Authors: John Gardner
“What’s your real name?” He disregarded her observation.
“Like I told you. Beatrice,” she pronounced it the Italian way.
“I believe you, but what else? I mean you’re not Dante’s angel, Beatrice. You have other names?”
She giggled. “They told me you were just a blunt, well-trained instrument. A hunk. Now you’re talking literature and poetry.
Full name, Beatrice Maria da Ricci. Italian father, English mother. Educated Benenden and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Father in Italian Foreign Service. When their marriage broke up, I was handed over to Mama, who was a lush.”
“You’re pretty luscious yourself.”
“That’s not funny,” she bridled. “Have you ever had to live with a lush? It just isn’t amusing.”
“I apologise His da Ricci.” There was no side-stepping her anger.
“Okay, I’m touchy about it. I read modern languages, and took the Foreign Office examination . . “And failed.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell me: a man comes around and says that perhaps they can offer you a job within the Foreign Office, and before you know it, you’re mixed up with all the paraphernalia of espionage.” She nodded, “More or less, but they wanted me for languages.
I took another degree in computer sciences and found myself in Santa’s Grotto.”
Bond nodded. In the basement, below the underground parking at that building overlooking Regent’s Park, there was a great sterile computer room they all called Santa’s Grotto. With the advent of the microchip the old Registry had been relegated to a smaller area and people were constantly transferring the paperwork onto a series of giant databases. Rumour had it that all the work would not be completed from past files until the year 2009, or thereabouts, as the crow flies. “Then they remembered you had languages,” he filled in.
“Partly. I got sinus trouble from the air-conditioning.”
“Better than a touch of Legionnaires’ Disease.”
“I asked for a transfer to the real world.”
“No such thing in our business. We’re T S Eliot’s “Hollow Men’; we are also rust-stained dinosaurs. Our day has come, and gone. I give us a decade more. After that, well we could be sitting in front of computer terminals all day and most of the night. It’s known as the invasion of the killer tomatoes syndrome.”
She nodded gravely. “Yes, the days of the Great Game are numbered.”
“The years are numbered. We’re not down to days yet. But, Beatrice Maria da Ricci, which is a classy sort of name anyway, how did a nice girl like you end up in a sordid bullet-catcher’s job like this?”
She leaned over him, her face a few inches from his. “Because I am very good at it, and part of my job, James Bond, is to keep you relaxed and happy.”
“Meaning?”
Their mouths met. Not simply lips brushing, or doing all the things graphically described in romantic novels or those historical things known in the trade as “bodice rippers”. This was real mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of other emotions. After a minute their bodies and hands also moved, and five minutes later Beatrice said, with a husky dryness that matched the delightful smell of her, “Would you like to lie down with me, Mr. Bond?”
“You’re a pleasure to work for, His da Ricci.”
“I hope so.
“Do I get a raise in salary?”
“I think you already got one, Mr. Bond.”
They barely made it to the bedroom. Outside, the sun had come up.
Franco was working on the main gates, fitting a new lock and the electronic sensors that would scream an alarm should anyone tamper with them again. In the rear bedroom of the Villa Capricciani there were low moans and little screams of joy.
In a room high in the main grey, fortress-like villa, the other hood called Umberto stood back in the shadows and scanned the garden and the rocky skyline above them. If anything were going to happen, it would probably come from that direction and not the main gates. A frontal attack had proved dangerous. He wondered if his new boss, the girl who was very much in charge, and whom he had met for the first time a couple of days ago, was vulnerable to a frontal attack. He guessed she was - but not from the hired help.
Far away, in Plymouth, three men had spent the night indulging in the sins of the flesh. They had drunk a great deal, and one of them had been with a tall black girl who had done things to, and for, him that had, until now, only been fantasies.
“It’s time for the deadline,” Harry said to the Petty Officer they called Blackie.
“Time to sell your soul and save all of us,” added Bill.
“Oh, Gawd.” Blackie had been putting off the evil day, stalling for time and knowing time was a commodity he had run out of long ago.
It was Christmas Eve and he had the rail-ticket in his pocket to return to the wife and kids for two weeks’ leave.
“It’s serious.” Bill’s face was set, engraved with concern.
“It was serious when we first told you. Now we’re all in a mess .
- - “I know; I know .
“All debts settled and one hundred thousand pictures of Her Majesty just for you, Blackie.”
“Yeah. I just.
“Look, Blackie,” Bill had wrapped his large strong fingers around the Petty Officer’s wrist, making the man wince with pain. “Look, it’s not as though you were being asked to steal anything. These people need a few hours, that’s all.”
“I know he paused, his bleary eyes moving slowly around the room.
“I know, and I ain’t got no option, have I?”
“Not really.” Harry was quiet, soft-spoken and persuasive.
The Petty Officer nodded, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“That’s a solemn promise?” from Bill.
“On my mother’s grave.
“They’ll give you time, place and the equipment before you leave.
If it happens, you’ll get the money and the slate’s wiped clean.
If you chicken out… well, I wouldn’t fancy your chances.
Harry and me? Well, we can always do a runner. Tough, but we could do it -just. You have nowhere to hide, Blackie, and they’d come looking, fast as a swarm of hornets and a lot more painful.”
“I said I’d do it.” The Petty Officer was very convincing. But, then, he was not lying. As far as he was concerned, all other options had run out.
A mm Browning automatic pistol is not the easiest thing to conceal about your person. This is why the “close protection” experts advise smaller, lighter weapons which will do just the same job.
Beatrice carried her pistol in a shoulder-bag; Bond used the shoulder-holster, adjusted so that the pistol lay directly behind his left shoulder blade.
Franco and Umberto, who had both stayed well out of sight, were left to look after matters while Bond and Beatrice went off into Forio on their shopping expedition. On this Saturday the little town, with its narrow streets and limited parking facilities, strictly controlled by the local police, was crowded with people doing their last odds and ends of Christmas shopping.
They found a place to park legally and Beatrice, who had made a list of food and other good things that would allow them a pleasant, somewhat gluttonous day, led the way to the nearest market where she shuffled Bond from aisle to aisle, knowing instinctively where the various items were to be found. They filled one large wire trolley, with a mind of its own, in a matter of twenty minutes and Bond noticed, to his pleasure, that Beatrice hardly looked at the shelves at all.
She would murmur where he should go next, and reel off the list of required items, but her eyes were alertly stabbing around the crowded market, and she kept one hand inside her shoulder-bag.
Bond felt that he had found the compleat pro in His Beatrice Maria da Ricci. Everything she did adhered to best security practice, and she appeared to have eyes in the back of her head.
At one point, while facing away from him, she murmured, “No, James. Not the Belgian ones. Take the French, they’re a few lire more but one hundred percent better.” Or, again, in similar circumstances, “The bottles, not the tins. Once you open a tin you have to use the whole lot. The bottles will seal again.”
They even bought a small tree and some gaudy baubles. “A Christmas to remember.” She smiled at him, the black eyes inviting him to return immediately to the delights of the morning.
It was the one time during the expedition that she actually looked at Bond.
They loaded their purchases into the car, and Bond insisted on going on his own to make a secret transaction. She did not like it, but agreed to stand guard in front of the shop - a jeweller’s in which he bought an exquisite gold clasp, shaped like a scutum - the old oblong or oval shield used by the early Roman army with a large diamond centre, and an edging of smaller diamonds.
It cost a ransom, but they took Amex and he would pay for it with his private money. The little jeweller smiled a lot and gift-wrapped the piece with exaggerated care. It was Only when he was back on the street again that Bond realised it had been a long time since he had bought such an extravagant gift for a woman: particularly one he had known for less than twenty-four hours. Could it really happen like this? he wondered. Women had come easily to him, but his own expertise, and the exigencies of his service life, had usually held him back from any deep involvement. Had he really broken the rule of years?
He drove, with Beatrice giving instructions. They finally reached an intersection where the traffic was blocked, held at bay or waved on by a tall, unhappy-looking police-officer.
Beatrice had her pistol on her lap, hand wound round the butt, her eyes moving everywhere at once, darting constantly to the vanity mirror on the sun-visor which she had pulled down.
Slowly the traffic crept towards the white stop-marker until it was the little Fiat’s turn. Bond had his eyes on the cop, waiting for the quick hand-signal that would wave him on, when suddenly he sensed other eyes on him to the right and directly ahead. He moved and saw, with a sense of shock, a girl turn away quickly and start to walk at speed with her back to him. But he recognised her in that one fast glance, and the movement of her body, as she stepped along the pavement.
There was a beeping of motor horns, and Beatrice testily snapped, “He’s waving you on,James. For heaven’s sake, move.”
He slid the clutch out and negotiated the turn, the traffic cop making a gesture with his eyes and head which indicated that this driver ought not to be allowed on the road at all.
He drove back to the Villa Capricciani with a troubled mind, wondering what in heaven’s name First Officer Clover Pennington, of the RNAS Yeovilton was doing on Ischia: particularly what she was doing in the town of Forio, not five miles from where he was staying.
All the Other Demons For a few seconds, James Bond wondered if it was guilt gnawing at his conscience. He had certainly shown, at the least, a sexual attraction to Clover, but this had gone cold when she proved to be an uncertain security risk. There had been something not quite right about First Officer Pennington. Now her geographic proximity to him triggered anxiety. He would tell Beatrice when the moment was right, later.
The gates were open at the Villa Capricciani, and a short, stocky young man stood near the steps. He wore jeans and a T-shirt which proclaimed The Man Who Dies With The Tost Toys Wins. His hair was golden-bleached by the, now departed, summer sun, and the muscles visible on his arms were toned to an awesome strength. Take off the T-shirt, Bond thought, and his body would give an impression of sixteenth-century armour, complete with breastplate, vambraces and pauldrons. Even from this distance, you could mark him down as a trained minder.
“Franco,” Beatrice explained.
He started to unload the car while Beatrice spoke in a soft murmur to Franco, who eventually came down, closed the gates, locked them and, with a conspiratorial wink, handed a key to Bond. He also pointed to a tiny switch set in the wall, all but covered by ivy. In almost tedious dumb show, Franco activated the switch, indicating that if anyone fiddled with the gates or lock, the “screamers” would begin wailing.
Then they all went up to the villa, and Franco disappeared through the rear french windows on his way back to the big villa.
He looked like a man who would not need to use the doors, but could walk straight through the walls, pausing only to shake brick-dust from his hair.
Leaving Beatrice to deal with the food and drink, Bond went down the steps again, locked the car, made it secure, and returned, locking the inner gate behind him.
“They’re not going to like it.” Beatrice came to him, holding him gently in her arms and pressing herself against his body.
“They’re not going to get it.” Bond smiled down at her.
She sighed. “Oh, James, be your age.
“I usually am.” He was genuinely surprised to have used such an old schoolboy piece of repartee. Beatrice seemed to have wrought an unexpected change in him.
“Listen to me. Poor old Franco and Umberto will have to spend this Christmas as watchers. The Rottweilers will prowl the grounds, and I’m not going to let you, my darling James, out of my sight, unless the bloody BAST people have another go.
“Eat your hearts out, Franco and Umberto.”
“Mmmm,” she nodded. “I’m going up to the big villa now.
Give them instructions. Make an obligatory “phone call. Then I’ll be back and the celebrations can commence.” She gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek, and he felt that his face had never yet been kissed like this. Beatrice had the art of kissing a cheek, as though it were his mouth, or even his deepest secret being.
Kissing, he considered, was a lost art in this crumbling, shock ridden world. Beatrice had rediscovered it, and now practised the craft in a way that had been hidden for centuries. He stood on the rear terrace, listening to her footsteps on the stone path, wondering what had happened to him. He had never been one for quick, serious decisions of the heart. Quick, serious decisions were for operational service matters, not for women. Yet this girl had certainly worked a powerful and potent magic. He felt, after one day, that he had known her for most of his life.
It was untypical, and it worried him, for, in this short space of time, Beatrice had started to command his heart. Bond’s discipline was such that this rarely happened. Even the courting of his now dead wife had taken time. Apart from that one instance he was one of life’s natural playboy bachelors as far as women were concerned: one who had so often lived by the three Fs Find, Fornicate and Forget. It was the safest way in his job, for basically he believed Field Officers should only be married if they needed the cover. It was a cold and clinical approach, but the right one. Beatrice was turning it upside down.