Raymond Benson: High Time To Kill

“No, I’m sorry, Bill,” Bond said. “I’ve been on edge lately. That business with the Governor in Nassau, and the killer who blew his own brains out. . . it’s all a big mystery that I’m still trying to sort out.”

“Never mind, James, it’s all right.” He tapped his glass against Bond’s. “Cheers.” Tanner knew damn well what was really on Bond’s mind, but he had the tact not to mention it.

Two men entered the bar. Bond glanced up and grimaced. The taller of the men spotted Bond and Tanner and waved.

“Well, well!” he said. “If it isn’t James Bond and Billy Tanner!”

“Roland Marquis,” Bond said with feigned enthusiasm. “Long time.”

Group Captain Roland Marquis was blond, broad-shouldered, and very handsome. A neatly trimmed blond mustache covered his upper lip. His eyes were a cold blue. He had the kind of weather-beaten face that suggested years of outdoor activity, and the square jaw of a matinee idol. He was the same age as Bond and just as fit.

He held out his hand as he approached their table. Marquis squeezed Bond’s hand roughly, reminding 007 of their lifelong rivalry.

“How are you. Bond?” Marquis asked.

“Fine. Keeping busy.”

“Really? I would have thought there’s not a lot to do over at SIS these days, eh?” Marquis sniffed.

“We have plenty to do,” Bond said with little humor. “Mostly cleaning up messes left by others. How about you? The RAF still treating you better than you deserve?”

Marquis laughed. “The RAF treats me like a bloody king.”

The other man stepped up to the table. A man in his late thirties, he was smaller in stature, thin, and had glasses, a long nose, and bushy eyebrows, all of which gave him a birdlike appearance.

“This is my partner, Dr. Steven Harding,” Marquis said. “He’s with the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Dr. Harding, I present you James Bond and Bill Tanner. They work for the Ministry of Defence, in that gaudy building next to the Thames.”

“SIS? Really? How do you do!” Harding held out his hand. Both men shook hands with him.

“Join us for a drink?” Tanner asked. “We’re just waiting for our friends to make up the fourball.”

Marquis and Harding pulled up chairs. “Bill, I haven’t met your new chief,” Marquis said. “What’s she like?”

“She runs a very tight ship,” Tanner replied. “Things are not that different since Sir Miles retired. What about you? I think the last time we spoke you were working at Oakhanger?”

I’ve moved,” Marquis said. “They’ve got me liaising with the DERA now. Dr. Harding here is one of their top engineers in the aeronautics division. Almost everything he does is classified.”

“Well, you can tell us. We won’t say a word,” Bond said.

“You’ll hear about it soon enough, I should think. Won’t they, doctor?”

Harding was in the middle of taking a sip from a gin and tonic. “Hmmm? Oh, quite right. I must be sure to phone Tom after we play the front nine. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where? Marquis, what are you up to that you haven’t told us?” Tanner asked.

“Actually we have told you,” Marquis said with a broad grin. “Your chief knows all about it. Ever heard of Thomas Wood?”

“Sure,” Bond said. “He’s Britain’s top aeronautics physicist.”

At the mention of Wood’s name. Tanner nodded his head. “You’re right, I do know all about it, Marquis. I just didn’t know that you were involved.”

“It’s my pet project, Tanner,” he said smugly.

“Dr. Wood is my boss,” Harding said.

Bond was impressed. To be working with a man of Wood’s stature would require a considerable amount of gray matter. Harding must be smarter than he looked. In contrast, Bond had never thought much of Roland Marquis’s brain or any other part of him. His great grandfather, a Frenchman, had married into a wealthy English military family. The Marquis name was passed down from son to son, every one of them becoming a distinguished and decorated officer. Roland Marquis inherited his family’s snobbishness and was, in Bond’s estimation, an egotistical overachiever.

Ralph Pickering, the club’s general manager, looked in the bar and spotted Bond. “Ah, there you are, Mr. Bond,” he said. He stepped over to them and gave Bond and Tanner a message that their other two partners would not be joining them. “They said they had to go away on business unexpectedly and that you would understand. They send their apologies,” he said.

“Thank you, Ralph,” Bond said. He wasn’t as annoyed with them for not showing up as he was with the fact that they had received orders and had probably left the country. Even after two weeks Bond was restless. He was ready to do anything to get out of London and away from Helena for awhile.

After Pickering left the room. Bond looked at Tanner and asked, “What do you want to do now? Play by ourselves?”

“Why not play with us?” Marquis asked. “I’m sure we could make it interesting. Dr. Harding and I against the two of you? Straight Stableford-level handicaps?”

Bond looked at Tanner. Tanner nodded in approval.

“I assume you’re talking money?” Bond asked.

“You’d better believe it. How about two hundred and fifty pounds per man for every point by which the winners beat the losers?” Marquis suggested with a sly grin.

Tanner’s eyes widened. That could be a lot of money. He didn’t like gambling.

Nevertheless, the glove had been thrown. Bond took challenges very seriously and couldn’t resist accepting it.

“All right, Roland,” Bond said. “Let’s meet at the starter’s shed in, say, half an hour?”

“Splendid!” Marquis said, grinning widely. His straight white teeth sparkled. “We’ll see you on the course, then! Come along. Dr. Harding.” Harding smiled sheepishly, downed the rest of his drink, and got up with Marquis.

After they had left the bar, Tanner said, “My God, James, are you mad? Two hundred and fifty pounds a point?”

“I had to accept, Bill,” Bond said. “Roland and I go way back.”

“I knew that. You were at Eton together, right?”

“Yes, for the two years I was there we were bitter rivals. We often competed in the same athletic arenas. Whereas I left Eton and went to Fettes, Marquis went through Eton and Cranwell. As you know, he distinguished himself in the RAF and was rapidly promoted to his present rank.”

“Didn’t I read somewhere that he’s a mountaineer?”

“That’s right,” Bond said. “He’s actually quite famous in the world of mountain climbing. He made international headlines a few years ago after climbing the ‘Seven Summits’ in record time.”

“ ‘Seven Summits’?”

“The highest peaks on each of the seven continents.”

“Ah, right. So he’s been up Everest, then?”

“More than once, I believe,” Bond said. “I’ve run into him from time to time over the years. We still regard each other as rivals. I don’t know why It’s extraordinary, really.”

Tanner frowned and shook his head. “We’re not going to have a boxing match out on the course, are we?”

“I’m afraid that whenever I’m thrust into a situation with Roland Marquis, it ends up that way. Cheers.” Bond finished his bourbon and asked the bartender to put the drinks on his tab.

They went downstairs to the changing room. Bond put on a Mulberry golf shirt, gray sweater, and pleated navy slacks—his preferred attire for the golf course. He hung his Sea Island short-sleeve cotton shirt and khaki trousers inside a polished wooden locker and shut the door. Even the changing room was opulent, with paintings of Sir Edward Coke and Elizabeth I on the walls. Coke, one of the estate’s more famous tenants, was the man who sentenced Guy Fawkes to death and often entertained the queen when she stayed at the manor house in 1601. Bond never took the splendor of Stoke Poges for granted.