The Facts Of Death

by Raymond Benson

  Hera turned to Bond and said, “We’ll just make it look like we’re having a nice time out here on the water, so relax.”

  Bond glanced around him. He didn’t see any usable weapons. There were some doughnut-shaped life belts near the door, a coil of rope behind him. He had to get off the boat, regardless of whether or not Niki’s people figured out that he needed help.

  Inside the Gazelle, Niki and a National Intelligence Service agent studied the sea below them. Niki was piloting the craft, while the other agent peered through binoculars at the ship.

  “Well?” she yelled over the noise of the helicopter.

  “I see him. He’s on the upper deck lying down. He’s with the redheaded woman. He looks like he’s not in any trouble to me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “There’s three … four men standing on the deck, but they look like crewmen. Looks like one is serving drinks, another one is getting into diving gear.”

  “Then we’ll wait,” she said. “I’d hate to blow his cover. James is up to something, I know it. He’s infiltrated them through that woman.” A pang of jealousy streaked through her heart, as she suspected that James had slept with Hera Volopoulos. Niki clenched the controls of the helicopter and fought to contain her emotions.

  He was doing a job, she told herself. Sometimes field agents had to do whatever was necessary to obtain information.

  “We’re going on to Santorini,” she said. “We’ll refuel and keep tabs on the boat.”

  “The records at Gefyra said they were headed for Cyprus.”

  “What a surprise.”

  Niki pushed away her feelings and concentrated on flying the helicopter. It hung in the air for another minute, then flew away toward the island.

  Bond watched the helicopter move toward Santorini with disappointment, but he had put together a risky plan which he had to try.

  “All right, get back up,” Hera said. “We’re going below.”

  “But it’s such a nice day. Can’t we get some sun while you torture me?” Bond asked, standing.

  “Shut up.” She stood and aimed the Walther at him. “This gun is puny. Why do you use it?”

  “Why do you care?”

  She marched him to the stairs leading back down. He eyed the life belts mounted on the wall by the door. Acting quickly, Bond grabbed one and, with all his might, flung it at Hera like a discus. It took her completely by surprise, temporarily knocking her gun hand away. The Walther went off, then flew out of her hand and sailed across the deck and off onto one of the lower decks. The stray bullet hit the man with the aqualung, and he plummeted over the side of the yacht into the water. Bond followed up the attack by ramming Hera in the chest with his head, which sent her tumbling to the deck.

  “Bastard!” she cried. She was on her feet immediately. The three other guards made a move for Bond. He took a defensive stance, while desperately looking for an escape route. The men rushed him, but Bond easily warded off their attack and knocked them down. Hera pushed past the falling bodies and delivered a hard kick into Bond’s stomach, but he managed to grab her leg and twist it. She fell to the deck again. Bond threw himself on top of her, grabbed the P99 from her belt, leaped over her body and ran.

  “Get him!” Hera cried. The guards drew guns and fired at him, but the bullets missed as he jumped from the upper deck to one of the walk-around side decks on the port side. He landed on his feet and ran to the stern. As the bullets zipped past him, Bond stuck the P99 in his trouser pocket, took a breath, and dived neatly into the cold, blue water.

  “We can’t let him get away!” Hera cried. She ordered the three men to put on aqualungs and dive into the water.

  Bond surfaced and gasped for air. He was about thirty meters from the boat. Getting his bearings, he saw that he was a good mile and a half from Santorini. Could he make it? The water was rougher than he had thought. It would be a challenging test of stamina.

  Then he saw the cruise ship. It was approximately a hundred meters away. He began to swim toward it instead.

  The three guards quickly equipped themselves with tanks, fins, masks, and harpoon guns. They jumped into the water and began swimming swiftly toward Bond.

  Bond didn’t look back, but he knew that the men were in pursuit. He was hoping they’d come after him. The water was indeed far too choppy, so he had to find a way to snatch one of their aqualungs. Then he remembered the man who was shot. Bond dived and swam deep, looking for the dead guard. A stream of bubbles marked the location, for he was caught on some rocks about thirty meters below the surface. Bond held his breath and fought the pressure, willing himself to swim down to the body. It took nearly two minutes to reach him. His lungs were about to burst and he felt the pain in his ears as he made the final approach—then grabbed the dead man’s regulator and inserted it into his own mouth. He took a few gulps of air, then removed the aqualung and strapped it onto himself just as a harpoon shot past his head.

  Diver number one caught up with Bond and attempted to stab him. Bond kicked him hard in the chest, then grabbed his arms. They struggled in the water, their bodies turning over and over like jellyfish. Bond, the far superior swimmer and fighter, easily chopped the knife out of the man’s hand with a blow to the wrist. He caught the knife as it floated in front of him, then thrust it into the man’s throat. Blood clouded the water as Bond struggled to get back to the dead man to remove his fins and mask. Bond had many years of experience compensating for the slow-motion delay that inevitably occurred while fighting underwater. He ripped off the dead man’s face mask. Another harpoon shot toward him, but Bond swung the body into its path just in time. The spear plunged into the man’s side but before Bond had time to think, divers two and three were on top of him. They were both armed with knives. Bond performed a somersault in the water, kicking the men as he turned. Still wearing the shoes he had bought in Monemvasia, Bond smashed the glass on diver two’s mask with a heel. Blinded, the guard temporarily left the skirmish. That gave Bond enough time to pull the knife from diver one’s throat and thrust it at diver three. His opponent was held at bay for the few seconds Bond needed to pull the fins off the first dead man’s feet, kick off his shoes, and slip them on. Diver three swam toward Bond at full speed with his knife-wielding hand outstretched. Bond swung his own knife and caught the man’s shoulder with it, but the attacker succeeded in nicking him in the side. Bond dodged another swing, only to discover that diver two had recovered his eyesight and was back, ready to tackle him from behind.

  Bond broke away from the melee and swam to the cruise ship, which was almost on top of them. The two men chased him. He maneuvered dangerously close to the ship’s rotor blades, hoping the men would follow. The force of the water was immense, and it took all of his strength to keep from being sucked into the propeller. He took hold of the metal casing around the blades, climbed up halfway out of the water and held on for dear life as the boat took him at top speed through the water.

  Bond thought he had successfully escaped, when a hand grabbed his ankle. Diver three was hanging on to him as the ship pulled them along. Bond felt the man’s knife slice into his calf. He kicked out and connected with something very hard, but the man refused to loosen his grip. Bond moved forward on the rotor housing by pulling himself along some metal rungs. His injured palm screamed in agony. He finally made it to a point in front of the rotors. His lower body and the diver attached to his ankle were being dragged into the current that flowed through the rotors and out the other side. The suction was extremely powerful.

  The attacker attempted to pull himself up Bond’s leg. Bond kicked him again and again until the man lost his grip. The force of the water immediately pulled him into the rotor blades, and the blue water turned to a dark red as bits of the body spread out into the sea.

  Bond climbed back to his position above the rotors and held on to the housing again, allowing the cruise ship to take him toward Santorini. He had time to catch his breath and rest. Diver two, the one who
se mask was broken, was nowhere in sight. Bond put the knife in his belt and examined his hand and calf. The wound that Hera had made in his palm was bleeding badly and hurt like hell. The cut in his leg was superficial and would not need stitches. He then checked the Walther P99 and found that the magazine was missing.

  The area around Santorini is famous for its underwater volcanoes. The foam from the rotors prevented him from seeing them, but he remembered that the caldera was quite beautiful—white, black, and gray, with patches of multicolored, sparkling strata made of lava and pumice. The volcanoes were really just craggy rocks with large holes, dormant for centuries.

  The ship began to slow down, signaling its approach to the island by blowing its siren. Bond rode the boat all the way in to the bay at Fira, Santorini’s major port. Just as he was about to slip off the ship and swim to shore, a harpoon struck the hull by his head. He looked behind him and saw diver two swimming hard toward him. Bond let go of the rotor housing and swam down to the rocky volcanoes. Just as he had hoped, the diver followed him.

  Bond swam into one of the dark holes and hid behind an outcrop of hardened lava. He watched and waited, ready to ambush the guard and slit his throat. Suddenly, two small bright lights appeared in front of him. Bond’s heart skipped a beat when he realized that they weren’t lights at all—they were eyes! He was face-to-face with a moray eel, what the Greek fishermen called a smerna. This one was snakelike, a meter and a half long, and it had shiny black skin which was speckled prominently with large golden-yellow spots. The eel had a huge mouth equipped with what looked like hundreds of sharp teeth. Bond knew that the bite could produce a toxicity and might take days to heal. Normally moray eels didn’t bother divers unless they were disturbed, but they especially didn’t like being threatened when they were sleeping on rocks or in caves.

  Bond pushed back slowly from the lava as the eel watched him closely. At that point, the diver in pursuit appeared above him, knife in hand. Bond deflected a fatal blow just in time, but was nicked again in the shoulder. The two men struggled a moment until Bond managed to perform another somersault and sling the guard over him onto the rock where the moray eel was resting. The diver slammed into the eel, which reacted ferociously. The smerna swiftly clamped its huge jaws on the diver’s neck and wouldn’t let go. Bond watched in horror as the surprisingly powerful eel shook the man like a snake with a rat. The water turned dark red, clouding the gruesome sight. Bond turned away and shot out of the lava outcrop.

  Back on the surface, Bond swam along the port side of the cruise ship to the dock. Exhausted, he climbed onto the rocks, removed his fins, and made his way onto the shore. A few tourists disembarking from the cruise ship saw him and pointed. A man wearing bloody street clothes and an aqualung had just climbed out of the water!

  Bond dumped the diving gear and walked barefoot to the Fira Skala building, where he immediately contacted the local police.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SECRETS OF THE DEAD

  HERA VOLOPOULOS ORDERED THE MEN TO OPEN A HATCH ON THE UPPER deck of the Persephone, disclosing a prototype of a new Groen Brothers Hawk H2X gyrocopter that sat inside. Only about twentytwo feet in length with a height of nine and a half feet, the Hawk was powered by an Allison 250 C20 turbine and had a range of 600 miles at its cruising speed of 140 miles per hour. It could also lift off without a runway, unlike most gyrocopters of the past.

  Hera put on a helmet and got inside the little white vehicle that resembled the head of an ostrich. She gave the thumbs-up sign to the two men on the deck and started the motor. The Hawk rose gently into the sky and flew away toward Cyprus.

  Exactly fifteen minutes later, the Persephone was met by two secret service helicopters and two coast guard ships. The remaining three men on board fought to the death rather than be arrested.

  “I’m sorry, James, but it looked as if you were having a good time on that yacht,” Niki said. “If I had known they had guns on you, we would have taken action.”

  Bond was sitting up in a village police station where the Greek National Intelligence Service had temporarily set up shop on Santorini. He was drinking hot coffee and eating a plate of scrambled eggs that Niki had prepared for him. A doctor had spent the last hour sewing up his palm. Bond would have to be left-handed for a while. The wounds on his neck and leg were superficial.

  “Besides,” she continued, “I was convinced you were screwing that woman and was a little pissed off at you. Well, I’m glad you’re okay. You’re like a tomcat—you have nine lives.”

  Bond grinned, but didn’t address Niki’s concerns.

  The chief of police stepped in and said something in Greek to Niki.

  “I have a fax coming in, I’ll be right back,” she told Bond as she left the room.

  Bond sighed heavily, then took a sip of coffee. He was feeling better. The lack of food or sleep for so long, and his ordeals on the boat and in the sea, had taken their toll. Niki’s comment about Hera had irritated him too. He hated being paired with a partner, especially a female one.

  Niki returned and sat on the desk across from him.

  “Romanos has disappeared,” she said. “That is, he’s nowhere to be found in Greece. They’re on the lookout for him in Cyprus.”

  “Was he followed from Gefyra?” Bond asked.

  “No, the team arrived too late, and I stuck with the Persephone because you were on it. We sent word all the way up the line to Athens to watch out for his car, but no one ever saw it. He must have gone somewhere else and hopped on a train, a boat … who knows?”

  “And where’s the Persephone now?”

  “Within five hundred miles of Cyprus. We’ve sent a force out to intercept them. Your redheaded friend should be under arrest by now. Let me hear what Romanos told you.”

  “He’s planning three big strikes, most likely against northern Cyprus or Turkey, and he said he had the help of the Greek military—some general or other is on his team. Melina Papas has been creating a new virus for him, and I suspect it’s already made. It could be the one I found in Texas. If it is, then he’s already attacked Los Angeles and Tokyo with it. He’s going to want to hit a lot of people at once. Is there an event coming up that will bring a big crowd together in northern Cyprus or in Turkey?”

  “Damn, there is. November fifteenth is the day the so-called TRNC declared its independence. There are parades and celebrations in Lefkosia.”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I had better get in touch with London. Can I use your mobile?”

  Niki gave it to him and left the room so that Bond could call his office in privacy. After the series of code words and forwarded connections, Bill Tanner came on the line.

  “James! Good to hear from you.”

  “I need to speak with M, Bill.”

  He put Bond through and soon he heard the weary voice of his chief.

  “Double-O Seven?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I have some news. I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Alfred Hutchinson’s father was court-martialed during the war over some unrecovered Nazi gold.”

  “I knew that.”

  “Alfred and Konstantine Romanos were partners in selling it off all over Europe. It’s how Alfred financed his political career. I fear that Ambassador Hutchinson was more involved in this affair than we realized. He may have been a member of the Decada.”

  “Are you sure, 007?” M sounded more angry than upset, as if she wanted Bond to prove it before she would believe it.

  “That’s what Romanos himself told me. They’ve known each other since the early eighties.”

  There was silence at the other end of the line.

  “Ma’am, I understand how this news makes you feel, but I must ask you something. Romanos said that the information Hutchinson was going to give us the morning after his death was about the Decada’s plans. It’s imperative that we get hold of that mate
rial. I think they’re going to strike very soon, possibly tomorrow. Please think very hard once again. Is there anything in your memory that might lead us to this information?”

  M said, “His flat was searched thoroughly, but I’ll have a team go over there again right now. Let me think about it.”

  Bond gave her the number of Niki’s mobile.

  “I’ll ring you in three hours or less,” she said.

  It was now six o’clock and the sun would be going down soon.

  “Right. Take care, ma’am.”

  “You too, 007.” She hung up.

  Bond went out of the room and found Niki talking on another phone. She was agitated and speaking rapidly in Greek. She slammed down the phone and said, “She wasn’t on the boat, James.”

  “What?”

  “Hera Volopoulos. She wasn’t on the Persephone. Only three men were found on the yacht and they were killed. She wasn’t on board.”

  “The boat didn’t make any stops after she left Monemvasia?”

  “No.”

  “That’s impossible. Unless she got away in another boat.”

  “That must be what happened. Now what?”

  “M will call on your mobile in three hours.”

  Niki nodded. “We have a room where we can wait.”

  She made love to him as though the world would end that night. She was ravenous after having hungered for him for two days and she submitted enthusiastically to his caresses. Bond thought that Niki demonstrated a unique and earthy emotional response to sex. She made involuntary guttural sounds of pleasure that were somewhat primal, and which he found exciting.

  They were at the Hotel Porto Fira, in a room made partly of volcanic rock. It was built on the caldera’s edge and was one of the finer establishments in the port town. If he hadn’t needed the release of tension that Niki had just provided, Bond would have been happy to light a cigarette, sit on the terrace, and gaze at the classic postcard views of colored balconies, blue-domed churches, and warm, sunny beaches that make Santorini one of Greece’s most beautiful islands.