John Gardner: No Deals, Mr. Bond

He walked slowly over to the other body. It was one of the two guards. The man was dead, both bullets having caught him in the chest. He had hoped it would be Mischa.

He looked at his watch again and at the fast-lightening sky. Time was really running out now. He would be lucky to make it. Taking another deep breath, Bond clenched his teeth. It was going to be one hell of a run, and lord knew what he could do when he got to the villa. Yet part of the job was done – the traitor had been found and dealt with. The odds on his saving the others were small, but he had to try.

23

CHINESE TAKEAWAY

He thought his lungs were going to burst with the effort, for he ran faster than he had since leaving the house with the ‘Robinsons’ at his heels. The pain in his lungs, combined with the aching of his thighs and legs, helped to take his mind off the agony of his torn and broken arm. Somehow he had managed to take hold of his left hand and secure the arm inside the overall. In his good right hand he held the Luger.

He forced himself on, scuffing the stones and sending up dust from the road that would take him almost as far as the promontory and the villa. He did not even try to calculate how much time had passed, but knew he would be cutting it very fine. Then, after what seemed an eternity, he reached the crest above the villa and sank to his knees, sliding back from the skyline. Using his right shoulder as a prop, he pulled himself up to peer at the building.

Only a few yards below there was a large brown stain, and the remains of bodies strewn as though some wilful child had dismembered a couple of dolls: the two ‘Robinsons’ he had burned in the night.

Bond caught a movement from the front of the villa. The one guard Heather had left behind, machine pistol at the ready, was crouching near the front wall, watching and alert. Chernov must be edgy, he thought. They would know about the two ‘Robinsons’ he had taken out close to the villa, and now the other two had not returned. There would be itchy fingers down there, though he suspected Chernov would be watching for Heather’s return. The odds had been so heavily stacked against Bond that nobody could have expected him to live.

Chernov would have Mischa inside with him, to help with the ritual killing. It must be very near to the moment of execution now. Slowly and painfully, Bond started to work his way around to the rear of the house, aware of the time bomb ticking away inside the place. He edged downwards and pulled himself to his feet once more. The back of the house was some fifty yards away and he covered the ground quickly, loping somewhat lopsidedly as he had done all the way back from the Pak Tai Temple. Odd, he thought, how your sense of balance went with one arm out of action. He reached the low wall without being spotted and moved silently towards the house.

Suddenly the sound echoed from the other side of the house, the noise he had dreaded from the beginning of his return journey, a terrible piercing scream – female, but like an animal in extreme pain. His mind was lanced by a vivid picture of Ebbie having her mouth forced open, with Chernov wielding a scalpel for the obscene punishment.

At that moment the guard came round the corner of the house to check the rear. The man stopped, his jaw dropping open. The machine pistol came up but before he could fire, Bond’s Luger jumped twice and two bullets crashed into the man’s chest, knocking him down like a skittle. As Bond stepped forward he thought there was movement to his right, at the edge of his vision, but when he turned, the Luger ready, there was nobody there. A trick of the early morning light.

There was a shout from the front of the garden and the sound of running feet, but before anyone reached the angle of the wall, Bond was on top of the guard. He wrenched at the machine pistol, identifying it almost by feel alone as an Uzi. It was the scaled-down version with the stock folded back; he wondered why the KGB were using Israeli weapons.

Mischa was pounding around the corner as Bond lifted the Uzi, one-handed. He gave Chernov’s right-hand man a burst that almost cut him in two. He fired on the run and was at the front of the house almost before he knew it. He yelled at Chernov who stood undecided outside the window, unarmed except for a scalpel, his face pale and shocked.

‘Drop the cutter and freeze.’

Chernov gave one pitiful shrug, then threw the scalpel into the garden and raised his hands, his shoulders drooping.

Maxim Smolin, Susanne Dietrich and Jungle Baisley were still chained together in the corner, while Ebbie lay strapped to a wide plank set astride three saw horses.

‘My God, you really meant it! You bastard, Chernov, you must be crazy.’

Bond’s voice had risen to an uncontrolled, murderous yell and Chernov backed away. ‘Vengeance is not just the prerogative of the gods,’ said Chernov shakily, although his eyes blazed with a mixture of fury and frustration. ‘One day, James Bond, one day all the ghosts of the old SMERSH will rise and crush you. That will be vengeance.’

Bond rarely felt the desire to inflict pain but in that moment he saw Chernov being hit by three steel darts from the pen gun: one to each eye and one in the throat. But Chernov had to be taken alive.

‘We’ll see about vengeance!’ He nodded. ‘The keys, General. I want those chains undone.’

Chernov hesitated for a second, then his hands moved towards the table and Bond saw the keys lying there.

‘Pick them up gently.’ Bond was under control now. ‘Unlock them.’

Again Chernov hesitated, his eyes flickering to a point behind Bond’s shoulders. No, he thought, you don’t fall for an old trick like that.

‘Just do as I say, Kolya . . .’ he began, then the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled and he turned.

‘If I were you, Jacko, I’d simply be putting your gun down on the table very carefully.’

Norman Murray faced him, having come in quietly through the door, his police issue Walther PPK steady in his right hand.

‘What . . . ?’ began Bond incredulously.

‘Kolya,’ Murray said calmly, ‘I’d leave the keys where they are. Whatever vengeance you’re wanting will have to wait, so, because I’ve a feeling we’re going to get some visitors up here soon enough. I’m sorry I’m so late, but it was a bit of a avoiding my own people and the Brits. Not an easy job.’

Chernov made a ‘ Tchah-ing ’ sound.

‘Well, when it comes to us getting out safely we’ll have to use your man Bond as collateral, will we not?’

Bond backed away. ‘Norman? What in God’s name . . . ?’

‘Ah, Jacko, the evils of this wicked world. You recall that lovely book of Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island ? Grand book that. You remember the bit where young Jim Hawkins meets the castaway, Ben Gunn was his name? Well, auld Ben Gunn tries to explain to Jim how he got started on his iniquitous life of piracy. He says, “It begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones” – playing what we’d be after calling shove-ha’penny on the gravestones. Well, I suppose it was like that for me. Now will you put that cannon on the table, Jacko Bond.’

Bond turned his back, carefully placing the Luger near the keys.

‘Now, hands on your head, Jacko.’

‘I’ve got a broken arm.’

‘Well, hand on your head then. You’re a pedantic divil, Jacko.’

By the time Bond turned again, slowly raising his right hand, he had slipped the pen from the breast pocket of the overalls, covering it with his right palm. Two traitors, he thought, and the second one an officer of the Republic of Ireland’s Special Branch. A man who had a special, secret relationship with the British Service over matters of intelligence, who even cooperated with M himself.