Death Is Forever

by John Gardner

  ‘It’s going to get even worse when the chief sees you, Gus. He didn’t buy the stunt you pulled with the body they fished out of the canal, but it was a good try.’

  ‘Yes, I thought so.’ He moved again, and this time the coat, bunched precariously on the padded bench, slid to the deck.

  Bond stooped forward to retrieve it.

  ‘Don’t do anything silly,’ from Franco who was waving his gun around as though directing traffic.

  ‘I never argue with people holding guns.’ Bond turned his head so that he could look Franco straight in the eyes as he fumbled for the coat with both hands. Often the best method of diversion is to make sure your adversary’s eyes are occupied with your own face. Slowly he lifted the coat with his left hand, and for a second it shielded his legs. His right hand slid under the bottom of his trouser leg, and the Sykes-Fairbairn dagger came out of its scabbard without a sound.

  He threw the coat straight at the gunman, and almost at the same moment the dagger flicked through the air, its razor point cutting into the man’s throat with a force that drove the blade through the side of the neck.

  Franco looked as though he did not believe what had happened. The gun dropped from his fingers and his hands reflexed, tugging at the dagger, trying to pull it from his throat.

  Behind him, Bond heard a yell, followed by a series of grunts, but he was occupied with the death of the gunman, who had now crumpled to the deck, making unpleasant rattling noises. Bond reached down and pulled hard on the dagger, one foot on the man’s chest. He must have died at the moment the knife came out, because the rattling stopped.

  Glancing behind him, he saw that Wimper had taken care of the helmsman, and was standing back detaching a wire garrotte from around the man’s neck. ‘Silent killing’s much better than all those bangs,’ he murmured.

  Their eyes met and Bond winked, as he caught hold of Franco’s ankles and pulled him back into the stern, heaving him over the side, while Wimper did something similar with the one who in life had been called Antonio. The launch wallowed, alarmingly out of control.

  ‘I do apologise, James.’ Wimper had taken the wheel and was turning the craft back out of the Grand Canal. ‘Unforgivable of me. I should have recognised friend Antonio. He never was a subtle man: one of Weisen’s gofers. Oh, lord, he’s bled all over the deck.’

  Bond was leaning across the side, his right hand holding the Sykes-Fairbairn in the water, washing off the blood. He dried off the blade with a piece of rag lying in the stern well, then returned it to the scabbard. ‘Couldn’t we just pull over to the starboard side and tie up?’ he asked. ‘We must be quite near San Silvestro.’

  ‘We could,’ Gus called back, ‘but we’re not going to. I want to get as far away from those floaters as I can. Anyway, engine noise carries on a night like this. No way am I going to risk any of the Dwarf’s people being alerted. They’d think in terms of a frontal assault, so we go back and make the journey on foot. Okay?’

  ‘Whatever you say, Gus.’

  They ploughed into a thick mist, then out again. The houses on either side of the wide canal looked eerily shrouded, and some were almost invisible in more dense fog. Their lights, refracted through the damp clouds, gave an impression of absurd unreality.

  Venice could do that to you even on a hot cloudless summer’s day, as you walked through its narrow streets or floated along its maze of canals in gondolas, traghetti – the public gondola ferries – or vaporetti, the water buses.

  Of all the cities in Europe, Venice is perhaps the only one in which you experience constant changes of perspective: a well-known street, bridge or campo can appear deceptively different in late afternoon than it did when you were last there in the morning. Bond recalled that, years before, he spent two hours trying to find a store he had seen on the previous day. The place, which sold handmade paper, appeared to have vanished overnight, and when he finally discovered it again, the entire locale looked dissimilar to his memory of it.

  A friend had once jokingly said that he was certain Venice was built like a puzzle of movable squares, with one vacant space. Venetians, he maintained, came out at night and pushed the pieces into a different pattern to confuse visitors.

  Now, as they slid through the water, it was as though he had never seen the Grand Canal before: its aspect had been so changed by the mist and fog.

  ‘Gus?’ he asked. ‘Your body was supposed to have been pulled out of this water: what happened?’

  Wimper steadied the launch as they rounded the wide exit from the Grand Canal and headed towards the jetties near San Marco. ‘I told you, I have people here who owe me favours. I came to Venice often with Liz. We discovered, almost by accident, that Wolfie Weisen had a hideaway here. Over the years I got to know quite a lot of Venetians, including the police. It became very necessary for me to disappear when the Dwarf began to suspect something. I simply did a deal.’

  ‘A deal as in money changing hands?’

  ‘The Dwarf’s people are never short of money. I think he has his own presses. No, that’s not it. Wolfie’s been skimming money off the top for years. Transferring it out of the old Germany; stashing it away in banks all over Europe, and even in the States, I think.’

  ‘And the deal was?’

  In the murk, Gus turned and smiled. ‘First unidentifiable body they netted was to be identified as me. Also the word would be passed along. They have a great whispering grapevine here in Venice.’

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me at all.’ Bond reflected that in the sixteenth century the Venetian Republic had what was probably the most advanced intelligence and security service in the world – the infamous Council of Ten which, in spite of its name, consisted of around thirty people. The powerful Council had employed an international network of spies, agents, informers and assassins. In the history of the secret world, the Council of Ten was arguably the most efficient intelligence organisation of all time. But who knew? he wondered. The myth that the old Venetian Republic had the greatest political constitution the world has ever known, certainly influenced the founding fathers of America when their constitution was drawn up.

  ‘You’ve handled one of these before.’ Bond was impressed by the way Wimper skilfully brought the launch inshore, past the Palazzo Contarini, with its extraordinary exterior hanging staircase, then alongside the deserted little jetties which run out from the strip of waterfront adjacent to the fortress-like Zecca, the ancient treasury and mint.

  They tied up at an empty berth, and Gus Wimper unzipped the tote he had been carrying, tossing out a pair of black Nike trainers for Bond, slipping out of his own elegant shoes, replacing them with trainers similar to the ones Bond was lacing up. Then, he took off the jacket of his tailored suit and began to wrap a length of thin, nylon climbing rope around his body, covering it with a bulky black pullover which had been chosen to hide many things. He cleaned out the pockets of his suit, transferring his few belongings – a wallet, the garrotte, and a small 6.35mm, so-called ‘Baby Beretta’ – to his trouser pockets and waistband.

  ‘You carry a pea shooter, Gus?’ Bond gave the weapon a look of disdain. The Baby Beretta required exceptional marksmanship at close quarters to be effective, and was certainly not a ‘stopping’ pistol.

  Gus grinned. ‘I don’t like them big, and I usually work up close. One between the eyes at three feet does it every time. Anyhow, bangs frighten me.’ He tossed a length of the nylon climbing rope to Bond, who took off the zippered jacket, circled the rope crosswise, from right shoulder to left hip, then covered it with the jacket again.

  ‘You have all the other things we discussed?’

  Bond nodded as the German added one further item to his waistband: a bulky Hilton Pyrotechnic pistol.

  ‘What happens if the gendarmes stop us?’ he asked.

  Wimper gave him the old grin which was now getting infectious. ‘It’s the Carabinieri, actually, James.’

  ‘I know that, actually, Gus. What if they do stop us? Seriously
?’

  ‘Tell them we locked ourselves out of the house?’

  The mist was rolling in off the water now, thickening considerably, almost obscuring the ornate multi-bracketed lamps which were supposed to illuminate both the Piazza San Marco and the Piazzetta di San Marco, that open area which extends, past the Doge’s Palace – once called ‘the central building of the world’ – to the waterfront.

  They left the launch and, hugging the wall opposite the Palace – for seven centuries, the seat of government and ducal residence of the Venetian Republic – turned left into that unique square, with the great Campanile of St Mark’s Cathedral, the tallest tower in Venice, almost invisible through the fog. The cathedral was enmeshed in metal scaffolding. Bond saw it just before they turned to enter the long stone arcade running around three sides of the square which is so often a backdrop to history, and normally surrounds the most unusual entertainment in the world: though not now, on this chilly, foggy, doleful night.

  Bond recalled the Piazza as he had last seen it, during a summer day three or four years before, tourist-infested, with the arcade shops full of slightly tawdry goods, and the orchestra at the Florian sawing out gems from Andrew Lloyd Webber.

  It was the ever-changing light, and the almost theatrical background which somehow made the entire experience different. Put the same people in Trafalgar Square, or even Times Square, and they would become simply a rather tacky crowd. Yet here, in this incredible and magic place, even a crocodile of sightseers, led by a lady holding up a glove on a stick, seemed quaint and diverting. The Piazza San Marco is the greatest people-watching site in the world.

  Not, however, at almost two o’clock in the deserted desolate morning, when you could not see the cloistered archways on the far side. Already, as he glanced back, Bond saw that the massive needle of the Campanile, topped by its stone spire and gilded angel, had disappeared from view. The mist was pulling itself in across the entire city, blanketing the alleys and narrow streets, rolling up the canals, and distorting the appearance of every step, bridge, archway and tower.

  It was a night, he thought, made especially for such an exploit as this attempt to rescue Easy, Praxi and Bruin. The serious, clandestine nature of their task became wrapped in a kind of romance of near Gothic proportions. Even when swathed in fog, the strong necromancy of Venice had the last word.

  By now they had plunged into the maze of streets through which Gus Wimper seemed to navigate blind. The mist lifted and then billowed around them again, as they moved fast and almost silently over bridges, out into small squares, down cobbled steps. In the whole world, it was as though they were the only people awake and about on this night.

  It took almost half an hour to reach the Rialto Bridge, the sight of which always surprised Bond, no matter how often he visited the place. It was a clumsy design, somewhat out of proportion, with its covered stone shops rising from each side, flattening off along the centre and looking strangely as though it were defying the laws of gravity. On seeing it now, looming from what looked like heavy smoke, his first thoughts were not of its long history but of its oddity. Yet, for all its ugliness, he remembered days when he had stood on the outside walkways and marvelled at the spectacular views of the Grand Canal.

  Now, in the early hours of a new day, the silence around the Rialto felt somehow wrong. He was used to coming here to look at the market stalls, the open-fronted stone shops, and to brush shoulders with the ever-moving crowd which crushed and flowed in both directions. Now, as they climbed the steps of the first section, all was silence, except for the barking of a dog far away, and the sound of gondolas bumping softly in the swell of the water below.

  By the time they reached the far side, they were both soaked with sweat, combined with the fine droplets of mist. Gus paused for a second to indicate they had not far to go, then he struck out to the left, inland. Five minutes later he came to a halt, at the edge of a small square, back against the wall, turning to Bond, motioning him to wait. The mist was thinning, and it was as if faraway voices whispered out of sight in the dark – the sound of water from the Grand Canal which was now in front of them, behind the buildings they faced.

  Wimper reached under the baggy pullover, gently unwinding the climbing rope, and quietly telling Bond that the wall which was the rear of Weisen’s house, was directly in front of them, some forty yards away, across the little square.

  ‘I think you go up first,’ he said. ‘You can prepare the way down through the skylight and start working on the latch.’

  Bond nodded, feeling for one of the pouches on his belt, to take out a small flashlight no larger than his index finger. He switched on the light as Wimper produced the large barrelled Hilton Pyrotechnic pistol. The Hilton has many uses, from firing CS gas charges and smoke bombs, to sending grappling irons up rock faces or, as in this case, to the top of a building. There was a whole series of detachable barrels, making the instrument a highly flexible asset to the armoury of police and anti-terrorist units. Its portability was a plus, though both men wished they could have carried a larger dedicated mortar, for the only Hilton Gus could lay his hands on was an old model.

  From the barrel of the pistol, Wimper eased out the shining steel end of the grapple which lay spring-loaded inside. It worked like an umbrella, folded within the barrel, about eight inches in length. When fired from the clumsy blunderbuss of a weapon, the steel arms would pop out and, theoretically, anchor themselves to the nearest obstacle. The protruding steel rod of the grapple ended in an oval ring which Wimper held out as Bond located the end of the rope to which was fixed a spring clip. The clip snapped into the ring and Wimper pushed the grapple back inside the Hilton’s barrel, then broke the pistol like a shotgun. From another pocket he pulled out a long thick cardboard cartridge. The cartridge was pushed home and the breech closed. With Gus Wimper carrying the pistol and Bond holding the length of rope, they moved across the square until they came to within about fifteen feet of the wall.

  Wimper nodded, and Bond indicated that the rope was clear, on the ground, and could not be fouled around either of their legs. The ex-Vopo raised the gun, his arm stretched up at an angle of 45 degrees. He turned his head away and pulled the trigger. The pop from the cartridge sounded alarmingly loud, magnified by the enclosed space. They saw the streak and flash of metal as the grapple soared upwards, the rope following, snaking out like a white contrail disappearing into the darkness.

  Wimper pulled gently on the end of the rope. From above they heard a scraping as the metal was drawn across the roof, the noise intensified by the silence of the night. Then the grating noise stopped, and Wimper felt pressure on the rope.

  When they planned the rescue, over dinner, Gus Wimper said this was the only way. ‘It’s the clumsy method, I know. But, actually, I can only get hold of old equipment, and a full-sized grapple mortar would attract a lot of notice in the streets of Venice.’

  ‘They attract a lot of attention anywhere. You sure this pyrotechnic cartridge’ll work?’

  ‘James, of course it’ll work. If it doesn’t, I’ll end up with my hand blown off.’

  They moved in close to the wall, and Bond tested his weight on the rope. The grapple seemed to be holding firmly. Without looking back, he hauled himself upwards, swinging out until his body was parallel to the ground. Then, slowly, but firmly, he began to walk up the wall, his hands moving, one above the other in time to his feet, as he prayed the grapple would not break against whatever was holding it in place. As he walked upwards, he heard, in his head, an old naval song which, long ago, was used by sailors working the heavy capstan. Its rhythm helped in the climb as he repeated the words under his breath:

  ‘We’re off to Samoa

  By way of Genoa,

  Roll on Shenandoah

  And up with the line and away.

  We’re towing to Malta

  The rock of Gibraltar

  With only a halter

  And Davy Jones lying below.’

  His
shoulders ached, and his hands felt like fire by the time he reached the roof. It was flat, as Wimper had said, with a stone coping surrounding the top. The grapple had two of its anchors firmly against the coping which looked solid enough, with no cracks visible. He shook the rope lightly to signal that all was well.

  The view, as he stood, after tiptoeing across the roof, was breathtaking. The mist, so dense only a few minutes before, was starting to lift. To the left he saw the grey bulk of the Rialto Bridge, the water below as smooth as black ice. In the other direction he could see the whole of the Grand Canal as it ran down towards the lagoon. Lights twinkled through the last remnants of the mist, and the buildings on either side of the canal appeared to be slowly coming into focus – silhouetted against the other city illuminations which were starting to brighten as the mist lifted. The illusion was as though some invisible force was turning up a huge dimmer switch.

  He found the skylight easily, for a bulb burned below it on the top-storey landing. It was secured by a heavy-duty padlock which had rusted, almost fusing with the D-ring which held it in place. As he found the screwdriver on the Leatherman tool, he felt something was wrong. In a house like this they would use the roof from time to time. The view was too exceptional to miss.

  He shone the torch all the way around the skylight until he found what he was looking for. The rusted padlock was a dummy. The oblong, wooden, outer frame was only there for show. The opaque glass skylight was set into a metal frame, and the whole was secured by bolts below, and inside, the house. The three hinges on one of the longer sides were in good condition, and well oiled. They would be the only way in, so he began to work on the screws, and had one hinge free by the time Wimper was on the roof, beside him. The screws came out easily once they were loosened, and together they tested the framework when all the hinges were free. The heavy skylight moved in their hands. They got it up to almost a 45 degree angle, and Bond reached inside and shot the bolts.