John Gardner - Brokenclaw

The whole business took less than a minute, and all his instincts told him that any attempt to break free would end in disaster. There had to be a moment, a fraction of a second, during which he would be able to act.

Frozen Stalk drove carefully and well while Ding still held his captive in the armlock, his own pistol well back in his left hand, ready to use. It was being done by the book. These people certainly knew what they were about. There was no sloppiness.

When they reached the helipad, the rotors were already idling and there was a quick exchange between Ding and Pu, from which Bond gathered that Pu had to return in the limo while Ding took his prisoner back to Brokenclaw.

Back in the helicopter Bond was pushed into the right hand seat with Ding on his left directly behind the pilot. It was only when they were airborne that the armlock was relaxed and Ding shouted, ‘Please do nothing stupid. I shall kill you if necessary, but would rather present you with whole body to the broken clawed one. Unerstan’?’

‘Unerstan’,’ Bond mimicked.

‘Good. You now enjoy the friendly skies, Ai?’

‘Ai.’ Bond was summing up the situation. His own automatic was within easy reach, tucked into the right side of Ding’s considerable waistband, but the Chinese had his own handgun, which looked like a nasty little snub-nosed S & W Chief’s Special. It was an old but truly tried design and the .38 Special ammunition would blow a sizeable hole in anyone who got in its way.

Stay alert, he told himself. If the ride got bumpy there just might be a chance to turn the tables on Ding and the pilot, who had appeared to take everything in his stride.

They cleared the Bay area, and staying over the sea, followed the coastline back past Monterey until they were at the turning point which would take them low over the PCH and across the rock-encrusted area leading to the house.

Bond’s moment finally came as the helicopter went into a steep bank to the left. Momentarily, Ding was tilted back sideways against the doorway, off balance for the wink of an eye. In that split second, Bond’s hand shot out and pulled the ASP automatic from Ding’s waistband, bringing it back in a ferocious chop down on the wrist of Ding’s gun hand.

Ding gave a sharp, angry cry of pain and his pistol fell to the floor of the cabin. In an automatic reflex, Ding leaned forward, straining his arm down towards the weapon. As he did so, Bond brought the ASP’s butt down hard on the hoodlum’s neck.

For a second, as though nothing had happened, Ding turned his face towards Bond in an evil grimace.

‘You do not put Bone Bender Ding unconscious with the blow of a fly,’ he said, still grinning as his eyes turned upwards and he collapsed in an untidy heap of comatose flesh.

Bond now prodded the pilot in the back of his neck with the ASP. ‘Turn this thing back,’ he shouted. ‘Just right back over the sea, or I swear to put a bullet through you.’

The pilot nodded, and Bond watched as he began to swing the machine to the left on its own axis. They were lower than he had thought, and must have been about to land by the time his short tussle with Ding was over. Below them the dome of the camouflaged tree hangar was open, and they turned at around two hundred feet towards the house.

‘Get her up!’ He prodded the pilot’s neck again, for during the turn they seemed to have lost another fifty feet. The house was now directly in front of them, and as they began to slip to the right in order to fly back over the sea, like some monster rising from its hiding place, a second wicked-looking helicopter lifted from behind the house. It flashed through Bond’s mind that the machine looked like an old Bölkow-Kawasaki 117, and he could clearly see the left-hand door open, with a heavy machine-gun mounting swung forward, the gunner himself in a harness manning the weapon.

‘Go left!’ Bond yelled, but as they did so the other chopper followed suit. The pilot was in a Mexican standoff, obviously terrified both by Bond’s pistol and by the aggressive machine in front of him.

He put down the nose and tried to gain height, but the 117 followed his move so that, in the space of a minute, the two helicopters appeared to be performing a strange insect-like ritual dance. Then the shots came.

The gunner from the door of the 117 put a single burst to their right. The pilot jerked away to his left, the machine tilting dangerously on one side, recovering only seconds before the rotors would have lost their grip on the air.

‘He’ll blow us out of the sky!’ the pilot was shouting hysterically as Bond slid back one of the side panels of the cabin, leaning over to get a quick shot in at the gunner. But the 117 seemed to have disappeared.

He looked around, then was aware of new forces on their own machine – a great buffeting from above as the 117 came down directly over them. Bond turned his hand and fired off a couple of random shots aimed upwards. But there was no reduction of pressure; slowly they were being forced down, the helicopter swaying and bouncing as the down-wash from the 117’s rotors tossed them about.

‘It’s no good!’ the pilot shrieked. ‘No good! Don’t shoot! I can’t maintain control.’ He had tried to back out from under the massive turbulence but was only forced down further. Bond glanced to his right and saw they were almost level with the circular hangar. Then a sudden surge in the wind from above seemed to throw them sideways. He watched as a rotor blade chopped at one of the trees then buckled.

There was a furious grinding. The world spun. Then the sound of metal disintegrating, the smell of oil and gasoline, followed by what seemed to be an endless drop into a cavern which swallowed them up in darkness. The last thing he noticed was the hands on his Rolex showing almost ten thirty.

From far away came the sweet noise of the dawn chorus, the morning songs from thousands of birds. Then the noise diminished. Now only one bird sang, its notes tripping up and down in loud waves. After that the song stopped and he realised it was someone speaking to him, a sweet sad, sing-song voice saying, ‘James? Oh, James! Please wake up! Please forgive me!’

Gingerly he opened his eyes. His head hurt and his vision took a few minutes to focus.

Chi-Chi was leaning over him, and the first thing he noticed was that she was stripped to the waist, her gentle, small breasts only inches from his face.

‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘You’re awake. Please, James, forgive me.’

His throat was dry and he asked for a drink. She moved and returned a second later with a small plastic cup of water. She was sobbing and he saw that her hair was tousled.

He swallowed the water and hauled himself on to one elbow, looking up at her.

‘Just say you’ll forgive me,’ she continued.

‘Forgive you for what?’

Her mouth opened then closed as though she were having problems speaking. ‘I told them. I told them everything. You. Me. What the operational team know. I couldn’t hold out. I couldn’t.’ As she turned away, he saw the blood and the deep red welts across her back.

‘Who did that?’ In spite of the dizziness and general disorientation, a spark fired fury in his belly. ‘Who did it?’

‘Lee. Who else? Soon after you left he tried . . . He tried to . . .’

‘Yes, I thought he might, but . . .’

‘I managed to resist. I think I hurt him a little. My knee had an argument with his groin. So he went away.’

‘And?’

‘And then he returned and said he now knew I was not Jenny Mo, and he was certain you were not Argentbright.’

‘You denied it?’ He was feeling a little stronger and the room had stopped spinning.

‘Of course, but he said he would have the truth, one way or another.’