Trigger Mortis

by Anthony Horowitz

  Where next? Bond felt strangely disconnected, alone in the flat emptiness of the landscape, the fields stretching all the way to Chesapeake Bay and the sun already below the horizon. He was tempted to head north, back to New York. He could connect with the FBI and find out if they had managed to track down the absent Mrs Keller. It would also be interesting to know if Jason Sin had returned to America. But he could do all that by telephone and his every instinct told him to stay here, close to the launch. If the enemy was going to make a move, this was where it would happen. Above all, he wanted to know how the photographs, stolen from him in Germany, had turned up here. Lawrence wouldn’t tell him but he seemed to have an ally in the base manager, Johnny Calhoun. It was too late to go back now. He would try his luck the next day.

  The Starlite Motel was on Route 13, set back from the main road in front of woodland – mainly cedars and pines. Not surprisingly, the whole place was rocket-themed. The name was spelled out in white neon with a flickering red rocket blasting off from the lozenge-shaped sign. The rooms were arranged in three pastel-coloured blocks, each with two storeys and overhanging roofs – Redstone, Jupiter and Thor. Even the circular swimming pool was tiled to make it look like the planet Saturn. It wasn’t the sort of accommodation that Bond would normally have chosen, but it was close to Wallops Island, surprisingly quiet and, with its AAA endorsement, as clean as he would have expected. Bond had asked for a room on the second floor of Redstone, which was set slightly apart, on the edge of the compound. Eight dollars had bought him Redstone 205: a suite with a kitchenette and bathroom, TV and air conditioning and, what mattered most for him, an uninterrupted view of the gateway and main road.

  Bond drove in, parked and walked over to the manager’s office to pick up his key. There was a new man behind the counter, sleepy-eyed and well past retirement age, sitting in a rocking chair with his hands on his paunch. Seeing Bond, he got up with difficulty and searched out a scrap of paper from among many others. ‘You gotta call,’ he said. ‘Man called Calloon or some such . . . you know? He call from outta that rocket place.’

  ‘You mean Calhoun?’

  ‘That’s the one, boss. Yeah. He say he got summin’ you might ’preshiate if you wanna hang ’round. He say iss important.’

  ‘Did he leave a number?’

  ‘I ain’t got no number and you don’ need none neither. He comin’ here tomorrow at eight o’clock. That’s wha’ he say.’

  ‘All right. Can I have my key?’

  ‘Shoh ting.’ The manager unhooked Bond’s key from a wooden board that showed all the rooms in Redstone. He handed it over. ‘Good night, sah. Yo getta good night’s sleep.’

  The four-door sedan eased into the compound at exactly two o’clock, the tyres crunching softly on the gravel. Twelve o’clock had come and gone but this was the true midnight, the time when the darkness was at its most absolute and people most deeply asleep. Wearing night camouflage and army boots, the man who called himself Harry Johnson stepped out and went round to the trunk. He lifted something out. It was heavy and covered in tarpaulin. Behind him, a car and a van had arrived, parking in the street. Six more men unloaded themselves, similarly dressed in dark clothes with balaclavas covering their faces. They were all armed, with holsters hanging in plain sight beside their chests. At this time of the night, there were no witnesses and so no need for concealment. They closed the car doors quietly behind them and slipped into the shadows, taking up positions that had been agreed earlier on.

  Two minutes past two. Johnson was lying on the ground with his legs spread out behind him. He was cradling an M60, the brand new, gas-operated, belt-fed machine gun currently being rolled out for the US army. With the plastic butt stock resting against his shoulder, he reached out and adjusted the rear sight. Room 205 in the Redstone building was directly in front of him, the window gazing blankly into the night. The machine gun had a quick-change spare barrel system, but it wasn’t going to be needed. Johnson had meticulously cleaned and oiled every moving part and when he squeezed the trigger it would fire six hundred rounds a minute with a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet. The target was barely five hundred feet away. The room and everything in it would be torn to shreds. Talk about nuts and sledgehammers. The people who were giving the orders were taking no chances. The British agent had to be killed – and if two thousand armour-piercing bullets didn’t do the trick, there were half a dozen men waiting to deliver the coup de grâce. The entire operation would be over in less than ninety seconds. It would take the police at least seven minutes to arrive. A series of hoax telephone calls had already been made, diverting manpower to different parts of the state. Inside the van, a seventh man was monitoring police radio signals. He would give the alert long before the first patrol car came anywhere near.

  For a few seconds Johnson listened to that intense silence that truly defined the deadness of the night. He could hear a few cicadas, scraping away in the trees. The hoot of an owl. The moment had come. Gently, he curled his finger around the trigger and squeezed.

  Amplified by the stillness, the noise of the M60 was unbelievably shocking, white flashes erupting around the muzzle. On the other side of the compound, Room 205 simply ceased to exist, the wooden fascia, the door and the windows disintegrating as they were caught in the blast. In his mind’s eye, Johnson could see inside the room and imagined the lights shattering, the pictures being blown off the walls, fragments of glass flying, the very air sliced open by a non-stop stream of white hot bullets. And the man in the bed? He might have woken up for just a few seconds, his body buckling and jerking as the bullets slammed into him, his blood boiling over, saturating the sheets. His death could not have been faster or more violent. It was the sort of ending that a British spy deserved.

  He stopped. The silence now was almost physical as the night fought to regain its command. Nothing remained of Room 205. Lights were coming on in other rooms. There was a woman screaming. A baby had begun to cry. Some of the guests would already be scrambling for the phone, calling the police. But there was no hurry. There was plenty of time. Harry Johnson watched the dark figures chasing up the staircase to the second floor, moving in to check that the job had been done.

  James Bond also saw them go past.

  A secret agent working in the field develops an antenna. Having it or not having it is the difference between life and death. The moment Bond had got back to the Starlite Motel, he had been sure that something was wrong; not enough to leave but certainly enough to take precautions. Maybe it had begun with a glint of nervousness in the night manager’s eyes, his message delivered lazily but still, somehow, evasively. It was always possible that Calhoun had been able to find out where Bond was staying although Bond hadn’t actually told him the name of the motel. But if he had rung, why would he have mentioned that he worked at the rocket base? It wasn’t the sort of information he would give out so carelessly, particularly with all the security surrounding the launch. And why would he come to the motel? Surely it would make more sense to meet in his office. Adding it all up, Bond was eighty per cent certain that somebody wanted to make sure that he stayed where he was. Which meant they planned to come for him that night.

  And so he had taken his key and gone to his room as if there was nothing to worry about. Only once he was there had he acted. He had noticed from the keys on the board in the manager’s office that the block, Redwing, was almost empty. It had been a simple matter to pack his single bag and slip downstairs to Room 105, directly beneath. All the rooms had doors at the front and sliding windows at the back. Bond went in round the back, effortlessly manipulating the latch with a knife he had taken from the kitchenette. The room was identical to the one above, even down to the abstract painting above the bed. He had lain down in the darkness fully dressed, waiting to see what would come. If it was the manager or perhaps a couple of late arrivals, he would be on his way before they had even opened the door. If it was trouble, he would be ready to face it.

  Bond slept lightl
y; so lightly, he was barely asleep. Even before the car had drawn up at the entrance he had somehow sensed it and his eyes had flickered open, instantly alert. He knew at once that the rhythm of the night had been broken. The cicadas, sawing away, had paused briefly. Somewhere, a dog had barked three or four times and then stopped. He heard the metal legs of the M122 infantry tripod as it was placed on the gravel but did not know what it was. By not leaving, he knew that he had in part invited an attack – but what choice did he have? Whoever came for him, they would steer him to the person who had sent them. With no useful leads, Bond had to take any opportunity that was offered to him.

  He knew that he was in trouble, that he had underestimated the enemy, when he looked out through a gap in the curtain and saw the six men spreading across the forecourt. That made it seven against one. They certainly weren’t taking any chances! Surely they weren’t going to start a war in the middle of a busy motel? Bond had only just asked himself the question when the machine gun opened up and demolished the room that should have been his. The noise was deafening, the blazing assault of the bullets as they hammered endlessly into wood and brickwork almost tangible. Crouching ten feet below, with just a few inches of ceiling and floor between him and the mayhem, Bond was shocked by the violence and by the knowledge that if he had stayed in the bed that had been assigned to him, he would most certainly be dead. Dust and wood splinters showered down. The smell of cordite enveloped him. For a few seconds he thought everything was silent, then realised that he had been quite literally deafened. As his hearing returned, he heard a woman screaming, then the cry of a baby. They were in the block next door. Looking out, he saw lights going on near the manager’s office. He had no doubt that the night manager himself would already be far away.

  Bond drew out the Remington M1911 semi-automatic pistol which had been supplied to him by the FBI, with their compliments, when he had arrived in New York. It was a little heavier than he would have liked but it had lain beside him as he slept and he was more than grateful to have it now. His mind was spinning. The machine gun should have finished him. The six men must have been brought along as backup, to make sure the job was done. Yes. Two of them were standing in the courtyard. He heard footsteps on the external staircase. Three of them were making their way up, covering each other – as if there was any chance that the occupant of Room 205 could have possibly survived to fire back! He had about fifteen seconds before they gave the alarm. Then what would happen? Bond weighed up the situation. His rented car was outside. They would know he was here. Once they realised their mistake, they would begin a room-by-room search.

  He was already on his feet, making for the sliding window. Three men upstairs. Two at the front. That only left one at the back. Bond saw him almost at once, just a few paces away, staring up at what remained of Room 205. That was good. He was looking the wrong way and the balaclava he was wearing would reduce his field of vision. Bond came in low, covering the ground between himself and the man with lightning speed. He lashed out with the gun, driving it into the man’s throat, feeling the full force of the steel muzzle as it crushed the thyroid cartilage and snapped the little hyoid bone just above. The man fell and would have screamed – or gurgled – in agony but Bond could not allow any sound to give him away. He struck again, this time using the grip, hammering it into the back of the neck. The man fell into Bond’s arms. Bond lowered him to the floor.

  It had taken ten seconds, maybe less. But there was no time to waste. Bond dragged off the balaclava – not even pausing to look at the face it revealed – and drew it onto his own head. He was wearing dark clothes. If he kept moving and stayed clear of the lit windows, he might get away with it. The machine gun was still silent but the dreadful memory of it hung in the air. The woman had stopped screaming. The baby was still crying. Then Bond heard someone shout out from above. Three words. ‘He’s not here!’

  They knew he had tricked them. They were already looking for him. Bond’s first instinct would have been to escape into the woodland behind the motel but the enclosure was fenced in and there was no way out. He ran round the side of the building, hoping that he could find a way to the main road. Five men, all armed – he could deal with that. The machine gun was the real problem. It would spit its fury at him before he could get anywhere near and with the light pouring out of half a dozen windows, he was an easy target. Would they recognise him in the balaclava? Had they arranged a method of visually referencing each other in case one of them went down?

  Two men appeared, running towards him, and Bond knew instantly that his clothes, his height or simply the fact that he was heading in the wrong direction had given him away. He saw them stumble to a halt, bringing their weapons up. Bond fired first, killing them both, then ran towards his car, knowing that the barrel of the machine gun would be following him, that the finger would already be tightening on the trigger. The car was a Plymouth, a typical piece of American automation, dull and predictable for all its attempts at style. Right now, that was all it needed to be. It was a metal wall, a barrier between Bond and his death. Even as he hit the ground, the machine gun started up its hideous racket and the car shuddered, the windows exploding, the metal panels buckling, the side mirrors spinning away. The key to the car was in Bond’s pocket but as he lay there, cradling the Remington, he knew that he wasn’t going to be driving anywhere. The car was rocking like a wounded animal. Then two of the wheels burst and it lurched sideways. The machine gun stopped.

  Bond was trapped. He had the motel behind him. The gate – the only way out – was about three hundred feet away and whoever was positioned there would be out of range for his semi-automatic. He had taken out three of the men who had come for him but that still left four more and they would be closing in on him, making use of the shadows. They knew where he was. If he tried to break out, he would be cut down at once. Bond was furious with himself. He had known they were coming but he had decided to sit it out. He should have been on the other side of the fence, in the wood, or out by the road – anywhere but here. How many minutes had passed since the assault had begun? The police would have to be on their way by now. If he could just survive a little longer . . .

  Bond ripped off the balaclava. He didn’t need it any more and in the warm night air it was making him sweat. As an experiment, he threw it out from behind the Plymouth and instantly there was a single shot, this one fired from a pistol. So the foot soldiers had zeroed in on him too. What would he do if he were them? Keep him pinned down with the machine gun while the three moved into a position that would give them a clean shot. Bond gritted his teeth, waiting for it to come.

  And then a car swung off the road, its headlights blazing. Bond glanced round the side of the Plymouth and saw it plunge into the motel compound, knocking the machine gun off its stand and hurling the whole thing aside. The man who had been firing it threw himself out of the way. Otherwise, he would have been killed. The car screeched to a halt in front of the Plymouth and the back door, already unfastened, swung open, carried by its own momentum. ‘Get in!’ a voice commanded. Bond didn’t hesitate. He came out shooting and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the balaclavas fall backwards. He had to cover five paces before he could reach the car. He fired as he ran, then threw himself head first onto the back seat. The car was away instantly, Bond’s feet and ankles still protruding from the door. The driver spun the wheel, hitting the accelerator and propelling them into a 180° spin. Bond dragged himself up and looked out of the front windscreen, for the moment ignoring the driver, not even caring who had saved him. The man at the gate had recovered. He had picked up the machine gun – Bond saw now that it was the new M60, said to be a game-changer for the US army. The man was bringing it round, aiming it at them. He had discarded the tripod and was going to fire from the hip. The car was hurtling towards him, the driver unflinching. It was just a game of chicken now, a case of who could move the fastest. Bond braced himself. He saw the man’s face rushing towards him, short grey hair, a squa
re face, narrow eyes. The M60 was in position. But before he could fire it, the car hit him full on. Bond felt the jolt and saw the man and the gun, the two of them separating as they were flung out of the way. And then they were past him, on the road, screaming away into the night. Bond looked out of the back window. The last two balaclavas had made it to the entrance but they weren’t even trying to fire. The man lay between them, his legs and arms sprawled out and still.

  The back door was still open. Bond pulled it shut, then leant forward so he could examine the driver. He had emptied the Remington but he knew he didn’t need it any more.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Jeopardy Lane replied.

  FIFTEEN

  Follow the Money

  ‘All right, Jeopardy. No more mucking around.’ Bond stabbed his egg and watched it bleed onto the plate. ‘Who are you and how do you fit into all this?’

  It was four o’clock in the morning and Bond was eating a breakfast that he didn’t want in a place he didn’t know. He wasn’t hungry but nor was there any possibility of sleep. His nerves were still swamping his system with adrenalin, the organic chemical that had guided mankind from the moment it had stepped out of the cave. Epinephrine was created in response to danger and offered a simple choice: fight or flight. Maybe it was working overtime, Bond reflected, because in the end he had opted for both.

  Jeopardy wasn’t eating. She had a black coffee and a cigarette that she smoked lazily, as if she had barely noticed it was there. There was a bruised quality to her eyes. It was quite possible that she had killed a man a short while ago and although she was trying to pretend it didn’t matter, it clearly wasn’t something she was used to and she wasn’t quite able to conceal the shock. ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘We can talk in the morning.’