Christopher Wood - The Spy Who Loved Me

Slowly, Bond’s mind cleared and he realized what he was looking at. One of the buttons on the shirt of the man who was standing in front of him. . .

‘He is conscious.’ The voice was Russian.

A rough hand jerked Bond's head backwards and he looked into a square, clumsily-featured face that might have been whittled with a blunt penknife. So, the two men at the son-et- lumiére had been Russians. At least, this one was. Bond did not say anything but concentrated on clearing his head and testing the rope that secured his hands behind the back of a chair. It must have been tightened nearly to the bone. His ankles were also bound to the two front legs of the chair. This was ominous. The more so when one examined the apparatus that the second man was connecting to a heavy-duty battery. It was a small metal box with an on/off switch and a glass panel showing a red calibrated dial. There was also a lever, currently resting at the top of its vertical slot and, most sinister of all, two long thin wires leading away from the side of the box and ending in metal claws.

Bond forgot about the throbbing lump on the back of his head. He knew what the box was and he knew what they were going to do to him. The man who had been connecting the battery leads stood up and nodded to his companion. They were ready. There was no sign of the big man.

Bond looked round the shabby, featureless room and tried to find items to concentrate on. If you were being tortured it helped to focus on something. Direct yourself away from the agony and the information you were supposed to be giving to some totally unrelated, meaningless object. Bond’s eyes glanced off the naked lightbulb and lit upon a calendar on the far wall. It showed the Egyptian version of a pin-up, a pretty black-haired girl showing her face but nothing else and extending a shy hand towards a motor scooter. She gazed at Bond as she must have gazed at the cameraman, not quite certain what either of them was doing. Yes, she would do. They would see this thing through together.

‘Mr Bond.’ It was a surprise to hear his own name, and spoken in good English with only the faintest trace of accent. ‘The answer to one simple question can save you excruciating pain and mutilation. Where is the blueprint of the tracking system?’ Despite his predicament, Bond felt like laughing out loud. ‘I don’t have the tracking system.’

The man holding the metal claws began to tap them together like castanets.

‘Then why did you kill Fekkesh?'

The question threw Bond. They had killed Fekkesh. The big gorilla with a mouth like a barracuda had chewed a hole out of his neck. What were they getting at? They must be laying some kind of trap. Did they think that Fekkesh had handed over the blueprint before he was killed? Or perhaps hidden it somewhere for Bond to find? That must be it. They wanted to tie up the loose ends.

Bond took a deep breath before replying because he knew that his answer was going to cause him a lot of pain.

‘Sorry, chum. You’ve drawn the same answer. I didn’t kill him.' No flicker of emotion passed through the man’s face. He shrugged and then bent forward and started to unbuckle Bond’s belt. Bond’s stomach froze. If the beads of sweat that were pouring off him ran over it they would turn into icicles. He looked towards the man standing by the metal box and then turned away. The man’s eyes were glistening lasciviously. Pain was his mistress. The top of Bond’s trousers was unhooked and the buttons undone one by one. He was like a child being taken to the lavatory. Then the trousers and underpants were pulled down to his knees. Bond sought the surprised eyes of the girl in the calendar. It was strange but he felt embarrassed looking at her. She was like the girl at the dentist who hands you a glass of pink water that your numb mouth finds it difficult to spit into. Her disdaining smile apologizing for your clumsiness.

‘This is your final chance. Where is the microfilm?’

‘Go and — yourself! ! ’

The man did not reward Bond’s obscenity with a slap across the face. He was a professional and he could afford to conserve his energy. An electric current passed through the genitals was a million times more effective than beating a man’s face to a bloody pulp. He stood back and his accomplice hurried forward with the claws. There was about him an indecent, scuttling haste, like a crab closing with a cracked mollusc. His breath stank and Bond turned his head away from the noisome odour. He glimpsed the claws sprung wide and then winced as the metal closed about his soft flesh. This pain was bad enough. How could he stand more?

The operator bit his lip for an instant and then returned to the machine. He moved his hand to the on/off switch and then turned to Bond as if to photograph him in repose. Bond could feel him estimating how much give there was in the ropes. How far Bond’s tortured, screaming body would be able to leap into the air. Then, he pressed down the switch.

Immediately, Bond felt a nerve-jangling tremor fanning out from the most sensitive of his organs. It was not a pain but it set his teeth on edge. The machine had come to life and was saying that it was ready to inflict agony. Bond concentrated on the girl in the calendar and tried to bury himself deep in her soft, brown eyes.

‘You are stupid, Mr Bond. Because, in the end, you arc going to tell us everything we want to know.' Bond’s gaze did not deviate. ‘We will start slowly, just to give you a taste of what is to come.’

Keep looking into the kind brown eyes. The nice lady is trying to sell you a motorcycle. With a motorcycle you could drive away from this room and never come back. You could The scream left Bond's body as if it were taking most of his vital organs with it. He felt his body dismantling to make way for its passage through his throat, but his throat wasn’t big enough. The scream escaped through his brain, through his ears. Everywhere. He had been prepared for pain but this was too horrible. It was a physical invasion of his body. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. As if his whole nervous system had been turned over with a sharpened spade.

‘You see.’ The voice came through the mists of purple pain. ‘It is not pleasant, is it? And it can go on, and on, and on.1 Bond’s body was awash with sweat. He could feel it dripping down on to his chest. There was a cruel throbbing from his wrists telling of the strain he must have put on his tightly tethered hands when the current threw him forward. ‘But do not despair. It is when you can no longer feel that you should become worried. For then you will no longer be a man.’ God save me, thought Bond. Is there any other force on Earth or in Heaven that can pluck me from this crucifying rack of pain? ‘Would you rather talk now, or later?’

Bond pulled his head up and once more focused on the calendar. Come on, Sweetheart. We can do better than this. I thought we had something beautiful going between us. I thought we were on the brink of something -

This time, Bond was prepared for the wave of pain. It swept in like a rising tide, probing familiar ground, infiltrating pre-explored crevasses. And then it edged forward, overlapping itself to invade new territory. Saturating unexplored sand, drawing forth new screams of seared, screeching agony. The hinges of Bond’s mouth snapped back and his throat divided into the columns of an organ as he hurled himself forward against the cruel ropes. The roman candle of pain between his legs was burning out his soul.

‘Niet!’

The waves fell back and the sea of suffering slowly withdrew. Bond, head on sweat-soaked chest, strained his throbbing cars for another sound of that female voice.

‘Fools! Imbeciles! Are you trying to kill him?’ She was speaking Russian but Bond could keep pace with her. His time for a diploma at the defector Vozdvishensky’s language symposium for employees of the ‘Ministry of Defence' had broken all records. ‘What information can he yield us dead?’ There was an immediate murmur of disgruntled disapproval. Bond opened one eye, straining to catch sight of this newcomer. He saw two slim trouser-legs. One petulant heel tapping against the floor. ‘Must I remind you again who is in control of this operation? Untie him and revive him. We have drugs that can do this work.* Not entirely an altruist, thought Bond.