Raymond Benson - Doubleshot

“Why do you think this man is Le Gérant? ” Bond asked.

“I don’t know,” Latif said. “As I said, I’ve heard these stories from the Riffians about this so-called prophet. In fact, that’s what they called him in the mountains. Prophet. Unfortunately, no one has seen him in fifteen, twenty years.”

“We should go ahead and have London investigate him.”

“They already have. I put in the request a long time ago. According to official records, Olivier Cesari disappeared from Paris when he was in his twenties.”

“Which was … what, thirty years ago?” Bond surmised.

“Right. Olivier is my age, roughly, which is fifty.”

Reggab’s mobile rang. He answered it, speaking in Arabic. After a few short exchanges he hung up and said, “Your two men came through Customs last night, all right. So they’re in the country.”

“How do we find them?”

“My source at the airport said that they took a taxi toward Tangier.

That’s all we know. But don’t worry. I have eyes and ears all over this country. Let me make some calls this afternoon.”

Latif’s youngest son came in with an overnight courier envelope. “This came for you, Papa.”

“Thank you, son,” Latif said. He examined it, his brow wrinkling. “Now what is … ?” He opened it and found a large brown envelope inside. “Ah. It’s for a case I’m working on. These are the photos I was expecting.”

“Anything interesting?”

“In a way. There’s a strange campsite in the mountains, between the villages of Chefchaouen and Ketama. It sprung up there about a year ago on some land that’s owned by a private company. A bank. Anyway, it’s like a compound—they have it surrounded by barbed wire and the dirt road leading to it is guarded off the main highway. It looks like soldiers are in training there, but no one has got close enough to make sure. I’ve been ordered by London to find out if it’s some kind of terrorist training camp.”

Latif shared the photos with Bond. They were eight-by-tens in black-and-white and looked as if they had been shot with a camera hidden in someone’s clothing. The lighting was bad, as they were obviously night shots and had depended on the little illumination made by a couple of spotlights at the scene.

“These are quite good, considering the location of the camera,” Latif said. “We had to put it in Rizki’s tarbouch. He’s one of the men who helps me. I had him stationed on the hill above the entrance to the camp. It’s quite a way off the main road. He was to take photographs of everyone going in and out.”

The photographs, obviously blown up from a smaller size, showed various figures at a checkpoint gate. Bond could make out tents, lean-tos, and campers within the compound. Among the figures in the shots were men in military fatigues sitting in a jeep, being waved through by two guards dressed in traditional Berber jellabas. The guards were carrying automatic weapons, but it was difficult to discern what they were.

Bond flipped through the photographs and stopped at the last one. It showed twoCaucasians in business suits getting out of a taxi at the gate.

They were Walter van Breeschooten and Michael Clayton.

“Latif, when were these photos taken?” Bond asked.

“Last night. Rizki got them to me quickly, he’s a good—”

Bond slapped the photo. “These are the men I’m looking for!”

“Really?” Latif took it and stared. “That’s incredible!”

“How soon can we get to this camp?”

“We’ll have to go after dark. Is tonight soon enough?”

For the first time in days, Bond smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

ELEVEN

SWIFT SETTLEMENT

IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON WHEN M RANG OFF WITH THE PRIME MINISTER AND Miss Moneypenny buzzed.

“Yes?”

“Chief-of-Staff is here and would like a word.”

“Send him in.”

M was still thinking about the conversation that she had just had when Bill Tanner came into the office and sat down. He was carrying a folder and had an odd expression on his face. M sat up, instinctively sensing that something was wrong.

“I have some disturbing news, ma’am,” he began.

“What is it?”

“Have you heard about the murder of the young doctor in Harley Street last night? The police and building superintendent found her body this morning.…”

“I heard something on the news. What about it?”

“She was one of ours.”

“What?”

“Dr. Kimberley Feare. She was a colleague of Sir James Molony. He’s away and Dr. Feare had taken over some of his cases.”

“I remember her name on some reports.”

“I’ve just had a look at the police report. Ma’am, it was a particularly brutal murder. There is one detail in particular that concerns me.”

“What is that?” M was a bit shaken by this news.

“Her throat had been cut, Union-style.”

“My lord, what could they want with a girl like her? She was young and new, wasn’t she?”

“Just the type the Union go for. If she was involved with the Union, we could have some security problems again.”

M cursed. Bill Tanner rarely heard her do it, but this wasn’t the first time and it surely wouldn’t be the last.

Tanner shifted in his chair.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” M snapped.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tanner said. “It’s Double-O Seven, ma’am.”

“What about him?”

“He may be involved.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dr. Feare’s nurse reported that Bond had called her office yesterday, insisting on an appointment. Preliminary investigation has shown that he was seen with Dr. Feare last night in front of her building.”

“Is that true?”

“Well, we don’t know. The porter at the building remembers her coming home in a taxi and being approached by a man on the pavement. He accompanied her inside the building and he matched the description of Double-O Seven.”

The expression on M’s face indicated that she simply didn’t know what to say.

“As you recall, Dr. Feare diagnosed Bond’s condition after his return from the Himalayas. That’s all we know, except that Double-O Seven doesn’t call back when we page him,” Tanner said. “We think … we think he’s missing.”

Finally M burst out with, “I don’t believe a bloody word of this.”

Tanner tapped the folder. “It’s all here in the police report. MI5 is being brought in to the case.”

“Who alerted the police in the first place?”

“It was an anonymous phone call. Someone called the police and said that a woman had been murdered. They gave Dr. Feare’s address and hung up.”

“The real murderer, no doubt. Where was Double-O Seven?”

“The porter saw him leave the building after midnight, if that’s what you mean. There is one puzzling piece to the porter’s statement.”

“What is that?”

“He says that after he had seen Dr. Feare and the man enter the building, an hour or two later he saw the same man, alone, coming into the building with a key. The porter thought that he had probably missed seeing him leave the building the first time, perhaps on an errand to fetch a bottle of champagne or something, and that Dr. Feare had given him a key to use upon returning.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it was Double-O Seven, he was seen going into the building twice. Once with Dr. Feare, and a second time alone and with a key. Doesn’t that sound strange?”

“Indeed. The porter was mistaken, I should think. How long has Bond been seeing this woman on a social basis?”