Solo (32 page)

He wandered off and Bond sat back in his chair thinking. Sometimes, he reasoned, the stakes – the rewards – can become so high that illegitimacy, malfeasance, even murder seem entirely reasonable, not to say logical, courses of action. All this oil was waiting under the ground in the Zanza River Delta – and one man, Hulbert Linck, knew too much, could cause potential problems, could stand in the way of the new order being established. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier if he wasn’t there any more? That he didn’t have to be factored into any plans? Someone very high up in government circles, someone very important, would make a decision. Don’t we have ‘people’ who can sort these kind of things out for us? Yes, sir. I believe Luke Massinette is the ideal man for the job. And he’s available. Fine – so make sure he’s an integral part of the search for Hulbert Linck and tell him exactly what to do once we’ve found him. Don’t mess up.

Bond lit a cigarette. ‘Dirty tricks’ were as old as history. As old as diplomacy. As old as spying. All the same, he had to admit, sometimes the sheer candid ruthlessness of absolute power did shake you up somewhat. He understood why Felix had worn that expression on his face for a second or two.

Felix returned. ‘You can telephone the USA from Port Dunbar. That’s what I call progress.’

‘Realpolitik is not just a German concept,’ Bond said. ‘Everything can be made to happen.’ He smiled. Felix nodded. They both knew the global subtext now, the underlying story.

‘What’re you going to do with Adeka?’ Bond asked, changing the subject.

‘I think he likes it in Washington DC. He’ll become a wealthy man once the leases are renegotiated with the government of Zanzarim. We can keep an eye on him – and Colonel Denga and this Dr Masind, if necessary. The drug-smuggling issues give us a little leverage. I’m sure they’ll behave.’

‘Will Adeka be Gabriel or Solomon?’ Bond asked.

‘I don’t think we really give a damn, to be honest. Now everything’s sorted out to our satisfaction.’ Felix looked serious and placed his glass down on the table.

‘I think we just figured it all out, didn’t we?’ Felix said.

‘Yes,’ Bond said. ‘How would you express it? We picked the gnat’s shit out of the pepper.’

Bond sat back and drained his glass. They looked at each other: two men who knew all too well how the world worked. Bond thought to himself about what had happened – he called it the Thomas à Becket solution. Henry II had understood this in 1170 as clearly as those who had wanted Hulbert Linck eliminated 800 years later. ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ – so Henry II had asked his leading question. And Thomas à Becket had been duly assassinated. Will no one rid me of Hulbert Linck . . . ? Step forward Agent Massinette. Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to make it go away.

Bond shrugged and smiled. ‘At root, most problems are very straightforward. And the solution is usually very straightforward as well. Though sometimes brutal.’

‘Except that often it doesn’t
seem
straightforward.’

‘Ah, but we like that,’ Bond said. ‘The more smoke and mirrors the better.’

Felix looked at him, closely.

‘In the midst of all this smoke, there’s just one thing that strikes me, James.’

‘What’s that?’

‘There are very few people in the world who know about Gabriel and Solomon Adeka. Denga must know. Linck did, but he’s dead. This Indian doctor, Masind, does. And Kobus Breed – he’s probably dead, or out of action anyway. It just strikes me that you – you – are maybe the only person around who’s actually ever been face to face with both the brothers.’

‘What’re you saying, Felix?’

‘That you’re a man with a very, very privileged piece of information indeed. I would keep it to yourself, James. I certainly won’t mention anything of what you told me to any of my people. You know as well as I do that knowledge is power – but owning this kind of knowledge can be as dangerous as owning an unexploded bomb . . . Just be careful, OK?’

‘I’ll try,’ Bond said, and smiled.

M’s office was bluey-grey with hanging strata of pipe smoke and Bond’s eyes began stinging within two minutes of their meeting commencing. He must have been smoking all day, Bond thought, and usually that was a sign of trouble.

But M seemed genial – or at least the impenetrable mask he wore was genial. He had sat there without a word, attending to Bond’s narrative of events, puffing away on his pipe, with a nod and a smile from time to time, almost like an uncle patiently listening to his nephew recount the details of his school’s sports day.

‘And there you have it, sir,’ Bond said. ‘The scramble for Zanzarim’s oil is in full enthusiastic swing. I saw it with my own eyes – every oil company in the world wanting a piece of the action.’

‘And we’re at the head of the queue,’ M said, putting his pipe down and smoothing back his thinning hair with the palm of one hand. ‘Excellent,’ he said thoughtfully to himself, pursing his lips and tugging at an ear lobe. Bond knew the signs, it was not a moment to interject. M would speak in his own good time.

‘I should probably discipline you in some way, 007,’ M said finally. ‘For going solo in such a dramatic and headstrong manner – for vanishing like that. But I’ve decided that would be perverse.’

‘May I ask why, sir?’

‘Because – paradoxically, even astonishingly – you achieved everything that was asked of you. The war is over and Zanzarim is reunited. A little corner of Africa is at peace and has a bright, prosperous future. Thanks to your efforts.’

‘And we can acquire all the oil we need.’

M’s eyes sharpened.

‘Cynicism doesn’t suit you, 007,’ he said. ‘Oil has nothing to do with us. We – you and I – are just naval ratings on the ship of state. We were given a task and we carried it out. Or rather you did all the hard work – I only put you forward as the right man for the job.’ He allowed himself a half-smile. ‘And it turned out I was correct. I know it hasn’t been an easy time for you but we’ll find a way of recognising that, James, don’t you worry.’

Bond noticed the deliberate use of his Christian name. The mood was mellowing again, but he wanted to make his point.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ Bond said. ‘For both of us.’

‘Us?’

‘The British and the Americans. We seem to be sitting pretty.’

‘And what could be wrong with that?’ M stood up, signalling that the meeting was at an end. Bond rose to his feet also, as M came round from behind his desk. ‘Don’t go there,’ he said, his voice leavened with delicate warning. ‘It’s not our affair. We’re servants of Her Majesty’s Government, whatever its political hue. We are part of the Secret Intelligence Service. Civil servants in the pure sense of the term.’

‘Of course,’ Bond said. ‘As you know, sir,
je suis un paysan écossais
– all this multinational, macroeconomic forward-planning is lost on me.’

‘He said, disingenuously.’

They both smiled and moved to the door, where M briefly rested his hand on Bond’s shoulder.

‘You did exceptionally well, 007. Did us proud.’

It was a significant compliment, Bond knew. And suddenly he saw how much had been at stake; how his obscure mission in a small African country had possessed a geopolitical resonance and fallout that he could never have imagined. That he would never have wanted to imagine when he had set out on it, he told himself.

M patted his shoulder again, avuncularly.

‘Come in and see me on Monday morning. I think I might have an interesting little job for you.’

No rest for the wicked, Bond thought.

‘See you Monday morning, sir.’

‘Any plans for the weekend?’

‘I have to return some lost property.’

Bond knocked on Vampiria’s door. He had had his hair cut and a massage and was wearing his dark navy-blue worsted suit, a heavy cream silk shirt and a pale blue knitted silk tie. He sensed he was back to normal – feeling as well as he had in months.

Bryce Fitzjohn opened the door to her caravan. She was wearing a ginger gaberdine double-breasted trouser suit with a white cashmere polo neck and her hair was pinned up in a loose bun.

‘Too early?’ Bond asked.

‘No – perfect timing. Vampiria is no more, consumed by hellfire.’ She looked him up and down approvingly. ‘You seem very fit and well, Mr Bond. Step inside. I don’t want to kiss you with half the crew looking on.’

He went inside and they kissed, gently, passionately. Bond felt a kind of release inside him, a rare surge of well-being. Perhaps he could let everything go for twenty-four hours and be himself with this wonderful woman.

‘How was your trip to Americay?’

‘It was . . . interesting.’

‘No new scars?’

‘A scar-free sojourn, I’m glad to report.’ He smiled, reassuring her, but he made the qualification to himself – at least none visible.

Bond drove her back to Richmond in his Interceptor II.

‘Is this a new car?’ Bryce asked.

‘On approval. I’m not sure I can afford it.’

‘Are you all right, James?’

‘I am now,’ he said with real sincerity. ‘I was feeling a bit out of sorts – and then I saw you again.’

‘We do our best,’ she said, reaching over to touch his cheek with her knuckles. There was an understanding between them, Bond thought. So much of what they communicated was unspoken. She already knew him, it seemed – his necessary reticences, places he couldn’t go – and he received in return her covert messages of desire and affection, of real warmth. The hidden currents of their conversation were deep and strong.

Back at her house she told him they were having a repeat meal: champagne, a steak and a tomato salad and a great bottle of red wine. When she went into the kitchen to decant the wine – she’d chosen a Chateau Cantemerle 1955 – Bond slipped into her study and replaced her passport in the top drawer. Dennis Fieldfare had swiftly reconstituted it in its original form – it looked completely identical to the one he’d purloined, though maybe one day Bryce would wonder how she’d acquired those US immigration stamps while she’d been busy filming
Vampiria
in the Thames Valley, but Bond reckoned he’d managed the duplicity without being discovered. She would have no idea how helpful she had been.

They ate, they drank and later they made love like old and practised familiars.

‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ she said, lying in his arms, smoothing the forelock from his brow with a finger. ‘I’ve missed you, absurd though it may sound. And remember you promised me a holiday.’

‘I’m going to take you to Jamaica,’ he said. ‘Ever been there?’

‘No, I haven’t. How rather wonderful.’

‘Stand by for the trip of a lifetime.’

‘How can I possibly thank you, Mr Bond?’ she said, shifting forward and kissing him, letting her tongue linger in his mouth. ‘Maybe I can think of something a little out of the ordinary . . .’ She flicked the sheet away from his naked body.

Bond woke. He had heard a noise. He heard it again – a sharp patter of fine gravel thrown against the windowpane almost like a rain-shower. He looked at his watch – 4.55 a.m. Bryce was soundly asleep. Bond slipped out of bed and parted the curtains an inch and peered out. The opaque grey expanse of the lawn, lit by the moonlight, was revealed below and beyond it, through a fringe of trees, flowed the silvered river at high tide. Then he thought he saw some shadow move in the darkness and felt himself tense, suddenly. He gathered up his clothes and shoes and quietly left the bedroom, dressing quickly on the landing. He pulled on his socks and shoes and then his jacket, shoving his tie into a pocket. There was somebody out there in the garden, he was sure, and he was going to find out who it was.

He went downstairs, not switching on any lights. It was an old burglar’s trick, he was aware – throw some gravel at the bedroom windows and if no lights go on you’re pretty much safe to plunder the ground floor. He picked up the poker from beside the fire in the drawing room and crept through to the kitchen and its door on to the garden. Keeping out of sight, he peered through the kitchen windows at the ghostly expanse of the garden within its high walls. Once again he thought he saw something shift in the big herbaceous border by the fig tree. Were his eyes playing tricks with him? But the thrown gravel was no illusion. Perhaps he should just switch the lights on and the interloper would get the message and try to rob another big house in Richmond instead. But Bond had a strange sense about this wake-up call. Thrown gravel. Thrown coins . . . Perhaps somebody wanted to lure him out into the darkness. Well – he was ready for that.

He opened the door and stepped outside. It was cold and his breath condensed, the first intimations of the winter that was approaching. He gripped the poker hard in his fist and walked down a brick path towards the wall and the gate on to the river promenade. He stopped – listening hard. Nothing. A breeze swirled by and leaves rustled. Bond headed for the herbaceous border where he thought he’d seen the movement in the shadows.

He stood at the lawn’s edge looking at the plants in the border for any sign of broken stems or leaves. He reached into his pocket for his lighter and clicked it on, crouching and holding the flame close to the ground. Some leaves had fallen, one plant was oddly bent over. He moved the flame so it cast an oblique light – and he saw the footprints. The soil was moist and the freshly moulded imprints were an inch deep, four of them. Someone had been in this garden, hiding. What was odd was that one footprint, the right, seemed unnaturally turned into the other, and the right heel seemed implanted deeper than the left – and there were a series of round holes beside them also, as if a stick or a cane had been used to rest on. This is madness, Bond thought – but another more rational part of his brain was saying this could be someone deformed, someone who cannot walk unaided. A cripple of some kind . . .