by John Gardner
To start with, the thing Bond could not get into his head was the ‘why me?’ factor. ‘I’ve puzzled for a long time about why I was picked up by a belligerent surveillance team on the way down to London. It’s really only just struck me.’
He said that, if Emma had been intentionally allowed loose, with the telephone number in her Filofax, it could only be for one reason. ‘If Scorpius and those working with his Meek Ones were about to start this horrifying campaign, they needed to be sure of information reaching them from the inside. They needed to be one step ahead of any action that was taken. Therefore, sir, Emma’s Filofax, with its one telephone number, was a personal lure – that’s been clear all along. She might not even have been meant to die. But she did. To Scorpius it didn’t matter either way. Once my number was identified I would become involved. If I am lured to be involved, then our Service would be involved. Add those together and the algebra’s easy. It all equals a penetration agent – one who can report straight back to Scorpius, or his nominee – who is close to our Service, or can become close to it and me – or whoever’s on the operation. QED. As m’ tutor used to say, “Quite Easily Done”.’
‘There’s sense in it, I’ll admit,’ M scowled. He had been glancing constantly at his watch as Bond spoke. ‘Scorpius had to lure us in, because he had someone close. Someone with your ear or, come to that, my ear.’
‘Either, or someone who could easily gain access to us.’
‘Mmm,’ M grunted. He was becoming agitated about the time. He rose and went to the window, cautioning Bond to switch off the two small ‘student’ lamps, throwing their soft greenish light over the room.
M twitched carefully at the curtain, taking a peek outside, standing very still for a moment. Then – ‘Ah, at last.’
There was the sound of a car parking outside. M told him to hold the lights until their visitor was inside, then he went to the door. There were quiet voices, and the shuffling of feet. ‘Right, let there be light.’ M was being melodramatic about the whole thing.
There, just inside the doorway, was Bill Tanner. By the arm he held the delicious Ann Reilly, known throughout the Service as Q’ute. Her eyes were covered by a tight black bandage.
‘You can take it off now, my dear,’ M purred. ‘Ms Reilly isn’t in the magic circle which has need-to-know of this place. Hence the cloak and dagger stuff.’
Q’ute blinked, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the subdued light. ‘Hallo, James,’ she said brightly. ‘I should have known it was you I had to brief. Who else would be so hidden away where no passionate young girl can find him?’
‘Just take a seat, and get on with the explanation,’ M told her.
They sat close, on two high-backed leather chairs and a small settee. From her bag, Q’ute drew one of the Avante Carte pieces of plastic. ‘We haven’t completed testing it yet,’ she began, ‘but, so far, this innocent-looking thing appears to have the powers of a sorcerer.’
She then launched into a long lecture about ‘Smart Cards’ and the way they worked – magnetic strips built into the cards that would pour information into a particular type of computer workstation and so glean more information – shown up on the workstation screen – from larger databanks.
A lot of what she said was highly technical, and dealt mainly with the type of credit card that allowed you to draw fixed amounts of money from a bank dispensing machine – spitting your card out if you did not have the funds to meet the amount.
‘You know, of course,’ she went on, ‘that certain cards will do more than just get you a few pounds when the bank’s closed. They will give you an update on the status of your account, and, in certain cases, you can also put money into your account by using the card.’
She paused, holding the Avante Carte between thumb and index finger. ‘This little beauty is different. This one here belonged to Trilby Shrivenham, and we’ll be taking it apart tomorrow. We’ve dismantled the Emma Dupré card, and that’s already given up a lot of secrets. The so-called Avante Carte is probably the most sophisticated smart card I’ve ever come across.
‘You see, not only does it contain magnetic strips, but also tiny slivers of memory – what the computer people call ROM – Read Only Memory, and also RAM – Random Access Memory. This means that the card will act as a small computer. It can be especially programmed to do a specific job, and its most sinister feature is an input-output chip.’
She could see M’s eyes starting to glaze – and he had already heard it all – so she quickly came to the point. ‘I’ll just tell you the tasks that this card can do. Whether it is designed to do them we have yet to discover. First, simply by inserting it into an electronic cash dispensing machine, and keying in a sequence of numbers you can make it gain the attention of the mainframe computers of all known British clearing banks. Think what that means. You can talk to the records of all the major British banks.
‘In turn, it means that you can bypass those records, and manipulate them. The most obvious criminal aspect is that, in theory, if your card is correctly programmed by a master computer, and if you know a wealthy institution’s account numbers, it is possible to remove money, electronically – through a cash dispenser – from the wealthy account to your own, or another designated account. The rest is obvious.’
‘You mean you can bankrupt someone, or make yourself a millionaire for a day.’
‘Probably for long enough to get your hands on the cash.’ She flicked the card with a manicured fingernail. ‘This is a very dirty piece of electronics, James. Its criminal and intelligence potential is enormous.’
‘So, what’s it been used for to date?’ Bond asked, and Q’ute gave M an ‘am I allowed to tell him?’ look. M nodded.
‘The interesting thing is that Trilby Shrivenham’s card has never been used. But we think she has been used – to glean the numbers of her father’s main accounts.’
‘They’ve been pinching Lord Shrivenham’s cash?’
‘Not quite, James.’ Bill Tanner spoke for the first time. ‘Quite the opposite. By one of those odd coincidences that rarely happen in fiction but often do in real life, old Basil Shrivenham took a look at a deposit account that’s been sitting idle for a couple of years. Just sitting there collecting interest. Not huge, but not to be sneezed at. In fact it’s an account earmarked in his will for Trilby herself. This morning he asked for the balance – which should have been around £200,000. When he heard what was there he asked them to recheck it. They did, and it was accurate. An account which should show a couple of hundred grand, now contains nearly three million, sterling.’
‘And it’s all been put in within the last week, electronically,’ M added. ‘You see the point, Bond?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, someone, if it becomes necessary, will move that money into an even more sensitive account. It will become some sort of well-hidden slush fund for Shrivenham’s political party.’
‘That’s it, 007. On the button. And at the right moment, the press – at least the gutter press – will get true copies of bank statements, and copies of various electronic transactions. The present government, trying to gain yet another term of power, will be involved in a British version of Watergate.’
‘But with everything else going for them . . .’ Bond blurted, then caught M’s eye and closed his mouth.
They continued to talk for another hour or so, after which M said it was time to go. Q’ute was blindfolded again, and led out to the car by Bill Tanner, while M loitered in the house. ‘What I want you to do, is to lie low, here, tonight. At least you’ll be safe.’ He lowered his voice again, as though there was still a chance of their being overheard. ‘Tomorrow’s another day. I have most of the European services – those I can trust anyway – on the qui vive for friend Scorpius. I would hope to have more information by the afternoon. Call me at two minutes past the hour, every hour after midday. I hope to be able to point you towards Scorpius by then.’ He gave Bond a sidelong look. ‘Of course, if you get any new
leads yourself, don’t hesitate. Follow up. Try to let us know. But remember, James, I want this business settled no matter what it costs, and it’s up to you. Keep it in mind. The rule of law, and every Englishman’s way of life rests on our success, as, I suspect, do a very large number of innocent lives.’
When Bond was left alone, he went into the long narrow kitchen, cooked himself an omelette aux fines herbes, which he washed down with a reasonable bottle of Chablis – though, with some amusement, he realised that the good Mrs Findlay probably got her wine, for the house, in bulk from a supermarket. Nothing wrong with that, he said to himself, though it would have been nice if someone had warned him. Constant exposure to that kind of bottle could damage the palate.
Finally he checked all the locks and alarms, took a shower and climbed into the large double bed which was the centrepiece of the main bedroom. Desperately tired though he was, Bond lay on his back for a while, turning the day’s events over in his mind before sliding into a deep and easy sleep.
Bond did not know what woke him, but his eyes snapped open, and he moved, as though in sleep, to slip his hand under the pillow for the pistol he had placed there on going to bed. He could see the red glow of the clock alarm reading out the time – 05.11.
Then he froze. The pistol was not there and he knew that, against all possibilities, there was someone else in the room.
Slowly he moved his legs, positioning himself to spring once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. But he was too late. With no warning, a rough hand clamped itself over his mouth, the fingers splayed to hold his head down, and a body stretched hard over his thighs, making any further movement impossible. The assailant was immensely strong.
He felt warm breath near to his ear, then the whisper – ‘Sorry about this, boss, but it’s the only way. I can save you a lot of distress.’ There was no need for any further explanation. Bond’s intuition had been right. The cold muzzle of his own automatic pistol was pressed hard against his temple. For a second, he thought Pearlman was going to finish it all there and then.
Pearly Pearlman reached over and snapped on the light, still holding Bond down on the bed. ‘Good morning, boss,’ he said. ‘We’re going for a little journey, but you won’t need much in the way of clothes. Also I have to tell you a story. For the good of your soul.’
15
BEING YOUNG AND FOOLISH
Under the wicked eye of the ASP automatic, Bond dressed, angry that he could not even shower or shave. Pearlman – clad in night gear: black jeans, rollneck, hood, trainers – said time was short. ‘I’ve got to get you out of here before any of your own blokes latch on. Anyway, you’re as slippery as an eel, Mr Bond – if you’ll forgive the simile. I don’t intend to offer you any chances. Lord knows what you’d do if I let you take a shower. I know a lot about this place, but maybe not everything. It could be booby-trapped. I’m sure you appreciate that I can’t take the risk. More ’n my job’s worth, so to speak.’
As he put on the clothes, neatly folded, or hung in the fitted closet before he had gone to bed, Bond’s mind began to search for a way out. All over the house there were alarm buttons which, if touched, would alert the Regent’s Park Duty Officer. Even if he got to one of these, he knew there would be an unavoidable time-lag before anyone arrived. At HQ, the signal would come up on a VDU, flashing the word Scatter. The DO would then have to contact one of the very few people who knew the location of this most highly classified safe house.
Pearlman was handling the situation with the natural caution of a very well-trained man. At the order for Bond to get dressed, he leaped back, putting distance between them. Never stand close to a person you control with a gun, they taught. Rightly so, for there are a dozen ways to disarm someone with a handgun should they be foolish enough to stay close to you.
‘Fingers laced and hands on the head.’ Pearlman did not miss a trick. ‘Now, press down, elbows tucked in. You know the drill, boss. You go downstairs, real quietly. If you fall, or pretend to fall, you’re dead and I’m not kidding. I wouldn’t like it, either, because you’re the best bit of collateral that’s come my way in a long time. Okay, let’s go.’
There were no alternatives. You could hear the genuine menace in Pearlman’s words. Bond had no doubt that a slip – accidental or calculated – would mean a shroud and, if he was lucky, a few lines in the obit columns of The Times.
He went along the passage and down the narrow stairs as though walking on eggs. At the foot of the staircase, Pearlman spoke again, ‘Stand still, boss. Good. Now, when I say “go” you walk very slowly into that nice sitting room.’ He was making certain his quarry could not stray from his line of vision. A couple of seconds later Bond heard him say, ‘Go.’
‘Keep the hands on your head, fingers laced . . . Now walk slowly to the chair by the bookcase . . . Good . . . Now, turn around and sit down. And please don’t do anything stupid. It wouldn’t help anyhow, because all the alarms are deactivated.’
They now sat at opposite ends of the room. Bond still with hands on head and fingers laced; Pearlman with the pistol very steady, his finger tight on the trigger.
‘How did you get in, Pearly, let alone dismantle the alarm system?’
‘Questions, questions. No, boss, you don’t get me to boast to you. How would you have done it?’
‘I still don’t know how you found me, and how you got in is a miracle. This house is kept as close as skin to flesh.’
‘All in good time. First, I’ve a story to tell. I read a book once, where someone in the intelligence game said just that, and when he’d finished the telling of it, the lives of those who listened changed dramatically. I think you’ll find the same’ll happen with this story.’
‘Tell me, then.’
‘We’ve both seen a lot of life and a lot of death, right?’
Bond nodded as Pearlman continued – ‘Violent, horrible deaths. This is a bloody time for the world. Like the Bible says, there’s a time for living and a time for dying. We live in an age when it’s a time for dying – suddenly, most often by war, or the hands of terrorists striking in the streets. It’s like people such as us were born to die that way.’
Bond nodded agreement.
‘I find it obscene. Horrible. Just like you, right?’
Once more Bond nodded.
‘Okay. There’s a song my mum used to sing. She died when I was twelve, and the Old Man never got over it. Cashed in his own ticket on the train of life a couple of years later. Taught it by my grandma she was – the song, I mean. Later I got to know it was a poem really – “Down by the Salley Gardens”. Part of it suits me and my story. It goes—
“She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.” ’
He hesitated, as though Yeats’s poem genuinely moved him. ‘Sentimental, is it, boss? Maybe. But I was young and foolish, and there was a girl. All my life, I’ve had discipline, boss. Became a boy soldier at fifteen, and spent my leaves with my grandparents, though the Army was father, mother, brothers and sisters to me. But there was this girl. Nearly twenty years ago now. We was going to be married. But I got posted abroad – one of those sudden things, you know. Telegram recalling you off leave. Radio silence, so to speak. We was still giving away bits of the empire in those days, and there was a lot of policing to do, if you know what I mean.’ He gave a wry smile and winked at Bond. ‘Any old how, I didn’t hear from my girl. I wrote. Wrote to her parents. Nothing, not till I got home and found she’d had my baby, and died of it. Maudlin stuff, eh, Mr Bond? Kind of woman’s love story stuff. But I can tell you that hurt more ’n any bullet.’
‘I know.’ Bond meant it. He knew as well
as anyone.
‘One thing I swore: I’d always look after the child. And I did. She was mine. I never married, but she was looked after. I paid up and spent all my leave with her – she lived with her grandparents, my poor dead girl’s mum and dad. Then I did the selection course and got into the SAS. After that, every time I risked my life it was for her. For Ruth. Took my name and all. Ruth Pearlman. Good Jewish girl, boss, and so she was until just over a year ago. I got home on leave and she was gone. Her grandparents were in pieces over it – but what mattered to them was that Ruth had turned her back on her faith, and found a new one. It was even worse than if she’d become a goyim – a Christian – a shiksa.
‘Anyhow, I found out where she’d got to, and went down to see her in that damned great mausoleum, Manderson Hall. Tried to reason with her, naturally, like any father would. But all she could talk about was her new religion – that Valentine, or Scorpius, or whatever you want to call him, really does hold them. Gives them a kind of madness, a fervour. “Got a lot of your faith in it, Dad,” she said. “We say Kaddish for the dead even.” Hu! As if Kaddish was all that mattered. I tell you, Mr Bond, I know a fair bit about comparative religions. Read a lot. She thought it was good because in this airy-fairy mishmash of religions they still said Kaddish.’ He was silent for a moment, eyes ablaze. Bond could not have moved to take action against him even if it were possible.
‘Yisgaddal,
Veyiskaddash,
Shemay rabbah . . .
She thought that was enough. She was a Meek One. You think they said Kaddish for those poor buggers in Glastonbury? Or the ones in Chichester? Or the thing that’ll happen, God knows where, today? Will they hell?’
‘You know where it’s going to be, today, Pearly?’
Pearlman laughed. ‘You always had me for one of them, boss, didn’t you? I could sense it, from the moment we got involved in the car business – coming down from Hereford – you had me marked. Well, you were right, I suppose. In one way you were right. But, more important, you were wrong. So wrong that I held back from saying anything.’
