Nobody Lives for Ever

by John Gardner

  ‘Sukie’s ordered you?’ Bond felt lost.

  ‘She’s my boss. For the time being, anyway. I take orders from her, and . . .’

  Sukie Tempesta put a hand on Bond’s arm. ‘I think I should explain, James. Nannie is an old school friend. She is also President of NUB.’

  ‘And what the devil’s the NUB?’ Bond was cross now.

  ‘Norrich Universal Bodyguards.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Minders,’ said Nannie, still very cheerful.

  ‘Minders?’ For a second he was incredulous.

  ‘Minders, as in people who look after other people for money. Minders. Protectors.’ Nannie began again: James, NUB is an allwomen outfit, staffed by a special kind of woman. My girls are highly trained in weaponry, karate, all the martial arts, driving, flying – you name it, we do it. Truly, we’re good, and we have a distinguished clientèle.’

  ‘And Sukie Tempesta is among that clientèle?’

  ‘Naturally. I always try to do that job myself.’

  ‘Your people didn’t do it very well the other evening in Belgium.’ Bond heard the snarl in his voice. ‘At the filling station. I ought to charge commission.’

  Nannie sighed. ‘It was unfortunate . . .’

  ‘It was also my fault,’ added Sukie. ‘Nannie wanted to pick me up in Brussels, when her deputy had to leave. I said I’d get home without any trouble. I was wrong.’

  ‘Of course you were wrong. Look, James, you’ve got problems. So has Sukie, mainly because she’s a multimillionaire who insists on living in Rome for most of the year. She’s a sitting duck. Go and make your telephone calls and just trust me. Trust us. Trust NUB.’

  Eventually Bond shrugged, got out of the car and locked the two women in behind him. He took the CC500 from the boot and went over to the telephone booth. He made the slightly more complex attachments to link up the scrambler to the pay telephone. Then he dialled the operator, and placed a call to the Resident in Vienna.

  The conversation was brief, and ended with the Resident agreeing to square with the Austrian police. He even suggested that a patrol meet Bond at the picnic area, if possible including the officer in charge of the May and Moneypenny kidnapping. ‘Sit tight,’ he advised. ‘They should be with you in about an hour.’

  Bond hung up, dialled the operator again, and within seconds was speaking to the Duty Officer at the Regent’s Park Headquarters in London.

  ‘Rome’s men are dead,’ the officer told him flatly. ‘They were found in a ditch shot through the back of the head. Stay on the line. M wants a word.’

  A moment later he heard his Chief’s voice, sounding gruff. ‘Bad business, James.’ M called him James only in special circumstances.

  ‘Very bad, sir. Moneypenny as well as my housekeeper missing.’

  ‘Yes, and whoever has them is trying to strike a hard bargain.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Nobody’s told you?’

  ‘I haven’t seen anyone to speak to.’

  There was a long pause. ‘The women will be returned unharmed within forty-eight hours in exchange for you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Bond, ‘I thought it might be something like that. The Austrian police know of this?’

  ‘I gather they have some of the details.’

  ‘Then I’ll hear it all when they arrive. I understand they’re on their way. Please tell Rome I’m sorry about his two boys.’

  ‘Take care, 007. We don’t give in to terrorist demands in the Service. You know that, and you must abide by it. No heroics. No throwing your life away. You are not, repeat not to comply.’

  ‘There may be no other way, sir.’

  ‘There’s always another way. Find it, and find it soon.’ M closed the line.

  Bond unhooked the CC500 and walked slowly back to the car. He knew that his life might be forfeit for those of May and Moneypenny. If there was no other way, then he would have to die. He also knew that he would go on to the bitter end, taking any risks that may resolve his dilemma.

  It took exactly one hour and thirty-six minutes for the two police cars to arrive. While they waited, Nannie told Bond about the founding of Norrich Universal Bodyguards. In five years she had established branches in London, Paris, Rome, Los Angeles and New York, yet never once had she advertised the service.

  ‘If I did, we’d get people thinking we were call girls. It’s been a word-of-mouth thing from the start. What’s more, it’s fun.’

  Bond wondered why neither he nor the Service had ever heard of them. NUB appeared to be a well kept secret within the close-knit circles of the ultra-rich.

  ‘We don’t often get spotted,’ she told him. ‘Men out with a girl minder look as though they’re just on a date; and when I’m protecting a woman we make sure we both have safe men with us.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve seen poor Sukie through two dramatic love affairs in the last year alone.’

  Sukie opened her mouth, her cheeks scarlet with fury, but at that moment, the police arrived. Two cars, their klaxons silent, swept into the glade in a cloud of dust. There were four uniformed officers in one car and three in the other, with a fourth in civilian clothes. The plain-clothes man unfolded himself from the back of the second car and thankfully stretched out his immense length. He was immaculately dressed, yet his frame was so badly proportioned that only an expert tailor could make him even half presentable. His arms were long, ending with very small hands that seemed to hang apelike almost down to his knees. His face, crowned with a head of gleaming hair, was too large for the oddly narrow shoulders. He had the apple cheeks of a fat farmer and a pair of great jug-handle ears.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Nannie’s whisper filled the interior of the Bentley with a breath of fear. ‘Show your hands. Let them see your hands.’ It was something Bond had already done instinctively.

  ‘Der Haken!’ Nannie whispered.

  ‘The hook?’ Bond hardly moved his lips.

  ‘His real name’s Inspektor Heinrich Osten. He’s well over retirement age and stuck as an inspector, but he’s the most ruthless, corrupt bastard in Austria.’ She still whispered, as though the man who had now started to shamble towards them could hear every word. ‘They say nobody’s ever dared ask for his retirement because he knows too much about everyone – both sides of the law.’

  ‘He knows you?’ Bond asked.

  ‘I’ve never met him. But he’s on our files. The story is that as a very young man he was an ardent National Socialist. They call him Der Haken because he favoured a butcher’s hook as a torture weapon. If we’re dealing with this joker, we all need spoons a mile long. James, for God’s sake don’t trust him.’

  Inspektor Osten had reached the Bentley and now stood with two uniformed men on Bond’s side of the car. He stooped down, as though folding his body straight from the waist – reminding Bond of an oil pump – and waggled his small fingers outside the driver’s window. They rippled, as though he were trying to attract the attention of a baby. Bond opened the window.

  ‘Herr Bond?’ The voice was thin and high-pitched.

  ‘Yes. Bond. James Bond.’

  ‘Good. We are to give you protection to Salzburg. Please to get out of your car for a moment.’

  Bond opened the door, climbed out and looked up at the beaming polished-apple cheeks. He grasped the obscenely small hand, outstretched in greeting. It was like touching the dry skin of a snake.

  ‘I am in charge of the case, Herr Bond. The case of the missing ladies – a good mystery title, ja?’

  There was silence. Bond was not prepared to laugh at May’s or Moneypenny’s predicament.

  ‘So,’ the inspector became serious again. ‘I am pleased to meet you. My name is Osten. Heinrich Osten.’ His mouth opened in a grimace which revealed blackened teeth. ‘Some people like to call me by another name. Der Haken. I do not know why, but it sticks. Probably it is because I hook out criminals.’ He laughed again. ‘I think, perhaps, I might even have hooked you, Herr Bond. The two of us have much to talk abou
t. A great deal. I think I shall ride in your motor so we can talk. The ladies can go in the other cars.’

  ‘No!’ said Nannie sharply.

  ‘Oh, but yes.’

  Osten reached for the rear door and tugged it open. Already a uniformed man was half helping and half pulling Sukie from the passenger side. She and Nannie were dragged protesting and kicking to the other cars. Bond hoped Nannie had the sense not to reveal the .22. Then he realised how she would act. She would make a lot of noise, and in that way obtain legal freedom.

  Osten gave his apple smile again. ‘We shall talk better without the chatter of women, I think. In any case, Herr Bond, you do not wish them to hear me charge you with being an accessory to kidnapping and possibly murder, do you?’

  7

  THE HOOK

  Bond drove with exaggerated care. For one thing, the sinister man who now sat next to him appeared to he possessed of a latent insanity which could explode into life at the slightest provocation. Bond had felt the presence of evil many times in his life, but now it was as strong as he could ever recall. The grotesque Inspektor Osten smelled of something else, and it took time to identify the old-fashioned bay rum which he obviously used in large quantities on his thatch of hair. They were several kilometres along the road before the silence was broken.

  ‘Murder and kidnapping,’ Osten said quietly, almost to himself.

  ‘Blood sports,’ Bond answered placidly. The policeman gave a low, rumbling chuckle.

  ‘Blood sports is good, Mr Bond. Very good.’

  ‘And you’re going to charge me with them?’

  ‘I can have you for murder,’ Osten chuckled. ‘You and the two young women. How do you say in England? On toast, I can have you.’

  ‘I think you should check with your superiors before you try anything like that. In particular your own Department of Security and Intelligence.’

  ‘Those skulking, prying idiots have little jurisdiction over me, Mr Bond.’ Osten gave a short, contemptuous laugh.

  ‘You’re a law unto yourself, Inspektor?’

  Osten sighed. Then, ‘In this instance I am the law, and that’s what matters. You have been concerned for two English ladies who have disappeared from a clinic . . .’

  ‘One is a Scottish lady, Inspektor.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he raised a tiny doll’s hand, the action at once dismissive and full of derision. ‘You are the only key, the linking factor in this small mystery; the man who knew both victims. It is natural, then, that I must question you – interrogate you – thoroughly regarding these disappearances . . .’

  ‘I’ve yet to learn the details myself. One of the ladies is my housekeeper . . .’

  ‘The younger one?’ The question was asked in a particularly unpleasant manner, and Bond replied with some asperity.

  ‘No, Inspektor, the elderly Scottish lady. She’s been with me for many years. The younger lady is a colleague. I think you should forget about interrogations until you hear from people of slightly higher status . . .’

  ‘There are other matters – bringing a firearm into the country, a public shoot-out resulting in three deaths and great danger to innocent people using the autobahn . . .’

  ‘With respect, the three men were trying to kill me and the two ladies who were in my car.’

  Osten nodded, but with reservation. ‘We shall see. In Salzburg we shall see.’

  Casually, the man they called the Hook leaned over, his long arm stabbing forward, like a reptile, the tiny hand moving deftly. The inspector was not only experienced, Bond thought: he also had a highly developed intuition. Within seconds, he had removed both the ASP and the baton from their holsters.

  ‘I am always uncomfortable with a man armed like this.’ The apple cheeks puffed out like a balloon into a red shiny smile.

  ‘If you look in my wallet, you’ll find that I have an international licence to carry the gun,’ Bond said, tightening his hands grimly on the wheel.

  ‘We shall see.’ Osten gave another sigh and repeated, ‘In Salzburg we shall see.’

  It was late when they reached the city, and Osten began to direct him peremptorily – left here, then right and another right. Bond caught a glimpse of the River Salzach, and the bridges crossing it. Behind him the Hohensalzburg castle, once the stronghold of the prince-archbishops, stood floodlit on its great mass of Dolomite rock, above the old town and river.

  They were heading for the new town, and Bond expected to be guided towards the police headquarters. Instead, he found himself driving through a maze of streets, past a pair of modern apartment blocks and down into an underground car park. The two other cars, which they had lost on the outskirts of the city, were waiting, neatly parked with a space between them for the Bentley. Sukie sat in one, Nannie in the other.

  A sudden uneasiness put Bond’s senses on the alert. He had been assured by the Resident that the police were there to get him safely into Salzburg. Instead he was faced with a very unpleasant and probably corrupt policeman, and an apparently prearranged plan to bring them to a private building. He had no doubt that the car park belonged to an apartment block.

  ‘Lower my window.’ Osten spoke quietly.

  One of the policemen had come over to Osten’s side of the Bentley, and another stood in front of the vehicle. The second man had a machine pistol tucked into his hip, the evil eye of the muzzle pointing directly at Bond.

  Through the open window, Osten muttered a few sentences of command in German. His voice was pitched so low, and his odd high-piping Viennese German so rapid that Bond caught only a few words: ‘The women first’, then a mutter, ‘separate rooms . . . under guard at all times . . . until we have everything sorted out . . .’He ended with a question, which Bond did not catch at all. The answer, however, was clear.

  ‘You are to telephone him as soon as possible.’

  Heinrich Osten nodded his oversized head repeatedly, like a toy in a rear car window. He told the uniformed man to carry on. The one with the machine pistol did not move.

  ‘We sit quietly for a few minutes.’ The head turned towards Bond, red cheeks puffed in a smile.

  ‘As you have only hinted at charges against me, I think I should be allowed to speak to my Embassy in Vienna.’ Bond clipped out the words, as though they were parade ground orders.

  ‘All in good time. There are formalities.’ Osten sat supremely calm, his hands folded as though in complete command of the situation.

  ‘Formalities? What formalities?’ Bond shouted. ‘People have rights. In particular, I am on an official assignment. I demand to . . .’

  Osten gave the hint of a nod towards the policeman with the machine pistol. ‘You can demand nothing, Mr Bond. Surely you understand that. You are a stranger in a strange land. By the very fact that I am the representative of the law, and you have an Uzi trained on you, you have no rights.’

  Bond watched Sukie and Nannie being hustled from the other cars. They were kept well apart from one another. Both looked frightened. Sukie did not even turn her head in the direction of the Bentley, but Nannie glanced towards him. In an instant the message was clear in her eyes. She was still armed and biding her time. A remarkably tough lady, he thought: tough and attractive in a clean-scrubbed kind of way.

  The women disappeared from Bond’s line of vision, and a moment later Osten prodded him in the ribs with his own ASP.

  ‘Leave the keys in the car, Mr Bond. It has to be moved from here before the morning. Just get out, showing your hands the whole time. My officer with the Uzi is a little nervous.’

  Bond did as he was bid. The nearly deserted underground park felt cool and eerie, smelling of gasoline, rubber and oil.

  The man with the machine pistol motioned to him to walk between the other cars to a small exit passage, and towards what appeared to be a brick wall. Osten made a slight movement, and Bond caught sight of a flat remote control in his left hand. Silently a door-sized section of the brickwork moved inwards and then slid to one side, reveal
ing steel elevator doors. Somewhere in the car park an engine fired, throbbed and settled as a vehicle made its exit.

  The elevator arrived with a brief sigh, and Bond was signalled to enter. The three men stood without speaking as the lift cage made its noiseless upward journey. The doors slid open and again Bond was ushered forward, this time into a passageway lined with modern prints. A second later they were in a large, luxurious apartment. The carpets were Turkish, the furnishings modern, in wood, steel, glass and expensive fabrics. On the walls were paintings and drawings by Piper, Sutherland, Bonnard, Gross and Hockney. From the enormous open-plan room, plate-glass windows led to a wide balcony. To the left, an archway revealed the dining area and kitchen. From lower arches ran two long passages with gleaming white doors on either side. A police officer stood in each of these as though on guard. Outside a floodlit Hohensalzburg could be seen before Osten ordered the curtains to be closed. Light blue velvet slid along soundless rails.

  ‘Nice little place you have for a police inspector,’ Bond said.

  ‘Ah, my friend. I wish it were mine. I have only borrowed it for this one evening.’

  Bond nodded, trying to indicate this was obvious, if only because of the style and elegance. He turned to face the inspector, and began speaking rapidly. ‘Now, sir. I appreciate what you’ve told me, but you must know that our Embassy and the department I represent have already given instructions as to my safety, and received assurances from your own people. You say I have no right to demand anything, but you make a grave error there. In fact I have the right to demand everything.’

  Der Haken looked at him glassy-eyed, then gave a loud chuckle. ‘If you were alive, Mr Bond. Yes, if you were still alive you would have the right, and I would have the duty to co-operate if I were also alive. Unhappily we are both dead men.’

  Bond scowled, just beginning to appreciate what Osten intended.

  ‘The problem is actually yours,’ the policeman continued. ‘For you really are a dead man. I am merely lying – what is the phrase? Lying doggo?’