Brokenclaw

by John Gardner

  So, Bond thought, that was it. Lee was some kind of half-breed, part Chinese and part . . . what? Before he could even think about it, he saw Lee go through an amazing transformation. Until that moment, this giant of a man had been almost a bystander, now he straightened and came forward, drawn up to his full height, his left arm straight with the hand balled behind his left thigh, the right hand making a gesture towards the official who had been speaking. His head was held high, almost arrogantly, the large brown eyes twinkled with charm and his wide mouth parted to show perfect teeth and a smile of genuine delight. He shook hands with the official then turned, his eyes sweeping around the gathered crowd as though taking each of them into his confidence. His voice was mellow, soft and elegant with no trace of any accent, neither American nor Canadian. Lee spoke in almost perfect English, with no blemish culled from any particular education. He had neither the overstated drawl of what used to be called an Oxford accent, nor any hint of mispronunciation which would reveal his English to be a second language.

  ‘My good friends,’ he began, and Bond felt that he meant it, that every person there was a good and known friend. ‘It is always a pleasure to be here in British Columbia, if only because BC is my heritage. I return here from time to time to remind myself of that great heritage. Many of you already know the story of my birthright, part of which I have today passed on to this museum. Whether you’ve heard it or not, I feel obliged to tell the tale once more. For the record, as it were.’ The eyes glittered with elation, his voice dropped slightly as though he were passing on a long lost treasure, a secret, to those gathered around him.

  The story he had to tell was fascinating – how, in the 1840s, at the time of the Gold Rush, his great-grandfather had come to British Columbia from the Shanxi Province of China, where he had traded in gold. This man had been captured by a war party of Crow Indians who held him hostage, and during that period he had fallen in love with a beautiful Crow girl called Running Elk.

  Eventually, the couple had escaped and sought refuge with a band of Piegan Blackfoot Indians. There, among this tribe, they were accepted, made of one blood with the Blackfoot people, and were married.

  This marriage of a Chinese dealer in precious metals and a Crow woman began Lee’s ancestry, for the strain of Chinese and Blackfoot Indian had been carried through three generations. Lee, himself, had been brought up in both traditions by his parents, Flying Eagle Lee and Winter Woman.

  Bond thought that the man had an almost hypnotic power, for, though he told his tale simply, without wasting words, the very fluency seemed to bring the story to life. When he used the anglicised Indian names – Running Elk, Flying Eagle, Winter Woman and the like – the words required no further description, but almost took on flesh and became living humans. It was the kind of trick that the ancient market story-tellers must have possessed as they charmed their listeners with fables and legends. Lee was still speaking, allowing himself a broad smile as he said, ‘To be truthful, there are times when I don’t know whether I should be inscrutable and mysterious or play the noble savage.’ This brought an appreciative laugh in which Lee himself joined before becoming solemn again.

  ‘The totem I have given you today stood before my grandfather’s and my father’s teepees. I know it like an old friend. I played at its base as an infant; I looked upon it as a sacred object while I was with the other braves at rituals and ceremonies. It has power and a long memory within its wooden being. So guard it and keep it well.’

  The applause was genuinely warm, but Lee held up his right hand for silence. ‘I have heard it said,’ an almost conspiratorial smile crossing his face, ‘that I am a fraud; that I have invented these stories; that I am nothing more than the child of some itinerant Chinese tailor and a Blackfoot girl who sold her body in Fort Benton. None of this is true. Come to me and I have written proof. Ask, when you go to the Blackfoot reservations, of Brokenclaw, for that is also my inheritance.’ He drew his left hand from behind his thigh and held both arms out, hands with palms upwards.

  For a second Bond did not see the truth, then he realised that Lee’s left hand, palm open, had his thumb on the right side. His left hand was his one physical blemish, as though, at conception, the hand had grown from the wrist the wrong way round, so that with palms outstretched the thumb was to the right; when the palms faced down, the thumb was on the left.

  The group applauded again and the gathering started to break up. The last Bond saw of Brokenclaw Lee was his head and shoulders above a group heading towards the escalators.

  Bond stayed for a while, viewing the ancient totem with its symbols of snake, bird and, he thought, scales for weighing, not justice, but gold. The longer he looked, the more he saw – strange, even grotesque, faces peering out from carved leaves and branches.

  Finally, with a smile, Bond turned and left, walking back through the Indian Big House, the short hairs on the back of his neck once again stiffening at the sound of the chanting and rhythm of the tom-tom beat.

  This had been a strange, and somehow exciting, diversion – to see someone as charismatic as Lee and hear his story which could well be a trunk full of rubbish. It was, though, he reflected, walking back to the Empress, the first time in nearly a year that he had become engrossed in something outside himself.

  This hybrid man, Lee, had everything – presence, power, shrewdness, strength, charisma, charm and obvious success. He would be an ideal exercise, Bond thought. While he was here in British Columbia, he would spend some time trying to discover where Lee had found his success, and what was the true secret of his power. It should not be difficult, with somebody as accomplished as this.

  But when he returned to his hotel room, Bond found things had changed rapidly. The message light was blinking on the telephone. A cable had arrived from the United States, he was told, and five minutes later he read the message—

  TROUBLE OVER YOUR SHARES IN THE FAMILY BUSINESS STOP IMPERATIVE YOU COME TO SAN FRANCISCO IMMEDIATELY STOP ROOM RESERVED FOR YOU AT FAIRMONT HOTEL STOP PLEASE WAIT THERE FOR MESSAGE STOP REGARDS MANDARIN

  So, Bond thought, as he crumpled the flimsy paper, the old man had him marked down for some job in California from the start. He recalled M’s words to him, less than two weeks before – ‘You need to get away for a rest, James. Go off to California. They’re all mad there, so you’ll be in good company.’

  The old fraud, he thought. Then he smiled and picked up the telephone to book himself on to the first available flight to San Francisco. In fewer than fourteen days his world had changed, but at least his mind had been sharpened back to some kind of normality. Strange how that could happen by seeing and hearing a man whose path he would probably never cross again. A couple of weeks before, his mind had been as blunt as a rusty old axe and his whole being had seemed to be deserted by any shape or form.

  An old saying came back to him without bidding – ‘The mind of every man is the man: the spirit of the miser, the mind of a drunkard . . . they are more precious to them than life itself.’

  How true, he thought. His mind, the mind of an adventurer, had been lost to him and now was refound. More precious to him than life itself.

  3

  THERE’S A PORPOISE CLOSE BEHIND ME

  In M’s office, high on the ninth floor of that faceless building overlooking Regent’s Park, James Bond had just threatened to resign.

  ‘Resign?’ M shouted. ‘What d’you mean by resign? People don’t resign from this firm. People are jailed, shot, keel-hauled, fired, put on the back burner, but they do not resign.’

  ‘Then I’ll make history by being the first.’ Bond’s whole being had rebelled, and this personal rebellion was, he felt, long overdue. ‘I still have some authority over my own life. I can take early retirement from the Royal Navy, then thumb my nose at this Service. Once out I’ll be a free agent.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as a free agent.’ M’s eyes were like ice and his tone was a blizzard.

  ‘All right, sir, I’l
l enumerate the problems.’ Bond took a deep breath and looked the Old Man squarely in the eye. ‘I’ve asked you a dozen times why my name has not yet been removed from the active Navy duty list and returned officially to Foreign Office attachment.’

  A year before, Bond had been returned to the active duty list in the Royal Navy with his rank upgraded to captain. As soon as the mission was ended he had been told to report back for duty with his old service, but the correct procedure had not been carried out. No orders had been issued taking him from the active list. As far as the Royal Navy was concerned, he was their man and not working for M and the Secret Intelligence Service.

  ‘Is that all?’ M snapped.

  ‘No, sir, it isn’t all. Since the last business I seem to have been placed on hold. My time’s squandered here. Nothing to do, nothing to occupy my mind. It’s as though you’ve put me out to grass.’

  M made a little tilting motion with his right hand. ‘When the time’s right, 007, there’ll be plenty of work for you.’

  ‘Like sending me to a health farm? You did that once and look what happened.’

  ‘No, health farms are out.’ M’s mouth clamped shut, his lips forming a straight grim line. ‘Listen to me, 007, and listen well. Europe – the world come to that – is at a crossroads. What with the wind of change blowing among the Eastern Bloc countries, and perestroika running amok in the Soviet Union, we need cool heads. Never,’ he began to enunciate his words, clipping them off one at a time, ‘never since the early days of the cold war have we been so in need of human intelligence – HUMINT. The map of Europe is being changed. For good? Maybe. Who knows? Those countries are unstable. The Soviet Union is unstable. We’re recruiting, establishing old networks so that, should the problems return, we shall be ready.

  ‘In this situation, I cannot have men about me whose minds have lost their edge, just as your mind’s lost its edge, James. I’ve kept you on the active Naval list just in case. And I want you sharp as a dagger, smart as a whip.’ It was then that M added the lines Bond was to remember in his hotel room in Victoria, British Columbia. ‘You need to get away for a rest, James. Go off to California. They’re all mad there, so you’ll be in good company.’ He had said it without a smile or trace of levity.

  It was dark by the time he got to the Fairmont Hotel, high on Nob Hill. He had just made a Horizon Air flight out of Victoria, clearing customs and immigration at Port Angelis and going on to Seattle where he connected with an Alaska Airways flight to San Francisco. It was dusk as they let down towards SFO International and the mist had already rolled in across the Bay, so that the Golden Gate bridge looked like a half-submerged gigantic liner with her twin superstructures visible above the murk.

  During the limo drive to the Fairmont, Bond took in the lights and atmosphere distinctive to the colourful city of Saint Francis – by day a bustling, thriving tourist-ridden place, and by night a city full of life and activity, some of it dangerous. He had not been here for several years, though he had fond memories of staying at the Mark Hopkins just across the street from the Fairmont, and of a day out in Muir Woods among the aged huge cathedral of redwoods. There had been a girl with him then but, for the life of him, Bond could not now recall her name.

  There was one message waiting for him. The short, typewritten note said simply:

  Rest. You will need it. Mandarin.

  ‘Mandarin’ was M’s favourite crypto, for it was by way of a small in-joke among the intelligence community, Mandarins being the collective name applied to all high-ranking civil servants working in their secure government jobs in London’s Whitehall. Governments rose and fell but the Mandarins went on for ever.

  So M was already here, somewhere, and Bond began to sense some new and dangerous activity could well be waiting for him. He unpacked rapidly, took a shower and called room service for eggs Benedict and a half-bottle of Tattinger, then he dressed in dark slacks and one of his favourite Sea Island cotton rollnecks. Just before he left England, Bond’s annual order of a dozen of these had been delivered to him from John Smedley & Co., the only firm who made decent rollnecks of this kind. On his feet he wore comfortable moccasins, made for him and regularly shipped to England by Lily Shoes of Hong Kong.

  He ate the eggs and drank the champagne in silence, then switched on the television. Carson was doing all the usual old jokes with his guests of the evening, Art Buchwald and a starlet of uncertain age. The humour and bonhomie, Bond thought, was all rather forced and vulgar; his tastes were a shade more sophisticated. He watched for five minutes and then consigned the images to oblivion with the remote control, knowing that he was in an extraordinarily restless mood. He was also very wide awake and would not be able to sleep for some hours. He paced the room for a time, then walked out on to the balcony from which he had a splendid view of the city. There was a dampness in the air, as there so often is in that city, and he shivered, briefly recognising the temptations rising within him. He of all men knew that there were parts of the city that were gaudy and downright unsafe at night, yet the lights were drawing him like a magnet.

  He went inside, closed the windows and put on his short grey suede jacket. This might be his last chance of unrestricted action for some time. So, taking the elevator, Bond went down into the hotel lobby and out into the night, walking briskly down the hill and turning left on a path that would take him into Chinatown.

  Within ten minutes, he knew that someone was following him.

  First it was just a feeling born of immense experience of such things. Around him, the nightlife seethed. Garish neon signs beckoned the unwary and, as he moved deeper into Chinatown, more sordid aspects of the city at night were blatantly displayed – girls for sale along the pavements, scantily dressed, watched over by shadowy figures who lurked in doorways or in full view leaning against buildings. At every intersection, he also caught sight of the dealers who did not have to hassle as much as the whores, for their clientèle was ready made. The market for crack cocaine, straight heroin, and even grass was secure. Sometimes a car would pull up near the kerbside, its occupant calling low to ask if he wanted some action. For ‘action’ read ‘crack’, ‘ice’, or even ‘speed’. The results of the dealers’ work could be seen everywhere in drawn faces, empty or wild eyes. The atmosphere took on a more dangerous, almost tangible, feel the further Bond went, fending off girls and dealers who approached him with monotonous regularity.

  He turned left into an alleyway, took ten paces and then turned back, going on to the street again, glancing to his right as he did so. He saw, among the many people along the sidewalk, one man falter in his stride, eyes flicking from left to right as he recovered himself and carried on walking. Caucasian, Bond noted, mid-thirties, clean-shaven, well-built, around a hundred and forty pounds, brownish hair brushed straight back, casually dressed in well-cut jeans and a denim jacket with soft grey leather Sperry Topsider shoes. The jeans were probably Levi 501s and the glance to the left and right could mean that he was working with a team. Remember the shoes, Bond told himself. If it was a well-trained team they would change positions, even clothes, but they seldom had time to alter their shoes.

  Bond quietly recited a couple of lines from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—

  ‘Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail,

  ‘There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.’

  Immediately, the tail became ‘Porpoise’ in his mind.

  He took another left turn, literally walking around the block. When he came on to the main street again, Porpoise was still behind him. In spite of the dampness in the air it was a warm night and a thousand assorted aromas filled the street – cheap scents used by the whores mingled with cooking smells from the restaurants, then mixed with the odour of rotting food from the garbage cans and old boxes outside the now closed grocery stores. Mix well with the sweat of the crowd which ebbed and flowed around you and you had a concoction, Bond considered, that could be found only in
a few cities of the world.

  There was also noise and light. Son et lumière, he thought. The endless stream of slow-moving traffic, the sing-song call of street traders, the brazen advances of the girls and music blaring, overpowering, coming from almost every clip joint, club and store, while the neon, reds, vivid blues and whites, flashed and strobed. Instant inferno.

  He glanced over his right shoulder, waiting for a dozen or so cars and taxis to throb past, each laden with the thumping heavy bass from its onboard stereo, before dodging the rest of the traffic and crossing the street. Porpoise was still there, further back on the opposite side of the road now, but preparing to cross.

  On the corner a store blazing with lights announced that it sold rare and beautiful Chinese artifacts. The usual gaggle of female artifacts paced up and down in front of the store, offering themselves for more basic services. Bond snarled at one, who was dressed only in some unlikely garment which looked as though it had come from Fredericks of Hollywood, and entered the store.

  Inside, long counters glittered with jade, ivory and semiprecious stones. Buddhas, miniature pagodas, delicate fretted work, oceans of it, were all overseen by attractive Chinese girls in elaborately decorated cheongsams or attractive silk pyjama suits.

  Several people were either actively buying or seriously looking along the aisles, and the girls tried immediately for the hard sell, offering to show you the choicest pieces or the best bargains. Bond had to be firmly rude to three of them before they left him to his own browsing devices, which placed him near to the windows so that he was able surreptitiously to survey the street outside.