Bond - 18 - Role of Honor

by John Gardner

  For a moment, Bond sat calmly awaiting the worst, convinced that Zwingli and his men were looking for him, or possibly Percy. There had to be a connection.

  You didn't need a crystal ball to work that out. Zwingli had been a necessary part of the disappearance plot. If there had been collusion at the time of the aeroplane wreck, there would still be collusion now, for Dr Holy and General Zwingli were tied together for life by a much stronger bond than marriage vows. Conspirators can rarely divorce without one partner seriously damaging the other.

  Bond smiled genially. "Don't stare, Percy. It's rude. It may also call the good General's attention to us - if it's us he's looking for." His lips hardly moved as he watched Zwingli and his entourage out of the corner of his eye.

  To his relief, the General's craggy face broke into a broad smile.

  He was not looking in Bond's and Percy's direction but advancing towards a dark-skinned muscular man, possibly in his mid-thirties, who had been sitting at the bar. The pair shook hands warmly, and there were greetings and introductions all round.

  I think, to be on the safe side, it would be prudent for us to take our leave now,' Bond muttered. "Be casual and natural." He went through the business of tipping the croupier, gathering the chips together as they rose. They made their way to the cashier, where Bond opted for cash rather than a cheque.

  Once outside, he took Percy's arm, leading her firmly back to the hotel.

  "It could simply be a coincidence, but I'm taking no chances. I don't for a moment think he could recognise you. How well did you know him, Percy?"

  "Two or three dinner parties. Washington social functions. I knew him, but he always gave the impression of complete non-interest. Not just in me, but in all women.

  It was him all right,James. I've no doubt about that." During M's briefing Bond had studied a number of photographs, including two series in Time magazine, when General Zwingli had made the cover story. "For someone who's been dead that long, he looked in exceptionally good shape. No, the only way he could recognise you is if he was forewarned: if he knew you'd changed your. . .well . . .your image." Percy giggled. "This is my real image, James. Mrs. Jay Autem Holy was the disguise. I put on weight, wore thick clear-glass spectacles and looked the ultimate frowsy computer scientist "And the nose?"

  "Okay, so I had it fixed after Jay Autem went missing.

  Nobody's perfect. But you're right, I'd have had to be fingered directly to Rolling Joe for him to know it was me .

  "There's always the possibility that someone's fingered me." Bond brushed back the lock of hair which fell, like a comma, over his right eye. They reached the hotel entrance. "You recognise the fellow he met? The swarthy man he seemed to be expecting?"

  "The face was familiar. I've seen him before or a picture of him. Maybe he's on file. You?"

  "Same here. I should know him." Bond continued to talk, telling her they would have to leave Monte Carlo.

  "It would be best for us both to get away in the Bentley.

  We can be in Paris by lunchtime tomorrow."

  "Wait until we're upstairs,' she mumbled. When they reached her room, Percy became adamant. "My brief was to leave here on my own. I have a car, and orders that we go separately. Under no circumstances are we to travel together. Those are my instructions, and there's no way I'm going to disobey them."

  "So?"

  "So I agree with you, James. I think it's merely a coincidence. It's also a useful piece of information, knowing that Zwingli is alive. And I think we should leave; the sooner, the better." For a while she fussed about Bond, like the proverbial mother hen, questioning him on all she had taught him.

  He lugged the cases containing the Terror Twelve into his own room, together with the disk drives and utility programs on disks that would help him copy or recover Holy's listings, should he have the chance to get hold of any. Then they went their separate ways to pack, arranging to meet again for a quick farewell before Percy left a good half hour before Bond. They would both be taking roughly the same route, for Percy had to return to the C.I.A. Paris Station, while Bond faced the long drive back to Calais and the ferry to Dover. They met as planned in the garage after Percy's luggage had been loaded into the boot of her sporty little blue Dodge 600ES.

  "You think we'll ever meet again?" Bond felt uncharacteristically inadequate.

  She put her hands on his shoulders, looking into the startling blue eyes. "We have to, don't we, James?" He nodded, knowing they shared each other's private thoughts.

  "You know how to get in touch with me?" It was her turn to give a small nod. "Or you can call me - when all this is over." She rattled off a Washington number. "If I'm not there, they'll pass on a message, okay?" Percy put her arms around his neck, kissing him, long and lovingly on the mouth. As she started up the Dodge, she leaned out of the window.

  "Take care, James. I'll miss you.

  Then she was gone, in a smooth, controlled acceleration, along the lane of parked cars, up the ramp and into the streets of Monaco and the night roads of France.

  Half an hour later, Bond took the Mulsanne Turbo out of the same garage. Within minutes he was out of the principality, heading back along the Moyenne Corniche on the road that would take him on to the main A8 Paris Autoroute.

  It was on the first leg of the journey - at about four in the morning - that Bond suddenly remembered the identity of the man Zwingli had met. Yes, there was a file. The thick dossier had been across Bond's desk on many occasions, and there was a general watching brief on Tamil Rahani. Part American, part Lebanese, and carrying at least two passports, Rahani was usually based in New York, where he was chairman and principal shareholder of Rahani Electronics. He had made several attempts to secure defence contracts from both the American and British governments, mainly for aircraft communications electronics, though there had been some computerisation involved.

  Rahani had first approached the Service some five years before, handed on to them by the American Service. They had turned him down flat because of his many contacts with unfriendly agencies and uncertain governments. He was wealthy, smooth, sharp, intelligent, and slippery as an eel. The flag on the file, Bond remembered, was ciphered Possible clandestine. Probably subversive.

  Once these facts had settled in his mind, Bond pushed the Mulsanne to its limit. All he wanted to do was to get back to England, report to M, and try to move in on Jay Autem Holy. The task was more inviting than ever, now he knew both something of the doctor's work, and the fact that Zwingli was alive, well, and - unless he was mistaken working hand in glove with a highly suspect international character.

  On the A26 Autoroute to Calais, Bond found himself singing aloud.

  Perhaps after the enforced idleness, the lack of excitement, the intrigues of M's plan to use him as bait, he was at last starting to feel the fire of action in his belly once more.

  "Rolling home,' he sang, remembering far-off days when he would literally roll home, with brother officers, "Rolling home, By the light of the silvery moon; I have twopence to lend, And twopence to spend, And twopence to send home to His voice trailed off. He could not bring himself to sing the last line, about sending money home to his wife.

  For the ghost of his own dead wife, Tracy, still haunted him, even though he now missed Percy Proud's clear mind and agile, beautiful body. Weakness, he chided himself.

  He was trained as a loner, one who acted without others; one who relied on himself. Yet he did miss her. Undeniably, there were moments when he thought he could still smell her scent and feel the touch of her skin. Pull yourself together, he told himself.

  Among the bills and circulars awaiting Bond at his flat was a letter from a firm of business consultants demanding special attention.

  Embedded in this seemingly innocuous letter was a series of telephone numbers - one for each day of the week - that he could ring in order to set up a meeting with M at the safe flat near St. Martin's Lane.

  The date arranged turned out to be a truly glorious
spring evening. Summer was around the corner, and you could almost feel it, even in the heart of the capital.

  "Well, 007, the woman's taught you all the tricks of the trade, eh?"

  "Some of them, sir. But I really wanted to talk to you about a new development." Without wasting words or time, he gave a summary of the final hours in Monaco, and the sighting of Zwingli with Tamil Rahani. Bond had hardly got Rahani' s name out before M ordered the Chief-of-Staff to check.

  "There's a spot and report order on that joker." Tanner returned in ten minutes. "Last report of a visit to Milan. Seen by our resident there, who had a weather eye on him. Rahani appeared to be on his usual round of business meetings." The Chief-of-Staff gave a somewhat dejected shrug. "Unhappily, sir, nobody spotted him leaving, though his airline ticket showed a return booking to New York yesterday. He was not on the flight."

  "And I suppose nobody's seen hide nor hair of him since." M nodded in reply like a buddha. "Except 007, in Monaco."

  "Well, he was in the Casino,' said Bond, "with General Zwingli and four others." M looked at him in silence for a long time.

  "Incredible,' he said at last, as though someone had hit him in the face. "Incredible that Zwingli's still alive, let alone mixed up with Rahani. Wonder where he fits into all this.

  You'll just have to be alert to Rahani's possible involvement Home mentHe's always been a bit of an unknown quantity, so we'll inform those who need to know. You see, we re ready to put you in. Now, here's what I want you to do. First, your old acquaintance Freddie Fortune has.

  James Bond groaned loudly.

  For the next week, he was to be seen around his old London haunts.

  He confided in one or two people that his feelings of disillusion had become considerably worse.

  He had been in Monte Carlo where things had run true to the old adage: lucky at cards, unlucky in love - except it had been roulette, not cards.

  Carefully, he laid a trail among people most likely to talk, or those whose connections were right for some salting. Then, on the Thursday evening, in the bar of one of Mayfair's plush clubs, as if by accident, he bumped into Lady Freddie Fortune, the extravagant, pamphlet wagging socialite he always called his "champagne communist'.

  She was a vivacious, petite redhead, "Red Freddie', some called her completely untrustworthy, and always in the gossip columns, either campaigning for some outrageous cause or involved in sexual scandal.

  Freddie was discreet only when it suited her. That night, Bond dropped a hint that he was looking for work in the computer field. He also poured out all his troubles - an affair in Monte Carlo that had ended disastrously, leaving him bitter and wretched.

  Lady Freddie was thrilled to see this man, once a model of good form, become so emotional and she whipped Bond off to her bed, allowing him to cry on her shoulder - metaphorically, of course. During the night, trying to keep up the pretence of having drunk too much yet still able to enjoy himself, Bond longed for Percy and the special smell and feel of her.

  The next morning he feigned a hangover and morose, even waspish, manner. But none of this put Freddie Fortune off As he was leaving she told him that she had some friends who may be of use to him, if he really meant to find a job in computer programming.

  "Here." She tucked a small business card into his breast pocket.

  "It's a nice little hotel. If you can make it on Saturday, I'll be there. Only, for heaven's sake, don't let on I've told you. I leave it to you,James, but if you do decide to come, be surprised to see me.

  Okay?" On the following Saturday morning, with a weekend case and all the computer equipment in the boot, James Bond drove the Bentley out of London on the Oxford road. Within the hour he had turned off and was threading through country lanes on his way to the village of Nun's Cross, near Banbury.

  THE BULL

  BANBURY CROSS is not an antiquity, but was erected in the late 1850s to commemorate the marriage of the Princess Royal to the Crown Prince of Prussia. There was of course a much earlier cross three to be exact but the present Victorian Gothic monstrosity was placed where it is today because a local historian believed this to be the site of the ancient High Cross. Three miles to the north of Banbury, nestling by a wooded hill, is the village of Nun's Cross, and there is no cross on view there at all.

  Bond guided the Mulsanne Turbo through the narrow main street of Nun's Cross, and into the yard of the coaching inn which rejoices in the name of The Bull at the Cross. Taking his overnight case from the boot, he considered the inn was probably the only going concern in the village. A beautiful Georgian building, lovingly kept, and neatly modernised, The Bull even offered gourmet weekends for the discriminating'.

  From the porter who took his case, Bond learned that, as far as the hotel was concerned, it was going to be a very quiet weekend, though they had been full the previous one.

  Bond unpacked, changed into grey slacks, an open necked shirt topped by a navy pullover and his most comfortable moccasins. He was not armed. The ASP 9mm lay comfortably clipped into its hidden compartment in the Bentley. Yet he remained alert as he went down, through the old coach yard and into the village street. His eyes were searching for a dark blue Jaguar XJ6 or a grey Mercedes-Benz saloon.

  The licence numbers had been committed to memory; for both cars had appeared in his mirror, exchanging places with monotonous regularity ever since he had taken to the road that morning.

  He was under no illusion. For the first time since he had assumed the mantle of a disaffected former member of the Secret Service, he was being followed, almost blatantly, as though the tail wished to be seen.

  It was too early for a lunchtime drink. Bond decided to look round this village which, if everything added up, harboured a sophisticated villain who was possibly also a traitor.

  The Bull at the Cross lay almost on the crossroads at the centre of the old village, which contained a hodgepodge of mainly Georgian buildings, with a sprinkle of slightly older terraced houses that were now the village shops, leaning in on one another as though mutually dependent. Small rows of what must at one time have been labourers' cottages now housed people who commuted into Banbury or Oxford, to labour in different fields.

  Almost opposite the coach yard entrance stood the church. To the south, the main street meandered out into open country, scattered with copses and studded with larger houses, as though the more prosperous local gentry had landscaped the southern vista with their properties.

  Gateways and rhododendron-flanked drives gave glimpses of large, sedate Victorian mansions or glowing Hornton stone Georgian buildings.

  The third driveway past the church was walled, with heavy, high modern gates set into the original eighteenth-century stone. A small brass plate engraved with the words GUNFiRE SiMULATiONS LTD was sunk into the pillar to the right of the gates. In newer stone, carved and neatly blended with the original, was the one word, ENDOR.

  The drive, which turned abruptly, disappearing behind thick low trees and bushes, seemed to be neatly kept, and a strip of grey slate was only just visible some two hundred yards in the distance. Bond calculated the size of the grounds to be about a square mile. The high wall continued to his left, the boundary being a narrow dirt track neatly sign posted THE SHRUBS.

  After half a mile or so he turned back along the village street and on towards the northern extremity, where the cluster of old houses bordered a scrubby, wooded hill.

  Here sharp speculators had been at work, and a modern housing estate encroached almost on the woodland itself.

  It was gone twelve when Bond ambled slowly back to the inn. A dark blue Jaguar stood not far from the Bentley but no one except the staff appeared to be about.

  In the private bar he found only the harman and one other guest.

  "James, darling, what a surprise to find you here, out in the sticks!" Freddie Fortune, neat in an emerald shirt and tight jeans sat in a window seat.

  "The surprise is mutual, Freddie. Drinking?"

  "Vodka an
d tonic, darling." He got the drinks from a friendly harman, and carried them over to Freddie, saying loudly, "What brings you here, then?"

  "Oh, I adore this place. I often come down to commune with nature - and friends. Not your sort of place though, James." Then quietly, "So glad you could make it." Bond said he was glad too. "On a bit of a downer.

  Sorry about the other night, Freddie. Must've bored the pants off you..

  "Oh no, darling, I wouldn't say that,"" she murmured.

  "It was frightfully touching, actually. I felt terribly sorry for you, poor lamb."

  "Made an ass of myself. Forget what I said, eh?" Bond felt unutterably foolish, putting on the style of Freddie's London friends.

  "Forgotten already, darling." She took a quick sip of her vodka and tonic. "So you wanted to get out of the hurly-burly, yah?"

  "Yah." Bond almost mimicked her affected accent.

  "Or did you come because I asked you?" He gave a non-committal "Mmmm."

  "Or, perhaps, the possibility of work?"

  "Little of all three, Freddie."

  "Three's a crowd." She snuggled up beside him. For a second, Bond felt, strangely, that Percy was there. They lunched together from a menu that would not have put the Connaught to shame, then walked for five miles or so across the fields and through the woodland, getting back around three-thirty.

  "Just in time for a nice quiet siesta." Freddie gave him the come-to-bed look, and Bond, invigorated by the walk, was in no mood to disappoint.

  First, though, he made an excuse to go over to the Bentley, where he retrieved the ASP 9mm and two spare clips of ammunition, keeping them well hidden when he joined Freddie in the comfort of her room.

  She was lying on the bed, wearing precious little.

  Smiling sweetly, she said, "Come and bore the pants off me, darling."

  "Dinner?" Bond asked later, as they sat over tea in the residents' lounge. The hotel had filled up, and three Spanish waiters scurried about with silver teapots, small plates of sandwiches and fancy cakes. Like Brown's on Sunday afternoon, but without the polish, Bond thought.