by John Gardner
‘Good,’ he said tersely, thinking, yes, a man like Sanchez could never have just a house, it has to be a palace.
Before Lupe could reply, he saw Sanchez, striding over one of the bridges towards him, smiling with arms outstretched to greet him in an embrace.
‘Amigo. Thank heaven you’re okay, but you shouldn’t really be up and walking about. The security forces almost took you out with the guys who were holding you. Come, sit down.’ His arm swept in the direction of the couch. ‘You feel like a drink?’
‘I feel like a complete wreck,’ Bond laughed. ‘But, yes, I could do with a glass of champagne.’
‘Champagne for our friend,’ Sanchez snapped at Lupe, as if to show her off as a performing dog. Mildly, Lupe rose and went over to a bar the size of a small aircraft carrier. All this, Bond thought, all this and no style. Well, that figured. Sanchez’s palace was built on the bones of people who had died from drug addiction.
‘It seems we both had close shaves last night.’
‘Your people were just in time. Things were turning very nasty. Another few minutes and . . . Well, I don’t really know. I can tell you that some of last night’s still a bit of a blur.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. You were not in a good state when we pulled you out.’ Lupe came over with champagne: two glasses poured and a bottle in an ice bucket. Then she sat down again in obedient silence.
‘Now, you must tell me,’ Sanchez went on. ‘Who were those guys? They had you trussed like a turkey.’
Bond smiled. ‘I was trying to do you a favour. I suppose trying to get that job I asked for the other night. The Chinese, Kwang, was their leader. They were a professional hit team. It seems they had accepted a contract on you.’
‘So what did they want with you, amigo?’
‘First, I recognised one of them the other night. The Japanese woman, Loti. I kept an eye on them; managed to stop their first attempt on your life. But they were too good for me. The idea was to silence me. I got the feeling that they were a little upset. Also they were afraid I would warn you and spoil their other plans.’
‘Other plans? And you knew them. How?’
‘I told you the other night, I wanted work. I’ve recently retired from British Government service. We kept dossiers on people like Loti. She’s done one or two unpleasant things in Europe.’
‘And you’ve recently retired?’ There was a slight, uneasy but sharp edge to his voice.
‘Well,’ Bond looked at the floor. ‘Well, let’s say I was recently retired. They didn’t like some of the freelance work I was doing. Couldn’t pin anything on me, but . . . well, you know how it is?’
Sanchez smiled, showing a lot of gold in his mouth. ‘So? I wondered. A British agent. You’ve got class, amigo. You’ll also have a job if you stick with me.’
‘I asked for a job the other night.’
‘I was checking you out, that’s all.’ He lit a small cigar and sipped at the champagne. ‘Tell me. This hit team, they had a contract. Who’d put out a contract on me?’
Slowly Bond let the words come out, spacing and timing them for the best effect. ‘Someone very close to you.’
‘They told you his name?’ The question spoke whole encyclopaedias of what Sanchez would do to anyone who took action against him.
‘No. But they were well briefed. They knew all about you. Knew the layout of the casino, the armoured glass in your windows. They even mentioned this place. They called it your palace. There were things only someone close to you would know about.’
Sanchez had become very still, like a snake, or some dangerous creature about to strike down a victim. ‘They mentioned a name?’ he asked.
‘Not a name, no. But there was a clue. They were going to get the job done before tonight. Had to get it done before tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
Bond nodded. ‘They expected the pay-off tonight. They were to collect a great deal of money from someone close to you who is due in Isthmus tonight.’
Sanchez’s face tightened, then creased into a smile, then a laugh. Both smile and laugh rang very false, as did his next words. ‘Every single person in my organisation is one hundred per cent loyal.’
Through the garden noises came the far-away chatter of a helicopter.
‘Then, if everyone is loyal, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But I wouldn’t bet on it, Senor Sanchez. Not after what I heard. I promise you.’
Sanchez bit his lip, stood and turned away. ‘Listen, I got people to meet. Important. We’ll talk more later on. In the meantime, you must get plenty of rest.’
‘I should really go back to my hotel. I have things there that . . .’
‘Later. You should rest here! For a couple of days at least. Now, save your legs,’ he snapped his fingers at Lupe. ‘My dear, why don’t you show our friend the quick way back to his quarters, eh?’
Lupe nodded obediently, and all three of them walked out into the gardens. Instead of going past the waterfall and through the rose garden, they turned right. Screened by trees was a small funicular staging point. Lupe pressed a button and the machinery began to rumble as the funicular rose towards them from below.
‘Never walk when you can ride, eh?’ Sanchez appeared to be relaxed and in a good humour now.
Lupe supplied the information about the funicular as it came to a stop: a large car, riding on rails, disappearing upwards. ‘There are four stops,’ she said. ‘This one and the guesthouse at the top of the hill. Below there is a staging stop, mainly for the gardeners, and then the bottom. It takes you right down to the little dock where we keep the boats.’
‘Vaya con Dios,’ Sanchez said as he shepherded them into the cage. As the doors shut and the funicular began to move, Bond saw that Sanchez had been joined by Heller. He would have paid a lot of cash to hear the conversation.
In fact, Heller was telling Sanchez that he had a report on the man Bond. ‘You’ll never guess who he is?’ he said with a smile.
‘Oh, no? I know who he is. A former British agent, with a somewhat tarnished reputation.’
‘How . . . ? How do you know that? Sometimes I think you have powers beyond mortal men. How?’
‘You’d be surprised. You don’t think I know such things? Now listen to me, Colonel. I personally want to meet Krest’s boat when it comes in tonight. You’ll bring a dozen reliable men. Armed, of course.’
‘We have a problem with Krest?’
‘We’ll find that out tonight. You bring Lupe as well. She was there when things went wrong on Wavekrest, so Milton Krest won’t dare to lie in front of her. Come.’ With a hand on Heller’s shoulder, Sanchez led him up concealed steps, which would take them to the helipad.
When Bond and Lupe arrived back at his room, Bond excused himself for a moment, grabbed his clothes from the press, and chair, and went into the bathroom. He was back a few minutes later, wearing the black tuxedo pants and buttoning the newly laundered formal shirt.
Lupe’s eyes widened, ‘What you doing?’
‘I’ve really had just about enough of your friend Sanchez. I do have to go back to my hotel.’
‘You’re crazy. Don’t you learn? He told you to stay and rest here. When Sanchez says something like that, he’s not asking you, but commanding you. If you’re not here when he comes later on, he’ll go . . . How do you say it?’
‘Berserk?’
‘Yeah. Crazy. He’ll do terrible things.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Bond kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Just give me five minutes to get clear, then scream your head off. I don’t want you involved.’
‘No. I have better idea.’ There was a glitter of guile in her eyes. ‘We take the funicular down to the boat dock. Now, listen to me for a change. Okay, I know how to get you out of here, but you must promise me to return before dark, okay? Is important that you’re here when he comes looking. You promise, and I’ll get you out.’
‘I’ll try to get back, if you insist. I can’t promise, though.
’
She thought for a moment. ‘Okay. I take big risk with you. Take your clothes off.’
‘You’re a very forward young woman.’
She stamped her foot, in mock fury. ‘You’re a fool. In cupboard over there are bathing clothes. Your own clothes I put in bag to keep dry.’
‘I’m going for a swim?’
‘You guessed? Clever man. Now, go and take clothes off.’
The guard on the boat dock below Sanchez’s palace had little to do. He was, in fact, smoking a cigarette as the funicular came down. He stood for a minute or so, expecting Sanchez, or one of the security people. At the moment he was only guarding Sanchez’s sailing boat, and the twenty-two-foot speedboat.
The guard took a long drag at his cigarette, threw the butt on the ground and carefully crushed it with the toe of his boot. When he looked up, there was Lupe, a tote bag over her shoulder, smiling at him as she jumped into the speedboat, and started the motor. Suddenly the guard was galvanised into action. He took two slow steps towards the boat, and so failed to see another figure run behind him and slide noiselessly into the water.
‘Senorita . . . !’ The guard shouted above the noise of the speedboat’s engine.
Lupe cupped a hand to her ear as she opened the throttle and began to move away.
The guard gave it a last try. ‘Senorita Lamora. Senor Sanchez said nobody . . .’
‘I go shopping! Back in half hour!’ she called out with a big smile, just for the insurance.
The guard sighed, and hoped she would be back in half an hour. If she was not, then his job would be on the line.
When they were out of view, around the bluff which shielded Sanchez’s palace from the smart yachting marina near the port of Isthmus City, Lupe slowed down.
Bond, who had been hanging on to the bumper line on the starboard side of the speedboat, out of the guard’s view, climbed aboard, spluttering from the bow spray she had put up. Once he was safely in the speedboat, Lupe gunned the engine and they shot away towards the marina.
It took twelve minutes, and by that time Bond was dressed in pants, shirt and shoes. She pulled the speedboat up to the mooring with a good deal of skill as Bond jumped on to the dock, taking the line to tie up. ‘Come on then, hurry!’ he called.
‘Hurry, yourself. I go back,’ Lupe shouted at him.
‘Going back to Sanchez? Do you love him?’
‘No! I hate him. But is best if you come back soon also.’
‘Why the hell don’t you come with me, then, if you don’t love him?’
‘Because you’re crazier than he is!’ she laughed, opened the throttle and turned the speedboat back in the direction of Sanchez’s palace.
Half an hour later, James Bond walked into the lobby of the Hôtel El Presidente and asked for the key to his suite.
‘But, senor, your uncle and Ms Kennedy are already up there,’ the receptionist looked uncertain. ‘Is that not correct, senor? Should I not have allowed them . . . ?’
‘No. No, that’s fine,’ Bond snapped, heading for the elevators.
At 314 he rapped sharply at the door. A second later it was hurriedly opened. Pam stood there. In the background Bond could see Q.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he grabbed her arm, twisted it and pushed her back towards the bedroom.
‘You’re still here, then?’ It was an accusation not a question.
Q looked up in shock. Pam was grunting with pain. Bond continued to push her towards the bedroom door. At the door he turned to Q. ‘Pack up, we’re leaving,’ he commanded, throwing Pam into the room and kicking the door closed behind them.
‘James . . . ? What . . . ?’ she blurted, but he had already spun her around, reached up under her skirt and removed her pistol.
‘What’s wrong, James?’
He held on to her arms, pressing the pistol to her head. ‘Kwang and his people were Hong Kong narcotics. One of my own Service’s men was around as well. Now they’re all dead, and I know you’ve been working both sides of the street. I saw you with Heller, Pam Bouvier – if that’s your real name. You’re a double, and that’s trouble I can’t afford, so I’m giving you one chance only. You’ve got thirty seconds to give me the full strength of what’s been going on. Thirty seconds and counting. Talk!’
13
THE BLOW-OUT
Pam was white and shaking as Bond continued to put the pressure on, doing a count down and pressing the pistol harder into her temple.
‘James! For God’s sake stop! I’m not a double, but I’ll tell you the truth about Heller. The truth about everything!’
He relaxed his hold on her. ‘I promise you, Pam,’ he hissed, his mouth set in a cruel line. ‘I promise you that, if I don’t get the truth, if I catch you in a lie at any time, I’ll follow you to hell itself and you’ll suffer. By heaven, you’ll suffer. Now talk.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I really couldn’t tell you before. Do you remember the day of the wedding? Felix and Della?’
‘Am I ever likely to forget it?’
‘You came into Felix’s study. He had just handed me a letter.’
Bond nodded. ‘Look, don’t start running into backwaters and making up stories about letters and things. Yes, I saw Felix give you a letter. But I also saw you with Heller and you looked pretty buddy-buddy to me. Pretty desperate as well.’
Tears were running down her face. ‘James, I am telling you the truth. I told you Heller was an ex-Green Beret . . .’
‘And that he was wanted by the US, yes.’
‘He’s been trying to do a deal. I knew Heller back in the old days. He knew I was a friend of Felix and he came to me. Wanted me to be a go-between. Asked me to contact Leiter for him.’
‘What kind of a deal?’ All the outward signs told him she was giving him the truth, but he had to be sure.
‘Sanchez has managed to buy four hand-held missiles from the Contras. He paid well over the odds for them.’
‘What kind of missiles? Stingers? Blowpipes? SA-6s? Sa-8s? Chaparrals?’
‘I know they’re not Stingers. I heard him say Stingers were no good because they were cumbersome. Difficult to cart around, what with the electronics pack and all. These are prototypes of some new thing. I don’t know if they even have a proper designation. You know what they’re doing: letting the Contras field-test new stuff for them. These things can be used in one of two modes: either ground to air, or ground to ground.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He had heard they were testing new, highly-portable, wholly self-contained, small weapons like this. Certainly the Stingers were out with the maze of electronic packs, conductance bars, and complex things like interrogation systems (the IFF which told the operator if an aircraft was friendly or not) that went with them. The United States had been working on all kinds of small, cheaper, more easily portable hand-held missiles.
‘The point is,’ Pam took another gulp of air, ‘Sanchez has already threatened to shoot down an unprotected airliner if the DEA doesn’t lay off. The letter Felix gave me is from the attorney general. Washington’s promised Heller immunity if he gets the missiles back, without any incident.’
Bond was as certain as he could be that she was telling the truth. ‘Did Heller go for the deal?’ he asked.
‘Originally, yes. But after Sanchez got away, Heller panicked. He sent a message back to me saying the deal was off and I was as good as dead if he ever saw me again.’
He was just about convinced. ‘You know where they’ve got these missiles?’
Pam made a frustrated gesture, balling her fists and beating them on her thigh. ‘The whole thing’s over now. We’ve missed our chance, James, we’ll never get another shot at him.’
He dropped the pistol on to the bed. ‘Oh yes we will.’ He gave her a brief outline of what had happened on the previous night, and through until morning. ‘I’ve no other option but to believe you, Pam. So what we’re going to do is finish Kwang’s job for him. Kwang told me, come to that I heard it all
through the Jabberwocky anyway, that Sanchez is taking the orientals on a guided tour of his laboratories. I intend to be there. But we have one little problem. My old shipmate Krest is arriving tonight in Wavekrest. Sanchez is going to want his money, and we’ve still got some of it left. Also, I’ve rather put the boot in. I think Sanchez is ninety-nine per cent convinced that Krest’s been double-crossing him. To begin with, we have to convince him. Make it a one hundred per cent certainty.’
He opened the door. Q sat in one of the deep chairs, his face bleak with worry.
‘You still got that chauffeur’s uniform, Q?’
‘Yes.’ A sudden new light in his eyes. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Sorry about the rough stuff, but I had to make certain we were all on the same side.’
‘And are we?’
Bond glanced at Pam, her cheeks still streaked with tears, her eyes red and puffy. He gave her his Sunday smile. ‘I think so. Gather round, and I’ll tell you what I think we should do.’
They sat in a conspiratorial huddle, and Bond began, ‘Pam, I know you’re a good pilot in the air, but how would you be on water?’
‘Spectacular.’
‘Ah, well I want you to be spectacularly bad. You see, Sanchez might well control his empire; he might well rule in his organisation, but he doesn’t rule the waves. Anything of size going into his private harbour has to have an official pilot.’
‘You don’t mean . . . ?’
‘I’ll tell you what I mean, then my uncle and I have to go and do one little chore at the bank.’ He went on speaking for the best part of fifteen minutes, then they spent an hour fine-tuning the plan.
Wavekrest’s lights were plainly visible miles away. Q, Bond and Pam watched them draw closer. They stood together in the wheelhouse of the little pilot boat, discussing how easy it was to bribe officials. ‘Only a couple of thousand for the pilot to turn a blind eye. I can hardly believe it!’ Q had still not got used to the whole way of life in Isthmus. Earlier, his eyes had almost popped out of his head in the bank, when Senor Montolongo, with a philosophical shrug, watched Bond withdraw all the cash.
