John Gardner - Win, Lose Or Die

Anyway, it had wiped out an unusually cold-blooded terrorist princess.

How many terrorist princesses does it take to wire up a time-bomb?

Three: one to get the wire, one to get the gold Rolex and one to call the expert. There was a tap on the door and he called “Come,” with one hand slipping off the Browning’s safety and turning the pistol towards the door.

The man was tall, dressed casually in slacks and a sweater.

He had the dark leathery looks of the Middle East, but his voice was pure Oxford English.

“Captain Bond?” he queried, though Bond got the distinct impression that he was merely adhering to some kind of ritual.

He nodded.

“Name’s Farsee.” He was in his forties, carried himself in an alert military manner, adjusting everything to make it seem as though he was pure civilian to the marrow. His laugh, when it came, lacked real humour. “Julian Farsee, though my friends call me Tomato. Play on words, kind of thing, you see. Tomato Farsee. Tomates Farcies - the old French stuffed tomatoes. See?”

“What’s bloody going on?” Bond asked, his voice brittle and with undertones of violence.

“The quacks want to give you a bit of a going over. I jut dropped in to see if you were feeling okay, and ready for that kind of thing, right?”

“And who exactly are you, Julian? Where are we; what are you; and what’s going on?”

“Well, I’m the Two I/C actually. Right?” (Two I/C was military for Second-in-Command, just like Jimmie The One, in the Royal Navy, stood for First Lieutenant, who could hold the rank of Commander or even Captain, depending on the Captain’s rank, which could even be Rear-Admiral. Some people found it confusing.) “You’re Second-in-Command of what, exactly?”

“This.” Farsee waved a hand in the direction of the window.

It was like prising a grape-pip from a peach. “And what is this?”

“Nobody told you?”

“If they had, I wouldn’t be asking you,Julian.”

“Oh, ya; right. We’re slightly irregular actually.”

“How irregular?”

“Comes under NATO installations, right? Highly classified, you might say. Very highly classified. We’re not even in the book, as they say, right?”

“More!” Bond almost shouted. He could stand Yuppies up to a point, but not Yuppie military.

“CO’s American, right?”

“CO of what?”

“We sort of handle things. Hide folk away when we don’t want the world to see them - or I should say when some of the intelligence people don’t want the world to see them.”

“Such as my self?”

“Ya. Oh, ya. Right, Captain Bond. Look, you ready for the medical examinations, eh?”

Bond gave a long sigh, then nodded. “Lead me to them.”

The doctors spent over three hours going over him. There was a general examination, and a few tests. The ENT specialist said he was lucky. “Eardrums’re intact. Miracle from what I hear.” This particular specialist was very much in the military mould.

Bond only became angry when they took him to a room in the hospital block that smelled strongly of psychiatrist. You could tell, first, by the pictures on the wall: light-grey skies and calm landscapes. Then there was the abundance of plant life. You could have been in Kew Gardens, and the young, very laid-back young man leaning in his adjustable Draberl chair, had about him an air of calm, laced heavily with deep anxiety. But it was the Rorschach test that clinched it. In his day, Bond had seen experts play with psychiatrists when they brought out the ink blots. He also knew the crazy and clever answers that gave an analyst the Rorschach protocol.

“Just look at each one, and tell me what you see.” The young man laid the ink blots on the desk one at a time. A butterfly that could be a praying mantis if you were dangerous enough; a kissing couple, which might just be a nasty weapon. Each time Bond told him the blot looked like a woman’s breasts, so when they finished the psychiatrist smiled - “You’re extracting the urine, aren’t you, Captain Bond?”

“In a word - yes. Look, doc, I’ve been through worse traumas than this in my time. Yes, I feel as most men do, after the sudden, destructive loss of a woman I’d come to care about. But I do know that it was all quick. Too quick. Immediately afterwards there was sorrow, and a little self-pity. Shock, if you like. Now I just feel very angry, Angry with myself for being such a prat.

Angry with them, for setting me up. Natural, isn’t it?”

The psychiatrist smiled and nodded. “On your way, Captain Bond.

Anger’s the healthiest reaction, so let’s not waste each other’s time.”

Bond did not reveal that he had a sneaking suspicion that another few strands of wool were being pulled over his eyes. That would come out in time. Give them enough rope, or wool for that matter.

Julian was waiting for him. “CO would like a word, I think, sir.

“A word, or several sentences?”

Julian whinnied, “Oh, ya,jolly good. Right. Ya.”

The buildings were quite long, brick structures, set as though some designer had just thrown six models at random inside the perimeter fencing. They were single storey and, while there were windows down each side, Bond had noted that the interior rooms had no windows at all, the natural light flowing only into corridors. In both the living-quarters and hospital there had been notices in several languages commanding people not to talk in the corridors. The conclusion was obvious. The inner rooms were shielded against all types of sound-stealing.

As they crossed the compound, he tried to identify the obvious uses of the buildings. One for staff’ one for senior staff’ the hospital; one sprouting every kind of antenna known to man, therefore the communications centre; a possible guest suite (the one in which he was quartered) and, at the furthest point from the entrance, the executive offices.

It sounded about right, as Julian was leading him towards this last building. Julian, Bond thought, was not such a stupid idiot as he had first appeared.

The Commanding Officer had a large room tucked neatly in the centre of a nest of other rooms within the executive offices.

Julian tapped at the door and a voice, distinctly American, possibly southern, called “Okay.” The voice was as slow and smooth as molasses.

“Captain James Bond, Royal Navy, sir.“Julian brayed. Bond painted a smile on his face and found himself alone in the room with the door closed and Julian left on the outside.

There were no potted plants here; and no soothing paintings.

Two maps covered one large wall - one of the local Italian area, and another of Europe. The second was highly detailed and contained a lot of military symbols. The remaining pictures were very United States gung-ho. Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters figured largely, and the Chinooks had combat-ready troops pouring out of the doors, while mortar bombs burst nearby.

“Come on in, Captain Bond. Pleased to have you here.” As he came around the desk, the CO looked as though he had stepped straight out of a glossy ad from some very smart magazine which sold clothes in the megadollar bracket. The beige suit had the look of a genuine Battistoni, which you cannot buy on army pay, and certainly not on what you get from any of the Intelligence Services; the shirt was identifiably Jermyn Street irregular; the silk tie was probably made up specially, maybe by Gucci, in the stripes of some United States Army Regiment. The shoes needed no second-guessing: hand-stitched Gucci.

No guessing, one hundred out of a possible fifty.

The man inside the clothes was short, sleek, balding, and, as they say in the sub-titles, some tough hombre, even though he was surrounded by a hint of Hermes cologne. “Real good to see you, Captain. Sorry about your trouble earlier today. Not exactly the way to spend the holiday season, but I guess in our business we work, even a few hours, on Christmas Day. I once heard some author say he did that, but maybe he was exaggerating. Anyways, welcome to Northanger.”