John Gardner: Brokenclaw

Before the room-service trolley arrived, he had time to shower, shave and dress. Then he sat at the window drinking almost scalding coffee and eating quite reasonable wholewheat toast with at least a facsimile of marmalade or jam.

As he breakfasted, his head began to clear and his thoughts became more positive. Was there any point in reporting what he had seen to the local police? The answer to that was a straight no. He had been summoned to San Francisco by his chief, which certainly meant official business. A report to the police would only snarl him in red tape. It would also, undoubtedly, reveal his RN rank plus his identity as a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service. Whatever M required of him, Bond could bet every penny he owned that his Chief would not be attracted to the idea of his identity becoming public knowledge to local law enforcement agencies. The only course still open to him was a quick, unidentifiable call to the SFPD giving the barest details of the horrific murder he had witnessed.

He was still thinking of the feasibility of this action when the doorbell chimed. Probably room service wanting to clear away the breakfast debris, but he took the safe action of squinting through the security peephole in the door. The strange fish-eye view showed two well-dressed burly men standing back from the door.

‘Who is it?’ he called.

‘FBI. Open up, Captain Bond, or we’ll have to smash the door down.’

They looked and sounded as though they meant it, and through the peephole, he saw one of the men holding up a wallet with official ID. Even through the lens Bond could see that it looked genuine.

‘Come on, Captain Bond. We haven’t got all day.’

Slowly, Bond slipped the safety chain off the door, moved to one side and tensed his body, ready to fight back if this pair proved not to be on the side of the angels.

They were FBI, there was no doubt about that. One even had his automatic pistol unholstered. They came into the room in the confident way of police officers who know that right is on their side, not barrelling in, or attempting to put any restraining hold on Bond, but smartly, firm in both manner and speech.

‘You are Captain James Bond, Royal Navy?’ the leading one asked, while his partner stood back, the unholstered automatic held close in to his side with the business end steadily pointing towards Bond.

‘Yes, my name’s Bond.’

‘What are you doing in San Francisco, Captain Bond?’

‘I’m on vacation. Why would you want to know?’

‘You’re here as a private individual?’

‘Yes.’

The FBI man nodded, his face blank but a deep disbelief embedded in his eyes. ‘There are several people who wish to talk with you, Captain Bond.’

‘For instance?’

‘First our own local Bureau Chief . . .’

‘He’s very anxious to see you,’ sharp from the other agent.

‘About what?’ He was letting them come to him.

‘How about murder?’ Again from the younger of the two, the one looking very angry, the one with the pistol.

‘I’ve only been here since last night. I really . . .’

‘And you went out?’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘Tell it to the Bureau Chief, Captain Bond. He wants to talk to you about the murder of Agent Patrick Malloney who was found bludgeoned to death near the Embarcadero early this morning.’

‘I’ve never heard of Agent Malloney, and I haven’t been near the Embarcadero . . .’

‘We think he was dumped there, Captain Bond; and excuse me if I tell you that the late Agent Malloney and yourself have a very close connection.’

‘I’ve . . .’ Bond began, but the two agents had started to move in on him.

‘Come quietly, Captain Bond,’ one of them said.

‘We wouldn’t like to mess up this nice room,’ said the other.

4

LORDS AND LORDS DAY

The Bureau Chief, the senior FBI agent working out of San Francisco, was a stocky, battered-looking man in his mid-forties. He sat in his shirtsleeves, his tie pulled loose, the desk of his cluttered office giving the impression that he was not happy with paperwork. His name was Broderick, and he also did not seem to be happy with James Bond.

‘Captain Bond RN,’ he announced to Bond, as though passing on uncertain information. ‘Captain James Bond. Uh?’

‘How can I help?’ 007 was not going to open the batting.

‘Well,’ Broderick ran stubby fingers through greying unruly hair. ‘Well, we’ve been asked to hand you over to your own people. In fact they asked us to keep an eye on you yesterday.’ He grunted again. ‘Truth to tell, I’m a tad angry with myself. The boys are just angry. We all get that way when one of our own meets an untimely and brutal end. You ever set eyes on this man?’ He tossed a five-by-four matt photograph across the desk, and Bond found himself looking into a pleasant young face staring out of the picture with eyes that seemed full of hope and determination.

‘Yes. Yes, I saw this man last night.’

‘Uh-hu? Tell me about it.’

Bond told him, for the photograph was undoubtedly Porpoise, the man he had seen clubbed to death in the Chinatown alley. When he had finished the story, Broderick sighed and nodded. ‘You didn’t think to tell anybody about this?’

‘Yes. I did think about it. But it was necessary for me to wait. There’s someone I felt I had to talk to first.’

‘You didn’t even go to the poor guy’s assistance.’ There was more than a hint of disgust in his voice.

‘No. It wasn’t in anybody’s interest, Mr Broderick.’

‘Particularly your own, eh?’

‘One of the rules of military life is self-preservation. There was no point in my trying to help this man. I was unarmed. Better for me to live and fight another day.’

Broderick nodded again, his face grim, unconvinced by the answer. Then he rose and led Bond over to a detailed map of San Francisco which almost took up an entire wall of his office. ‘Like to try and pinpoint the place where you say you saw the killing?’

Bond zeroed in on the Chinatown area and quickly found the junction on Stockton Street where he had thrown Porpoise by going into the store. He traced his own movements for the FBI man, his return to the street and his own surveillance on Porpoise. Everything was marked on the map, all the tiny alleys and passages which made up the network around the main arteries of Chinatown. It was easy to pick out the narrow street that led to the cul-de-sac courtyard where the murder had taken place.

‘And you just watched him get killed here?’ Broderick did not sound surprised.

‘That’s the place.’

‘Well, they moved the body and dumped him a long way off.’ He sucked in a breath through his teeth, turning his eyes on to Bond as though he despised him. ‘You do realise that Agent Malloney was killed while looking out for you .’

Bond had already been well ahead of him. After all it had become obvious, just as the open hostility towards him was obvious. The pair of agents who had brought him down to their Bureau chief had treated him as though he carried the plague or smelled badly. They had frisked him very thoroughly and without gentleness, taken away his passport and other items, wallet, credit cards and the like.

‘Well, why wasn’t I told he was looking out for me?’ Bond had now become angry.

Broderick raised his head, and Bond saw that his eyes held nothing but a cold and calculating disgust. ‘Surveillance isn’t surveillance if the target knows about it, Captain Bond.’

‘Yes, but. . .’

‘Yes, but we have to deal with your kind quite often.’ Broderick faced him, and for a moment Bond prepared to defend himself. It was clear that the FBI man would have liked to tear him apart. ‘We have orders not to lay a finger on you,’ he said, finally. ‘Seems there are people waiting to talk with you who can take care of all your problems, and you’ve gotten plenty of those, Captain Bond. That should be clear to a drunken June bug, let alone a man of your intelligence.’