John Gardner - Never send flowers

`Jesus,' he said.

There, on the ground, almost at his feet, was a pure white rose, its petals tipped in blood red.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE WHITE KNIGHT

In spite of urgent appeals by M, the Greek police did not let Bond and Fredericka leave for London.

Instead, they were subjected to lengthy interrogations, and it was almost thirty-six hours before they were allowed to sign statements and go. As with anything else in Greece, time appeared to have no meaning.

So it was not until late afternoon on the Thursday that they attended what amounted to a Council of War in M's office.

Bill Tanner drove them in from Heathrow, talking the whole way, briefing them on the situation.

The villa, on the outskirts of Milan, in which they had interrogated Daniel Dragonpol, belonged to the local police, who shared it with the Italian equivalent of the Security Service. For several years they had used this house as offices and a special briefing centre for police and troops preparing for VIP visitors. Because of the limitations of its use, the facility had no truly secure area in which to keep anyone under detention.

During Dragonpol's long debriefing, the Italians had argued about the relative merits of preparing some makeshift accommodation on the spot, or driving Daniel five miles or so to a police precinct with cells. In the end, it was decided to secure an area on the spot, so new locks and some bars were fitted to one of the outbuildings. They reasoned that, if they left a pair of police officers with the subject, he could be kept safe until midday, when M had asked for the next session to begin. There was no cause for alarm. After all this was not a high-risk suspect.

Unfortunately the bulk of those who had been working the case had done almost twenty-four hours on duty by the time M stopped the interrogation. The result was some very tired people who wanted sleep, and only sleep.

The two police officers detailed to act as guards for Daniel Dragonpol were as tired as anybody else. They locked themselves into the specially prepared outbuilding which had been equipped with two bunks and a chair. Their instructions were to see that Daniel got as much rest as possible, and they planned to watch over him in shifts one man sleeping on the spare bunk while the other remained awake. They had taken two flasks of coffee in with them, and nobody seriously considered Daniel Dragonpol to be dangerous. As one of the senior police officers later said, `He seemed relieved that his brother was dead, and untroubled about the future. He appeared to have grasped the fact that he would probably serve some kind of a prison sentence for manslaughter, but that didn't seem to worry him." At just before nine-thirty in the morning, several well-rested police officers were bused out to the facility from the centre of Milan. Two of these fresh men were immediately instructed to relieve the Dragonpol guards.

When they reached the outbuilding, they found the door open and the two police guards dead.

One had burns on his face, and had been garrotted with his own tie. The other had died from gunshot wounds, killed at close range with his own pistol.

In all probability this man was already unconscious when his killer had placed a pillow over his head and fired through it twice, thereby reducing the noise but in no way impeding the deadly progress of the bullets.

The strangled policeman had been stripped of his uniform. There was no trace of Dragonpol and few clues as to where he had gone.

Neither was there any way to determine the sequence of events. A spilled flask of coffee indicated that Dragonpol, most likely, had been allowed to pour his own beverage which he had flung into the face of one cop, turning and felling the second man with a blow to the head.

One thing had been proved definitely. When the strangled cop went down, his watch had struck the floor and smashed, giving investigators a time frame. The deaths, and following escape, had taken place at six-thirty, barely an hour after the interrogation finished. The only other certainty was that Daniel Dragonpol was loose and dangerous.

`Looks like our Daniel was really David,' Bond mused.

`We consider that an absolute certainty,' Tanner agreed. They had just come off the M4 motorway, and were heading into the centre of London.

`So who did Carmel think she was bringing to us?" Fredericka asked.

The bomb incident in Athens had shaken her considerably.

`Yes, what did Carmel think she was doing?" The scene on the rooftops of the Duomo replayed in Bond's mind. Carmel waving and calling. Then the lethal walking stick coming up. Carmel shouting, `No! James, no! He's.

He saw the stick again. Heard the shout in his head for a second time. Now, in retrospect, he wondered if the man lifting the stick was really only raising it in greeting, just before the shots crashed out.

`Maybe... he began. Then, `Maybe we all made some terrible mistake." The more he thought the scene through, the more he became convinced that Carmel, and the man they thought was David, came in peace. Presently he asked, `And Maeve?" The Chief of Staff gave a long sigh. `The German police did not do as we asked. They did not even have one man watching Schloss Drache.

When the orders went out to pull Maeve, they found she had flown-probably two days ago.

`And one or the other of them took a shot at us by filling the Porsche with explosives, killing an unfortunate Greek boy instead." Bond did not seem to be talking to anyone in particular.

`Did he have time to catch up with us?" Fredericka was now more animated.

Tanner sashayed the car between a bus and a taxi. The cabby did not like being cut up and made it clear. `And you, mate,' Tanner said quietly, then carried on as if nothing had happened. `If Daniel were really David then we can't rely on anything he's told us. The place behind La Scala, where David was supposed to be hiding out, for instance.

That's almost certainly a red herring. Yes, David probably could have caught up with you. It's even possible that he has another bolt hole, complete with the means for a disguise, and a cache of weapons and explosives. He might even have spotted you out at the aimort and decided to have a go a spur of the moment kind of thing." `That's not his usual MO." Bond still sounded distant.

`Who knows? He went for high-profile targets of opportunity and usually made longterm preparations. But in your case he would certainly have made an exception. Time is on his side. After all, he's got until Sunday morning before he pulls off the royal assassination.

`You still think he's going for that?" `It's the reason some of the best people in the business are sitting waiting for you in M's office at this very moment. And you, James, are the designated slayer of dragons.

Indeed, the group sitting and standing around the glass and chrome desk in M's office did consist of the best. He recognized a senior Special Air Service officer, and a commander from the Metropolitan Police. The latter, whose name he thought was Robb, controlled the Diplomatic Bodyguard Section, which included the so-called Royal Detectives. There was also a roly-poly little man with a constant smile-introduced simply as Ben who turned out to be Head of Security for the Euro Disney complex, some twenty miles east of Paris. Yet another member of the group had sham, chiselled features and looked distinctly French. He also did not seem at ease in civilian clothes.

`This is Colonel Fontaine, of GIGN,' M introduced them, and the Frenchman gave a little nod of recognition. `Captain Bond, you've worked with GIGN beJore I think. Colonel Veron speaks highly of you.

There was a slight release of tension in the room which Bond put down to the stiff attitude Fontaine had obviously been taking. The French Special Forces Unit-GIGN-is not known for willing cooperation, even with its allies, and particularly on its home ground.