by John Gardner
The job of cleaning up the bathroom, wearing the rubber gloves and using almost the entire bottle of antiseptic which Sukie had brought him took fifteen minutes. Before completing the job he added the gloves to the neat, sinister parcel containing the remains of the vampire bat. He was as sure as he could be that no germs had entered his system.
While he worked, Bond thought of the possibilities regarding the perpetrator of this last attempt on his life. He was almost certain that it was his old enemy, SMERSH – now Directorate S’s Department Eight of the KGB – who were holding Kirchtum, and using him as their personal messenger. But was it really their style to use such a thing as a hybrid vampire bat against him?
Who, he wondered, would have the resources to work on the breeding and development of a weapon so horrible? It struck him that the creature must have taken a number of years to be brought to its present state, and that indicated a large organisation, with funds and the specialist expertise required. The work would have been carried out in a simulated warm forest-like environment, for, if his memory was correct, the species’ natural habitats were the jungles and forests of Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.
Money, special facilities, time and zoologists without scruples: SPECTRE was the obvious bet, though any well-funded outfit with an interest in terrorism and killings would be on the list, for the creature would not have been developed simply as a one-off to inject some terrible terminal disease into Bond’s bloodstream. The Bulgarians and Czechs favoured that kind of thing, and he would not even put it past Cuba to send some agent of their well-trained internal G-2 out into the wider field of international intrigue. The Honoured Society, that polite term for the Mafia, was also a possibility – for they were not beyond selling the goods to terrorist organisations, as long as they were not used within the borders of the United States, Sicily or Italy.
But, when the chips were down, Bond plumped for SPECTRE itself – only, once more during this strange dance with death, someone had saved him, at the last moment, from another attempted execution, and this time it was Sukie, a young woman met seemingly by accident. Could she be the truly dangerous one?
He sought out the kitchens and with a great deal of charm explained that some food had been left accidentally in his car. He asked if there was an incinerator and a porter man was summoned to lead him to it. The man even offered to dispose of the bundle himself, but Bond tipped him heavily and said he would like to see it burned.
It was already six-twenty. Before going to the bar he made a last visit to his room and doused himself in cologne to disguise any remaining traces of the antiseptic.
Sukie and Nannie were anxious to hear what he had been doing, but Bond merely said they would be told all in good time. For the moment they should enjoy the pleasanter things of life. After a drink in the snug bar, they moved to the table which Nannie had been sensible enough to reserve and dined on the famous Viennese boiled beef dish called Tafelspitz. It was like no other boiled beef on earth, a gastronomic delight, with a piquant vegetable sauce, and served with melting sautéed potatoes. They had resisted a first course for it is sacrilege to decline dessert in an Austrian restaurant. They chose the light, fragile Salzburger soufflé, said to have been created nearly three hundred years ago by a chef in the Hohensalzburg. It arrived topped by a mountain of Schlag, rich whipped cream.
Afterwards they went outside among the strolling window-shoppers in the warm air of the Getreidegasse. Bond wanted to be safe from bugging equipment.
‘I’m too full,’ said Nannie, hobbling with one hand on her stomach.
‘You’re going to need the food with what the night has in store for us,’ Bond said quietly.
‘Promises, promises,’ Sukie muttered, breathing heavily. ‘I feel like a dirigible. So what’s in store, James?’
He told them they would be driving to Paris.
‘You’ve made it plain that you’re coming with me, whatever. The people who are giving me the run-around have also insisted that you’re to accompany me, and I have to be sure that you do. The lives of a very dear friend, and an equally dear colleague are genuinely at risk. I can say no more.’
‘Of course we’re coming,’ Sukie snapped.
‘Try and stop us,’ added Nannie.
‘I’m going to do one thing out of line,’ he explained. ‘The orders are that we start tomorrow – which means they expect us to do it in daylight. I’m starting shortly after midnight. That way I can plead that we did start the drive tomorrow, but we might get a jump ahead of them. It’s not much, but it may just throw them off balance.’
It was agreed that they would meet by the car on the stroke of midnight. As they started to retrace their steps towards the Goldener Hirsch, Bond paused briefly by a letter box set into the wall and slid his package from his breast pocket to the box. It was neatly done, in seconds, and he was fairly certain that even Sukie and Nannie did not notice.
It was just after ten when he got back to his room. By ten-thirty the briefcases and his bag were packed, and he had changed into casual jeans and jacket. He was carrying the ASP and the baton as usual. With an hour and a half to go, Bond sat down and concentrated on how he might gain the initiative in this wild and dangerous death hunt.
So far, the attempts on his life had been cunning. Only in their early encounters had someone else stepped in to save his life, presumably in order to set him up for the final act in the drama. He knew that he could trust nobody – especially Sukie since she had revealed herself as his saviour, however unwitting, in the vampire bat incident. But how could he now take some command over the situation? Suddenly he thought of Kirchtum, held prisoner in his own clinic. The last thing they would expect would be an assault on this power base. It was a fifteen minute drive out of Salzburg to the Klinik Mozart and time was short. If he could find the right car, perhaps it was just possible.
Bond left the room and hurried downstairs to the reception desk to ask what self-drive hire cars were immediately available. For once, he seemed to be making his own luck. There was a Saab 900 Turbo, a car he knew well, which had only just been returned. A couple of short telephone calls secured it for him. It was waiting only four minutes’ walk from the hotel.
As he waited for the cashier to take his credit card details, he walked over to the internal telephones and rang Nannie’s number. She answered immediately.
‘Say nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘Wait in your room. I may have to delay departure for an hour. Tell Sukie.’
She agreed, but sounded surprised. By the time he returned to the desk, the formalities had been completed.
Five minutes later, having collected the car from a smiling representative, Bond was driving skilfully out of Salzburg on the mountain road to the south, passing in the suburbs the strange Anif water-tower which rises like an English manor house from the middle of a pond. He continued almost as far as the town of Hallein, which had begun as an island bastion in the middle of the Salzach and which has been made famous as the birthplace of Franz-Xavier Gruber, the composer of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.
The Klinik Mozart stands back from the road, about two kilometres on the Salzburg side of Hallein, the seventeenth-century house screened from passing view by woods.
Bond pulled the Saab into a lay-by. He switched off the headlights and the engine, put on the reverse lock and climbed out. A few moments later he had ducked under the wooden fencing and was moving carefully through the trees, peering in the darkness for his first sight of the clinic. He had no idea how the security of the clinic was arranged; neither did he know how many people he was up against.
He reached the edge of the trees just as the moon came out. There was light streaming from many of the large windows at the front of the building, but the grounds were in darkness. As his eyes adjusted, Bond tried to pick up movement across the hundred metres of open space that separated him from the house. There were four cars parked on the wide gravel drive but no sign of life. Gently he eased out the ASP, grippin
g it in his right hand. He took the baton in his left and flicked it open, ready for use. Then he broke cover, moving fast and silently, remaining on the grass and avoiding the long drive up to the house.
Nothing moved and there was not a sound. He reached the gravel forecourt and tried to remember where the Direktor’s office was situated in relation to the front door. Somewhere to the right, he thought, remembering how he had stood at the tall windows when he had come to arrange May’s admission, looking out at the lawns and the drive. Now he had a fix, for he recalled that they were French windows. There were French windows immediately to his right showing chinks of light through the closed curtains.
He eased himself towards the windows, realising with thudding heart that they were open and muffled voices could be heard from inside. He was close enough actually to hear, if he concentrated, what was being said.
‘You cannot keep me here for ever – not with only three of you.’ It was the Direktor’s voice that he recognised first. The bluffness had disappeared, and was replaced by a pleading tone. ‘Surely you’ve done enough.’
‘We’ve managed well enough so far,’ another voice said. ‘You have been co-operative – to a point – Herr Direktor, but we cannot take chances. We shall leave only when Bond is secure and our people are far away. The situation is ideal for the shortwave transmitter; and your patients have not suffered. Another twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours will make little difference to you. Eventually we shall leave you in peace.’
‘Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,’ a third voice chanted with a chuckle. Bond’s blood ran cold. He moved closer to the windows, the tips of his fingers resting against the open crack.
‘You wouldn’t . . .’ There was trembling terror in Kirchturn’s voice, not hysterical fear, but the genuine terror that strikes a man facing death by torture.
‘You’ve seen our faces, Herr Direktor. You know who we are.’
‘I would never . . .’
‘Don’t even think about it. You have one more message to pass for us when Bond gets to Paris. After that . . . Well, we shall see.’
Bond shivered. He had recognised a voice he would never have thought, in a thousand years, he would hear in this situation. He took a deep breath and slowly pulled, widening the crack between the windows. Then he moved the curtains a fraction to peer into the room.
Kirchtum was strapped into an old-fashioned desk chair with a circular seat, made of wood and leather, and with three legs on castors. The bookcase behind him had been swept clean and books replaced by a powerful radio transmitter. A broad-shouldered man sat in front of the radio, another stood behind Kirchtum’s chair, and the third, legs apart, faced the Direktor. Bond recognised him at once, just as he had known the voice.
He breathed in through his nose, lifted the ASP and lunged through the windows. There was no time for hesitation. What he had heard told him that the three men constituted the entire enemy force at the Klinik Mozart.
The ASP thumped four times, two bullets shattering the chest of the man behind Kirchtum’s chair, the other two plunging into the back of the radio operator. The third man whirled around, mouth open, hand moving to his hip.
‘Hold it there, Quinn! One move and your legs go – right?’
Steve Quinn, the Service’s man in Rome, stood rock still, his mouth curving into a snarl as Bond removed the pistol from inside his jacket.
‘Mr Bond? How . . . ?’ Kirchtum spoke in a hoarse whisper.
‘You’re finished, James. No matter what you do to me, you’re finished.’ Quinn had not quite regained his composure, but he made a good attempt.
‘Not quite,’ said Bond smiling, but without triumph. ‘Not quite yet, though I admit I was surprised to find you here. Who are you really working for, Quinn? SPECTRE?’
‘No.’ Quinn gave him the shadow of a smile. ‘Pure KGB First Chief Directorate, naturally – for years, and not even Tabby knows. Now on temporary detachment to Department Eight, your old sparring partner, SMERSH. Unlike you, James, I’ve always been a Mozart man. I prefer to dance to good music.’
‘Oh, you’ll dance.’ Bond’s expression betrayed the cold, cruel streak that was the darkest side of his nature.
11
HAWK’S WING AND MACABRE
James Bond was not prepared to waste time. He knew, to his cost, the dangers of keeping an enemy talking. It was a technique he had used to his own advantage before now, and Steve Quinn was quite capable of trying to play for time. Crisply, still keeping his distance, Bond ordered him to stand well away from the wall, spread his legs, stretch out his arms and lean forward, palms against the wall. Once in that position, he made Quinn shuffle his feet back even further so that he had no leverage for a quick attack.
Only then did Bond approach Quinn and frisk him with great care. There was a small Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special revolver tucked into the waistband of his trousers, at the small of his back. A tiny automatic pistol, an Austrian Steyr 6.35 mm was taped to the inside of his left calf, and a wicked little flick knife to the outside of his right ankle.
‘Haven’t seen one of these in years,’ said Bond as he tossed the Steyr on to the desk. ‘No grenades secreted up your backside, I trust.’ He did not smile. ‘You’re a damned walking arsenal, man. You should be careful. Terrorists might be tempted to break into you.’
‘In this game, I’ve always found it useful to keep a few tricks up my sleeve.’
As he spoke the last word, Steve Quinn let his body sag. He collapsed on to the floor and in the fraction of a second flip-rolled to the right, his arm reaching towards the table where the Steyr automatic lay.
‘Don’t try it!’ Bond snapped, taking aim with the ASP.
Quinn was not ready to die for the cause for which he had betrayed the Service. He froze, his hand still raised, like an overgrown child playing the old game of statues.
‘Face down! Spreadeagled!’ Bond ordered, looking around the room for something to secure his prisoner. Keeping the ASP levelled at Quinn, he sidled behind Kirchtum, and used his left hand to unbuckle the two short and two long straps obviously designed to restrain violent patients. As he moved he continued to snap orders at Quinn.
‘Face right down, eat the carpet, you bastard, and get your legs wider apart, arms in the crucifix position.’
Quinn obeyed, grunting obscenities. As the last buckle gave way, Kirchtum began to rub the circulation back into his arms and legs. His wrists were marked where the hard leather thongs had bitten into his flesh.
‘Stay seated,’ Bond whispered. ‘Don’t move. Give the circulation a chance.’
Taking the straps, he approached Quinn with his gun hand well back, knowing that a lashing foot could catch his wrist.
‘The slightest move and I’ll blow a hole in you so big that even the maggots will need maps. Understand?’
Quinn grunted and Bond kicked his legs together, viciously hitting his ankle with the steel-capped toe of his shoe so that he yelped with pain. While the agony was sweeping through him, Bond swiftly slid one of the straps around Quinn’s ankles, pulled hard and buckled the leather tightly.
‘Now the arms! Fingers laced behind your back!’
As though to make him understand, Bond knocked the right wrist with his foot. There was another cry of pain, but Quinn obeyed, and Bond secured his wrists with another strap.
‘This may be old-fashioned, but it’ll keep you quiet until we’ve made more permanent arrangements,’ Bond muttered as he buckled the two long straps together. He fastened one end of the elongated strap around Quinn’s ankles, then brought the rest up around his neck and back to the ankles. He pulled tightly, bringing the prisoner’s head up and forcing the legs towards his trunk. Indeed it was a method old and well tried. If the captive struggled he would strangle himself, for the straps were pulled so tightly that they made Quinn’s body into a bow, with the feet and neck as the outer edges. Even if he tried to relax his legs, the strap would pull hard on the neck.
Quin
n let out a stream of obscene abuse, and Bond, enraged now at discovering an old friend to be a mole, kicked him hard in the ribs. He took out a handkerchief and stuffed it into Quinn’s mouth with a curt, ‘Shut up!’
For the first time Bond had a real chance to look around the room. It was furnished in solid nineteenth-century style – a heavy desk, the bookcases rising to the ceiling, the chairs with curved backs. Kirchtum still sat at the desk, his face pale, hands shaking. The big, expansive man had turned to terrified blubber.
Bond went over to the radio, stepping over the books that had been swept off the shelves. The radio operator was slumped in his chair, the blood dripping on to the carpet bright against the faded pattern. Bond pushed the body unceremoniously from the chair. He did not recognise the face, twisted in the surprised agony of death. The other corpse lay sprawled against the wall, as though he was a drunk collapsed at a party. Bond could not put a name to him, but had seen the photograph in the files – East German, a criminal with terrorist leanings. It was amazing, he thought, how many of Europe’s violent villains were turning into mercenaries for the terrorist organisations. Rent-a-Thug, he thought, as he turned to Kirchtum.
‘How did they manage it?’ he asked blandly, seemingly drained by the knowledge that Quinn had sold out.
‘Manage?’ Kirchtum appeared to be at a loss.
‘Look – ’ Bond almost shouted before realising that Kirchturn’s English was not always perfect, and could have deserted him in his present state. He walked over and laid an arm on the man’s shoulder, speaking quietly and sympathetically. ‘Look, Herr Doktor, I need information from you very quickly, especially if we are ever to see the two ladies alive again.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Kirchtum covered his face with his big, thick hands. ‘It is my fault that Miss May and her friend . . . Never should I have allowed Miss May to go out.’ He was near to tears.
