Colonel Sun

by Kingsley Amis

  Sun tilted his head, pleased at the compliment, but anxious to be strictly fair. ‘Good work is also being done in Vietnam. Some of Ho Chi-minh’s men have learnt their job with remarkable speed, considering the comparative backwardness of that part of the world. Very promising. Ah …’

  He stepped over and lifted Bond’s chin. The blue-grey eyes fluttered open, cleared and steadied. ‘Damn you, Sun,’ said a thin voice.

  ‘Excellent. We can proceed. I’m working on his head, Ludwig, as I described earlier. He’s taken it well so far, but this is only the beginning. Eventually he’ll scream when he merely sees me advancing on him to continue the treatment.

  ‘I now propose to stimulate the septum, the strip of bone and cartilage that divides the nasal cavity. Can you see, all of you? Good.’

  More pain, different at first from the other, then indistinguishable. Bond tried to build a place in his mind where the pain was not all that there was, where there were thoughts, as he had been able to do under the hands of other torturers and so to some degree hold out against them.

  But the pain was fast becoming all that there was. The only thought he could find and keep in place was that he would not scream yet, not this time. Or this time. Or this time …

  It was later and the pain had receded for the moment. He was somewhere. That was all he knew. But there must be other things. Screaming. Had he screamed? Forgotten. But still try not to.

  People were talking. He recognized some of the words through a sound like a fast-running river. Danger. Shock. Injection. A tiny pricking in his arm, ridiculously tiny.

  More pain. It was all that there was. There were no thoughts anywhere in the world.

  It was much later and he was back. There were thoughts again. Or rather one big thought that filled everything and was everything. It weighed down on him like an impossibly thick blanket, it came oozing up round him like the cold slime of the sea-bed. Bond had never experienced it before, but he knew quite soon what it was. It was despair, the terminal state of life, the foretaste of death. In comparison, the blood in his nose and mouth, the ferociously throbbing ache within his head – all this was nothing.

  Bond opened his eyes. He found he could see reasonably well. Sun’s face was a foot away. But something had happened to it since he last saw it. Something had dried it so that the skin looked like paper out of an old book, the eyes were red and dull, the open lips had shrivelled. The man’s breathing was shallow and noisy, and he swallowed constantly. He seemed in the grip of an exhaustion as profound as Bond’s. This was puzzling, but it did not matter. Nothing mattered now.

  Somebody was coming down the ladder. Bond looked up automatically without interest. It was one of the girls in the team, the dark one. She glanced at Bond, then quickly away again. Her small features expressed faint repulsion and great fear. Sun straightened up slowly and turned to her.

  She caught her breath. ‘You ill, sir?’

  ‘No. No. It’s my experiences. They have an effect.’ The voice too had changed. It had become harsh and cracked, with a monotonous quality that suggested the recitation of a lesson not perfectly understood. After a long time the man added, ‘They cause a change in one.’

  ‘Oh. What you wish, sir?’

  Sun gestured spasmodically towards Bond. ‘This man … is near his death. During his life his greatest pleasure has been love and sex with women. With your assistance, I intend to bring home to him the bitterness of being deprived of this love for ever.’

  Sun had spoken entirely without conviction. He paused awkwardly, as if turning over a page in his mind. Then the dried-up voice toiled on. ‘James Bond must be in the proper spiritual state to meet the death I shall give him. The deepest pitch of hopelessness and grief and misery a man can attain.’ He fell silent. The girl stared at him. ‘What you wish, sir?’

  ‘Strip yourself naked and stand before him,’ said Sun as if he were dictating a message. ‘Show him your body. Caress him very lasciviously.’

  The girl still stared, but now her face showed outrage and rebellion as well as fear. ‘No!’ She struggled for more words. ‘Cannot do this. Is … wrong.’

  ‘You can and you will. If you want to be of further service to our movement you must allow your inhibitions to be broken down. Do as I say.’

  ‘Will not!’

  A ghost of animation returned to Sun’s voice when he said, ‘If you disobey me I’ll have your throat cut and your body thrown overboard as soon as we’re at sea.’

  The silence roared and rustled and rang in Bond’s ears. The girl’s face changed again and suddenly, for no reason he could have specified, he became alert. He found himself watching with intense concentration.

  ‘Okay,’ said the girl at last, her eyes flickering round the room. ‘But please … not look.’

  ‘Certainly not. You need feel no embarrassment. Our friend Lohmann is a doctor. Not that he seems likely to look at you either.’

  Lohmann sat alone on the bench huddled up with his face in his hands. On the floor in front of him were the remains of a cleared-up pool of vomit. Bond glanced briefly at him, then back at the other two. He saw the girl, a trim figure in her long-sleeved turquoise jacket and green slacks, walk over towards the table and halt in front of it. Saw Sun turn towards him and study his face. Through half-closed lids, saw the girl look hastily over her shoulder, then make some movement at the table. Saw her turn and begin to speak.

  ‘I have good idea. First I will kiss him some. Then strip.’

  ‘Very well. You understand these matters. What you do doesn’t concern me. All that is important to me is the results.’

  Bond saw the girl walk up to him, her right arm moving in an unnatural way. Saw her face come down towards him – saw, at the same instant, Colonel Sun’s shrivelled mouth twitch in distaste, saw him turn his back. Saw the girl glance over her shoulder again. Felt a movement in the area around his right wrist.

  It was a few seconds before he identified the movement as that of a sharp knife shearing through the towelling that bound that wrist to the arm of the chair.

  20

  ‘GOODBYE, JAMES’

  ‘Something wrong here, sir. I think this man … dead.’

  The girl was intelligent. She had quickly re-wrapped the severed towelling round Bond’s wrist so that it would fool a casual glance. The knife was clenched in his hand, hidden from above. Taking his cue, he dropped his head on to his chest, but kept his eyes open in a fixed stare.

  ‘But that’s impossible! He can’t be dead!’ There was nothing of the sleepwalker about Sun now. He hurried over to the chair. The girl moved aside, well out of the way. Sun’s body bent forward over Bond. He began to say something. Then, with all his remaining strength, Bond brought the knife up and round and into Sun’s back behind and just above the left hip. The man grunted and flung up an arm, made as if to throw himself clear, but his feet slipped on the irregular floor and he came down on one knee, half-leaning across Bond’s left forearm. Now, with more weight behind it, the knife went in again, thumping up to the hilt this time close to the shoulder-blade. Sun gave a moan of great weariness and gazed into Bond’s face for a moment. The pewter-coloured eyes seemed full of accusation. The moment passed, the whites of the eyes rolled up, and Sun, the knife still in his back, fell over sideways and did not move.

  The girl was sobbing, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth, her body bent at the waist. Lohmann, trembling all over, had got to his feet.

  Bond looked from one to the other.

  ‘Give me the knife,’ he said. His voice was thick and choked, but it was his own.

  Violently shaking her head, the girl turned away, groped towards the chair by the table and collapsed into it, her face hidden. Lohmann hesitated, then hurried forward and pulled out the knife from the middle of the spreading stain in Sun’s tee-shirt. After wiping it he began fumblingly to cut through the towelling at Bond’s left wrist. As he worked, he talked in a jerky babble.

  ‘I wanted
to help you earlier but I couldn’t think of anything. He’s a devil. He made me watch what he was doing to you. When he couldn’t make me look he threatened me. Terrible things. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. Just medical supervision, they said. Keeping people tranquillized. Easy. And this girl. I knew something would happen there eventually. He let her guess what she was in for, you see.’

  Free at last, Bond stood up shakily, swayed and held on to the chair. His head hummed and swam. He had to force himself to speak. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘You’ve got about half an hour before they start shooting that thing off.’ The doctor had stopped trembling. He became practical, even brisk. ‘Willi’s on his way up the hillside. Von Richter’s at the firing-point, setting up.’

  ‘What about the other people?’

  Lohmann did not answer. He had been feeling Bond’s pulse and looking him over. ‘You won’t be able to do anything strenuous as you are at the moment,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you something to pull you round.’ He went over and opened his bag.

  ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘If I hadn’t made up my mind to change sides I’d have gone for help while you were still three-quarters tied up in that chair. Don’t think I’m doing it out of love for you. He was going to have me killed as soon as the job was done. I’m sure of that. Here.’ A hypodermic came up. ‘Now this will give you a lift for about an hour. Then you’ll collapse. But by that time you’ll be either safe or dead. You asked me about the other people. Your friend the man they brought in, is under sedation in the room next to your chief’s, the one that was booked for you. He’s not badly hurt. No key needed. Just the bolts.’

  ‘What about the sedative?’

  ‘It’s quite light. A shot of this will bring him round. You’ll have to take it with you. I’m not leaving this cellar until you come and tell me it’s safe. I’m no good at fighting. There you are.’ Lohmann handed over the loaded hypodermic in a cardboard box. ‘It doesn’t matter where you give it to him, as long as the point’s well into the skin. All right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bond. Perhaps it was no more than imagination, or the joy of being free again, but already energy seemed to be returning to him and his head clearing. ‘Where’s my girl?’

  ‘She’s in a room in the passage on the other side of the landing, first door on the left.’

  ‘De Graaf?’

  ‘He was there too when I went up to fetch Luisa here,’ said the doctor stonily. ‘So was the other Albanian girl. I don’t know where Evgeny is. But you’d better get a move on, Bond. He and De Graaf are due down here in ten minutes to carry you out to the firing-point.’

  ‘Right. The other man – the Greek with the bandaged arm – where’s he?’

  ‘Opposite your chief. Sedated to the eyes. No problem.’

  ‘Which of these people are armed?’

  ‘De Graaf always carries a gun in his right hip-pocket. I don’t think Evgeny has anything. Von Richter I don’t know about.’

  ‘Willi?’

  Lohmann hesitated oddly. ‘Again I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But you’ve no need to worry about him. He’s out of the way.’

  ‘Maybe. Hadn’t you better have a look at Sun?’

  ‘That second blow of yours must have finished him. But one can’t be too careful, I agree.’ Lohmann knelt down by the motionless form of the Chinese. After a moment he said: ‘He’s still alive – theoretically. He’ll never move again. What do you want to do? Do you feel like finishing him? I can show you a certain spot.’

  Bond had the knife in his hand. He glanced down at it and shuddered.

  ‘No. We’ll leave him. I’ll be off, then. Look after the girl. I’ll be back.’

  ‘Yes. All right. I’ll bolt us in. Good luck.’

  There was nothing friendly to be said to the man who, until five minutes ago, had played an indispensable part in Sun’s monstrous conspiracy, so Bond said nothing. But, short of time though he was, he could not pass by the girl who had saved his life at such dreadful risk. He put a hand on the slumped shoulder and she looked up, her face still dull with shock, but no longer weeping.

  ‘Thank you, Luisa,’ said Bond gently. ‘What made you do it?’

  ‘He …’ she pointed without looking – ‘kill me. You … help …’ Her gesture, oddly touching, apologized for her bad English.

  Bond kissed her cold cheek, then made for the ladder. There was a bad moment when he pushed at the trapdoor and it failed to budge. If some heavy object had been moved on top of it he was finished before he started. Then he remembered what Sun had said about piling it with rugs and such to muffle sound. He pushed harder; it began to yield. The effort brought a surge of pain, but the pain was beginning to be different. Without exactly decreasing, it seemed to matter less.

  The kitchen was empty. Its window showed a rocky slope beginning to turn the colour of elephant-hide. If Lohmann had been accurate, there were perhaps twenty minutes to go before the bombardment. Enough. If no snags developed. And provided he could be out of this area before De Graaf and Evgeny converged on it to collect him.

  The passage outside the kitchen was also empty and unlit, though the hall at its farther end was illuminated. Knife in hand, Bond crept along to the corner and peered round.

  Evgeny was standing with his hands on his hips in the open doorway at the side of the house. His back was almost squarely to Bond as, presumably, he watched or stood ready to assist von Richter at the firing-point. Off his guard the Russian might be, but the chances of disposing of him silently in this situation were too thin to be considered. Bond measured with his eye the distance from his corner to the foot of the staircase. Eighteen paces. Say twenty.

  Bond had taken three paces into the brightly-lit hall when he saw Evgeny glance at his watch. He was back in the passage before the man could have read the time. The hand went back on to the hip. Bond walked quickly across the hall to the stairs.

  A single small bulb burned on the deserted landing. Bond unhesitatingly turned right and halted at the last door but one. The bolts were easy. The door made no noise. The sleeper’s breathing was a guide. Bond’s left hand went across the mouth while his right stayed ready with the knife; there was still just a possibility … He whispered urgently into the ear. ‘Niko. Niko, it’s James. James Bond.’

  There had been a jerk and a grunt and a momentary struggle, then relaxation. Bond cautiously withdrew his hand an inch.

  ‘James,’ the familiar voice whispered back. ‘I’m afraid they got me. As you understand.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Bloody awful headache and very sleepy.’

  ‘I’ve brought you something that’ll take care of the drowsiness at least. An injection. Give me your arm.’ Bond went rapidly on as he brought out the hypodermic. ‘The Chinese gentleman is out of action. There are two others in the house we must deal with separately. The first one’s in a bedroom on the other side of this floor.’

  Litsas winced as the needle went in. ‘You would be a very bad doctor, James. Go on.’

  ‘He’s expecting to be called soon. I’ll knock. When he comes out, as I hope to God he does, your job is to see he doesn’t call out; if he does, we’re cooked. Then I’ll deal with him.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘A knife. Nothing for you at the moment. Now in the room with him there’s Ariadne and an Albanian girl. Some sort of rape-cum-orgy seems to have been going on. Never mind that for now. We’ve got to keep the Albanian girl quiet. That may be tricky. We’ll have to see how it goes.’

  ‘All right,’ said Litsas shortly.

  ‘Has that stuff made any difference yet?’

  ‘A bit. Moving about will perhaps help. I’m ready.’

  They sidled out along the passage to the stairhead. Bond looked down and saw nobody, listened and heard nothing. At the door mentioned by Lohmann they took up positions close to the wall on each side. Bond knocked gently.

  ‘All right, who is it
?’ called a man’s sleepy voice.

  ‘Lohmann,’ said Bond in a grunt.

  The length of the ensuing silence made him bite his lip. Then, ‘Hold on, I’m coming.’

  Within, a bed-spring twanged. The heel of a shoe scraped the floor. A female voice muttered something indistinguishable. The man yawned deeply. There was silence for half a minute. Then footfalls approached the door, a key turned in the lock, light flooded into the passage and De Graaf, buttoning his shirt, marched confidently out.

  Bond just had time to notice the deep parallel scratches on the gunman’s left cheek before Litsas grabbed him and clapped a large hand over his mouth. Bond stepped forward and looked into the dilated eyes. ‘This is for the Hammonds,’ he hissed, and drove the knife in. De Graaf’s body gave one great throe, as if he had touched a live terminal, then went totally limp. Bond turned aside at once and stepped into the room.

  Ariadne, under a thin coverlet on the floor, jerked to a sitting position and stared at him, but Bond’s attention was all on the swarthy blonde in the bed. She too had sat up, showing herself to be naked to the waist at least. Bond hardly saw. He gazed into her bewildered dark eyes and brought his bloodstained knife forward as he approached.

  ‘If you make a sound I’ll kill you,’ he told her.

  ‘Not … no I stay quiet.’ The hand she held out palm foremost was trembling. With the other she pulled the sheet over her breasts.

  Bond stood near her at the head of the bed. Ariadne, wearing brassière and panties, got up and came over to him. Their hands touched, then gripped.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Your voice sounds funny.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ There were a thousand things he longed to say and he could not get any of them said. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I don’t mind anything now you’re here. We must gag this bitch, I suppose. If it were my decision I’d shut her up for always. How are you, Niko? I thought you were dead.’

  ‘A bit better than that.’ Litsas had dumped De Graaf’s body in a corner of the room. He now held a revolver, a sawn-off Smith & Wesson Centennial Airweight. ‘We should get –’ He broke off abruptly.