“Oh, I’ll be gentle,” she said, reaching out to him and sliding her hands around his shoulders. She started kissing the back of his neck and nibbling on his ear. Her right hand moved across his hairy chest and down to his abdomen. He was immediately aroused. “As gentle as a little tiger,” she whispered.
He turned to her and pressed his mouth on hers. She pulled him back onto the bed and then climbed on top of him, straddling his torso.
“You just lie back and let me do all the work,” she whispered.
Hera leaned over him, giving him access to her breasts. She moved down a little, guiding him into her, then kissed him on the mouth.
Konstantine Romanos sat in a stretch limo, traveling from Mount Parnitha to his Athens residence. Vassilis sat across from him, his eyes closed. All in all, the evening wasn’t a total loss. He had made back most of his money that was taken by the Englishman.
He opened up a laptop computer and logged on to the Internet. An E-mail with an attached JPG file was waiting for him.
“Ah, here’s the information I wanted,” Romanos said, but Vassilis was asleep. Romanos downloaded the JPG file and in a moment, a grainy black-and-white photo that was obviously a still frame from a roll of videotape appeared on his screen. It showed James Bond in the hallway of the ReproCare clinic in Texas, most likely shot from a hidden security camera. Typed underneath the photo were the words “Man Responsible for Suppliers’ Shutdown.”
Well! Romanos thought.
He kicked Vassilis awake. The big man snorted and shook his head.
“Take a look at this,” Romanos said, showing him the screen. Vassilis stared at it.
“The guy at the casino,” the brute said. “He killed Markos and Ari.”
“Right. Now, are you sure you didn’t see him in Austin?”
“I don’t know who it was. I didn’t see the guy. The two cowboys chased him and they both died. It could have been him, who knows? After what he did to Markos and Ari, I’d believe it was him. It took someone with balls to mess up the clinic in Austin. It took someone with balls to do what he did to Markos and Ari. If this is the same guy, then we’ll just have to make sure he has his balls for dinner.”
Vassilis grunted and rubbed his hands eagerly.
“Vassilis, please,” Romanos said. “I have a difficult decision to make. Our plans may have to be altered. I haven’t spoken to Number Two yet. This man may be the same one who was in Cyprus.”
Romanos took back the computer and studied the photo. He then created an E-mail and attached the JPG file to it, and addressed the correspondence to someone named “Three.”
Romanos typed: “Am sending you copy of JPG file. Find out who this man is. Currently using alias John Bryce. Was responsible for incidents in Texas. Was seen snooping around Cape Sounion HQ. Believed to be man responsible for destroying three of our security vehicles and the murder of six security men near Cape Sounion. He killed two of our security men tonight in Athens. He may have been in Cyprus when Number Two implemented Strikes Two and Three. My guess is that he’s a British Secret Service agent.”
He signed the E-mail “Monad” and sent it.
The limo drove into the heart of the city and ended up near Athens University. Romanos had a flat that overlooked the campus. The driver let him and Vassilis out inside a garage. They went into an elevator and made their way to Romanos’s flat.
“Vassilis, I have an assignment for you,” Romanos said, walking to the bar and taking a bottle of brandy. He poured two glasses and gave one to his cousin. Vassilis would do anything for Konstantine.
He continued. “This man Bryce, or whoever he is—I’m afraid he may have to replace our current target for Strike Eight in the Tetraktys. This will alter our plans significantly, but it must be done. The man is a menace to us. The gods have spoken to me. He must not be a menace any longer.”
“Number Two made a backup plan in case Ari and Markos failed, my cousin,” Vassilis said.
“Really! She has more initiative than any of us. She is a true warrior, Number Two. She will not fail.”
The men finished their brandy, then Vassilis hugged his cousin and left the flat. Konstantine Romanos sat at the desk and booted his own computer. Within moments he was back on the Internet, setting up an IRC channel with which he could talk live with someone. In a moment, three users popped into the virtual room.
It only took a few minutes. Romanos typed out his instructions. The three users acknowledged and signed off. He then shut down the computer and stood up.
Looking out of his window at the university from the sixth floor, Romanos reflected on what the gods had told him. The destiny he was to fulfill was near at hand. There were just a few little obstacles in the way, and he would have to make sure they disappeared. Soon, very soon, the Decada would strike again.
The Monad began to plan his next move.
An hour had passed. Bond and Hera sat up in bed smoking cigarettes.
“Why is it such a cliché to smoke a cigarette after love-making?” Hera asked.
“I suppose for those of us who enjoy smoking, it adds punctuation to the statement,” Bond said.
“Make it an exclamation mark, then,” she said.
Hera snuggled against him and ran her fingers through the hair on his chest. After a moment, she got up and threw on a terry cloth robe.
“I’m going to get some snacks and something for us to drink,” she said. “Stay there, handsome. I’ll be right back.”
Bond heard her clanging around in the kitchen for a few minutes. She came back carrying a bottle of Taittinger, two glasses, and two covered dishes.
“You open the champagne, and I’ll fix our plates,” she said.
He rolled out of bed and took the bottle. He expertly opened it, popping the cork out at the ceiling. He poured the champagne while Hera uncovered the plates of Greek salads, bread, and cheese.
She removed her robe, and they sat on the bed naked, eating and drinking. The champagne was cold and tasted wonderful.
“So what do you do with your life besides visit casinos and take strange men home with you?” he asked.
“I don’t make a habit of the latter!” she said, laughing. “I’m in real estate. I manage some properties in north Athens and have an interest in a hotel or two.”
“Must be lucrative.”
“It’s not bad. One of these days, though, I will be a very rich woman.”
“Oh?”
She smiled. “It’s in the cards. So, what are you writing about in Greece?”
“Philosophy and religion.”
“Rather broad topics, aren’t they?”
Bond smiled. “I don’t like to talk about my work. I let it speak for itself.”
“You don’t strike me as the shy type, Mr. Bryce. From what I saw in that cable car tonight, it didn’t look like you spend all of your time writing.”
“John, please.”
“Well, John, where did you learn to fight like that? That was quite impressive.”
“I learned it in the army,” he lied. “Luckily I rarely have to use it. I was just glad you weren’t hurt.”
“So you’re really a writer, huh? You’ll have to send me some of your work so I can read it.”
“Your English is very good.”
“I’m fluent in Greek, English, and French,” she said. “I did have an education.”
“I can see that.”
“You must try to hear Konstantine Romanos speak somewhere. Just sitting in on his lectures at the university can be interesting.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know him?”
She blinked and said, “I don’t. But I have heard him speak. At the university. So am I going to show you Athens when the sun comes up?”
“I’m afraid I have some business to attend to,” he said. “Perhaps we could get together tomorrow night …”
“Of course. I’ll take you to one of my favorite restaurants. You’ll love it.”
A sudden
wave of nausea came over Bond. He wasn’t sure what hit him, but it was like a ton of bricks. Then there was a ringing in his ears.
He barely heard her continuing to talk. “It’s all healthy food, no meat at all, a lot of vegetables and fruits …”
Bond struggled to speak, but his speech sounded slurred. “Are you on some kind of diet …”
“I don’t eat meat,” she said. “Strict vegetarian.”
The warning bells went off in Bond’s head, but it was too late. The drug in the food was acting too quickly.
How could he have been so stupid? he thought. He had waltzed right into their trap. A vegetarian! Ashley Anderson had been a vegetarian. The man at the New Pythagorean Society at Cape Sounion said that the members don’t eat meat. Was Hera a member of …
The wall of confusion rapidly enveloped Bond’s mind. He looked at Hera, who was watching him intently. She didn’t ask him if anything was wrong.
Then she said, “Sorry, John … or whoever you are. You’re going to wish that Ari and Markos had got you in the cable car. The fools didn’t know who I was, or they wouldn’t have tried to rob us. I could have intervened and finished the job, but you impressed me. I wanted your body, and now that I’ve had it and have no more use for it, we have to say goodbye.”
“You …” he began. He tried to stand up, but the room spun wildly. He fell to the floor with a thud. He opened his eyes and saw Hera standing above him.
“… bitch,” he managed to say. Then the darkness spread over him like a blanket, and he was dead to the world.
EIGHTEEN
A MURDERER’S TOMB
DARKNESS AND VIBRATION. A LOW RUMBLING NOISE. MOVEMENT. CRAMPED muscles.
These were the sensations Bond felt as he slowly inched back into consciousness. He was curled up in a small, dark space. Some kind of box? No, there was movement and vibration. He was in the boot of a car.
Sore and stiff, Bond attempted to flex his muscles as best he could and shake away the drug’s cobwebs. He was dressed in a shirt and trousers, but was barefoot.
So Hera Volopoulos was on the side of the enemy. Bond cursed himself for being such a fool. Once again his libido had got him in trouble.
Bond could hear two men speaking Greek inside the car. The voices were faint and he couldn’t understand them. Where were they taking him?
He couldn’t see a thing. He felt along the interior of the boot, looking for anything that might be of use to him. There was a box of some kind—a compact disc changer? Eventually he found a couple of buttons. Bond pushed them and the interior boot light switched on.
He immediately recognized where he was. He was inside his own Jaguar XK8. Apparently whoever it was that was driving was planning to destroy all traces of him. They were probably taking him to some remote place where they would kill him and bury him, then get rid of the car.
Bond examined the latch and determined that he couldn’t open it from the inside. If he had some tools, perhaps … What should he do? Wait until they stopped the car, then make his move? They would most likely be ready for him. Was there anything that Major Boothroyd told him about the car that he could deploy?
Inside the car, Vassilis Romanos was driving. Next to him in the passenger seat was another brute, named Nikos. Vassilis had never had the pleasure of driving a Jaguar and he was enjoying it immensely. Too bad they had to get rid of the vehicle after they killed the Englishman. He would have liked to keep it.
“What time is it?” Vassilis asked Nikos in Greek.
“Four-thirty.” The sun would come up in a little less than two hours. “How much farther?”
“About another hour.”
“Is he still out back there?” Nikos asked.
“I haven’t heard anything, have you?”
The car sped west on the highway. They were already an hour out of Athens and were approaching the Peloponnese, the southernmost section of the Balkan Peninsula, which contains some of the more beautiful parts of Greece, but the two men didn’t care about the area’s natural beauty. They had no appreciation for such trivialities.
Bond tried his best to relax and regain his strength. It was terribly uncomfortable in his cramped position, but he practiced a technique of flexing and stretching one limb at a time. He also took the time to examine every inch of the boot. Besides the CD changer, the microprocessor box was fastened to the back. Perhaps he could hot-wire some of the internal defense systems …
He opened the box, revealing a mass of circuits and wires. Luckily, a wiring diagram was printed on the inside of the lid. The light wasn’t adequate—he had to strain his eyes to read it—but he was able to trace an auxiliary power feed, which he could maybe connect to one of the terminals. He studied the various options. The passenger or driver air bags were possibilities. If he got rid of one of the men, his job would be that much easier when the time came to open the boot.
After another half hour, the car approached the barren foothills of Mount Agios Ilias and Mount Zara, where the ruins of ancient Mycenae lie. They were the remnants of a kingdom occupied mostly by Agamemnon, who had been murdered by his wife, Clytaemnestra, and her lover after he returned home from the Trojan War. Both Agamemnon’s and Clytaemnestra’s tombs are located in the ruins of Mycenae.
Bond felt the change as the car went from a paved highway to a gravel road. Perhaps they were approaching their destination.
The car had in fact turned onto the path leading to the ancient ruins. It came to the wire gate and stopped. Nikos got out of the car and used a key to unlock it. The car’s headlamps provided the only illumination. The sky was pitch-black and the ruins were dark silhouettes of slabs, arches, and columns.
Bond felt the car stop and one of the doors open and close. He had managed to pull the auxiliary feed and was ready to connect it to a terminal. He figured that thirteen amps for thirteen microseconds would be enough to do the trick.
Nikos got back into the car, and Vassilis drove through the open gate and up the hill past the closed concession-and-souvenir stand.
When he was sure that the man was back in the passenger seat, Bond brushed the auxiliary feed across the “Air Bag—Passenger” terminal.
The dashboard in front of Nikos exploded in his face, releasing an oversized air bag that totally enveloped him. It surprised Vassilis too, for the car swung out of control and came to a sudden stop against an embankment. Vassilis struggled with his door and got out. He could barely hear Nikos’s muffled screams. He turned, stooped to the ground, and pulled a commando knife from a sheath attached to his shin under the trouser leg. Vassilis then climbed back into the car, attempting to cut away the air bag. The material was too thick. This was no ordinary air bag, Vassilis realized. Before he could think of anything else to do, the struggling beneath the air bag ceased.
Vassilis replaced the knife, drew a Sig-Sauer P226, walked around to the boot and unlocked it. He raised the lid and stepped back, pointing the gun at the back of the car.
“Get out,” he ordered. “Keep your hands up.”
Bond was finally able to straighten his body and climb out of the boot. He kept his hands behind his head, but he took the opportunity to stretch his back.
“I can’t tell you how good this feels, thank you,” Bond said. “Oh my, did something happen to your friend? Personally, I think the automobile manufacturers are going a little overboard with all these new safety features, don’t you?”
“Start walking!” Vassilis said. He gestured to a path leading up the hill to the ruins.
Bond had no choice but to do as he was told and stall for time. He turned, and Vassilis followed him away from the light of the Jaguar’s headlights. The path grew very dark, and it didn’t help that he was barefoot. The stones were hard and sharp. At one point, Bond tripped over a rise in elevation that he couldn’t see.
“Get up!” barked Vassilis. “Keep those hands up.”
Bond managed to palm a stone, then stood up and replaced his hands on the back of his head
. The stone felt rough against his scalp.
They walked past the ruins of a large stone pit called the Grave Circle. An even larger one, full of grave shafts, was farther up the path. They were very near the Lion Gate, the main entrance to the citadel, with its carved lintel showing two lionesses supporting a pillar.
“This way,” commanded Vassilis. They turned right onto a smaller path moving away from the Lion Gate, then went around a bend to face a wide space carved out of the hill. The space was lined with stones, forming a passage leading to the tomb of Clytaemnestra. The open doorway was framed by carved stones and was supported by modern scaffolding. The lower portion of the door was a rectangle, but the upper portion was a triangle.
“Inside,” Vasslis said, shoving the barrel into Bond’s back. They went inside the dark tomb. After a few seconds, Vassilis turned on a flashlight and set it on the ground. They were inside a dome made of stones, about twenty meters high. One portion of the ceiling was held up by scaffolding. Apparently some restoration work was still in progress.
Vassilis aimed the gun at Bond.
Bond took just a second to memorize the room and get his bearings. “Wait,” he said. His voice echoed loudly in the tomb. “Aren’t you going to ask me anything first? Don’t you want to know who I work for? What my real name is?”
Vassilis shook his head. “It won’t make no difference.” His accent was thick.
Without warning, Bond hurled the stone at Vassilis with all his might. It hit him dead on the forehead. The echo in the dome amplified his yell tenfold. Bond took the split second of opportunity to leap in the air and deliver a Tobi-geri jump kick to the man’s sternum. Bond’s bare foot slammed into one of Vassilis’s vital points, causing him to drop the gun and fall back. But whereas the kick might have killed an ordinary man, Vassilis was only stunned. Before Bond could grab the gun, the Greek rolled into him. Bond fell over Vassilis and landed hard on his wounded shoulder.
Vassilis got up and swung at Bond. The blow knocked him hard back to the ground. For a few seconds all he saw was a bright light, and the pain in his head was unbearable.
The Facts Of Death Page 20
