by Orca Various
“I am too,” said Angel quickly. She’d dropped her Bermudian accent instantly. Maybe she’d learned how to talk like an American from watching TV. It was startlingly—almost suspiciously—good.
“I’m from the great state of Tennessee,” he said with pride.
“We’re from Buffalo. He’s Leon and I’m Shirley,” said Angel, her accent flat. Wow, she was clever. Do Americans really sound like that?
“Well, nice to meet you. I’m Homer Johnson.”
“Hello, Mr. Johnson.” I wanted to get back to Leon’s incredible information. How could I make Homer go away?
“Ring a bell?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, I am guessing you are a James Bond fan.”
“I suppose I am, a little bit.”
“Well, Homer Johnson is a little bit too.”
Mr. Johnson was indeed more than a little bit. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. “More than a little bit of what, sir?”
“I am the world’s foremost expert on James Bond, if I may say so myself. Check it out. Homerjohnson007.com. That’s why I come here. I visit every year and stay in the Ian Fleming Villa. That’s where he actually lived, you know. It’s the most expensive place in the resort, but not a problem for Homer Johnson. Yours truly was a legend in the toilet-seat industry, you know. I ran four factories back home in my day. Johnson Toilet Seats—Sit on a Johnson and you’ll feel like royalty!”
I tried to ignore that. I also hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person, using their full names. But he seemed harmless, and lonely too. I imagined him prowling the resort every year, looking for people to impress with his 007 knowledge. Who knew how much of that he really had? He probably came here year after year just for that. It was kind of sad. He was also checking out Angel, which was kind of weird. She was a great girl, a really great girl, but not the sort guys check out. But this guy was going right at it. I had the sense that back in Bermuda, Angel really struggled to get along with people, but ever since we’d been on the road together, she was her true self. She smiled at people, even strangers. She was doing that now with Homer Johnson, and he was eating it up.
“You should pop by the Ian Fleming House and I’ll give you a tour.”
“Sorry,” I said. “We’re kind of busy.” I turned back to my phone, anxious to put the new facts together with what else we knew and fit it all to this setting.
Homer’s face fell. “Well, you know, my villa has the actual desk where he wrote the James Bond novels. Most folks don’t get to see that. It’s the chance of a lifetime. Homer Johnson will make you feel right at home. There’s lots of rooms. You could even stay a night.”
“Uh, thanks, but—”
“I know a lot about spies too.”
“You do?” asked Angel, now giving him a special smile. “How much?”
“I like to think it’s more than almost anyone else knows. Yep, made it my life’s passion. All of that secret-intelligence stuff, not only Bond.”
“How about the Cuban Missile Crisis?” asked Angel.
“Of course.”
“Stanley Shick?” asked Angel. She was good.
I watched for hesitation, for a swallow. But he just grinned. “My, don’t you know your stuff, little lady. He’s a rather obscure one, though many are. Code name Guy, eliminated in September of ’62. The story is that he had some association with the missile crisis. Curious you’d put those things together.” He eyed the two of us. “Very few people know about Shick. It was classified information until recently.”
Half an hour later, we entered Ian Fleming’s house at Goldeneye. It was, of course, even more awesome than our villa. It wasn’t in the main part of the resort with all the other buildings but a five-minute walk away, over a bridge and in a private area on a hill, overlooking its own stunning white-sand private beach. It was a sprawling one-floor, white-stone, almost ranch-style house set on a very green lawn with lush tropical plants and flowers and a private pool. The interior of the house, even on this warm day, seemed air-conditioned by nature, with the breezes blowing gently through the open doors and windows. It felt so cool inside—cool in every sense. It had indescribable style. Cool walls, cool floors, cool decoration—it was cool just to be here where he once was. It was like you were back in the best times of the 1960s.
There were pictures of Fleming everywhere, with other famous people. I imagined the parties that had taken place here! Angel was enthralled. I looked for Roald Dahl and Graham Greene or John Le Carré among the many black-and-white photographs but didn’t see them. No shots of Grandpa either, not even lurking in the background. I searched for the name Stanley Shick or Guy Hicks but didn’t see them either.
Then there was the desk, the desk, where Fleming had written every single James Bond novel. This was where he had created him. His novels actually weren’t so great, but what a character, what an influence on popular culture! Was it a good influence? It was all about guns and beautiful women, expensive cars and martinis (“shaken, not stirred”), and a stud of a secret agent.
But as interesting as all of this was, Angel and I weren’t there to be tourists. We just wanted to pick this weirdo’s brain. That was foremost in my mind…until I saw several Walther PPKs sitting on a table with a couple other pistols and a stack of clips filled with bullets. There were three or four suppressors too. Everything was out in the open.
“Wow,” I said, looking down at them. Angel and I exchanged a glance.
“Yes,” said Johnson with pride. He picked up one of the pistols. It looked very old. “This is a Beretta 418, which was James Bond’s first gun until an arms expert told Fleming that it was a ‘lady’s gun’ with no real ‘man-stopping ability.’ So 007 stopped using it after From Russia With Love—the novel, I mean. They mostly employed PPKs in the movies, from Connery through Lazenby, Moore and Dalton, until Brosnan turned to a P99. But Craig has brought the PPK back, the classic.”
He smiled and picked up the model that was exactly like Grandpa’s, a black 7.65mm.
“Would you like to hold it?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
He handed it to me. Every time I held one of these babies, it gave me a thrill…and also made me feel bad. I mean bad as in “not good.” It fit right into your hand, so practical and deadly.
“Yes, James Bond’s weapon of choice. Hitler’s too, by the way.”
I set it down.
He started showing us around the house. His pride and joy seemed to be the “007 bedroom,” which was the master suite. He smiled at Angel as he showed it off, which was kind of creepy. I tried to turn his mind to other things.
“You must know all sorts of inside facts about the missile crisis.”
“Well, the public doesn’t know what really went on—never does. People think it was just Kennedy and Khrushchev in a showdown. You know, they always talk about JFK going on TV and telling the nation that we were on the brink of nuclear war and Khrushchev doing the same sort of thing back in the Soviet Union, firing off inflammatory letters about world destruction, but it involved many other players. There were secret things going on all the time, and by that I don’t mean just the CIA’s U2 spy planes flying over Cuba and taking pictures of the missiles being constructed.”
“Spies?”
“Yeah, lots of them. The CIA knew all about their missiles and capabilities, and their spooks knew about ours. That takes a lot of boots on the ground.”
“When things got hot in 1962,” asked Angel, “what really happened behind the scenes?”
“Well, first of all, imagine that there are several hundred million lives at stake on both sides, and the fate of the world is hanging in the balance. You have dictators in the Soviet Union and Cuba freaking out, and Kennedy in the White House trying not to unleash his huge army or press a button to drop the nuclear bomb…and people from both sides in a secret meeting in a Chinese restaurant in suburban Washington.”
“Really?” I said.
/> “But the real legwork was likely done by secret agents of ours inside the Soviet Union and those working for the bad guys inside the US of A. There were likely all sorts of very secret and dangerous get-togethers.”
“Was Stanley Shick part of it?”
“I would bet he was, though no one can say for sure. He’d definitely be a candidate.” Johnson walked over to his laptop, which he kept on a separate desk littered with notes. “I may have an image of him somewhere.” He sat down. Angel and I quickly moved over and stood behind him, eyes locked on the screen. “Ah, yes, there he is. This isn’t very clear. There aren’t many photos of him.”
The image came onto the screen. It was grainy, so it was hard to make out the exact features of the man looking back at us. But I had seen many photos of my grandfather in his youth and middle age, and this wasn’t him.
Why had Grandpa taken this man’s place? I thought. Did he help to kill him?
“Shick was eliminated for sure?” I asked.
“Well, not for sure, my boy. Nothing is for sure in the world of espionage, but he vanished on the eve everything was going down across the water in Cuba. My theory is that he was sacrificed somehow. He knew something. Maybe one side wasted him, needed to. Maybe he was a double agent or maybe a double agent was the cause of his elimination. Maybe someone gave him up.”
You are a traitor. The words on the envelope came back to me like a bullet to the heart. The other words too: You deserve to die. They now had an ominous meaning. I burned to know who wrote them, and what W meant. Did W pen those words…in anger?
“Ever heard of a spy named David McLean?” I asked.
“Donald, yes. Not David.”
I remembered Angel mentioning that name back in Bermuda. “Could it be the same guy?” I asked, spelling out Grandpa’s last name.
“Donald’s last name began with M-A-C,” said Homer. “He was one of the Cambridge Five double agents, pretty famous. Kim Philby and all, you know.”
I felt some relief: saved by an extra A.
“But now that you mention it,” mused Homer, “David McLean…that seems a little familiar. Can’t place it though.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Does the letter W mean anything to you in spy terms?”
He gave me a suspicious look. “Why would you ask that? Sounds like you know something. W?” To my relief, he grinned. “Maybe William Stephenson? Spy master!”
“We should go,” I said. “Thanks for the tour.”
On the way out I looked at the Walther PPK again, and the magazine clips with the bullets, and the suppressors. I remembered my desire to arm myself. I didn’t want to, but I had no idea what we could be in for. Angel saw my look.
“Mr. Johnson,” she said, gaining his attention. He glanced over at her. She pulled up her sweatshirt just enough to expose her stomach. “Something bit me right here, probably a local insect. You must know about them. You seem awfully well informed.” She actually batted her eyes at him. She was full of surprises. “I hope it wasn’t something poisonous. Care to take a look?”
His gaze locked onto her bare midriff. Mine did too, actually, for an instant. Her skin was smooth and beautiful, and her waist awfully slim and curvy under that old sweatshirt. It was very surprising, almost shocking. But I knew my job. I stepped back and palmed one of the suppressors and a clip of PPK bullets, six to the magazine.
SIXTEEN
SCENE ON THE BEACH
Back at our villa, I hid the bullets, the suppressor and the gun in a drawer, under my clothes. We had a lot to think about. But it was maddening how none of the information we’d gained, whether from our own work or from Leon’s or from talking to that kook in the Ian Fleming Villa, seemed to be getting us any further. It was like a whole bunch of pieces to a puzzle that didn’t fit together. We talked for a while and then Angel said she had to take a shower.
I started to pace.
W.
I knew the letter W was the key. But what did it mean? My mind went back to the Walther PPK. Maybe Grandpa had left it with his possessions as a sign. Maybe the gun was indeed the W.
I took the pistol out of the drawer and held it in my hand. Man, I couldn’t get enough of it. It felt perfectly balanced. I felt like James Bond every time I gripped it. I struck a pose again, pointing it at the mirror, right hand extended, right leg slightly forward. I looked down at the gun, then took out the clip and snapped it into the butt. Wow, that felt cool! I pulled the slide back. It was cocked! I was locked and loaded. The gun was pitch black, just like Daniel Craig’s, not much longer than my fully extended hand, with a dark black “beaver tail” butt, silver at the trigger and grayish black on the barrel, where I could read the name Carl Walther and some long German word that ended in Waffen, which I think meant “weapon.” And right above the butt was a little symbol, kind of like a flag with a single word etched into it. WALTHER…with a W.
“Bond,” I whispered to myself. “James Bond.”
This was stupid. I was celebrating killing someone. I slumped down on the bed, took out my phone and googled Take apart Walther PPK. A YouTube video came up showing me how to do it.
What if the answer was inside the gun, the one I’d been carrying around ever since I pulled it out of Grandpa’s possessions? I looked down at the screen and watched some NRA guy or whoever the heck he was going on about the fabulous PPK, almost salivating about it, as if a gun replaced God for him or something. Then I followed his instructions for taking the piece apart. But I already had it cocked, so first I had to remedy that. I dropped out the clip and its bullets, then fastened the suppressor to the end of the barrel. The silencer was just a round black steel tube. Cool. The pistol was twice its original length now, very James Bond. I pulled the trigger. The sound was just a loud click, but I imagined I had really fired. I saw the bullet exploding from the barrel. Wow, what a sensation! I tried to picture the bullet hitting something; then I stopped. Bad Adam. Guys like this stuff way too much. I was glad Angel was in the shower. I calmed myself and remembered my task. Now that the gun was uncocked, I took the silencer off the barrel. Then I put the safety on. I pulled the trigger guard down, just as the guy in the video had demonstrated, and then jerked the slide back until it came entirely off. The inside of the barrel was now exposed. I could see the innards of the weapon, the spring on the barrel: its brains, if not its soul. It was funny how benign it looked, like the inside of a simple little machine or even like one of the water pistols I used to have at home. But I could do so much more with this, cause so much damage. I could hurt people, take their lives.
I examined it closely and sighed. There wasn’t a single thing inside it that helped me. No message from Grandpa, no little treasure, no W of any sort. It was just the inside of a Walther PPK, a mindless miniature killing machine. I snapped it back together and put it away in the drawer.
“Hey,” said Angel behind me as I closed the drawer. I turned around. She looked exactly the same as before. How did she do that? She was still in her sweats and her hair still looked dry, almost greasy. Usually when you come out of a shower, you look transformed, or shouldn’t you? And don’t girls really look different? I know Shirley did.
“Hey,” I said back. I really didn’t want to talk just now, about anything. I was frustrated with the whole situation. I needed to take a break.
“I’m going swimming,” I said. “Coming?”
She looked down. “No.”
“That’s not the correct answer.”
“I…I don’t feel like it.”
I knew this had something to do with her being seen in a bathing suit. Man, I thought, Angel should be proud of herself, no matter what.
“Why not?”
“I just don’t want to.”
“What if I said that you are either coming swimming with me or you don’t get a flight out of here? You’re stuck.” I’d never do that to her. It just came out of my mouth. It seemed to me that a real friend would push her about this
. The easy thing was to just let her say no.
She didn’t have enough money for a flight anywhere. She looked at me, gauging whether I was serious. She likely knew I wasn’t. But it ticked her off anyway. I could see the anger rising in her face. She was turning red, and I thought she was going to hit me. She looked kind of cool, actually, when she was mad.
“All right,” she said bitterly. “Let’s go.” She picked up her bag, violently pulled out her ugly one-piece bathing suit and stamped toward the bathroom. As she did, she stumbled, of course, and caught the suit on the bedpost while trying to brace herself from the fall. She succeeded, but in her frustration, she yanked on the suit to get it free as if she wanted to destroy it. And that’s what she did. It ripped from top to bottom. She’d almost torn it in half.
“Oh!” she said, her anger draining. “I guess I can’t go after all.”
“All right, I’ll swim alone,” I said.
I wondered if this amazing person, who had so much to offer, was going to miss out on a lot in life. I pulled my suit out of my bag and headed for the bathroom. She stood nearby with her arms crossed over her chest, her head down. She looked disappointed in herself. I felt bad. Someone needed to push her.
I turned back to her. “Why do you hide in those baggy clothes all the time?”
She sighed, her head still down.
“You don’t need to be a bathing beauty, Angel. I’m not.”
I could see her smile a little.
“Let’s just go for a swim.”
She looked up at me. There was always a bit of distrust in her eyes. There was always a bit of a front—Angel the tough girl who didn’t need anyone, afraid that her real self wasn’t good enough to be seen. I guessed it made sense, given her upbringing. But she looked at me now and dropped the façade. She had made a decision. “All right,” she said quietly, “but what will I do for a suit?”
I smiled.
Ten minutes later, we were at the ritzy resort shop, which was full of tourist things but also clothes and bathing suits, everything for the beach. Problem was, they had no one-piece suits. All they had were trendy, expensive bikinis. And every last one of them was awfully skimpy.
