I suppose?”

“Of course not. They were close to filling the quota for visitors, or so the warden said. I think he just wanted to bump up his tip. I played the dumb tourist with more money than sense and he caved.” Kindie wandered round and climbed into the passenger seat. As Bond joined her in the Land Rover, the warden came out to raise the barrier. Bond watched the man’s face as he waved them through. Above his right eye was blue comma – a home-made tattoo that scarred his face and marked him out. One of Henk’s men. Bond raised an ironic hand to the man and gunned the engine, taking off into the park itself.

The road was rough, but still navigable. It was not tarmacced, but hundreds of tourist vehicles had carved deep grooves into the dried mud, guiding their way. Kindie wound down her window and let her arm trail in the soft summer breezes.

Seeing Henk’s man had taken away some of the joys of the trip for Bond, though. This was not a holiday. This was business. He thought back to the map of the park that Kindie had spread over the floor of her house.

Du Lyonne’s nascent hotel complex was deep inside the park, inaccessible by road. To facilitate its construction, and to provide a more secluded base for his flying safari operations, du Lyonne had constructed an airstrip first. The strip was capable of taking all but the largest commercial jets, but had in fact been used only by cargo planes carrying building materials and by du Lyonne’s private jet.

The complex stood in the centre of a vast desert plain. Bond’s heart sank when he saw the complete lack of topography. It would be virtually impossible to approach them without alerting the guards. Their only chance would be a night approach.

Kindie had suggested a direct route, leaving the tourist road at the last moment and plunging straight towards the hotel. But Bond saw an alternative, swinging round to the west so that they approached the hotel at a curve. It would maximise what cover there was, and would mean they left the well-used – and presumably well-patrolled – areas much earlier. The route would take them along the coast itself, before turning east again and disappearing into the centre of the desert.

It would take them around two days to finally reach du Lyonne’s hotel, and then… what? The end of their mission had been left open. Or rather, his mission. Bond had already made the decision that Kindie would not go on to the hotel with him. She was a brave, tenacious woman, and he needed her to help him navigate and to use her language skills if they ran into any residents, but he was not willing to risk taking her into the lion’s den. A wry smile came to his lips when he imagined her reaction to being told “this far, and no further”.

Weapons? Bond had his Walther P99, which he had “forgotten” to turn in at headquarters following his suspension. He had two spare magazines for the automatic, and that was all. Distinctly under–prepared in comparism with Henk’s small army. But he would have the advantage of stealth, and surprise; Bond felt that he could get inside the complex and close to either du Lyonne or, perhaps, Catchlove himself, before any alarm was raised. If the Gods were willing!

“Are you ever going to explain to me who you are, James?” Kindie broke into his thoughts. She had fixed her penetrating stare upon him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that concerned friends, seeking out recently widowed men, don’t usually carry firearms.”

“I don’t quite follow,” Bond hedged.

“That gun in the waistband of your trousers. You see what happens when a girl tries to sneak a look at a man’s rear end? She sees more than she expects. You have a very nice butt, by the way. The outline of the gun just tends to spoil it.”

Bond’s jaw set in a tight clench. “I thought it best to come prepared. I’m sure you understand that du Lyonne’s not exactly open to the idea of visitors.”

“Oh, absolutely James. Tell you the truth the sight of the gun made me feel a whole lot better about this trip. It just made me wonder who you are. I mean really.”

“It’s as I told you, Kindie. Samantha Catchlove was a good friend, and now I’m looking for her husband. I know he’s here with du Lyonne. That’s the truth.”

“And what line of work are you in that means you get to carry a firearm?”

“I’m in the police.” The old lie.

“British policemen don’t carry guns.”

“They do in the Special Branch.”

“They do in the Secret Service as well, James. Come on. You can tell me. You’re a spy, aren’t you? On a top secret assignment?”

Bond laughed. “Kindie, I can tell you, hand on heart, that I am not a spy on assignment.” A classic feint with the truth! “If I was, don’t you think I’d have rather more support than one girl and a hire car?”

She laughed with him. “I don’t know. I’ve seen those spy films. Your suitcase might turn into a helicopter at the push of a button.”

“Rest assured, my dear, that those bags in the back contain nothing more exciting than clothes, camping equipment and provisions for our trip. I am not a spy.”

“Okay then.” They continued driving for a few more minutes, then Kindie said, “You do realise I don’t believe a word of that, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

“Good. Just so you know.”

A single bird wheeled and turned on the updrafts from the hot road. Bond looked closely. It was a heavy vulture, its wings spread wide as it luxuriated in the wind. Bond chose not to see it as a grim omen. Instead, he said, “Anyway, I don’t think you’ve been entirely truthful with me either.”

“In what sense?”

“I mean that your lust for a newspaper story isn’t the only thing that’s driving you along, is it?”

There was a shift in the mood between the two of them, and Bond felt a barrier raise between them, as it had done before at the playground in her street. What was the pain she was concealing? “Not now,” she said. “Not yet James. I will tell you. Just not now. I’m sorry.”

Bond took his hand off the wheel and took hold of hers. He raised it to his lips and softly kissed her fingertips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. Whenever you are ready.”

She took her hand from his and ran her fingers over his rough cheek. It was an act of intimacy, a significant touch, and Bond felt the barrier fall. Not just one, a whole series, on both sides. There was that hint, that sign that the gossamer thread of mistrust was about to dissipate. And Bond, always Bond, moved away. He said, suddenly, “I think we’re coming up to the turn.”

Kindie withdrew her hand – with regret? – and pulled the map out of the glove compartment. “You’re right,” she said. “Up about fifteen hundred metres. The road will shift east, but we need to keep going.”

Bond watched the pitted track as it turned, lazily curling towards tourist cabanas and parking lots, so incongruous amongst the desolate beauty. He twisted the wheel, taking in the squeal of protest as the Land Rover objected to the sudden change of surface. There were a few moments of hair raising noises, then the suspension adjusted, and the vehicle became accustomed to the new surface. Now it was crossing desert, a thin, weak desert, the fringes of the Namib as it petered out towards the Atlantic coast. The wheels crushed pale yellow sand and insipid plantlfe as they followed their instincts.

Kindie was consulting the map and a compass. “A little to the left,” she said. “The land flattens out towards the beaches, and we’ll avoid some of the hairier terrain.”

The heat in the cabin increased as the sun slowly cruised to its midday position. The air conditioning bellowed with the effort, but still Bond felt his back and thighs become wet with the noon warmth. Thick rivers of sweat trickled down into his eyes, making them red with pain, as the prehistoric desert slipped its way inside the modern vehicle. At one point they stopped, to sip bottles of Evian from the cool box in the rear, and the simple mineral water tasted like finest Cristal to his parched lips. Even Kindie, who had grown up in Namibia’s summers, tied her simple blouse into a knot around her midriff to allow the cold jets to reach her stomach directly. Bond couldn’t help but sneak furtive looks at the toned body, provocatively sandwiched between the brief fabric of her outfit. As she dozed, he allowed himself to take in the stretch of naked flesh plunging into the tight white shorts.

Eyes on the prize, man! He reminded himself. The heat was a concern to him. The only respite had come when they had hit the coast, and Bond had allowed the Land Rover to splash its way through the surf, sending up jets of cooling water against the sides. It was irresponsible, given that they were miles from any sign of civilisation, to treat the vehicle in such a cavalier fashion, but he needed the brief respite that the sea water gave him.

He now knew that his assault – if one could term it such – upon du Lyonne’s home would have to be through the night. The idea of a discreet infiltration in the baking sun was incomprehensible. His best chance was to infiltrate at sunset, allowing him the relative leisure of the night to find and interrogate Catchlove. He felt out of shape and old. What was it M had said about his history saving him? Now he felt his past, his career hanging from his shoulders like Bunyan’s burdens. He felt the decades of wounds and pain trying him.

“James…” Kindie half whispered, half called as she awoke from her sleep. The cabin was filled with an orange glow as the light began to turn into a dazzling show at the end of the day. She smiled at him. “Thinking happy thoughts?”

“Just reflecting on where I’ll be tomorrow night.”

She took his hand on the gear stick. “Don’t think about it. Just concentrate on now.”

Bond let their fingers intermingle as the Land Rover moved into the sunset.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 15

KINDNESS

Deep breaths. Bond plunged his head under the salt water again, his lungs filled with air, and he pushed himself downwards. He felt the heavy waves buffeting his body, pushing against him as he swam deep. The ocean moved around him as he swam, the water scrubbed the sweat and sand away from his body. He stayed under for as long as he could before finally bursting through the surface again, gasping.

He walked out of the ocean, naked, and lay down on the beach to dry. Even though the sun had set over an hour earlier, the sand was still warm beneath his skin.

The sounds of the crashing ocean intermingled with the distant calls of seals on the beach. The high moon was full and glowed above his head. Aside from the glistening stars, it was the only illumination. From the edge of the beach outwards it was an inky black. Even the vast rusting hulk of a freighter, wrecked years before and decomposing on the beach, was little more than a shadow in the distance.

Bond lay there, tasting the salt on his lips. They had decided to stop and sleep before it got too dark to drive. The terrain of the Skeleton Coast was hazardous enough, and the Defender had started to make expensive noises.

The swim had cleansed him. The dry sand and sweat of the day was now all gone, and he felt fresh again. Re-energised for the new morning.

“James?” Kindie’s voice drifted above the seals and the waves. “James?”

“Here,” Bond replied. He stood up and slipped on the linen trousers, not bothering with underwear or a shirt. He walked back down to the car, and found Kindie crouched over the tiny camping stove in the lee of the vehicle.

“Much as I hate to conform to gender stereotypes,” she laughed, “I have cooked dinner.”

“Wonderful,” said Bond. He was famished. He sat down cross-legged across the stove from her, and she passed him a tin plate laden with a simple outdoors meals of bread, beans and sausage.

“Don’t expect me to make a habit of this,” Kindie said. “You can cook tomorrow morning.”

“Absolutely. I am renown for my sausage and bacon.”

She smiled. “No doubt from cooking post coital breakfasts for half the single women in London.”

“Oh no,” he laughed. “I usually like them to be out of the house before breakfast.”

She shook her head. “You are a pig, Mr Bond.” For a while, they did nothing but sit and eat. The food tasted good after a day of snacks and water. Bond finished his plate, wiping the last of the sauce with a slice of bread, then grinned. “I have the perfect way to finish this off.” He went to the rear of the Land Rover, and pulled out a cooler he had hidden in the tool space. Inside were six bottles of strong beer, still chilled despite the day in the sands. Kindie cooed with delight when she saw them, and clapped her hands together.

The first splash of foam on Bond’s tongue tasted unbelievably good, and he took a long, deep swig. Then he leaned back against the car and said, “It’s an unusual name – Kindie. I’ve not heard it before. Is it a Namib name?”

Kindie had closed her eyes while she swallowed the beer, but now she opened one of them and fixed it upon him. Bond realised she was looking to see if he was laughing at her. He added, slightly lamely as he did not realise this would be a sore subject, “It’s a very pretty name.”

She lowered the beer to between her crossed legs, then said, “Once upon a time, there were three sisters, all born within the space of three years, and all the sweetest most angelic babies you could ever hope for. Their mother was a good Christian woman, obsessively so, and she wanted their names to reflect their inherent goodness. So she called them Faith, Hope and Charity.

“Move on five years, and suddenly the good Christian lady found herself pregnant again. By that time she had got very sick. A horrible cancer.” Kindie lowered her eyes and picked at the label on the beer bottle. “The baby was born, but it was a terrible birth, hours of pain for the poor weakened woman. And when the baby came out the woman could only smile at it, once, before she closed her eyes and died.

“The baby’s father wasn’t a good Christian man. He was a good man, but he didn’t go to church, or read the Bible. But he did know that Faith, Hope and Charity were virtues, and that the three of them went together. And now he had a fourth. So he decided he would give her a name that was as pure as her sisters’. He called her Kindness.”

“Kindness Sinclair.” Bond murmured.

She shrugged. “I shortened it to Kindie when I was at school. The problem with being called Kindness is everyone thinks you will be good, and innocent, and I was very far from being that. I gave my father hell throughout my teenage years. Drinking, smoking – boys. Petty theft. The Afrikaners were still around then, and I used to flirt with them to infuriate him even more. If I hadn’t found writing, I worry about where I would be now. Probably trying to get men to buy me drinks at the Airport Hotel.”

“I’m sorry, Kindie. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s fine.” She smiled, her lips curving into a seductive crescent. “Everyone has their sad family stories. Some have more than others. I’m sure your life hasn’t been all happiness and light. I was lucky that my father kept going with me, didn’t give up. He encouraged me, all of us. When I was bad, I was punished, but afterwards he would make sure I knew he loved me dearly. That was how clever he was. How good he was.”

“He sounds like a wonderful man.”

“Oh, he was!” She wiped away a tear with the back of an angry hand. “Damn! I cry every time.”

Bond moved round and put his arms round her, holding her close. For a few moments there was just the two of them in the world. The cries of the seals drifted hauntingly around them. Then she pulled away and looked fiercely up at him. “He’s the reason we have to find du Lyonne, James. I’m doing this for him.”

“For his memory?”

“For revenge.” Kindie brushed away the comma of hair over his eye. “Rufus du Lyonne killed my father. He had him murdered.”

His stomach churned. “You’re sure of this?”

She laughed bitterly. “As sure as I can be with that slippery b*****d” She disentangled herself from Bond, and stared out to sea. “After I was fired from the newspaper, I carried on probing into du Lyonne’s businesses. It was hard for me, no press pass to gain entry, my money running out, and my father slipping away from me all the time.

“He had contracted HIV from a woman he lived with for a few years. He was dying because he loved her. He didn’t believe us when we told him she was bad news. He was so good. I was away in Angola, and when I came back, there was so little left of him. My sisters would help when they could, but they were married, with children and husbands – I – we - couldn’t demand their time.

“But I carried on looking when I could, and I must have been getting close. I got an interview with one of the park rangers – you remember, the ones who were fired? He lived way out of town, in a tiny village. So I drove out there to see him. Charity came into town for the day – she lived out in the countryside – and I went chasing after this man. And while I was out there I suddenly realised that there was something wrong.”

She lay back on the sand, her eyes moist with the memory. Bond looked down at this beautiful girl, this brave girl. There was such strength in her, and yet it was built on the most fragile of foundations.

“I went back to Windhoek, as quickly as I could. I can’t explain it to you James. I just knew I had to get home. And when I got back, it was too late.”

Bond remembered the burnt out remains of her home. “Du Lyonne had burned your home down.”

“They found my father and my sister inside. Or what was left of them. They had been tied to the beds, and the house had been set alight around them. I suppose they had killed Charity thinking she was me.” She let out a bitter laugh. ”One Negro girl looks just like another to them.”

“Did the police investigate?”

“Of course. The neighbours saw the man very clearly. A huge white man with a blue, homemade tattoo that covered half his face.”

“Henk.” Bond tensed his fists in anger.

“Exactly. So the police drove out to the Skeleton Coast, spoke to Mr Henk, spoke to the Earl of Coldham. Turns out Mr Henk had a rock solid alibi, backed up by practically every member of the staff out there. Case closed. Unsolved.”

Bond sighed deeply. He had a great deal of affection for this girl. They had grown remarkably close ever since those first few moments – how long ago? – in London. But he did not want her careening off on some misguided mission of vengeance. Bond knew first hand that, though there was a sense of satisfaction in the destruction of one’s enemy, it was not enough. The lust for revenge eats a hole in a person’s soul, and once that sense of injustice is gone, nothing can replace it. It changes you. It was why, in his profession, one had to remain aloof, detached. Too many claws at your soul would destroy you.

He looked at Kindie’s honest face. The beautiful features were the same as the day before, but now he saw the hints of pain in the eyes, the strain around the lips. Somehow these signs of emotional stress deepened her attraction for him. She was not just a face. There was depth there. He thought of the moment yet to come, where he would be forced to venture onwards alone. How could he tell her that her journey ended before she got to see du Lyonne brought to justice?

Kindie seemed to realise what he was thinking. She raised herself up onto one arm so their faces were level. “You’re a professional James, I know that. I’m not stupid. You don’t have to worry. I’m not about to careen into du Lyonne’s encampment like some rampaging harpy and start shooting that anything that moves. Nothing would please me more than to see du Lyonne dead. But I’ll settle for him being punished, taken back to England by you and humiliated. I’d like to see his name destroyed. I want everyone to know what’s going on down here.”

“Whatever it is.”

“Whatever it is. You and I both know that it’s not right.” She smiled, that astonishing smile that made her face glow. “Thank you for listening James.”

“Anytime you want to talk, Kindie.”

She placed one hand against the side of his face. Bond turned his head to kiss the soft skin of her palm. Slowly her hand slid downwards, over his chin, down through the hairs of his chest, to rest against his stomach. Her fingertips traced a subtle pattern around his navel. Her grin became wicked again.

“What if I’m not in the mood for talking?”

Bond reached behind her head and pulled her close. Their lips made contact in an explosion of passion.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 16

SILENCE REIGNS

“We’re overheating.”

Bond looked at the engine, his face set into a grim expression. The temperature had been rising steadily for some time now. He had hoped that the rise was merely a reflection of the rising sun, now burning above them in its full noon heat. But the rise had been far too swift to be through natural causes.

He lifted his head up from the steaming engine with a sigh. “It would appear we have a leak.” Kindie followed the path of his finger as he showed a crack that was seeping water. “God knows how long it’s been like that.”

“How much water do we have?”

“We have enough to fill the tank, or we have enough to drink. We can’t do both.”

Kindie sighed and got back into the Land Rover. It was the only place they could hide from the searing afternoon sun. Bond remained at the bonnet of the car, staring into the machinery. Damn it all, he thought. So close. The middle of the desert, and short of water. It was a disaster, nothing less. And du Lyonne was only a few hours away.

“James.” He slammed the hood shut, and walked round to the cabin of the vehicle. Already it was starting to feel warm, the air conditioning now switched off. Kindie had the map spread across her lap. They had been tracing their course, using a compass and ruler, marking the route on the paper with a red pen. She pointed to their current position.

“There’s a village,” she said. “About half a mile away. One of the local indigenous settlements that the National Park protects.” She smiled. “They’ll have a well.”

Bond took the map from her, and examined her trace. The settlement was tiny, a few huts in a loose oasis. But she was right. There would at least be a supply of water. “Can they be trusted?” he asked. “Won’t they just report us to du Lyonne?”

Kindie shrugged. “I can’t assure you either way. Yes, this is du Lyonne’s land. But the terms of his contract were specific; he wasn’t to interfere with the people who lived in the park. I should imagine that he has very little time for them. Perhaps as pets. So long as they don’t interfere with his projects, he’ll have no need to bother.”

What choice did they have? Bond thought. To try and retreat, and almost certainly die of dehydration? To push on, with no hope of return? If he had been alone, Bond would have pushed his luck and tried to get to du Lyonne’s compound. He would have gambled on finding a way back once he got there.

The girl complicated matters. Bond cared for Kindie, and he couldn’t risk her. The previous night had been passionate, erotic, and finally, tender. He did not want to see her suffer. He decided. “Take only what you need. “

The village nestled amidst the dunes, a collection of a dozen huts around a simple central well. The huts looked sturdy, crafted from dried mud, with roofs of scavenged wood. Yet there was something in the air. Even from a hundred yards away, Bond sensed the disquiet in the air. The village was not as it seemed.

Bond and Kindie walked down the high dunes into the centre of the oasis. As they advanced, no-one came out to see them. No-one stirred. They moved into the centre of the village and looked around them. A central well was there, open for them, but Bond couldn’t take the water without gaining some kind of permission first. Besides, the deathly quiet unnerved him. Even in his remotest travels, he had been aware of the presence of human life. The co-existence of fellow people. But here, there was nothing. No life to disturb the desert’s peace.

“James?” Kindie’s voice was a mixture of question and unease.

“I know,” he said. “There must be someone around.” He put the empty water bottle down on the ground and looked around. “Wait here. Call me if you see anyone.” Bond moved towards the nearest hut. It was well cared-for, with only a few sparse pieces of vegetation hinting at recent neglect. This was not some long-abandoned outpost. He moved inside, the cool dark space an instant relief from the afternoon heat. The interior was simple and tidy. Bedding laid out on the floor. Cooking equipment in the corner. He heard Kindie call out in the local language; clearly she could no longer bear to stand silent in the place. There was no reply.

The first clue. In the centre of the floor, a dark stain on the earth. Bond bent down and stirred it with his fingertips. It was long dried, but it had dyed the ground. Blood.

As he kneeled, he felt a sudden warmth upon his cheek. Bond turned his head to follow the heat to its source. Two shafts of light shone through the wall, two holes allowing the unflinching sun into the interior. Motes of dust drifted lazily in the streams of light. He ran his hands over the smooth, artificial interiors of the holes. These were bullet marks. The residents of this village were silent for a reason.

Why? Why disturb the peace of a simple Namib village? He pictured the scene, the violence that must have been visited upon this oasis. What had they done to disturb du Lyonne’s world? He was certain that it was the Earl of Coldham who had caused this. But why had he even noticed them, much less wanted them gone? What had they done?

Bond returned to Kindie outside. She was hauling water from the well, and filling their clear plastic tanks. Her movements were erratic, hurried. She held the vague air of panic. “There’s something wrong here, James,” she said. “We need to get out, soon. Let’s just get the water and go.”

He raised his hand to stop her talking. “Shh.” There was a heartbeat, where the silence cried around them, swamped their bodies and swallowed them whole. And then it parted to let another noise into the place. Bond had heard its faintest echoes as it closed in.

The sound of a helicopter’s whirling rotor blades. The noise of a helicopter moving towards them. Fast.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 17

SHOOOTING GALLERY

They were exposed, stood in the centre of the village. Bond felt the frustration and anger rise as he saw the duplicitous trail of footprints in the sands, through the village, over the dune. He grabbed a fallen branch and swept at the ground, stirring up the dirt and masking their tracks. Kindie took hold of the plastic water carriers and stowed them inside one of the huts.

The whine was getting louder. Bond backed into the hut with Kindie, sweeping away his steps as he went, trying to conceal their path. At least it would buy them a little time if the helicopter chose to land. He discarded the branch and pulled the Walther from the back of his trousers.

Almost immediately he felt the atmosphere in the tiny house become filled with static. That familiar rush of adrenaline as his body prepared itself for the work ahead.

”So it’s like that,” said Kindie, watching the gun. “Someone’s going to die.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Bond. “If there’s shooting, I want you to lie down and don’t move. Stay on the ground.” He kissed her fiercely on the lips. “I don’t think it will come to that though.” Her eyes were two simmering brown pools, filled with anger and tension.

“Don’t let it be you,” she whispered and kissed him again. Then she smiled. “Or me, for that matter.”

The dusty earth outside the hut was beginning to stir as the helicopter closed in. Why hadn’t he thought of a helicopter? He cursed his naivety. A park the size of the Skeleton Coast would naturally need aerial patrols to keep track of poachers and intruders. Their abandoned Land Rover, stood atop a high dune, must have been a bright red arrow pointing out their presence. How many more would follow?

The rotor blades were screaming now, heavy slices through the thin air. Earth flew into his mouth and he spat with difficulty. The tension had dried his lips and throat. He felt Kindie’s body slide closer to his as they pressed themselves against the wall, eyes watching for movement.

The trees outside were whipped about in the artificial wind, first one way, then the other, as the helicopter performed lazy circuits of the village. Bond guessed it was only a few metres above the ground, idly watching, spying. Looking for clues. He raised his eyes to the roof, as though he could see through it. Would they land? Or would they leave it for the land patrol they had no doubt summoned to investigate? He visualised the men inside debating, two of Henk’s thugs, trying to decide.

There had been a decision. The noise of the rotor blades became higher, and then began to slow. They had landed. He felt his heartbeat, Kindie’s heartbeat, combining together, tense, fast paced. The blades slowed.

Bond moved away from Kindie, to the doorway. Tentatively he stole a glance to the left. He couldn’t see any sign of the helicopter, but he guessed that it would have had to land slightly outside the village to avoid the buildings. But where? The rotor blades made one last, languorous sweep and then fell still. Now there was silence in the desert again.

Bond raised the gun to eye level and stepped outside the hut. He pressed himself against the wall, and slid round, watching for any sign of movement from the direction of the helicopter. His back was soaked with sweat, and caught on the rough wall. His forehead too was slick with salt water.

The wall ended, and 007 could look towards the helicopter. It was a small red Bell, perfect for light reconnaissance work. Painted on the side in gold was the du Lyonne family crest. The cabin was empty.

A single note. That was the only sound Bond heard, the noise of the safety on the automatic clicking off, but it was enough to make him whirl through 180 degrees and fire. The man received the bullet through his face, his mouth agape in shock and horror at being the first to be hit, the yawning hole a perfect target for Bond. The noise of the Walther reverberated around the desert, its deadly report shouting above the village.

Even as the noise of the gun was echoing in his ears, Bond had sprung away, running fast and low away from the scene. It was unlikely that the dead man had been alone, and his noisy death would only stir his comrade on. He headed behind the huts, skirting the edge of the village. The dead man had barely been inside its perimeter before he had stumbled across Bond; he presumed his colleague would have taken a more direct route into the centre. He needed to approach from a different angle, to preserve the element of surprise.

He stopped beside a waist-high wooden fence which formed a pen, a northern boundary to the village. Once the villagers had kept livestock here. Bond could not tell what animals though. All that remained of them were bleached bones. Skeletons of long-dead beasts that had been picked apart by hyenas. It looked like the whole herd had been left to carrion here. Dear God, thought Bond, what happened here? Why were they left?

He vaulted the fence and picked up a hefty thigh bone. His target was still concealed somewhere. With a heave, Bond hurled the bone off into the village, hearing the clatter as it struck the side of one of the huts.

The reply was instant, a short burst of machine gun fire where it had landed. It seemed that the other man was more heavily armed than his colleague. Bond was glad he had been warned. He clambered the fence, and tracked towards the source of the gunfire. As he walked, he shrugged at his shoulders and arms, trying to free the clammy fabric from his flesh to give him freedom of movement. The heat, the tension, were conspiring. A bead of sweat ran into his eye, stinging it suddenly. He dropped to his knees, and blinked hard to try and clear it, but it had already blurred his vision. Damn! He thought. He could do nothing but crouch, mopping his forehead with the back of his hand, waiting his vision to be restored. He didn’t dare wipe his eye itself; he was covered in dust, and he didn’t want to make the situation worse.

“Hey! Over here!”

Kindie!

Bond sprang to his feet and ran towards her voice. What the hell was she doing? His fury drove him all the faster. She must have spotted the gunman, and instead of concealing herself, she was trying to get Bond close. The very worst thing she could do! Bond wondered how long it would be before he –

- there it was! No! The crash of the second man’s machine gun! The ricochet as the bullets tore into the walls of the huts! God, no! He felt his insides heave as he imagined Kindie’s body twisting under the unpitying gunfire. He paused to let out a single roar of anger.

But then he saw a crash of colour and speed, and Kindie was running towards him, past him, behind him, and following her was the second man. Bond saw only the snatch of a face before he fired. The bullet struck him full in the chest, and heaved him into the air. He fell back in the dirt and didn’t move.

Bond span round to Kindie. She was heaving for breath, but her eyes were filled with excitement and thrills, and her mouth was a wide grin. His relief at seeing her alive turned to anger. “What were you doing there? Trying to get yourself killed?”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘thank you’,” she pouted.

“Thank you for what? The near coronary you just gave me? I thought you were dead.”

”It’s so nice to know you care James.” She kissed him softly on the lips. “But I haven’t got all day, you know. Did you expect me to wait in that hut all day for you to take him out? I expect you were busy being stealthy, putting all those years of secret agent training to the fore, but in the meantime you were leaving me vulnerable, alone, and unguarded. I don’t suppose that occurred to you.”

He stayed silent. She was right. Once the shooting had begun, he had not given her a second thought. He had existed only in the pursuit.

“So when I spotted him heading my way, I took the matter in hand. Drew attention to myself and ran, hoping I’d bump into you and you could deal with him.” Kindie blushed, and looked down at the floor. “Ok, it wasn’t a very good plan. But you have to admit it worked.”

Bond kissed her twice, once on the forehead, and again on the beautiful smiling mouth. “It worked wonderfully. You’re a genius.”

It was at that point that the third voice joined them. “I’ll give you one chance. Put down the kaffir and the gun.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 18

BLOOD AND SAND

Christ, it hurt! Even as Kindie’s tender fingers pulled away the bloodied trouser leg from his calf, Bond could feel the waves of nausea and agony sweep through his body. Her hands came away wet and sticky.

“I can’t see to the wound, James,” she said. He could hear the concern in her voice. “It’ll have to be washed properly. Can you walk?”

“Of course. Just help me a little.” He looped his arm around her shoulder, and they hobbled towards the village once more. With each step, the wound in his left leg yelled and shrieked and cried at him. He winced, and bit down hard on his mouth, so hard that soon he could taste the dull iron taste of blood there too. He dropped down beside the well, and Kindie tipped one of the canisters of water onto his leg. Pink rivulets flowed away, and the hairs on his leg matted to form flow patterns around the bullet hole. Again he felt Kindie’s soft fingertips sliding over his leg.

“It’s embedded,” she said, “but I think it missed the muscle. I don’t think it went in too far, just at the edge. It’s still bleeding though.”

“Kindie, here’s what you’re going to do.” He stared into her face, locking eyes in a look of command. “Take the canisters and go and fill the Land Rover and then come back down for me. There’s enough first aid equipment in the back of there to run a small hospital, but there’s no way on earth I’m scrabbling up those sand dunes to reach them.”

“I’m not leaving you James. He could come back.”

“He won’t come back without reinforcements. That’ll take him a while to mobilise. We’ll be long gone by then. But the longer we sit here arguing, the more chance he has of catching us.”

She kissed him, fiercely on the lips. “You’re a liability, did you know?” Then she hauled a water canister onto her back and dashed off. Good girl, thought Bond. No histrionics, no emotional scenes. Just pure logic.

He wished that he could say the same for himself. Bond swore loudly to the air, not from the pain, but from sheer frustration at his own stupidity.

Their assailant was another of du Lyonne’s guards, marked out by the same khaki outfits and blue tattoo running down over his throat. It was a crude design, a twisting fantasy of curves that curled down below his chin. It looked home made, like all of the tattoos on Henk’s “wardens”. He had the smug smile of the victorious on his mouth, and his gun was aimed directly at Bond. But Bond could see the indecision, the nervousness on his face.

“I don’t like your tone,” he had said.

“I don’t like your face,” replied the gunman. “Drop the gun.”

Bond laughed. “Well, I don’t like your face either, but I was brought up to believe that you shouldn’t mention that sort of thing. It’s bad manners.” He let the gun rest by his side, but did not drop it. “There’s two of us, and one of you. Why should we do as you tell us?”

“Because I say. You’re missing out on who’s in control here. I’ll blow your head off, you kaffir-loving scum, unless you do as you’re told.” He raised the weapon, so that the black eye of the rifle stared straight into Bond’s own.

“That’s the second time you’ve used that word,” said Kindie. “This isn’t 1987 anymore. Namibia’s a free country now. We don’t do what white South Africans say just because they have guns anymore.”

“If I had my way I’d have shot you five minutes ago, woman, so I’d keep quiet and think myself lucky. Now drop – the – gun.”

Bond held the gun out in front of him, by the barrel, and took a step forward. “Take it.” He watched the fear in the man’s face. There was less than two feet between them. “Go on, take it.”

Thinking about it now, replaying the scene in his head, Bond saw the error as though it were in slow motion. He had ignored the fact that the nervous guard would be trigger-happy, and had tried to intimidate him. Silly.

He saw himself suddenly swinging the gun at the man, using it as a club, and knocking his weapon to one side. As the man’s arm moved, his finger snatched at the trigger, releasing a burst of gunfire. Almost simultaneously with the rattle of the rifle Bond felt the rip at his calf, and his leg buckled beneath him.

“James!” screamed Kindie, as the two guns clattered to the floor. Now horizontal, Bond watched the gunman flee at ninety degrees, feeling the blood pump from him even as he spat, “Take the gun Kindie! Go after him!”

And she had done as she had been told, and pursued the man. He’d even heard her let off a few rounds, and their ineffectual clangs against the helicopter’s metalwork. And all he had been able to do was lie in the dust and wallow in his pain and misery.

Failure was haunting James Bond now. He could feel its icy tendrils everywhere he turned. Aren’t I the hero? thought Bond. Am I not the side of angels? Angus’ “assassination”. Samantha’s murder. The debacle at du Lyonne’s house. A damaged vehicle. And now an exchange of gunfire and a pointless wound. Bond crushed a handful of dust in his fist, letting the grains fall through to the earth.

James Bond had always known, with absolute certainty, that he would die young. It was a feeling that had haunted him throughout his youth, through his days in the Navy. Even when he was a lowly courier at the Service, in the earliest days of his career, he had sensed that death was never far away from him. His promotion to the Double O section had merely reinforced the belief for him. Now he had become the deliverer of death, inextricably linked with it, and with every mission he had battled against the inevitability of his own demise.

His comrades had fallen around him. Too many. His birthdays had become smaller affairs, minor milestones each time. He had seen shifts in the world he had never expected to see. He had outstretched his own expectations. For a while, he had considered himself lucky. Now he faced a more terrifying prospect. He would not die young, forever preserved in the valiant death of youth and beauty and brilliance. He was going to decay. That thought filled Bond with despair. The concept of watching each part of him slowly dissolve away, slip from his grasp. The man who had won so many times was now going to taste bitter failure writ large.

The sands of the dunes roared as Kindie drove the Land Rover towards him. He watched the vehicle approach, following it down the slope. She pulled up in the centre of the village and climbed down beside him.

“How is it?”

“What?”

“The pain.”

Bond laughed bitterly. He hadn’t thought about his wound, hadn’t even felt it. “It’s fine.”
She dropped down beside him and unfurled the first aid kit. With a loving touch she began to swab at the wound with antiseptic. Bond hissed as the disinfectant burned at his cauterised flesh. He reached out and held her hand fast. “Can you see the bullet?”

“I think so,” Kindie said. “Just about.”

“You’re going to have to pull it out.”

”James, I – “

“We don’t have access to a hospital. We have to keep going. I can’t have that injury festering away. You’ll have to pull out the bullet, and bandage me, and then we’re going to move on. Understood?”

She fixed him in her cold stare. “Don’t get used to giving me orders, Bond. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“No, you’re not,” he grinned. “You’re the tender, nursing kind. In fact, when we get back to Windhoek, I’ll buy you a uniform.”

“That’s just kinky,” she laughed. A sigh, and then she said, “Do you want a stick to bite down on, or
something?”

“I can take it. You may want to cover your ears though. Some of the language may not be suitable for delicate young ladies.”

“I’ve never been described as delicate before.” She tipped his head back, so he couldn’t see her ministrations, and he let her. Bond didn’t want her to see the shadows that had passed over his face. What was he doing? Where was he taking them?

He felt the rictus of despair slip through his body. That fatal self-doubt. Aging, damaged. A liability. Why continue against du Lyonne? Why pursue the man further, when all the portents indicated he would never win?

Then the moment came. Bond let out a roar, a tirade of four-letter filth as his calf was ripped apart. The pain convulsed through his body, wave after wave, shuddering through his limbs, and then it was silent again. Beads of sweat had broken out across his forehead. He gripped his teeth together, and waited for the agony to subside again.

Bond realised that his face was damp with tears. Were they tears of agony, or of mourning, he wondered?

Kindie’s soft hand wiped away the moisture from his brow, the tears from his eyes. Soothing, caring. Her beautiful face swam into view, and then she was kissing him on the lips, tenderly. The rush of pain was replaced by the rush of passion and emotion towards her. It was a kiss of life. She pulled away, and smiled. “Better now?”

“A little.”

Looking at Kindie, Bond felt himself convulse again, this time with revulsion. Mourning? Self-pitying nonsense! He looked at the brave, astonishing girl, and realised that he had to continue. She had experienced agonies in her life. So had he. So had everyone. And what kept everyone going was the idea that their lives were worthy.

Perhaps he, Bond, was destined to atrophy. Perhaps he was going to rot away. But not now. Not today. He wouldn’t let it.

He felt the spectre of Death rise up again beside him. Maybe He was once again his companion on this journey. Maybe He was here to lay claim to his body. James Bond would never find out rotting in an African village. He would have to confront Death face on.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 19

THE ROAR OF THE DUNES

It was astonishing. The Land Rover banked and swung, curving down the slopes of the desert, carving a sinewy path into the soft sand. Bond stared out the window, his mouth agape, amazed at the beauty they were witnessing.

They were in amidst a herd of fine, grey African elephants. Kindie had told him that they might see some. The Skeleton Coast was renown for its “surfing” elephants, who coasted down the soft sands with a giant grace. But they were so close, driving literally in between the vast, noble animals. Bond felt that he could reach out and touch them, stroke the aged, wrinkled skin of the amazing creatures. Of all the sights he had witnessed on this journey, this was the most awe-inspiring.

He turned to Kindie, smiling almost giddily. Kindie was laughing. “I suppose you’re blasé about this?” he said.

“Not at all,” she replied. “I’m just hoping you’re not going to get us crushed.” He swung the wheel, darting in front of a heavy bull elephant, and then they were ahead of the group. Almost as a farewell, the lead elephant raised its trunk and let out a roar.

“Fantastic,” said Bond. “Truly fantastic.” Even he was surprised at how the sight of the elephants had affected him. He had seen them before, of course; he remembered a Sunday afternoon at London Zoo as a child with his Aunt, watching washed out beasts mope around inadequate shelters, but here they had achieved a magnificence he had not thought possible. Bond was not in thrall of the natural world; his admiration lay primarily in the human mind, which had achieved so much in its history. Being this close to the animals had, however, stirred an acknowledgement of Nature’s beauty and brilliance.

It had also served as a respite from the accelerating tensions within the tiny vehicle. With each passing minute, the Defender closed in on du Lyonne’s complex. And whereas before they had held the element of stealth, since the incident in the village they were exposed to his defences. The tension had manifested itself in nervous silences, where Kindie stared ahead at the undulating landscape while he drove. There had been a few tense words, and one spat for which Kindie had apologised almost immediately. Both were waiting for the moment.

The day advanced. The afternoon appeared, crowned, and began a gentle slide into evening. They paused, briefly, so that Bond could inject another, perhaps unwise, shot of morphine to alleviate the pain in his leg (now a dull thud), then crested a dune and headed into the sun.

It was then that Kindie gripped his forearm and exclaimed, “James!”

He had seen it too. A black speck, above the distant horizon, which had grown with each passing moment. Now they could see the sunlight glinting off the metal body, hear the distant hum of the rotor blades. The helicopter had returned.

“What do we do?” Kindie asked.

“We go on,” said Bond. He gunned the engine, and pointed them onward. What else could they do? There was nowhere to hide in this vast expanse of sand and rock. All they could do was push on, and hope to evade du Lyonne’s men. Bond reached past Kindie and pulled his Walther from the glove compartment. Against the helicopter itself, he suspected it would be near useless; but if there was a landing party, he could fight.

The helicopter dipped its nose and headed straight for them. Bond responded with a series of long lazy, curves, distracting gestures to keep them on their toes. There was a crackle of static, then a bullhorn echoed with thickly accented English: “Stand down! You are in a restricted area! Stop your vehicle immediately, by order of the National Park Protectorate!” The message was repeated in ugly Afrikaans. Then the helicopter buzzed them, swooping low over the vehicle, whipping up a maelstrom of sand around the Land Rover. It performed a turn, then buzzed them again. “Stand down! Halt your vehicle, or we will be forced to take action!”

They continued on their way, the speedometer on the Land Rover flickering between sixty and seventy. The rough terrain rattled their bodies.

“We have given you sufficient warning,” said the bullhorn again. “We will now take action.” The helicopter moved ahead of them, then hovered. As they watched, a tiny black ball dropped from its underbelly and down into the sand below. There was a moment of pause, where they held their breath, then a sharp crack and the earth exploded upwards.

Bond wrenched at the wheel, just in time, swinging the car away from the centre of the explosion. Dust and dirt and sand rained down on them. They were using grenades!

“Kindie,” said Bond. “Hold the wheel, straight and steady.” She reached across and began to steer, freeing Bond’s hands for the gun. He leaned out the window and let off two shots. They clanged ineffectually against the belly of the helicopter, barely scratching the paint work. He took back the wheel as the helicopter came in low for another buzz. He wrenched at the handbrake, causing the Land Rover to spun 180 degrees, then floored the accelerator and sent the vehicle surging up a high dune. The sudden movement caused the helicopter to spin, confused, and they had put some distance between the two before it had time to react and begin its pursuit once more.

“Stand down!” it cried again. “You have been warned!”

The helicopter swooped over the top of them, not pausing. Then again there was the tumbling, dancing ball, and Bond realised that it was the end of the chase.

The dune, barely two metres in front of them, reared up into the air, a giant crescendo of sound and light. A heavy plume of sand rose, then immediately collapsed in on itself. The force of the blast caused the front of their car to rise into the air, before coming down to land once more. And to Bond’s horror, he realised that there was no longer ground beneath them.

The detonation of the grenade had caused the whole dune to begin a heavy collapse. Now the Land Rover was pitching forward, lurching down almost at a vertical, its engine wailing. Kindie let out a scream of terror, and Bond only had time to grab hold of her arm before the Land Rover crashed into the ground below. Their bodies were thrown across the cabin, against the windscreen which cracked under the force of their bodies. They rolled out of the front of the vehicle and onto the ground.

Then came the roar. Bond had never heard anything like it, the long heavy scream of the sand as the dune collapsed completely, a heavy wave that fell towards them. He grasped hold of the girl even tighter as a million, a billion grains of sand flooded over their prone bodies. He had no time to scream, only enough to grab a lung of air before the world went black.

He could no longer breathe. The dune had swamped him completely, plunging him into an underworld. All he could feel was Kindie’s arm in his grip, and the heavy, oppressive closeness of the sand. It was like being trapped underwater, only instead of the soft undulations of the sea, he felt the persistent, angry force of the dune all around him. He tried to move as such, scooping with his free arm in an improvised swimming motion. But the weight was so much, he could barely move it. How much air did he have? How much air did Kindie have?

He pushed out with his arm again, and this time could move it further. Come on! He told himself. You have to do it! Bond could not tell where was up and where was down. He was lost within the heavy darkness of the sand. It swamped him completely, filling his mouth, his eyes, his nostrils. He moved his arm, and found he was able to get some leverage. With enormous effort, he dragged his arm, his body, Kindie’s body on through the thick sands.

He felt a dizziness as his body became starved of oxygen. He was going to die.

He pushed his hand upwards, moving what he could. A little at a time. And there it was! He felt his hand burst through the surface and into the air. Emboldened, desperate, he pushed his whole body up, rising through the heaviness and upwards. You can do it! He told himself! You have to do it! You have to save Kindie! You have to save yourself! And then he could feel the air on his face, and he opened his mouth and let the oxygen fill him up once more. But he couldn’t stop, he carried on dragging, and then he felt the resistance fade as Kindie fell limply out of the sands and onto the shifting ground. He opened his dry eyes, and looked at the hideous yellow face of Kindie. The sand covered her features completely, and she wasn’t moving.

He pushed his fingers inside her mouth, and scooped out the lumps of thick wet sand that blocked her airways. Then he pumped at her chest with tired, painful arms, pushed between her breasts, willing her back to life. She coughed thickly, and rolled onto her side, and vomited. Bond fell back onto his heels and then he too, was blessedly sick. He let the violent retches consume his body as he choked up mouthfuls of the foul, thick sands.

How long did they lie there afterwards, letting their bodies reacclimatise to the air, to the wonderful freedom again? Bond would never know. All he knew was that he felt a shadow fall across his face, and he forced his eyes to open once more.

He stood between Bond and the dying sun, its rays casting a red glow around his body. But Bond could still see the intricate blue patterns that marked out his naked torso. The tattoos enveloped the muscular chest, and plunged into the waistband of the jeans. The hand gripped a heavy rifle. And the smile was leering, amused, evil.

Henk.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 20

INTO THE LION’S DEN

Henk reached for Bond’s face and yanked him by his collar into a seated position. A second guard appeared behind Henk, and pushed Bond’s wrists together.

“I need… some water…” Bond croaked through his dry throat. The men ignored him. The guard looped a plastic cable tie around Bond’s wrists in a figure of eight, and pulled it tight while Henk watched. Then he dragged Bond to his feet. “Water. Please.”

Henk reached to his waist, and retrieved a metal water canister. With a mocking smile, he took a long, deep gulp, letting rivulets of cold water trickle from the sides of his mouth. Then he moved close to Bond, so close that their eyes were barely inches apart. And he spat. The jet of water struck Bond on the cheek, washing away the compacted sand and sending a brown river of filth coursing down his face. The other guard, finishing with securing Kindie, let out a belly laugh.

Repulsed, humiliated, Bond started towards Henk, not caring that his hands were tied securely. He hurtled forward, letting out a rasp of a battle cry, intent on wounding the animal of a man in some way. It was simplicity for Henk to punch 007 forcefully in the stomach, sending him double, and disarming him.

“Stop!” shouted Kindie, but her voice was also thick with sand, and it only made the men laugh the more. Henk reached down, and grabbed the cable tie between Bond’s hands. Then he dragged him, as though he were a carcass in a market, dragging his weakened body over the remains of the dune to the waiting helicopter.

They were in the air before Bond turned to Kindie and said, “I’m sorry I got you into this.” They were side by side on the back seat of the helicopter. He spat a heavy lump of sand onto the floor.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scolded. “We’re partners.”

He smiled weakly. “I didn’t mean for you to come this far. I was going to send you off to safety. This is no place for you.”

“It’s no place for you, either, James.” She stopped, and coughed heavily. Bond reached up with his manacled hands and touched her face.

“There’s still hope,” he said.

She fixed him with her cynical smile. “I don’t think there is, but thank you for pretending.”

“If they wanted us dead, they could have dropped a grenade right on top of us. But clearly they want us alive for something. And while we’re alive, we have hope of escape.”

“Silence!” barked the guard ahead of them. He used the barrel of his rifle to push the two of them apart once more. Henk sat at the front, next to the pilot.

Bond had never had the opportunity to examine the tattoos of Henk’s men before. Now he was so close, he could see their crude designs were home made. They had been formed with ink and needle, night after night. Over the man’s right eyebrow there was a simplistic representation of a bird in flight, swirling around a number “28”.

It now came to Bond why du Lyonne had shipped in his park wardens from South Africa. These men were not just brutal thugs; they weren’t even simple criminals. They were Numbers: members of the most notorious gang in South Africa. Composed entirely of psychopaths, murder is a requirement of entry. The Numbers ruled South African prisons, to the extent that even the authorities were cowed by their power, and their tentacles stretched out into the criminal world throughout the nation.

And they were 28s! The very worst of the Numbers. Formed in 1906 during a revolt by 28 members, their ranks were filled by the worst kind of depraved, violent individuals. They were rumoured to rip out the hearts of their victims, believing that ingesting it would pass on the corpse’s life force. Added to this were their notorious sexual proclivities, with sodomy not just commonplace, but demanded. Bond had heard that in some prisons, “the men of the night” took over entire wings of prisons for extensive sado-masochistic orgies. The bird in the guard’s tattoo indicated his sexual passivity, his chattel status. Bond guessed that in the outside world, the sexual dominance would continue, not because they were homosexuals, but because the act of sodomy could forcibly underline the hierarchy in an organisation.

These were the men Rufus du Lyonne had chosen to man his private fiefdom; depraved psychopaths. These were Bond’s opposition, men who believed in violence, and pain, with Henk at their head. Bond almost respected du Lyonne’s ingenuity in picking them, and his power in bending them to his will.

The helicopter was banking now, twisting into the sun. The cabin was suddenly filled with the ruby light. Bond held up a hand, to shield his eyes, and he saw their destination, glinting in the distance. Du Lyonne’s nascent hotel complex, an incongruous site of human activity amongst the stunning primitive landscape of the Skeleton Coast.

The building was three stories high, constructed from sand coloured bricks, and teardrop shaped. The tail of the tear drop swept downwards, curling to ground level and shielding a deep, irregular hole. One day, this would probably be the swimming pool, but for now it was a dusty pit, with a cement mixer standing forlorn at its centre. The head of the hotel itself was wrapped in scaffolding, but Bond could not see any activity; he guessed that the builders had finished for the evening.

There were three roads converging on the main building, and clearly visible from the air. The first meandered around it at some distance. By the side of it, two smaller buildings were built, and a third was under construction. These looked to be the private cabins of the hotel, for more exclusive guests. The second road was well worn, but had not been finished: instead deep tyre tracks guided the way to a complex of Portakabins that Bond guessed housed the builders and staff.

The third road went to the end of a full-sized runway, complete with apron. Parked on the tarmac was a private jet, decorated with the du Lyonne family crest, and a jeep. The helicopter came into land next to the jeep, and Bond saw that the vehicle was accompanied by two rifle-wielding 28s. Henk pulled open the door. “You’re going for a ride. No funny business, or I break your skull.”

“No concierge? And you call this a luxury hotel?”

Henk lifted the gun and placed it in his eye line. “Don’t give me an excuse, Bond.”

The jeep took them on a rapid trip into the tail of the teardrop, where the garage facilities were located. Bond pressed his leg against Kindie’s, and she responded in kind. Their faces were still covered in sand. Under different circumstances, they would be comical.

From the garage, they were moved through service corridors, long anonymous pathways marked by unpainted breeze blocks and with blank doors. Bond memorised the turns, keeping track of their route, should it be needed again. Henk lead the way, taking them up an iron fire staircase, which Bond guessed was probably at the centre of the building, and then pushing open a door.

The contrast could not be more stark. They stepped through into a luxurious outer office, with plush red carpets and heavy traditional furnishings. A portrait of Cecil Rhodes hung over the vacant desk. Henk pushed on, through the double doors, and into the grand office itself.

It was like a hyper-version of an executive office. The furnishings were that much more opulent, the surroundings more grand. A grand, elaborate desk dominated the room, probably 18th century, and ornately carved and gilded. Behind it was a glass wall, running the entire width of the room, with the du Lyonne family crest etched into it as a six-foot high corporate logo. There was scaffolding outside the glass, but they were still afforded a magnificent view of the setting sun through the window.

Bond was only vaguely aware of the majesty of his surroundings. Because, sitting in a chair a few feet to the left of the desk, was Dr Angus Catchlove.

The intervening years had not been kind. He looked thinner, drier, as though he had come to take on the appearance of his desert exile. His hair had thinned to grey wisps atop his sunburned head, and the fingers that held his cigarette were even more yellowed with nicotine. But the ferocity of his gaze was still there, the penetrating intelligence behind his eyes. His lips contorted into a mocking smile at the sight of Bond.

007 felt billows of anger sweep through him, compacted rage and fury at the sight of Catchlove. Resentment of his treatment following Catchlove’s “death”, anger at his treatment since. But most of all, cold blooded hatred for the way that he had destroyed Samantha with his actions. Bond wanted to leap the desk and throttle him with his manacled hands. He licked his lips, and tasted the New York rain once more.

Perhaps they sensed the heightened tensions, as Henk moved between Bond and Catchlove. Through gritted teeth, Bond said, “Angus. It’s been a long time.”

The smirk got wider. “Two years. You haven’t changed. Still as stupid looking as ever.”

“If only I could say the same for you. Normally a suntan gives a person a healthy glow, but it just heightens your physical imperfections. Your charming personality hasn’t altered though.”

Catchlove launched himself out of his seat and stood so that his face was close to Bond’s. He stared up at him. “Watch it Bond,” he hissed. “Just watch it. Remember you’re the one in chains. Show me some damn respect. Or I’ll get one of these apes to beat some into you.”

“Calm down, Angus. You seem to be forgetting that these men obey du Lyonne, not you. So I’d be more polite about them. You’re all fellow henchmen.”

“That’s enough, Catchlove.” Bond had not noticed Rufus du Lyonne enter the room. But now he strode in, confident, his pale linen suit a classic colonial outfit, his air of dominance filling the room. Catchlove backed away, resentful but respectful. Du Lyonne owned this place.

He sat in the heavy leather chair behind the desk and inspected Bond and Kindie. He studied every part of them, and Bond again got the feeling that he was being stripped naked, that du Lyonne could see inside him. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry I interrupted your reunion, Mr Bond. You and the good Doctor must have so much to catch up on. But time is precious.” He leaned back in the chair, insouciant. “I would have thought our first meeting would have made my position clear. Ordering one’s men to kill a person tends to underline the point.”

“And I would have thought that my murder of those same men would have made my position clear. I don’t back away, du Lyonne.”

“I suppose when a man no longer has anything to lose, he becomes desperate. That’s true, isn’t it, Mr Bond? You’re not here in any kind of official capacity. I am under no investigation by the British Government – in fact, it is you who is being investigated. You’re a rogue agent, fighting above your weight.” He shifted his attention to Kindie. “I’m sorry to break it to you. I assume he talked you into assisting him with tales of derring-do and doing it for Queen and country. But all James Bond is is a failure. A failed agent, shunned by his people in the weight of superior forces. In other words, me.” He sprang from the chair and walked round to look at her. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. Obviously you know who I am, but you’re something of a mystery to me. My men at the guard post said that there was a Negro woman with Bond, but that was all they could offer me.”

She stood proud, her profile forceful and powerful. “I believe you know of me. My name is Kindie Sinclair, and you are the man who killed my family.”

Du Lyonne let out a tiny snort of amusement, and clapped his hands together. “So! The irony is delicious. Of all the women… Well, well, Ms Sinclair. After all this time. I knew your reputation, of course. Past tense. When you were still working. This is wonderful.” He leaned in, conspiratorially. “I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over your father. From what Mr Henk tells me, the AIDS had rendered him near useless anyway. He said he was like a corpse even before he poured the petrol over his body. You should be thanking me for stopping his suffering.”

Kindie tried to break from the hold of the guard, shaking, twisting her body in his grasp, but it was impossible. Instead she let fly with a volley of foul insults. Du Lyonne’s only reaction was another laugh. “Does that make you feel better? Released all your impotent rage, have you? You can shout and scream all you like, Ms Sinclair, but you are still in my grip, so I’d save your energy if I were you.”

“Whatever you have planned for us, du Lyonne, get on with it,” spat Bond. “We’re not interested in your power trips.”

Du Lyonne ignored him. Instead he turned to Catchlove and said, “What do you think, Angus? Is she suitable?”

Catchlove took hold of Kindie’s face, and moved it back and forth. He studied her like a man at a cattle market sizing up a new livestock purchase. “She’s a little thinner than I would have liked. But she seems in good health. No signs of illness. I would have to give her a more thorough examination first before the experiments begin.”

“No!” said Bond. “She has nothing to do with this. I dragged her along. Let her go, and use me instead. She won’t reveal what’s going on here. She knows nothing.”

Catchlove cast him a bored look, as though Bond’s outburst were a minor distraction. Du Lyonne, meanwhile, smiled his full smile, the sharp teeth clearly on display. “I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question, Mr Bond. Ms Sinclair is eminently suited for our purposes. She will be perfect. I think you should take her downstairs, Angus. Begin the work immediately, and keep me informed of your progress.”

Catchlove nodded, and gestured for Kindie to be taken away. As she was pulled from the room, she looked at Bond, a last glance. “See you, James. It’s been fun.”

“It has. See you soon, Kindie.” And then she was gone, and Bond was trying not to think of the look of fear in her eyes. He looked at du Lyonne as the door clicked shut behind them. “Whatever you’ve got planned, du Lyonne, get on with it.”

“Have patience. Henk! Mr Bond is the first guest to arrive in our hotel. Perhaps we should show him to his room.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 21

THE LANGUAGE OF VIOLENCE

“These will be treatment rooms.” Du Lyonne waved a hand at a series of concrete boxes on the ground floor. “Reiki massage, hot stones, herbal wraps – anything to relax and replenish.”

They were walking through the hotel to the main entrance. Little beyond du Lyonne’s private quarters had been decorated, or even finished; the plaster on the walls was thick and messy, the concrete floors shone under naked bulbs.

“The treatments will of course depend on the prevailing fashions – though we are looking into providing Namib Desert sand therapy; it’s based on a treatment that’s currently popular in some parts of California. Warm sand flows over the body, to an apparently relaxing effect. We’re considering making it our speciality.”

Through a pair of double doors, out into the grounds. There was a jeep waiting for them the other side of the swimming-hole, and its headlights provided the only illumination amongst the black desert. “This, as I’m sure you will have guessed, will be the pool. Natural water sources are, shall we say, a little hard to come by round here. We’ve arranged for the water to be shipped in from source. The airstrip is not just to allow our guests to arrive in style, but also to bring in supplies. When it’s completed the pool will contain a wet bar, of course, and there will also be a terrace for the restaurant area. Dining will be concentrated there, though personal chefs will be provided for guests if required.”

“And when will it all be finished?” said Bond, feeling vaguely ridiculous. He was manacled, bedraggled, and yet was receiving a tour of the hotel facilities as though he were a potential investor. It had a certain black humour to it.

“Our original anticipated completion date was next summer, though we have delayed it.” Du Lyonne assumed a conspiratorial tone. “The good Doctor Catchlove received a set back in some of his research which necessitated a delay. As his laboratories will be converted into hotel facilities, we need his work to be finished before we can proceed. So a minor accident was arranged to shut down the site for a while. The good thing about these impoverished African governments is they are so desperate for your investment that they will allow you almost unlimited leeway.”

They clambered into the jeep, du Lyonne in front, Bond and Henk in the rear. It swept round the hotel, headlights slicing into the night, bouncing across the unmade road and headed for the cabins Bond had spotted previously. They were, again, concrete shells, but he could see how, suitably camouflaged, they had been designed to resemble “African” huts. No doubt, they would be daubed with “genuine” mud, and straw would be applied to the roof. Third World chic with First World facilities.

“And these will be for our most exclusive guests. Maximum privacy, but with easy access to the hotel’s facilities. Here you can relax with private sitting rooms, and with a personal terrace on which to appreciate the magnificence of the Namib sunset.” Du Lyonne beamed. “This will be the jewel of the continent, the only place in which to unwind from the vagaries of Western life and appreciate the simplicity of another world. Of course, you’re a little early to appreciate the cabin in its full luxurious state. But I’m sure it will be more than adequate for the moment.”

They entered the one completed cabin. Inside were two metal directors chairs, with canvas seats and backs, placed opposite one another underneath the single lit bulb in the ceiling. Next to one of the chairs was a similarly styled table with a leather pouch on it. There was no other furniture. There were two doors from this room. Bond imagined that one day it would serve as a central sitting room, and that the doors would lead to bedrooms. At the back, opposite the door they came in through, was a wide expanse of bare chipboard. This, no doubt, marked the exit to the private viewing terrace. When complete, it would probably be a glass French window, but until then, the hole was simply covered.

Bond was hauled into the centre of the room. Using a switchblade knife, Henk sliced the cable ties from his wrist, and then he and the other guard stripped him, throwing his clothes into the corner of the room. Bond resisted slightly, but Henk placed his hand on the back of his neck and held him in his abnormally firm grip. He acquiesced, allowing himself to be subjected to the humiliation. He could see no alternative for the moment.

“Sit,” hissed Henk. Bond took the chair, and more cable ties were used to anchor him to the metal arms of the chair. He felt the plastic bite, and the uncomfortable pressure of the metal on the tendons in his wrist. Then Henk kneeled and locked his ankles to the legs of the chair, leaving him spread-eagled, exposed.

Du Lyonne settled into the chair opposite Bond, the one with the table beside it. “So.” He said. “Here we are.”

“If you’re going to kill me, du Lyonne, get on with it. Don’t waste both our times by subjecting us to this farce first.”

“In good time, Bond. You will be killed in good time. I want to talk to you first.”

“I see. A fate worse than death.”

Du Lyonne began to unzip the leather pouch, lovingly opening it. “I’ve waited such a long time to speak to a kindred spirit such as yourself, Mr Bond. You may feel that you and I have nothing in common. Certainly we are formed in very different crucibles – I with my ancestry, my history, my glorious past leading up to my position of power and dominance. My class above yours. In pure social status, we are incomparable.

“I am talking about our emotions, our passions. Our patriotism. We are British, Mr Bond, members of the finest nation state on Earth. We represent the most superior, the highest form of humanity there has ever been, or ever will be. You and I. Servants of Her Majesty the Queen, flag bearers of the Land of Hope and Glory. I have wanted to talk to a man such as yourself. Someone like you would be able to appreciate the brilliance, the genius, and the ultimate purpose of what I am forming here in this building.”

”I would say that is the only grouping that you and I share, du Lyonne.”

“Perhaps.” He opened up the pouch. It rolled outwards, like a jeweller’s bag, revealing a half a dozen blades, held fast in place by leather cross-straps. Each one was formed, not from metal, but from ivory. They ranged in size from around three inches long to nearly six, and each had an intricate, delicately carved handle. They were carved to a wicked looking point, and each one was serrated along either side of the blade. Bond saw them for what they were: instruments of pain and torture. Du Lyonne said, “What we also share is a knowledge of the language of violence. The power of cruelty and suffering. We know that with a few short moves – in your case, the bluntness of a fist, in mine, the delicate and superior application of a blade – we can bring about complicity. Obedience. Terror.”

He slipped the largest knife from its case, and weighed it in his hands. Then he placed the tip against the centre of Bond’s chest. He felt the cold touch of the ivory against his breastbone, and his heart began to quicken beneath it. Du Lyonne pushed slightly, and the knife broke the skin, moving perhaps a millimetre into the flesh. Bond’s body tensed, and his mind screamed, but he bit down tight to control the pain. With deliberate slowness, du Lyonne dragged the knife down, slicing through Bond’s chest between the ribs. Crimson blood pooled around the blade then flowed freely, its downward trajectory broken by the hairs on his torso so that it spread, a delta across his body. The pain ramped within him, progressing with each centimetre that the knife progressed, until du Lyonne withdrew an inch above Bond’s navel. He leaned back in his chair, and watched the blood, a smile on his face. Bond did not react. Inside he was revolting, his heart and brain pounding with energy and agony, but externally he resisted. He locked his eyes on du Lyonne’s and refused to look away.

“I think you can go now, Meer,” said du Lyonne over his shoulder. “Henk, you stay. I doubt there will be any need for you to act, however. I think Mr Bond understands now.” Meer left, closing the door behind him, while Henk took up a sentry position at the back of the room.

“I understand you’re a sadistic *******,” said Bond.

“As I said Mr Bond: we are alike.” Du Lyonne slipped the knife back into its case. “As you may have observed, these are not typical blades. One of my passions is the collection of rare knives. There is something so simple and elegant about it as a weapon. You use your guns, your revolvers, in your work, and I understand that they have their place. But with a knife you see the look in your victim’s eyes as you inflict the pain. You must be close to be able to punish them. To be that close to a man when you kill him, that is the true test. That takes courage.”

The bleeding had slowed as his body began to clot. Bond released his hands from where they had gripped the metal chair. The aluminium was slick with his sweat.

“There’s no glory in murder,” said Bond grimly. “There’s no pleasure in it.”

“Which is, no doubt, what you tell yourself so you can retain your human veneer. But you know that you enjoy killing Mr Bond; no-one makes a career out of it such as you have done unless they are gaining pleasure from the action. Admit it.”

Bond remained silent. He refused to be psychologically brutalised by du Lyonne. He would submit his body to his machinations, but the idea of being allied with him mentally repelled 007. He fixed his face in a stoical expression, and said nothing.

Du Lyonne raised his hands in mock defeat. “Then you are an even greater coward than I gave you credit for. If you cannot admit to the beauty that comes from death, then you cannot be whole as a killer. Look at these knives, for example. They come from one of the tribes of the Skeleton Coast. Their culture was ritualistic around the slaughter of animals for food; it became quite a ceremony. Each of these blades represented a specific task in the cutting and gutting of an animal; it was there for a purpose within the ceremony. It’s why they are constructed with such elaborateness – and also why they are so lethal.” He took out the smallest of the knives and twisted it in front of his eyes. “And yet, in its own way, a potent symbol of African incompetence and waste. They use six knives where you or I would use one.”

He sighed and returned the knife to its sheath. “May I ask you a question, Mr Bond?”

“You’re the one holding the knives. I believe that gives you the right to ask what you like.”

“True. Speaking as a patriot, what do you consider to be the greatest era in British history?”

Bond frowned in puzzlement. This is what he was being tortured for? For his opinion on the past? He said, after a moment’s thought, “Perhaps the War. The days of Britain versus Germany, with no assistance. Our sole island, alone, isolated, on the edge of a fascist continent. Daily bombings of our civilians. And we never gave up. We fought against them, and took their attacks and used them as weapons. And we won.”

Du Lyonne broke into applause. “Bravo, Mr Bond! How right you are. ‘Our finest hour’, indeed. And I do not dispute that the dark days of the Second World War were undoubtably a key moment in our shared heritage.

“I, myself, would go back fifty years or so before that. The closing days of Victoria’s magnificent reign. The days when the United Kingdom bestrode the planet. When we were richer, cleverer, stronger than anyone else. We led science and thought. We led invention and innovation. Our captains of industry created wealth unlike anything seen before. Our cities became new Athens with genius and money running into the streets. And the rose pink of the Empire stained every map stronger than all the other colours put together.

“Remember it, Bond, remember the strength we had.” Du Lyonne’s eyes gleamed with fervour. “One could travel from Cape Town to Baghdad and never leave British soil. That sun that never set on the Empire. The goods and riches of millions flowing out of these colonies and into London, and our whole nation gained in strength.”

He looked at Bond. “You want it to be like that again. You know how Britain was. Our influence, our world. We ruled so absolutely. You want that again.”

Bond looked away. He didn’t want to du Lyonne to sense his agreement. Of course that was what he wanted! He had watched as Britain’s once proud voice had become tremulous and weak; not bitterly, but with regret and sadness, in the same way that we watch our own bodies age. Trading on former glories to gain a seat at the top table. Pathetically grateful for attention from Washington. His whole job, his whole life, had been dedicated to the concept of a Great Britain, to protecting and preserving her. Yes, of course he wanted Britain to be that again, no longer simpering to Brussels, no longer touching its forelock every time a President visited.

But all that had been at a cost. He said, “The Empire was a concept of another time. In gathering up the riches for ourselves, we stripped it from the people who needed it. Our nation gained in character and humanity when we let it go.”

“Needed it!” Du Lyonne exploded. “Needed it! They knew nothing of what they had! The colonies were filled with such an abundance of wealth, and the people there didn’t know what to do with it! Africa, Africa, look at Africa! A vast, beautiful continent, dripping with minerals and resources. Gold, silver, diamonds. Materials for construction, for science. What would the Africans have done with it without our assistance? Nothing!

“When we took countries, we didn’t strip them, as you so ignorantly put it. We improved them. We took their copper, their iron ore, and we gave them literacy, railways, in return. We gave them gifts of medicine, and modern roads. We trained them, educated them, changed them, and for the better. Each country that gained “independence”, as they so bravely put it, left the Empire a good deal better off then when they entered it. We gifted them democracy and the tools of nationhood.

“And what did they do with it?” Du Lyonne stood suddenly, his hands animated, his face filled with exasperation and anger. “They wasted it away! They campaigned for decades to get freedom from this ‘oppressive’ Empire, from their ‘invaders’, and when we gave it to them, they didn’t know what to do with it. They went to pieces.

“In Victoria’s time, Africa was exotic, mystical. Now it’s a byword for death and corruption. Those countries that were so keen to stand on their own two feet descended into bloody civil wars without the unifying British to knot them together. They took the democratic tools we gave them and threw them out in favour of tinpot dictators and violent warlords, regimes of horror and murder. They let their people starve in their millions, let them die because they didn’t know what to do when there was a drought. They produced Biblical famines through ignorance of production and supply.

“We gave them hospitals that gleamed with modernity and health. And they submitted themselves to viruses and germs the like of which we have never seen before. Ten per cent of Africa has HIV, Bond. Ten per cent! A virus that is so easily preventable it’s laughable. And yet they keep passing it on, screwing their way into their graves like animals. They can’t stop them selves. They don’t know what else to do. They’re children, teenagers fighting for the right to be treated like adults. So you empower them, and they thrash around, looking for the boundaries, looking for help. We treated the African people as though they were like us. As though they could use their own minds. We should have kept them in their place.”

“That’s your solution is it? That there would be no death or famine or AIDS in Africa if the British were still in charge?”

“The colonies were happy under British rule. It was the liberals in England who stirred up ideas of self rule. It was they who made the Africans think they could compete on a world stage. Gave them ideals and ideas they could never hope to live up to. Once they raised their new flags and renamed Government House after some tribal leader those intellectuals lost interest and abandoned them. Just as we British abandoned them.”

He sat down again, breathing heavily after his exhaustive monologue. Quietly, du Lyonne said, “Something needs to be done. And both you and I know what it is.”

“I don’t think I do.”

”Yes you do, Bond. We both know. If Britain were in charge once more, if she ruled Africa again, we would all prosper. Once again our nation would have access to that mineral wealth. Think of how we would change if we had free access to Namibia’s uranium, Nigeria’s oil, South Africa’s diamonds once more. How much better we would be!

“And how we could shape the continent to achieve its potential. Get rid of pathetic men like Mugabe and install genuine leaders instead, men who knew their place. Men who would help this mighty continent to achieve its true potential. With Africa ours again, the world would be forced to listen once more. It would be amazing, Mr Bond, can’t you see?”

“A dream. A single dream, du Lyonne.”

“A dream I am making a reality. Soon I will change the face of this continent. If our weak leaders will not do anything about it, I will. I will give it to Britain on a plate. While England’s dreaming of her past glories, I will give her new ones to relish.”

Bond laughed. “I never realised quite how insane you was until this moment. I wish my hands weren’t tied so I could give you a round of applause for that display. It’s quite depressing really. Some of what you say makes sense, but it’s framed in lunacy. This continent is in a fearful state, but the solution isn’t a return to the days of colonies. We have to help them stand on their own two feet. You’re going to retake the British Empire? You and your Numbers, marching into Harare, into Lagos, and planting the Union Flag in the centre and waiting for the population to hurl itself at your feet and worship you. You’re deluded, and quite, quite mad.”

“Accusations of insanity are often the recourse of smaller minds when presented by genius. It will happen Mr Bond. I will make it happen.”

“I think there are 700 million Africans who might have some objections to your idea.”

“Which is why, Mr Bond, I have already planned on dealing with them. I’m going to kill them. All of them.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 22

THE GENOCIDE MAN

“Just kill them all? Isn’t that rather a large job for one man and some lackeys?”

“Not at all, Mr Bond. I have my means.”

Bond laughed. The man was truly, horribly, insane. “Let me guess. The treatment rooms convert into gas chambers. Reiki massage in the morning, Zyklon-B in the afternoon. An Auschwitz for Namibia.”

Du Lyonne laughed too, his thin lips riding up to reveal the sharp points of his teeth nestling beneath the moustache. “Nothing so crude. The Nazi principle was sound, though their methods were excessively primitive. This is the 21st Century: I like to think that we are beyond mere butchery. Rather than bring the victims to their deaths, we must take death to them.”

”And how do you intend doing that?”

“The good Doctor Catchlove has solved the problem for me. A marvellous man. A genius at scientific manipulation. For some time now, under my personal guidance, he has been developing a virus. Or rather, he has been adapting an existing virus. I take it you are aware of the avian influenza that mutated a little while ago, crossing from birds to humans and causing widespread death and infection?” Bond nodded. “It is a similar situation. We have altered the DNA structure of a virus previously restricted to primates – chimpanzees in fact – so that it will now infect human beings. Not just infect. Kill.”

Bond exploded. “You can’t be serious!”

“I am very, very serious Mr Bond. Our new virus now brings death within three to four weeks of infection. A horrible, agonising death.” As he spoke, du Lyonne’s eyes drifted, his mind caught up in his words. “My virus will kill millions.”

“Indiscriminately,” said Bond. “If what you say is true – and frankly I doubt it, given your shaky grasp of reality – then you’re as much at risk as all those Africans you just railed against. We’re all human beings, du Lyonne. We’ll all die.”

Du Lyonne raised his hands wide in a mock cheer for Bond. “Of course you’re right! Only a fool would create a weapon that would kill himself. And I am not a fool. Doctor Catchlove and I have manipulated the virus yet further.

“One thing you cannot deny, Mr Bond, is that you and I are different, physically, to the average black African. The difference is there for all to see. But the difference goes deeper than just skin colour. Encoded within our respective DNA are slight differences, tiny, tiny variations. It was my concept that we could take advantage of these differences and use them as an Achilles’ Heel.”

Bond felt the blood drain from his face, and a cold chill swept through his body. A genetic virus. The ultimate weapon of ethnic destruction. The principle had been around for decades, ever since the discovery of DNA itself. There had been unfounded rumours that Israeli scientists had looked into creating such a virus, but that they had floundered because the physical differences between Israelis and Palestinians were so slight. The US had also reportedly studied the idea in the Seventies, but hadn’t been able to make any progress.

But that was decades ago. The scientific world had advanced so much since then. Bond thought of the announcement a few years previously that the human genome had been mapped. He thought of the clones and genetically modified foods and animals that had been created. He thought of the colossal scientific reputation of Angus Catchlove. His mouth went dry as du Lyonne continued.

“Our inroad was the generation of a certain enzyme within the body. For whatever reason –“ he smiled half-apologetically “- I’m afraid I leave much of the scientific specifics to the good Doctor – for whatever reason, your body and my body produce this enzyme in a different manner to the African. Evolution took our races in different directions. This was the crack, the vulnerability. It allowed us to tailor the virus.”

“To do what?” asked Bond, though he already knew the answer.

“To only cause death to the black man. You and I can be infected, of course, but the virus will have no effect. We will just be carriers. To the African however, it will be the end. That sole genetic difference is now a death certificate imprinted into their very DNA.”

He leaned forward and stared into Bond’s eyes. They became locked into a stare. “Infection is through the nose or mouth, carried in the air. For the first week or two, there is no discernable effect. The virus is still infectious, can still be passed on, but the victim doesn’t know they have it.

“The first symptoms come with coughing, sneezing. Typical flu-like symptoms. Nothing to fear, of course. So the victim continues, hacking in public, blowing their nose, passing the virus into the air while all the time it multiplies and thrives within their body. All the time they are dying and they just think it’s the common cold.

“But then they begin to feel weak. The virus is hammering their body by now, attacking them from the inside. They begin to experience a shortness of breath – that’s their lungs being destroyed by the actions of the virus. Their body is failing. Finally they collapse, too weak to resist any longer. They have only a day or two left before they die. In pain. In agony. Their muscles pummelled. Their organs useless. Their whole body finally gives up its resistance and they die, they die horribly, painfully, unpleasantly, and that’s it. And the glory is that even as they were dying they were infecting their loved ones at their bedsides, they were infecting the doctors who attended them, the nurses who mopped their brow, they were killing all of them even as they died. Don’t you see Bond? I have the power to kill millions now. I am the bringer of Death, and I can control life. I’ll destroy them all. And when Africa’s been stripped clean of the vermin who populate it Britain can march in and retake what was once hers.”

“It’s a ridiculous plan,” said Bond. “Pathetic. ‘I am the bringer of Death.’ The virus can’t be that specific. You’ll be dead yourself before you’ve infected a single person.”

“I’m not denying it was difficult. Far from it. We had to perform a great number of field tests before we could be sure that the virus was correctly honed.”

A grim thought occurred to Bond. “The village I encountered,” he said. “It was deserted. Did you kill them all?”

“Every one,” said du Lyonne with a grin. “And others like them. A fertile testing ground. We swept in and took the villagers and used them for our experiments. And because this whole land is protected, and because they were such isolationist people, no-one even noticed they were gone.”

“How many?”

“How many are dead?” He waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t know. Angus deals with such minutiae. I am only interested in the results.” Du Lyonne settled himself in his chair, as Bond felt a chill sweep his body. Through cold lips, Bond said, “And Kindie…?”

“One of the last experimental subjects. We are simply fine tuning the virus now. It’s virtually complete. A good, healthy woman such as Miss Sinclair will provide final ratification. A much more reliable indicator than those weakened tribesmen. When she dies she will signal the attack.”

“How are you going to get it out there?” His mind was racing with ways to stop du Lyonne, concepts, ideas, to prevent this appalling virus from escaping. But all he could think of was Kindie’s face as the death took her, her suffering as the evil coursed through her veins. He thought of du Lyonne and Catchlove stood above her, watching her through radiation suits, taking notes on her as she succumbed to the pain. He felt the fury and anger barrel through his body, and his impotence. The plastic cable ties cut into his flesh and held him fast.

“The virus is airborne, so dissemination is simplicity itself. We pick a place, a crowded area. Perhaps the docks in Lagos. A market in Nairobi. Johannesburg airport. One man with an aerosol. For a few hours he walks around, spraying the virus into the air. Infecting passers by. They catch the virus. They walk around some more, infecting others. They get on a bus home. They sit with the family. And all the time they are passing the death on.

“Can you imagine the panic? As the virus spreads? Demands for action. Rioting. Shootings. People dying in the streets, their rotting corpses promoting further diseases. Economies collapsing. Whole nations being wiped off the earth. And who will they turn to in their hour of need? Who will they ask for assistance? Mother England. Those Empire ties will reach out, and Britain, beautiful, compassionate Britain, will provide assistance. Like a parent who has packed their adult child away, London will still go to her infant when they need her. Troops. Aid. We’ll move in to assist. And then when they’re all dead, when every African has been stripped from the Earth, there will be whole virgin nations laid out before us. Ready to be reassimilated into the Empire.”

“It’ll never happen,” said Bond. “You’re delusional. Britain doesn’t have a mighty army any more. It doesn’t have huge swathes of soldiers to march across a Continent. Though it pains me to say, it and though I still think Britain is the finest nation of men and women on the planet, we’re not what we once were. Our time in the sun has passed. When it comes to repopulating Africa, I think you’ll find we’re at the back of the queue. Behind the Americans for one.”

“Do you really think the Americans will care about Africa when there are Americans dying? I don’t intend restricting the virus to this continent. When black Americans start collapsing on the streets of Harlem, when South Central Los Angeles is closed off for fear of further infection, when Atlanta falls into a mass of rioting and panic and death, do you think the White House is going to care what is happening across the Atlantic? Those men and women who proudly declare they’re ‘African-Americans’ will soon regret it. They’ll die for their hubris.

“You look for flaws in my scheme, Mr Bond, but you can’t find any. You can see my genius, and, though you are too much of a coward to admit it, you know I’m right. You are as much of a patriot as I. We’re both fighting for our country.”

Bond shook his head, slowly. “I’ll say it again: it’ll never happen. You can kill half the Earth but you won’t bring back the Empire. Give it up du Lyonne. You can’t do this. You can’t kill so many people for such a futile purpose.” Bond realised he was pleading. The sheer horror, the vastness of du Lyonne’s scheme, the image of the death and pain that would follow – and Kindie’s screaming face at the centre of it. He couldn’t let it happen.

The door behind du Lyonne opened and Meer entered. He leaned down to du Lyonne and whispered in his ear. A strange smile spread over his face as he listened to Meer. He turned back to Bond. “Charming though this is, Mr Bond, I am afraid we will have to resume our conversation in the morning. It’s very late, and Meer has just informed me that another guest has arrived who needs my attention. But don’t worry. I’ll return tomorrow to conclude our chat.”

He stood up while Meer rolled up the leather bag of blades. “Du Lyonne,” said Bond. “You can’t do this. Any of it. You can’t kill millions of people.”

“I can do anything I want.” Du Lyonne’s body became enflamed with pride and arrogance. “Anything. As you will find out tomorrow, when I subject you to a painful and lengthy death. As the blood flows from your body, as you lie in agony at my feet, you will acknowledge me. Your social superior. Your intellectual better. The Great Patriot.” He reached into the bag and withdrew a thin knife about five inches long. He ran his thumb along the vicious serrated edge. “Perhaps I should leave you with a preview of the coming attractions.”

Rufus du Lyonne raised his arm high, then drove the knife into the back of Bond’s left hand. The ivory blade sliced through, into the muscle, between the bones, emerging through the palm. He let out a roar of pain, before the shock to his body sent him into blessed unconsciousness.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 23

BODY

Her face. Kindie’s face. Swimming, swimming through the darkness. Her lips turned into that rueful, cynical smile. The left eyebrow slightly raised. Her beautiful face drifting, drifting, turning in the black. Then her mouth contorted suddenly, the lips drew back to reveal her teeth, and she was screaming, shouting, in agony –

James Bond woke into the night. There was no illumination anywhere. He could see nothing. The only sense that was working was his ability to feel, and it was ringing alarms throughout his body. His whole self was tied into the horrible, astonishing pain in his left hand. The rest of him was unimportant: everything was geared to that left hand.

His pupils dilated, and slowly, slowly, shapes formed in the gloom. He could see the empty room again. Du Lyonne’s chair and table remained, but their occupier was gone.

Nervously, afraid of what he might see, Bond looked down to his hand. The first thing that struck him was how it blended into the dark room. The blood had flowed all over the back of the hand, and congealed to form an inky glove. His fingers poked out the end like pallid white maggots. He tried to move them, form a little drum roll with the tips, but they made weak, tentative traces, not a crescendo. In the centre of his hand was the slash of the knife. Its ivory blade was a stark contrast in the gloom.

Bond rolled his head back and closed his eyes once more. A brief summary of the position, he thought. Trapped. Imprisoned. Wounded. Tied up in a locked (he assumed) room. Hundreds of miles from civilisation across an inhospitable desert. And the only comrade you have is currently being subjected to unknown tortures.

The grim shadow of despair entered Bond’s soul. He felt its ghoulish tentacles reach around his heart. At that moment, Bond felt the unmistakable tinge of defeat.

And then that image returned to him: Kindie’s face. Her face in screaming agony. And the despair became weak and fled. Come on! He scolded himself. Don’t fail now! She needs you! Not just her. Millions like her. There’s only you standing in the way of unprecedented genocide. There’s hope. There will always be hope until you are finally in the ground.

He rocked his head back, which produced a wave of nausea. The morphine he had taken earlier was long gone from his system. Abandoning his left for the moment, Bond made an exploratory movement of his right. The hand itself was free to move, but the wrist was held tightly just below the bone. The same was true of his feet, the bands tight around his ankles.

Bond rocked in the chair, feeling the weight of it beneath him. The aluminium frame would, with sufficient force, break into pieces. It was relatively light and flimsy. He made a tentative slam of his body, a semi-leap. The metal crashed into the unfinished concrete floor with a clang that echoed around the vacant space for what felt like an eternity. Bond cringed at the noise it had made. He had no idea if the hut had been left guarded, if there was a sentry posted outside to prevent his escape, and such horrendous sound would surely alert him. For a few moments, Bond paused, readying himself for the entry of a furious guard. None came.

Bond did not take it as a sign that he was safe, however. A single noise might be ignored, but a whole chain of bangs and scrapes would draw attention. He made a testing movement on the chair, to see if he had at least loosened the metal, but it felt as firm as before.

He now realised that he had only one, painful avenue ahead of him. The cold ivory seemed to gloat at him through the night.

He took in a deep lungful of air. There was no alternative. Bond realised that he would have to retrieve the blade from his hand, and use it to slice through his bindings. The thought repulsed him, made him shudder throughout his body. But there was no alternative.

Bond shifted in the canvas seat, bending at the waist, and bringing his head forward. Straining, his still bruised back protesting at the undue stress, he lowered his face down towards the injured hand. The gunmetal scent of the dried blood entered his nostrils. With degrees of movement, he closed in on the handle of the knife. Its intricately carved handle was made of a series of ridges and curves.

Bond gripped the end of the knife between his front teeth. He tasted the ugly blade, the legacy of hands that had gripped it through the years. He was only able to take the very tip of the handle in his mouth; his back refused to bend any more to get him lower. He clamped his jaw around the ivory, and began to raise his head.

He had tried to prepare himself mentally for the pain when he drew the knife out. He had remembered other times, when he had traversed agonies by placing his mind outside himself. Becoming objective. But the rasp of the serrated blade on his already damaged flesh was too much. He involuntarily whipped his head back, letting go of the knife as he did so and opening his mouth in a silent cry, his brain overriding all else to stop the pain. There was a fresh moistness as the wound began to seep blood again.

Bond held his head back for a moment, his eyes stinging with painful tears. Then he forced himself back down again. The brown dried blood was now crisscrossed by flows of red, like a volcano spewing fresh lava over ancient eruptions. The blade, where it had been dragged from his hand, was dull and wet with blood. His heart sank as he saw that he had barely withdrawn it half a centimetre.

He clamped his teeth around the handle again. Now you’re prepared, he told himself. Now you know what it will feel like as you pull. You’re ready. He sucked in a lungful of clean fresh air through his nose and began to drag the knife through his hand.

His mind screamed obscenities at him. He felt the muscles in his neck strain, straining with the effort of pulling, straining with the impulse to turn away from the agonies. The self-inflicted tortures.

Bond focused his consciousness, narrowed his field of vision and awareness to just a point. To a single tiny point through which all his senses were converged. He concentrated his mind, trying to block the majority of the pain, just allowing the smallest amount through.

His forehead was slick with sweat. He felt rivulets of salt water slipping down his nose. He felt the slight tug as the tip of the blade slid through the outside palm of his hand and re-entered the body of his hand. Blood gushed to fill the void it had left.

He let go with his front teeth and stopped, gasping for oxygen. He moved his jaw, rotating his chin, forcing his muscles to remain supple. The knife was perhaps halfway out of his hand, but still the widest portion of the blade lay buried beneath the muscle. He tried not to imagine the devastation he was wreaking across his body as he inexpertly pulled the blade out. He tried not to contemplate the possible ruin he was causing himself.

Bond bent down again. There was enough of the handle free for him to come at it sideways now, clamping the ivory between his rear teeth and allowing himself real purchase now. The new position also meant he could bite down, grinding his mouth against the carved shaft to moderate, to control the pain. Pulling, dragging, suffering. He let the tears fall down his face unselfconsciously.

And then the blessed feeling, the pleasure, as he felt the resistance drop away, and his head pulled back, and he was leaning back in the chair with the knife between his teeth like a bit and he was free. It was an effort not to let the knife just fall from his lips and let out a cry of joy. Instead he gripped even more firmly. For it to slip away from him now would be the ultimate agony. Gingerly, he lowered his head down, and softly let the blade drop onto his naked right thigh. There was a moment of horror, as Bond’s eyes watched the knife slip sideways, but he moved his leg slightly, and it stilled.

Only then did he give in. He bent forward and dry heaved, his churning twisted stomach attempting unable to cope any longer, but there was nothing there. He couldn’t look at his wreck of a hand. Instead Bond hung in place, panting, breathing heavily.

Later he would wonder how long he had stayed like that. Perhaps he had slipped into unconsciousness for a time; he’d never know. It was a while before he could corral his effort once more.

Like a spider creeping towards its prey, the fingers of his right hand crawled across his thigh towards the knife. The plastic cable tie cut into his wrist, making the veins on the back stand proud. He could just reach the tip of the handle, and slowly, Bond dragged the knife until he could grip it firmly in his fist. He held it backwards, the blade pointing inwards, and he slipped the sharp serrated edge between his wrist and the cold metal of the chair. He pushed out until he felt the plastic resisting, then he began to saw inexpertly, blindly.

His hand jerked back and forth, not knowing if he was having any effect. Then, in a moment of glory, Bond’s hand was free, and he placed the knife back in his bloodied lap and rotated his wrist to get the feeling rushing back into it. His shoulder blade creaked into painful life as he reached across to slice open the tie round his left wrist, his back moaned and complained as he leaned over to release his ankles, but then his whole being let out a collective sigh of pleasure as James Bond became free once more.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 24

RELEASE

Bond pressed himself up against the wall of the hut. Dawn was starting to bake the desert, the February summer heating the country and the room. Bond pushed his naked body against the unfinished plaster walls and felt the quiet heat spread through his shoulders, his thighs, his buttocks. 007 allowed himself to collapse into it. He closed his eyes and felt it relax him.

Dried blood matted his body hair. He concentrated on replenishing, regrouping, gathering himself back together so he could begin again.

Only then did he look down at the red, bloodied mass that was his left hand. A warzone of flesh and pain. Bond ran his right hand over the back of the left, feeling the crude tear in the skin and muscle. There was still blood trickling warmly from the wound.

He lowered himself down to where his shirt lay discarded in the corner. Placing the sleeve between his teeth and pulling, Bond was able to rip it away, and then rip it again, leaving a long strip of brown fabric. With slow movements, Bond ran the cloth round and round his hand, pulling tightly with his mouth, restricting the flow. He felt it begin to numb even as the remains of the sleeve became wet and sticky with blood.

His hand was useless. Bond realised that he could no longer move the fingers. How much damage had been caused here? He tipped his head back and let out a silent cry of frustration and agony. Then he forced the fingers round into the palm to form a fist. If he could not use the hand to manipulate, he would use it as the crudest weapon of all: a blunt tool of violence.

As he pulled on his trousers, Bond looked round the room for ways out. There was the door he came through, of course: solid, heavy wood, constructed with security and privacy in mind, and locked fast. He pressed his ear against it, trying to listen for noises of a sentry outside, but all he could hear was the noise of the desert stirring into life. Despite appearances, a desert is never completely lifeless, and now Bond could hear the wildlife being woken by the earliest brush of the sun.

He moved across to the other doors in the room. Each led into identical cells, one day bedrooms, for now unfinished spaces. Beyond them were annexes of bathrooms. Closed off pipes indicated where one day the power showers and luxurious bathtubs would be. In the second room, however, Bond found a single blessed item. The builders had left a pile of detritus behind them, food wrappers and cut off millimetres of wire and brick fragments, and at the centre of it, a book of matches and a screwed up packet of Marlboro. Bond scrabbled at the packet, feeling the desire course through him, and he retrieved a half-smoked cigarette and a single unused match. Within seconds he was letting the beautiful, delirious warm smoke course through his body and bringing him back to life. He closed his eyes and felt the nicotine wake him and lift him up.

His fingertips traced the embossed Sunshine Bar logo on the cover of the matchbook until he had smoked the cigarette down to the nub.

Now he was ready.

The only possible tool in the room was the chair. It was flimsy aluminium, cheap and shoddily made. Bond turned it on its head and looked at the legs. They had been simply screwed onto the frame. Using the bloodied knife, he unscrewed each of the legs in turn, gripping the chair between his thighs for purchase. Now he had four hollow metal tubes to work with.

He had already decided against trying the door. If there was a guard, that was where he would be posted, and even if there wasn’t, the door was angled towards the main hotel building. Anyone could see or hear him. Instead Bond moved to the large hole where the doors to the veranda would one day be. The wood that covered the hole was in two sheets, around six feet square, and nailed in place around the edges. Bond ran his fingertips over the coarse wood. It was only a centimetre thick. He could do it.

He focussed his mind. Concentrated on the task. He placed the end of one of the metal tubes under the heel of his boot, and rocked back and forth, grinding it into the unfinished concrete floor. As he did so, the aluminium bent and twisted and thinned, until it formed a wedge. The tip of it was just thin enough for Bond to push between the wood and the wall. Gently, so gently, he pushed the chair leg inwards, rocking it slightly, driving the metal inwards and lifting the wood away. He pushed until the wedge was at its widest then, carefully, he pulled the metal chair leg away, hoping to crow bar a gap open.

He pushed himself behind the aluminium bar, forcing it, battling the weight of the window cover. Then there was a sickening moan, and the chair leg gave way in the centre before snapping in two.

Bond allowed himself the luxury of a single obscenity. Then he returned to the small pile in the centre of the room and set to work on a second chair leg. He tried not to think of the sun’s steely rise, each metre above the horizon stripping away his cover. He put du Lyonne’s inevitable return out of his mind. All that mattered was narrowing this hunk of metal.

The first bar had opened up around two centimetres in the corner of the bottom piece of wood. He tried at first with his one good hand, but he didn’t have the strength or purchase to pull it away. Perhaps with two he may have had a chance. He worked the second bar in place, and began to jemmy it again, pushing in a more concentrated, less hasty way this time.

His forearm ached from the effort, and thick beads of heavy sweat ran down his naked chest. Then there was a creak, and the nails in the corner suddenly broke free of the wall by about three inches. Now he could reach under and pull, straining, screaming, a groan forcing its way between his gritted teeth as he wrenched at the wood, until it cracked and splintered in the centre and fell to the floor. He reached out to save it, but his wounded left hand made no response, and it slipped from his grasp. The clatter was hideously loud in the confined space, ricocheting off the walls.

Bond froze. He stilled every part of his body, save for his crashing, pounding heartbeat, that battled with the echoes in his mind. His eyes bore into the door.

Bond stayed like that for a minute, maybe two. He paused, ready to strike. But the door stayed closed.

He turned back to the window space… and his heart sank. There was more wood on the exterior, another barrier for him to break through. At least this time it would be simpler.

Bond jammed the metal rod into his trousers, trapping it in the waistband. He wrapped the point of the knife in the remains of his shirtsleeve, and pushed it into his pocket with the handle protruding slightly for access. Then he pressed his whole body weight against the edge of the wood. His mind pushed too, willing it to give way, until finally it did, and the radiant sunlight swamped him. He slid through the gap and took it in.

His first thought was astonishment. The sky was still blood red, but crested by the sun, and the colour seemed to reflect on the miles of sand around him. It was as though the morning had just been birthed in the middle of the desert. Du Lyonne had picked the spot for these cabins wisely. Waking up to that vision in the morning would be worth a ransom.

He slipped round the edge of the hut, and peered round the side. There was no guard posted. Instead, a map of tyre tracks hinted at a patrol stalking the perimeter at regular intervals. Bond looked at the way ahead. There was perhaps half a mile between the cabin and the main hotel building. Half a mile of naked, open, desert, with no concealment whatsoever.

He was fortunate in one respect; the area of the hotel that faced him was the bottom of the “teardrop”, where du Lyonne’s office had been located. It was still covered with scaffolding, and much of the glass around his apartment was yet to be filled in. That would minimise the chances of him being spotted. But there was still that mass of space between them.

Bond took deep breaths, filling his lungs with oxygen. Then he threw himself across the desert, sprinting as fast as he could, tearing though the sands. His mouth hissed as he took breaths, sucking air in, while his muscles strained themselves to carry him forward. He ticked off the yards in his mind, each stride knocking the total down, until he could plunge into the shadow beside the building and collapse at its foot.

He didn’t know if he had been spotted, and he didn’t care. He concentrated on dragging the adrenaline levels back down to their usual levels. Even so, he was smiling. The exhilaration of the run! He remembered his days at Eton, that brief time, racing across the athletic field, competing for the Victor Ludorum in his mind, even though lower boys could not hope to compete, even though the trophy had already been snatched for the second year in a row by a boy years above him. He remembered once chasing down the High Street near his aunt’s home during the summer break to show off, to impress a girl whose name had long been subsumed by others. And he remembered darker chases, runs alongside trains, bullet-driven sprints across frontiers, hurling himself down cliffs and paths with death pursuing him.

He felt his body becoming his again. Bond could feel the age inside him slowly subside. It was only at the most extreme moments that he realised how old he was. And how little time he had left.

He had headed for the outside edge of the teardrop, away from the pool. There were tall, narrow windows here, but as with the others, they had not yet been glazed, so Bond was able to move fairly rapidly round the building. At the end, there was a low wall, and behind it, a steep ramp leading to the underground service area, protected by a steel garage door.

He could not see an external opening for the door. No doubt it was operated by remote control from within the vehicles themselves. There was a low sensor at the tip of the wall, which he fingered hopefully, but with no effect.

He was about to give up hope and move on to the more exposed patio area when the metal door shuddered, then slowly began to rise. From behind it emerged a jeep, with two tattooed men in the front. It barrelled up the ramp, and Bond barely had time to vault the wall and slip inside before the door had slid downwards behind him.

He was in a cool, air-conditioned garage. Two jeeps were parked alongside one wall, with tools and machinery opposite them. There was a large vehicle exit to the rear – no doubt to allow service vehicles to access the rest of the building, and a smaller, person-sized door in the wall beside the jeeps. Bond abandoned the metal chair leg, and considered his options from the tool kit.

He was weighing a heavy spanner in his hand when he heard the door behind him open. He twisted on his heel, taking in only the shocked expression on the guard’s face and his hand reaching for his holster before Bond hurled the spanner across the room. It struck the man on the forehead, knocking him backwards. Bond snatched up a screwdriver and threw himself at the temporarily dazed man. The gun was forgotten as the guard punched outwards, laying a single blow on Bond’s face before he thrust the screwdriver downwards, into the man’s shoulder. He let out a hideous scream, before Bond raised it again and plunged it into his throat. The scream ended amid a gargle of blood.

The man slipped to the floor, crimson pumping from his neck. Bond dragged the corpse underneath the jeep, where a mechanics pit became a grave. He mopped up the blood hastily and then took the man’s handgun; a solid and brutal Glock 37 with a fully loaded magazine. Bond knew and admired the weapon. He pressed it inside his waistband. With one hand ruined, he could not carry the gun with him; he would have to waste valuable seconds retrieving it. But he had no choice.

With the trepidation rising, Bond stepped through the open door.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 25

AWAKENINGS

The corridor was white; made out of solid, ugly breeze blocks and curving organically beneath the teardrop building. Bond followed it, slowly, listening with a tracker’s ear for any sound. His feet crunched a little on the concrete floor, grains of sand oozing from the treads of his boots.

The corridor ended with a split. To the right, a metal staircase went upwards, clearly into the hotel proper. To the left, however, there was a heavy steel door obstructing the way. Signs denied entry in English and Afrikaans beneath the three broken loops of the international “biohazard” symbol. There was no handle; only a “smart” panel, suitable for encoded electronic tags.

Bond cursed. There was no way to get through without the card. His only hope was that the man he had killed in the garage carried an encoded pass; otherwise he was trapped.

He returned to the garage, irritated by his lack of foresight. He should have checked the guard’s corpse before he abandoned him. Bond paused at the edge of the pit. It was around six feet deep, and with only one hand, clambering in and out would be difficult.

Gingerly, sat on the edge of the pit, then dropped inside, crouching as he landed to absorb the shock. His steps made ugly squelches where the blood had pooled. The corpse was face down, and Bond heaved him over, trying not to pay attention to the crimson smears that covered his face.

The bell was totally unexpected, and caused Bond to instinctively crouch as though he was being shot at. It was a single peal from a tinny fire alarm bell, and as it stopped, it was replaced by a whirring as the garage door began to rise.

A heavy jeep rode into the garage and swung through an arc into the centre of the garage. Under the noise of the vehicles, Bond was able to fumble in the dead man’s pockets, his fingertips becoming sticky with the drying blood. There were footsteps as the drivers got out of the jeep, and they exchanged chatter. Even though it was in strongly accented Afrikaans, Bond recognised that this was bawdy, masculine banter. He groped inside the victim’s top pocket, and he touched a soft leather wallet.

The men were still talking as Bond fanned open the wallet. He was immediately confronted by a photograph of a pretty blonde woman, posing in shorts and a t-shirt against a backdrop of trees and sea. He quickly flicked past it, finding a flat piece of grey plastic tucked in the rear with a few South African rand and a weather beaten condom. As he pulled the pass from the wallet, the leather slipped in his wet fingertips, and fell to the floor. It landed wetly and, seemingly in the confined pit, horrendously loudly.

The footsteps and chatter stopped. Both men froze above Bond. Dammit! He thought. He had no desire to initiate a firefight; his position was hideously simple to exploit, and any gunshots would no doubt attract the attention of yet more members of the 28s. But he still drew the Glock from his waistband and waited, ready.

The footsteps moved slowly round the room. He got the impression that the men were unsure what they had heard, that they were merely leaping at ghosts. Their movements were hesitant. The barrel of Bond’s gun was unwavering, aimed towards the sounds, ready.

Then one of the men spoke, a stream of Afrikaans that produced a bolt of laughter from his comrade, and the moment had passed. There were a few more steps, and then the door closed, and then there was silence.

Bond pushed the gun back into his waistband, and allowed his heartbeat to settle once more. The scent of death and adrenaline and violence in the room nauseated him. With his good hand, he reached over the edge of the pit, fumbling around for any kind of purchase. Finally he happened upon a sort of metal handle, inlaid into the floor, and he was able to grasp it firmly. With his biceps straining, he performed a one-armed clamber, straining as he hauled himself up and over, his feet scrambling up the walls of the chamber. Panting, he swung under the undercarriage of the jeep and onto the cold floor.

The sense of relief that flooded Bond when the pass opened the door was enormous. He had started to feel the cards were against him. No gambler can ignore the Fates; sometimes it is simplest to turn away from the roulette wheel when it turns up a third loss, or to simply pass at the green baize table rather than confront another humiliating baccarat. Destiny could be cruel and vindictive, and the pain that Bond felt, the misery, the hopelessness that had built within him over the past few days; they had all conspired within him to instil a feeling of impotence.

Somehow, in its tiny way, the opening of the biohazard door signalled a change in his fortunes.

The door lead to a short airless passage, and then a second door, constructed out of steel and marked heavily with biohazard warnings. He noted the rubber seals around the edge, ready to close the contents beyond in the event of a leak. Bond pushed the door and entered.

It was a white, hygienic laboratory. The walls were covered with small mosaic tiles, giving it a cold, clinical air. Around the edge were the standard attrouments of a medical facility; metallic cabinets, a sink, green smocks hanging on a wall rack. Another airlock stood directly opposite him. And in the centre was a metal slab, and on the slab was Kindie. Her eyes were closed, and a heavy white sheet covered her below the neck.

Bond’s first emotion was joy at finding her. It was immediately accompanied by a sense of pain. Was she infected? Or worse, dead? The clinical surroundings implied that she could be either. But wait; there was a soft rise and fall of her breasts beneath the sheet. Which just left the question of whether du Lyonne had polluted her body.

He had not thought about this moment; he had not thought about what he would do if she were infected. He looked at her and imagined her as a plague carrier. He pictured her returning to Windhoek, sharing the disease with her family and friends, spreading death amongst the people. The image of her ravaged face falling into a plague pit came unbidden to mind.

Bond knew he couldn’t allow it. He would have to end it here. He imagined pressing the gun against her skull, pulling the trigger, seeing her face collapsing and contorted in the agonies of pain. The hideous orgasm of her death filled his mind; the bloody face with its cold bullet hole staying in his eye. His licence to kill became hollow.

As he watched her immobile body, Bond heard a noise to his left. He twirled instinctively, to see Angus Catchlove emerge from a side door with a cigarette clasped firmly in his mouth. At the sight of Bond, he froze, the tobacco hanging limpidly from his dry lips. Bewilderment flooded his face.

Bond snapped the gun to head level, its barrel pointed directly at Catchlove’s skull. His teeth were meshed in silent fury. Through them he hissed, “Is she infected?”

Catchlove didn’t respond. He was still fazed by Bond’s presence. 007 took a step forward. “Is she?” he demanded.

The cigarette dropped to the floor and hissed as the tiles extinguished it. It was as though a chequered flag had been dropped. Catchlove made a leap to his left, heading for the second door. He was fast, panic spurring him on, but Bond was faster. He caught him before he could reach for the fire alarm set into the wall and with a single brutal movement brought the gun down on his face. Catchlove fell to the floor with a cry.

Without a pause, Bond raised the gun and struck him again. His mind could see Samantha, and Kindie, corpses merging in his mind, two dead beautiful women because of this ogre. He hit him three more times, until the blood poured from Catchlove’s broken nose and flowed between the white hexagonal tiles. Then he stood back and watched him, cowering, crying. He felt nothing.

“I’ll ask you again,” said Bond. “Is she infected?”

Slowly Catchlove raised his face to look at him. His teeth showed red. “No. Not yet.”

It was as though he could breathe again. He didn’t let it show on his face, but inside he was singing, as Catchlove continued.

“Du Lyonne likes to be here in person. He likes to see the whites of their eyes as they breath the virus in. He’s a sadist. Like you.”

Bond let out a snort of disdain. “People in glass houses, Angus.”

“Until he arrives she’s been mildly sedated. Nothing permanent. Nothing to impair the brain functions, so we can monitor her reactions.” Catchlove ran a hand across his face, wiping blood and mucus away. “I’m in pain, Bond.”

“Tough.”

“Tough?” His face contorted into a snarl. The lips rolled back, and he spat at Bond, a mass of spittle and red that struck 007 on the cheek. It felt like a violation. He punched downwards, heavily, and Catchlove was sent sprawling onto the tiles, where he lay, immobile. Bond stepped away from his unconscious body and turned to Kindie.

It took him a few moments of coaxing, but slowly life began to fill Kindie’s face again. With a lurch, she raised her head up from the pillow, her eyes wide with fear. Until she saw him. “James!” she exclaimed. “Oh, James.” He untied her bonds and they embraced, the sheet falling from her body so her naked form enveloped him. They said nothing for what seemed like an age, simply holding one another, until finally Kindie pulled away. They kissed; softly, tenderly, then she looked down at him.

“You’re a mess,” she said. She ran her fingertip down his naked chest, tracing a pattern through the debris, across the red wound where du Lyonne’s knife had cut him. “Look at this. Sand, dirt – blood.” Her eyes met his. “Your own?”

“Most of it.”

She saw the crude bandage around his hand. With a loving touch, Kindie unwrapped the fabric, exposing the disaster beneath. She kissed each knuckle, then, without speaking, she led him to the steel sink in the wall. There were no words. The first sting of the cold water on his hand made Bond gasp, but she carefully washed his wound, then, using bandages from the cabinets nearby, she dressed it properly. There was tenderness there; somehow this act was more intimate than when they had been locked together as a single form.

Something was different here. Bond felt almost afraid. He needed to break the spell that Kindie was casting over him. He slipped his newly repaired palm behind her head, and pulled her in for a savage kiss. “That’s for being the best nurse in Africa,” he said. He cast an eye over her splendidly nude body. “And you have the best uniform too.”

She blushed. There were some lab coats hanging on the wall, and she slipped one on. He was ashamed of himself suddenly. “Did they hurt you?” Bond asked, trying to rebuild the connection again.

She shook her head. “Catchlove just examined me – in between mouthfuls of whiskey and cigarettes. If the straps hadn’t been there he would not have touched me, but I was trapped. I let him do what he wanted. I didn’t think about it. But he didn’t hurt me, and he didn’t molest me. He asked me standard questions about my health. My sexual history. It was like being at the doctor’s really. Probably nothing compared to what they were doing to you.” She saw the hood fall over his eyes, and brushed past the moment. “Then he injected a sedative, and the next thing I knew, there you were. Where is the doctor now, anyway? Is it too much to hope he’s in excruciating pain?”

Catchlove had begun to snore, loudly and crudely. His breath ratcheted through the remains of his face. Bond heaved him to a vertical position, and slapped him, once, twice, to wake him up. With great effort he dragged his eyes open. He let out a half-hearted snicker at the sight of Bond crouched over him. “Is this my execution then?”

“Not yet, Catchlove.”

“I didn’t think so. You secret army types prefer it a lot more underhand don’t you? Don’t like to see the whites of a fellow’s eyes. Let me guess: one shot in the back of the skull, while I’m on my knees.”

“I have a far worse fate for you. I’m taking you back to England and off the list of the dead. You can speak to our experts there and explain to them how to neutralise the effects of your repellent virus.”

Catchlove shrugged. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Of course you do.”

“Are you really that stupid, Bond? My virus is a thing of beauty. A man-made genocide device, its genetic coding crafted in marble, its aspirations formed by genius. I alone made a weapon of power. Why would I create an antidote? I don’t want it to be stopped.”

“You will stop it, Catchlove. I’ll make sure of it. I won’t allow this sick ideal you and du Lyonne share to see the light of day.”

Catchlove shook his head. “You really are a dumb, blunt instrument Bond. You don’t even know who you’re fighting for any more. This virus wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t du Lyonne’s either. It was the British Government’s idea. If you want to punish the men behind this scheme, go to London and execute them.”

jetsetwilly

Chapter 26

THE NIGHTMARE ROOM

The remark defused Bond. He reeled internally. “What do you mean? Surely you can’t be claiming that this is a British Government project?”

Catchlove laughed. “That’s thrown you, hasn’t it? I’m not claiming that at all. This – all this around us – this is Rufus du Lyonne all the way. But the virus started out in labs in the UK. You’re not so naïve to believe that I conceived developed and finalised a genetically modified virus in two years? I am but one man. A brilliant man, but just a man.”

“Go on.”

“I’d like a cigarette. Is that allowed?”

“Not a chance.”

“I think you’d find I talk a lot more fluidly with one. I have a packet in my trouser pocket. You can get them for me if you don’t trust me. You know, just in case I have an assault rifle concealed down there.”

Bond looked up at the ceiling. There were sprinklers studded throughout, and tiny smoke detectors. Catchlove laughed. “You’re right. The smoke could trigger the alarms throughout the building. Half a dozen armed men would come dashing down here to fight the blaze, and in the process, they’d find you and your girlfriend and kill you and I’d be rescued. That would be clever of me. Unfortunately for me they don’t work. I disabled them about five minutes after I arrived. Being trapped underground for two years is one thing. Being trapped underground for two years and not being able to smoke – quite another. So it looks like smoking really will be the death of me.”

Not dropping the aim of his gun, Bond settled himself down on the floor opposite Catchlove. “Kindie. Get the cigarettes out of the doctor’s pocket. If you try anything Angus, I will shoot you once, directly between the legs. And I won’t let you have a cigarette either.”

“Charming.”

Kindie pulled the pack out of his pocket and gave them to Catchlove. He tapped one out of the battered packet, along with a plastic disposable lighter. He offered one to Bond. “I remember you’re a fellow addict. Want one?”

Bond took one and the offered light. It was thick and coarse tasting. Catchlove savoured it deeply. “It’s a South African brand. I buy them off one of the guards, Pieter. It’s an acquired taste, not as sophisticated as the ones I used to smoke back in London, but it hits the spot.”

“Get on with it, Catchlove.”

He blew a puff of smoke through yellowed teeth. “No-one ever told you the virtue of patience, Bond?”

“No-one ever told you the virtue of doing what the man with the gun suggests?”

“Touché. Very well. About eight years ago I was approached by a man named Fredericks, Lawrence Fredericks. At least that was what he told me his name was. Knowing you Ministry of Defence types that was probably an alias. Fredericks said that he was a great admirer of my work, that he thought I was a genius, blah blah, usual stuff I never get bored of hearing, and would I like to have dinner with him to discuss the possibility of a business deal?

“Since he offered to take me to an extremely charming restaurant not far from my offices in Oxford, and since he emphasised that he would be paying, I agreed to meet him. Charming fellow. As I said, he thought I was brilliant, and he was extremely knowledgeable about my work – in particular a paper I had printed in a notable scientific journal some three months previously. This was all to do with viral delivery of cures for genetic mutations.” He looked along his nose to Bond. “I can tell by the dull look on your face that you have no idea what I am talking about. Let me use an example.

“Take haemophilia. A very distressing ailment which is passed down through genetic lines. There is virtually no upside to haemophilia, and it would be a lot better for human kind if it didn’t exist. We know where on the genetic structure it lies, so theoretically, we could analyse the entire planet’s DNA, find those people with the mutation, and operate them. Subject them to long and complicated gene therapy which would mean that when they had children, those children would be free of the disease, and would not have the capability to pass it on to their children either.

“My solution was far simpler, and far more elegant. If we continue with haemophilia as the example, how much simpler would it be if we released a virus into the atmosphere which would cause sterility? Not just random, violent sterility, but instead neutering only those unfortunate people who had this particular genetic encoding. For the majority of the globe, they would continue with their daily lives, with this virus floating unseen among them. Those with haemophilia-inducing genes would continue to live, but they could not procreate.

“Within a few years, there will be no children being born with this mutation. And when there is no longer anyone to infect and act upon, the virus itself would die off. Voila! Within a generation we have wiped out a pestilence which has plagued mankind for millennia. Cheaply, simply, effectively. You have to admit its astonishing wonder.”

“Enforced sterility. Removing a person’s right to choose. Playing God. There’s no wonder in that.”

“If you’re not even going to try to listen to what I have to say, Bond, there’s little point in my going on.”

Bond raised his arm in mock-surrender. “Forgive me for interrupting the great Angus Catchlove in mid-flow. Do continue. My breath is positively baited.”

Catchlove ignored the sarcasm. “Fredericks told me what a genius I was, how my brilliance was awe-inspiring, how my ideas were revolutionary and thought provoking. I let him. Then he said there had been discussions. At the Ministry. Had I ever considered that there may be a military application for my theories?

“Of course I had, I said.

“Fredericks then asked me: would I be willing to make that military application a reality? He mentioned some figures, some funding levels. It was tremendously exciting. The numbers were far above what I was earning already. He said I use my own teams, hand pick my staff. I would get a free reign, so long as my objective was achieved.”

“What did he stay your objective was?”

“The creation of a virus that would be capable of wiping out an entire, specified section of a population based on their genetic material. The ability to kill on a large scale without endangering your own people.”

Kindie gasped in horror. Bond leaned back against the cold steel of the examination table, felt the icy metal on his bare skin, let it jolt him into life. He felt nauseous and disturbed. His people, his own government, had conceived and commissioned a weapon of hideous power. No matter that they had violated a dozen treaties on biological weapons; never mind that they had acted in a way that would shame a tinpot dictatorship, never mind one of the world’s great powers. Bond felt personally betrayed.

He had a belief in himself, and his nation. He loved Britain and its way of life. All those misty-eyed clichés, the warm beer, the cricket matches, the stiff upper lip – they resonated for him. With them was a belief in a way of life and a basic human decency that was wrapped within his state.

But this. His government had turned on its country and its role. It had betrayed its people. It had betrayed him.
Catchlove said, “I assembled two teams. Some were taken from Government sources – there were some very good men already at work at Porton Down, and I seconded them to my laboratory in Oxford. They were specialists in viral agents, and they would work on finding a suitably unpleasant disease for us to use.

“The second team were mainly my own researchers, people I already knew. Chief among them was Samantha of course.”

“Samantha Catchlove was part of the team?”

“I know that to you she was just a vagina. Another notch on your scorecard. But my wife was a quite brilliant scientist and researcher. She had a superb, acute mind and was extremely sharp. I don’t suppose you noticed that. Conversation wasn’t top of your list of priorities when you was in bed with her.”

“Note your use of the past tense, Angus. I may have slept with your wife, but Henk was the one who killed her, and on du Lyonne’s orders. Those are the people who are your friends and associates.”

Catchlove looked down at the cold tiled floor. He let a long stream of smoke hiss out of his mouth. “I know what they are. I know what they did. Du Lyonne is only interested for as long as you remain useful to him. I could give you the names of all the researchers on that project, all twelve of them, and you’ll find they all met unpleasant ends. Accidents. Suicides. One girl killed by her boyfriend, who turned the gun on himself. All lies. They were just finished with.

“I loved Samantha. I really did. And leaving her behind, letting her think I was dead – it was a wrench. I had to do it though, for the project. There was no other option.

“I know my place Bond. I know that I’ll be dead too. As soon as this virus is released I will cease to have a purpose in du Lyonne’s scheme, and I’ll be gone.” He smiled ruefully. “One disadvantage of already being dead is that it’s very easy to kill you.”

“And yet you choose to work for him.”

“Choice doesn’t come into it. I was abandoned by the British Government. Six years into the project, and we were getting so close. The end was tantalisingly close, just beyond our grasp. A little more time and we would have done it. The virus would be complete and we would be ready.

“It was April. I was in my office, watching the rain on the window. My assistant Sharon brought through the post, and there was a letter from the MOD. I read it, and I cried. I really cried.

“A change in funding priorities. Difficult decisions about limited resources. Trite phrases that basically said, we’ve had enough. Someone, somewhere got cold feet. Or perhaps the Treasury looked at the money being poured into it and thought, six years. Six years is plenty of time to break the boundaries of science and revolutionise the world. What’s taking you so long?

“I had to close the labs. Fire my people, good, intelligent people, with families and mortgages. I had to put them out on the street. It was agony, Bond. Just saying, it’s all over, when were so close. I went to London to hand in my final report at the Ministry, and for hours I wandered around Westminster. Aimless.”

His cigarette had burned down to the filter. Without pause he lit a second from the glowing tip and then dropped the first to the floor.

“I ended up at my club. Grays, in Burlow Street. It was the middle of the day, it was a Friday so anyone who would normally be there had retreated to the country – anyway, the gist is that the place was empty. I installed myself in an alcove with a brandy or seven and set about quietly drowning my sorrows.

“About five drinks in Rufus appears at my shoulder, the picture of concern, and he asks me what’s up. We weren’t friends or anything. I’d seen him around the club – one could hardly miss him – and we had some mutual acquaintances, but he came from finance and aristocracy, and I was an academic from Croydon. The Venn diagram of our social circles had a very small overlap. But I was grateful just to have someone to talk to, so I violated the entire length of the Official Secrets Act and let him know exactly what I had been up to.

“To my surprise he was not only empathetic, but also responsive. The next day a courier arrived at my apartment in the Barbican with an invitation to his offices for a business discussion.”

“And it was there that he suggested the two of you collectively wipe out an entire race.”

Catchlove smirked through the smoke. “Words to that effect, yes. He went off on one of his rants. How what happened to me was a symbol of how the United Kingdom had become second rate and unimaginative, which I agreed with, and how this was all down to the loss of the Empire, which I didn’t agree with. He was giving me a very fine sherry at the time, however, so I kept quiet and let him finish his proposal. That I complete my research at his funding, with the specific aim of wiping out the indigenous populations of Africa.

“As you can imagine, the British Government were not too keen on the idea of me going private, as it were. They had taken great lengths to keep the project secret, even from the Americans, and they didn’t want me defecting to the other side – to some rogue state, or worse, a terrorist group. They assigned me “assistants” – bodyguards, basically. And when I travelled abroad, they even gave me the very best bodyguards from the Secret Service. You wasn’t there to stop me from being killed, Bond. You was there to stop me from going over to the other side. I had to die so that I would have the freedom to work. So my accident at the United Nations was arranged, and I became a dead man with a very live project. A weapon of genocide.”

Kindie had her head in her hands in disbelief. “And you agreed to this?”

“This planet is overcrowded and overpopulated. Water is becoming scarcer. Millions are hungry. I can’t see the harm in removing a section of that population if it means the remainder will profit. Less people, more resources to spread around. QED. I have nothing against the African continent. Frankly, I would have been happier if du Lyonne had proposed wiping out the Americans, who I do think are a blight on this planet. But he’s paying the bills. He wants an African virus, he can have it. I’ll do anything for anyone if it means I get to see my greatest work completed.”

“Is it complete?” Bond asked.

“Very nearly. She (he gestured at Kindie dismissively) was going to be the last test subject. The final nail in the coffin, you could say.”

“Where is it?”

Catchlove’s gaze shifted away from Bond’s. Bond responded with sudden cruelty, a crack of the pistol across Catchlove’s jaw. “As you keep pointing out Angus, you’re the intellectual, and I am the blunt instrument of violence. So I will have to resort to violence to get the information out of you.”

Catchlove spat an obscenity at him. “I won’t allow it. I won’t allow you to destroy my project.”

“Not your project, Angus, but the project of the British Government and Rufus du Lyonne. You’re not a misunderstood genius, you’re an imbecile with a test tube who does what he’s told. And as you rightly pointed out, du Lyonne is going to kill you as soon as you finish your beloved virus. I’d say you have nothing to lose.”

The man collapsed as Bond watched, letting out a sob of pain and despair. “It’s all through this door. Jesus Christ! Please, I’m begging you, please don’t destroy it.” His tear filled eyes were pleading. “The virus is a miracle.”

Bond handed the gun to Kindie. “If he moves towards you, if he does anything you don’t like, shoot him. Squeeze the trigger and put a bullet into him anywhere you want. I need to go in there.”

Her face was gripped with rage towards Catchlove. “I’ll do my best.”

The airtight door hissed open, and Bond stepped into the room beyond. It was circular, and lit with low red bulbs. Around the edge were large tanks, like scuba tanks, all marked with the biohazard symbol. There were at least fifty of them, all with a capacity of over twenty litres.

Bond recoiled at the sight of them. If the virus could do all that du Lyonne and Catchlove had suggested, then a single one of those tanks could lay waste to an entire city in days. He pictured the tank being emptied in the skies over Lagos, or Nairobi, or Johannesburg, pouring its death onto the population. The panic. The screams. It was terrifying.

There was a second exit from the room, opposite the first, and with some trepidation Bond passed through it. Again, the room was red-lit, but this was a long, thin walkway. On either side of the walkway were glass walls, with rooms beyond, and an airlock entry to each one. And inside the rooms were corpses.

Bond realised with revulsion that this was where Doctor Catchlove had carried out his experiments. He walked slowly along the passage, taking in the horrific scenes. Each chamber – there were a dozen on each side – contained two or three bodies, contained in airtight observation cells. Their naked corpses were surrounded with blood and faeces and vomit; they had clearly not been allowed to leave the chambers once admitted. Their faces were captured in rictuses of agony, the pain etched across tormented eyes, lips pulled back in screams of agony.

As he advanced through the corridor, it degenerated. The first few rooms were simply mausoleums. These were laboratories. Bodies had been sliced open, experimented on. In one, a corpse had been hung on the wall and dissected; its internal organs had been removed. The husk of the man remained. Men, women, children; Catchlove did not seem to differentiate in his desire to experiment. Limbs, heads were missing; a woman’s skull was exposed where she had been crudely scalped.

This was beyond research into the effects of the virus. This was Catchlove as God, using the villagers as putty, moulding them, tearing them apart. He had used them, defiled them, destroyed them. Bond forced himself to the end of the chambers, made himself take in the inhumanity of it. The unjustified, sickening murder. He wanted to see the extent.

On the return, walking back, he didn’t want to look any more. He kept his eyes focused on the exit, not thinking about the horrors. But his peripheral vision caught something as he was about to leave; he span through ninety degrees.

There was movement. Someone was alive.

Barely believing what he could see, Bond watched as one of the underfed corpses raised its weary head to look at him. The eyes were bloodied, the mouth dry. The face stared at Bond and for a moment he could feel him, as though there was an energy between them; the two men became linked for just a second. Bond felt the agonies of the man, his suffering. He felt the emotions course through him.

His first instinct was to release the man. But he knew that he was infected with the virus. If he released him, he would infect others; Bond couldn’t risk that. He turned to the climate control panel next to the cell. A single flat screen with controls for the heating, light – and oxygen. Never taking his eyes off the man, Bond switched off the oxygen in the cell. It would be a horrible, painful way to die, to suffocate slowly, to ebb away. Yet it could not be any worse than the agonies that awaited him. James Bond executed the man, and even as he did so, he thought he could feel the gratitude.

He returned to the laboratory with fury and rage coursing through him. Kindie and Catchlove both saw it on his face, in his body language as he burst through the door. Catchlove screamed, panicked, threw his hands in the air in surrender and shouted “It wasn’t me! I only did what I was told!”

Bond tore the gun from Kindie’s hand. He placed the barrel in the centre of Angus Catchlove’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

jetsetwilly

Chapter 27

BURN

After the bomb drops. After the scream. After the terror. In these moments, time freezes, solidifies around you. Its form becomes ice. Silence.

How long did James Bond stand in the laboratory, the warm gun in his hand, the echo of the bullet in his ears? To him, it was an eternity. The planet ceased to revolve as he took in the moment. He could taste the anger and hatred. He could hear the pain.

The moment ended. Soft, gentle fingertips wrapped around his hand, around the pistol. He felt Kindie pulling his gun arm down and then twisting him round to her. Then she enveloped him, wrapping her body around him, and for a while, there was nothing else but the two of them. Time froze again.

Then he said, “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s ok.” There was a fracture in her voice. “Is it bad in there?”

“Yes. Don’t go in.”

“I won’t.”

He disengaged himself from her and took her away from the body. He saw spots of red on her white lab coat, and the fear in her face. They moved to the other side of the laboratory, and sat down in the chairs there.

“How long have you been doing this, James?” she asked. Her eyes were searching him.

He laughed. “Forever.”

“Perhaps too long.”

“It’s my job.” It’s who I am, he thought. I kill. He ran his mind over the murders, the violence, the evils he had perpetrated. How many? When he had started he had kept count. Two, three, four. A mental tally of the dead. Bond remembered times, places – faces.

When did that end? They became nameless. They became shapes. He stopped counting. He stopped caring. His killing of Angus Catchlove had been vengeance, for Samantha, for the horrors in the laboratory. He had done it without thinking. Murder was automatic for him, his default. In killing Catchlove he had, at the same time, condemned himself. Now he couldn’t show London that he had been right all along. There was no proof any longer. He had been so busy thinking of death that he had forgotten about life.

Maybe Kindie was right. Maybe he needed to stop.

But not yet. “There’s evil here, Kindie. I know – I know that’s a subjective thing. What I say is evil, they – du Lyonne and Catchlove – well, they see me as the evil one. But I have to end it. If you had seen – no. You don’t need to see. You’ve heard what he was doing. Him and du Lyonne. If we didn’t stop him…”

She leaned across and kissed him. A single touch of their lips. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

Bond gently pushed her away. “We’re going to have to destroy this laboratory.”

“How?”

“Fire. We need to burn this place down.” He stood up, looking around for tools. Purpose lifted him and drove him again.

“Isn’t there a danger the virus will be released if we start trying to destroy things? We can’t risk it getting into the atmosphere.”

“Agreed. Which is why we need to ensure that the fire gets to the virus before it can get out there. But I think du Lyonne will have helped us on that.” He ran his hand over the wall – it was thick, cold concrete. “We’re underground, for starters. On top of that, I’m guessing that these labs will have been carefully constructed as sealed units. Du Lyonne and Catchlove wouldn’t have wanted the virus getting into the atmosphere before it was ready – too risky. So no windows, only one door in, with an airlock. If we were to set a fire in here, it would burn itself for an awfully long time before it finally reached the open air. If we set it to begin in the virus tank room, by the time it begins to spread, the virus will be destroyed.”

She was nodding as he spoke. Then she smiled. “Sounds like a plan, Mr Bond!”

Bond led the way back down to the garage. It was still quiet. At the back, stacked against the wall, were barrels of fuel for the jeeps, with a loading cart next to them. “Help me with these.”

It was hard work for one man and a girl. It took three backbreaking trips to carry a half-dozen barrels of fuel into the laboratory. From there, Bond took over, his muscles heaving and sweat pouring from his body, as he took them into the experimentation area, not allowing Kindie to see what was beyond. All the time, he was painfully aware of the seconds falling away.

Finally the barrels were stacked, five on the bottom, one on the top. Bond aimed, and fired a single shot into the top barrel, low down, so that it split and a stream of fuel poured out, running down over the lower level. He backed away as the trail of brown liquid began to spread.

“Are we ready?” asked Kindie. Her eyes were shining with excitement. While Bond had been in the sealed labs, she had constructed a pyre in the main room out of furniture, papers; anything she could find.

“As we’ll ever be,” he replied. “We’ll set light to that first –“ he pointed at her bonfire – “and let that burn. The way that fuel is pouring out, it’ll reach here soon, and then one of two things will happen. Option A: the fire will get a whole lot more intense, and burn out the whole laboratory from within.”
“And option B?”

He grinned. “It’ll explode. If that happens, I’d say that du Lyonne might get the message, wouldn’t you?”

He retrieved Catchlove’s cigarette lighter, and began to torch the edges of the bonfire. It crackled and burnt eagerly, and soon was swelling. Black smoke began to pour into the room. Bond grabbed Kindie’s hand, and they left the laboratory area. The airlock hissed closed, hydraulically sealing itself and the fire within. As an afterthought, Bond raised his gun, and smashed the card reader with its butt. Petty vandalism, but it would delay any attempt to quell the fire further.

The garage was still blissfully vacant; soon the first shift of the day would arrive for work. Bond took Kindie to the idling jeep, and handed her the keys from the wall. “Here.”

She smiled. “You’re letting me drive?”

“I’m not coming.”

Her face fell, replaced by fury.

“What? James, I’m not leaving without you. We’ve come this far together.”

“And we’ve both nearly died as a result. Kindie, I don’t want to lose you. There are things I have to do here, and I can’t have you being part of it. Get in that jeep and drive. Drive straight and fast and get some people to come here and stop this.”

“You have to kill again?” The sentence fell coldly into the space between them. He looked away from her.

“It’s what I do. For now. Perhaps… perhaps it’s time I stopped.” Their eyes met again. “But not yet. This is bigger than me, Kindie, bigger than us. I want du Lyonne alive. Trust me on that. He can restore my name in London, and I want him to be punished for what’s gone on here. But… Sometimes the dragon can only be slain with a sword.”

Something in both of them reached out and connected. They understood. Kindie let out a bitter laugh. “This isn’t doing my feminist credentials any good.”

He laughed with her. “I need you to go Kindie, not just for you, but for everyone. This whole bloody continent. Listen to me. As soon as you’re safe, and can get to a phone, I need you to call someone.” Bond rattled off the number of the Service’s representative in Southern Africa, a man he knew only through his reports from Johannesburg. He made Kindie repeat it. “Good. I don’t know who’ll answer, or what they’ll say, but all you need to do is tell them it’s me. Tell them 007. That’s important. If he argues with you, blocks you, just tell him it’s James Bond, 007. [“Is that your code name?” “In a way.”] He’ll know what it means and it’ll get through in the end. Tell him everything that’s gone on here and get him here with all the firepower and chemical weapon experts he can muster. Got that?”

“Of course.”

“Good girl.”

“Don’t push it, you patronising b

---

d.” She stepped forward and clutched his face in both hands. “Listen to me James. Because it’s you, because of what you mean to me, I’ll go. I’ll go and I won’t look back. But I want you to know I’m thinking of you, always. And I want to see you again. You’re not a number on a file to me, Mr James Bond, Double-O Seven. You’re not just a killer. You’re more than that. Or you can be. So promise. Promise to come back to me.”

“I promise.”

They kissed, lips searing together in a conflagration that mixed passion with something more, something deeper. Then she pulled away and climbed into the jeep while Bond opened the garage door.

The jeep sped away, and she didn’t look over her shoulder, or pause. Bond’s chest swelled with pride and admiration. And then constricted with fear.

jetsetwilly

CHAPTER 28

SHATTERED MIRROR

The sunlight was already heating the interior of du Lyonne’s office. By noon, it would be unbearable, like a sweat box. No doubt there would be expensive climate controls fitted when the hotel was complete. The scaffolding outside the wide glass window would be for fitting computer operated blinds, or shades, or tinted plastic.

Bond tracked through the office slowly, the Glock ready in his hand, advancing on the private apartment he had seen earlier. The double doors were closed. He reached down and turned the handle with his bandaged hand, then slipped inside.

The bedroom was pitch black; glass hadn’t been fitted to the windows here, and they were still covered with plywood. As his eyes adjusted, he took in a wide bed, luxuriously appointed with fabrics, the heavy quilt pushed to the bottom in the heat. Du Lyonne lay on the left hand side in silk pyjamas, open in his slumbers, an arm outstretched lazily off the edge of the bed. On the right hand side was a girl.

She was curled into a ball against the headboard. Her head was tucked into her shoulders, but her arms were raised above them. Bond realised they were handcuffed to the bar above the bed. Her blonde hair was ragged and dishevelled, and fell down over her naked white body.

Slowly she turned her head. On seeing Bond, her eyes widened in fear, and she began to shake. She pressed herself into the wall, trying to escape him. Bond raised a finger to his lips – shhhh. Then he walked round to du Lyonne’s side of the bed and pressed the cold steel of the gun against his forehead.

“Wakey, wakey,” he hissed.

Du Lyonne’s eyes opened lazily. When they saw Bond, a flicker of fury shone behind the dark pools, then was gone. “James. Bond.” He said it slowly, through sleep-dried lips.

“This is your morning call, Rufus. Time to get up and go.”

“Once again I learn the value of killing your enemies on sight.” He raised himself up on his elbows.

“I want the keys to the handcuffs,” said Bond.

Du Lyonne smirked, showing his sharp teeth in a leer. “Still saving the damsel in distress? You’re such a cliché. The handcuff key is on the table there. Feel free. I’m done with her now anyway. You can only take a virgin once, after all.”

“Unlock her,” said Bond, ignoring him. Du Lyonne picked up the key and unlocked the girl. She slid from the bed into the corner, away from both the men, where she watched with fearful eyes.

“Now what?” said du Lyonne. “Ritual execution?”

“Worse. You’re coming back to London with me. The end of the Great Patriot.”

“I doubt it. I have friends in London. Much more powerful ones than you have. I’ll probably get another medal. I finished off the Government’s work for it, after all. They would have abandoned the virus if I hadn’t stepped in and closed it for them. Perhaps I’ll get the Queen’s Award for Industry.”

“You’ll certainly end up at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Or more likely, in a lunatic asylum.”

“Lunatic? Is that the best you can come up with? You really are pathetic Bond. And I think your time has run out.”

Simultaneous with his words, there was a crash behind them. The double doors were thrown open and Henk burst in, his face furious. The noise startled Bond, and gave Henk his opportunity. He slapped the gun from his hand as if it were a toy and grabbed 007, wrenching him close and getting his head in an arm lock. Bond felt the constriction as Henk crushed his windpipe slowly.

Du Lyonne rose slowly from his bed to standing level. He rolled back the sleeve of his pyjama top. “Personal alarm on my wrist. Silent but effective. If you’d paid attention instead of bandying childish insults about, you’d have spotted me activate it. But you didn’t, and now it’s too late.”

“So?” Henk whispered softly.

“Kill him. As I said, Mr Bond. You’ve taught me a valuable lesson. Kill first, ask questions later.”

The roar of the explosion was more than even Bond had hoped for. The whole room shook, the glass in the chandelier tinkling, the champagne glass on the bedside cabinet rolling onto the floor and shattering. Du Lyonne’s face became contorted with rage, and he stepped up into Bond’s face. “What have you done?” he spat. “What was that?”

“Option B,” Bond replied with a smile.

Du Lyonne picked up the gun where Bond had dropped it, and measured it in his hand. He looked confused, angry, unsure. “I need to check this out,” he told Henk. “I’ll be back.”

Henk nodded as his master left, but he didn’t release the pressure. His arm tightened on Bond’s neck, choking him slowly. “I’ll make it as painful as possible, Bond. You’ll feel every last breath.”

“NO!” The girl screamed from the corner. Now that du Lyonne had left, she seemed to have rediscovered her voice and her anger. She leapt up, onto the bed, using it as a springboard to throw herself at Henk.

It was as though she was a fly to be swatted. Henk reached out with his spare hand and caught the girl’s hair. In one move he yanked her head back, the move so violent, so hard, that her neck gave out a sloppy crack. She slumped onto the carpeted floor, gurgling blood from her collapsed windpipe, dying painfully and needlessly.

Her attack had served as a distraction for Henk though, and his hold on Bond had lessened just enough for 007 to move. He brought his elbow down and back, praying that he had calculated the height difference correctly. He connected with the soft flesh of the man’s groin and Henk let out a low groan, letting his grip loosen even more. Bond was free.

He span round and punched the man, one, two, across his face. The response was a powerful cuff that sent Bond crashing to the floor, splintering a delicate end table as he did so. He kicked upwards, a single blow into Henk’s powerful stomach, then grasped one of the table’s shattered legs as a club. He swung it at the huge man as he backed away, into the office.

The office stank of smoke from the burning building. It was catching even faster than Bond could have hoped. He swung the leg again, but Henk caught it in his fist and twisted it round, bending Bond’s arm with it. The crude weapon was wrenched from his fist, and Henk tossed it aside. He launched himself at Bond. The two men were thrown backwards, onto the massive desk.

Papers and stationery were sent crashing to the floor as they slid across its surface, both of them reaching for each other’s throat. Bond was on the bottom, and he felt Henk’s powerful fingers clamp around his neck, strangling him. He smashed a hand against the side of his head, but it was like attacking a lump of granite. Again and again Bond smashed with his bandaged weak hand, each blow making him wince, each blow seemingly useless, while his right scrabbled around on the table for a weapon. His fingers closed around a pen, a fountain pen, thick and heavy. Bond forced off the lid with his fingers as the lack of oxygen began to make his head swim. He was slipping away. He raised the pen and pushed it with all his might up into Henk’s face.

The nib of the pen pierced the soft tissue of Henk’s right eyeball. He let out an inhuman cry, an astonishing bellow of rage and pain, and lifted himself off Bond to clutch at the bleeding eye socket. The pen clattered out as he fell backwards.

Bond rolled sideways, behind the desk, gasping for breath, raising himself to his feet hesitantly. He felt nauseous and dizzy.

But Henk had channelled his pain into pure furious rage. He hurled himself towards Bond, clattering into his body, pushing them both through the centre of the etched glass coat of arms and out the window. The safety glass fractured into a million pieces of sharp confetti around them as they hurtled into space before crashing onto the heavy wooden planks of the scaffolding beyond.

Henk was on top of Bond, punching once, punching again. Bond felt his nose explode, and yelled in pain. He couldn’t face it any more. The beast was vanquishing him. Each blow seemed to pound more and more of his resolve, his life force, his will from his body. 007 was giving up.

It was the roar of a mythological creature, a scream mixed with an explosion of fury, a massive cacophony that shook the world around him. As it stopped, the scaffolding disappeared from beneath Bond’s back. He was weightless, falling, rolling, plunging through a mass of metal and wood. Henk disappeared too as sand and dust were thrown up into his face.

He fell heavily, onto the ground, but he’d anticipated the bang of the earth against his back. He pulled himself up, with the last remaining shreds of effort he had in him, and staggered to his feet.

Henk was a foot away, dazed and confused, close to recovering. His face was a red bloody mess. It was Bond’s only chance. He grabbed a heavy iron scaffolding pole and swung it at Henk’s head.

The first blow knocked Henk backwards, flat, and Bond brought the pole down again. A second blow, a third, a fourth, and then he was simply compounding each previous crash, beating Henk to a pulp. He saw Samantha’s falling body in the cathedral, saw the naked blonde girl twisted in a heap, felt the rage and the anger and channelled it into each blow that split open Henk’s skull.

Finally he dropped the weapon and staggered backwards, into the bloody desert sand. The scaffolding was a mess. It had crashed down everywhere. He lurched round to find out why, why the Gods had chosen that moment to save him with a fortuitous collapse.

It wasn’t the Gods. Protruding from the centre of the collapse was the back end of a jeep. And slumped over the steering wheel of the jeep, not moving, surrounded by debris and splinters, was the unmistakeable form of Kindie Sinclair.