Brokenclaw

by Gardner, John

  The large black man who sat at the electronics equipment appeared to be in charge, for it was to him that Brokenclaw spoke. ‘Andrew, I’m sorry to bother you. These are good friends of ours, Mr and Mrs Abelard. Peter, Jenny, this is Andrew, in charge of operations at the moment. What’s on for today, Andrew?’

  Andrew gave a big smile. ‘We’re giving a couple of hotel chains a small fright. Just for the hell of it. Practice.’

  One of the three overlooking the room below spoke softly into a microphone, ‘Okay, twenty-two and twenty-six start selling. Offload all the stuff you bought when the market opened. Just dump it. You have to remember that we’re playing with monopoly money, but the clients out there have the real stuff on their minds.’

  ‘We really only wanted to see if anyone had an advanced scientific calculator.’ Brokenclaw sounded almost apologetic.

  ‘I’ve got a Texas Instruments calculator. You want to borrow it?’ from one of the controllers.

  Chi-Chi replied, saying she would only need it for a short time, and the small calculator was handed back towards her.

  As they left, one of the other controllers was saying, ‘Watch it thirty-two, your gilt-edged are starting to drop. Buy up all you can get your hands on. Do it now, quickly. We can dump them again later; they’ll begin to rise as you buy, then we sell and the bottom’ll drop out for a while.’

  ‘They seem very efficient.’ Chi-Chi managed to remain composed during the return to the study.

  ‘They’re well trained. They’ve all worked on the stock market, and I had them recruited for their skill.’ Brokenclaw gave a sinister little chuckle. ‘They also have motivation. Everyone in that lab has a reason for hating the Stock Exchange. They’ll shout with joy when Wall Street comes tumbling down.’

  ‘I bet they will,’ muttered Chi-Chi.

  Lee left them together in his study, saying that when they were finished with the Black Magic material one of them should just press six on the telephone and they would be put straight through to him.

  They sat, side by side, the Black Magic papers between them, and the pads and pens which had appeared during their absence, directly in front of them.

  Chi-Chi glanced through the first five sheets lying open between the leaves of the leather folder, then wrote quickly on her pad, ‘What in hell’s going on?’

  Bond also riffled through the first five sheets, looked at what she had written and added—

  Operation Jericho was not supposed to be even on the cards yet. It’s a long term plan for tapping into the New York Stock Exchange and causing an unnatural economic disaster over a period of days or weeks. It is aimed at bringing about a complete collapse of the dollar which will in turn hit most of the world’s other major currencies. The Japanese thought of it first, but it seems One-Eye plus our man are going to do it quite soon.

  She nodded, passed over some of the other documents from the file, jotting down—

  What are we going to do?

  Bond scribbled in reply—

  Stay cool. Pretend to go through this stuff, but don’t spin it out. The sooner you start making these pages into microdots the sooner I get out of here and bring in the Fifth Cavalry.

  Bending over the pile of Black Magic pages, they went through the motions of working, making occasional notes, muttering to each other, Chi-Chi doing imaginary calculations and Bond occasionally calling her attention to points of interest.

  There was little doubt that Brokenclaw had gathered together a gold mine from the five kidnapped Navy men, though Black Magic contained scientific data much too advanced for either of them. Bond already knew some words and phrases from the little he had learned of Stealth Technology, and these cropped up between lengthy mathematical equations. The words Radar Cross Section, Visual and Acoustic Signature Reduction, Frequency Emission and Leakage, Laser Enhanced Sonic Signal and the like were familiar, though he could not have written a report on what he read.

  They worked on Black Magic for just over an hour.

  The helicopter made wearisome passes across the wide search area, and Ed Rushia was pleased to get out and stretch his legs on the two occasions they had landed for refuelling. Now, having drawn a complete blank on picking up any of the homer signals, they circled over the Big Sur area. Still no joy. The instruments remained silent and the earphones picked up no beeps.

  They were at the end of the search, having flown back and forth for nearly three hours.

  ‘Negative, Commander?’ the helicopter pilot asked on the internal RT.

  ‘Blank.’ Rushia’s weariness penetrated his voice. ‘Let’s move up the coast towards Monterey.’

  ‘Not in our search area.’

  ‘No, but it’s a quick way home.’

  The helicopter turned north. Below, the bleak and rocky terrain looked endless but for the ribbon of the Pacific Coast Highway.

  Suddenly Rushia strained his hearing. The noise had been only a tiny peep, but the DF needle had swung a fraction to the east. ‘Go East,’ he commanded. ‘Gently. Cut back speed.’

  Two minutes later the signal returned, very weak, hardly audible, but nevertheless there. He looked forward. Tucked into the foot of a rocky outcrop there were trees, a small secondary road, and a house, big, solid and set plumb on a grassy slope. He could see a couple of cars parked openly on a turning circle at the front which faced East, and another drawn up near a big clump of trees on the southern side. Obviously a lot of work had gone into building and landscaping this house, hemmed in by rocks and bleak terrain. As they did the final pass, he even saw what appeared to be a dog pound on the other side of the trees to the south of the house.

  The DF needle quivered, and the little red ‘guide light’ weakly winked on and off while there was an unmistakable morse J & K – the two homer call signs – faint in the headphones.

  ‘Photographs!’ Rushia ordered. ‘Photographs. Then let’s get the hell out of here.’ He had found them, but heaven knew what was shielding the signals. They sounded, he thought, as though they were being transmitted from the centre of the earth.

  Rushia made contact with base, being the carrier with the Curve operations team aboard, calling out co-ordinates, and passing on all positive information that he, Indexer, had tracked down Custodian and Checklist.

  Within fifteen minutes of Rushia’s report reaching the carrier, a piston-engined Lockheed SA 2–37A quiet reconnaissance aircraft lifted off from Moffet Field – the centre for much secret aerial and electronic ‘watch and listen’ work – heading for the co-ordinates Rushia had given. The SA 2–37A is younger brother to the old YO-3A which was used extensively by the US Army, CIA and NASA for some time during the Vietnam War and proved invaluable for gathering information on enemy troop movements. There are not many of them left in service but the SA 2–37A looks like an ordinary, small, one-engined private airplane, yet is fitted with high-definition cameras, and all the sensor and heat-seeking photographic equipment you will find in larger, high-fly reconnaissance aircraft.

  The SA 2–37A did its work quickly. Its two crew members, seated side by side, were both experienced men and within two hours, M, Grant, Tanner and Franks were looking at the resultant photographs with the help of a Recce Pix expert. The various colourings showed clearly that this was no ordinary house, for the various strata of different temperatures picked out the long, symmetrical underground areas.

  ‘They’ve got a whole, well-organised bunker down there,’ Grant said, running his finger along the pink and red areas.

  ‘And on the blow-ups you can see they have an exit near this dog pound thing.’ Tanner circled the area south of the copse which they had already realised was a cleverly camouflaged helicopter pad.

  They found another exit to the north, between two rocky mounds.

  ‘What’s the drill on getting a full-scale raid on this place underway?’ M’s face had taken on the colour of granite.

  ‘We can risk an unofficial assault, using only my people.’ Grant’s brow
furrowed. ‘But it’d be easier to make it a Special Forces deal.’

  ‘You think Comrade Lee’s got the Naval people down there as well as Bond and the girl?’ M’s eyes did not leave the various photographs spread out on the desk.

  ‘There’s room here for some kind of security area, and the heat signatures look like five, maybe six, people.’ Grant again traced his finger round the underground area. ‘Or this one here, though I don’t understand it. If the heat signatures – the red dots – are correct, there seem to be around thirty or forty people, plus a lot of electronic . . . Oh, God!’

  ‘Yes?’ M answered abruptly.

  ‘Jericho!’ Grant spat out. ‘We know the Chinese have this harebrained scheme based on the Japanese report.’

  Franks craned forward. ‘They can’t possibly have that in place and ready to start up. There’s not been time.’

  ‘There’s been time if the Chinese were working along similar lines long before the Japs.’ Grant sounded concerned. ‘I think we should go in. I’m going to get a Presidential instruction if necessary, though we can probably do it through the local cops. They have a Marine Special Forces fast reaction team in training over at Alameda. Let me get the business going.’ He turned towards the bank of telephones just as the red instrument began to cry its long series of single chirps.

  This was M’s contact phone. He grabbed it and said, ‘Curve One . . . Yes, where?’ Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he quickly shot back at the others, ‘It’s Bond. He’s at the bank.’

  14

  A TRIP TO THE BANK

  After the hour of feigned work on the Black Magic material, Bond pulled one of his spare sheets of paper towards him and wrote—

  Don’t worry, my dear. Stick around and you’ll see some fireworks. I’ve been living by my wits on this one so far. Usually something unpleasant happens and I think we’ve almost reached that point. Don’t despair, as a rule I live to fight another day, and it would not be the first time that I’ve saved a lady in distress. Love J.

  Chi-Chi smiled, took the paper and wrote—

  If you save this fair lady, your reward would be pleasing to both of us. Love xxx

  Her face lit up with what Bond would categorise as devilment. He carefully folded the paper, adding to it the other scraps on which they had jotted notes to each other, then placed them in the inside pocket of his jacket. Chi-Chi pressed nine on the telephone. A voice she thought was Ding’s answered, and she asked for Mr Lee.

  ‘You are satisfied, then?’ Brokenclaw appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. The man had the unnerving knack of arriving soundlessly in a room.

  Bond gave him a happy smile. ‘Very satisfied. In some ways I wish we could wait for old One-Eye H’ang, but I know the analysts at Beijing Hsia are waiting to get their hands on this. It’s better than we could ever have hoped for. You are to be congratulated, sir.’

  Lee beamed. ‘All seems to be working towards a conclusion that will please everybody, and after One-Eye arrives tomorrow, we will, with his help, start putting the fear of God into these Americans who still think they rule the world. It might take months, but with the talent we have gathered here and the skilful way they have accessed so many of the stock market computers, it can only be a matter of time. We will have the Huge Crash of 1990, and this time there will be no recovery.’

  ‘If there’s no recovery, your own considerable private fortune’ll also suffer.’

  There was the sly smile again and the soft, hypnotic voice. ‘I think not. Switzerland and Luxembourg are still safe. Over the years I’ve built up many ways of escape, just as I’ve constructed a worldwide network of contacts, informers and businesses. You need not feel worried about me, Comrade Argentbright. I shall be living a pleasant life of retirement while you still work the treadmills at Beijing Hsia.’

  Bond allowed his manner to become cold and distant. ‘I fear that I’m not impressed with what used to be known in my old country as champagne Communists.’ He tried a leer. ‘Incidentally, who’s the bank draft to be made out to?’

  Brokenclaw shrugged off the Communist insult. ‘The bank draft must be made out to Black & Black, Inc.’ He gestured elegantly towards the door. ‘Ding and the helicopter pilot are waiting for you. At least I can be sure you will return with my well-earned money.’

  ‘I shall indeed return, sir. But you must make sure your man Ding knows that he may only follow at a distance. It is absolutely forbidden for him to come into the bank with me. The question of your payment has caused Beijing much grief and they’ve set up a one-time operation which cannot be compromised. So Ding waits outside. Otherwise, I shall return empty-handed and await General H’ang’s instructions when he arrives.’

  Brokenclaw did not seem in the least concerned by these remarks. Once more Bond thought of him as a horrific monster – the manners, voice, gestures were always polite, he carried himself with an imposing assurance and remained calm and reasonable even when condemning a man to death – as in the case of Tony Man Song Hing. He thought briefly that something must be done about Wanda. Where did Lee say she had been taken? Sausalito, that little artists’ colony on the far side of the Bay in Marin County where, it was said, people basked in an alternative lifestyle, drinking wine while stretching out in jacuzzis and learning self-awareness by fanning themselves with peacock feathers.

  Bond embraced Chi-Chi, whispering that he would soon be back. He was halfway down the corridor, following Lee past the dining room, when he realised that she had whispered ‘I love you.’

  Some you win, he thought, then turned his mind back to Sausalito, Wanda and the sleight-of-body that he must now embark upon if Brokenclaw Lee’s organisation was to be smashed this very day.

  Ding stood at the furthest extremity of the passageway beside a young white man who was dressed in black trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt with sunglasses clipped to the breast pocket. They had passed the Jericho laboratory some five hundred yards back, so Bond reckoned that the whole underground complex running south of the house covered an area of around three-quarters of a mile.

  Brokenclaw gave rapid orders to Ding, speaking in fast Cantonese, Ding interrupting with single sharp ‘Ais’, making it obvious that he understood. Bond prayed that Lee was passing on the facts of life to his burly bodyguard. The last thing he required was Bone Bender Ding’s presence in the bank where the Curve team had set up a method of contact, and a means to bring Chi-Chi and himself out from undercover. ‘I’ll be all set and ready for you,’ Grant had said during the briefing. ‘I’ll have three of my best guys working on it.’

  Finally, Brokenclaw nodded, the gesture signifying that they should move quickly. There were the usual stairs at the end of the corridor, this time leading to a door on which electronic bolts had to be deactivated from a small keypad in the wall before it could be opened. Passing through into the sunlight, he saw that even with the security locks, well-trained experts could blow the door in a matter of seconds.

  Bond followed the pilot and Ding took up a position to the rear as they made their way over a long, grassy mound dotted with rocks. To the left, the ground sloped upwards, craggy, high and uninviting like a cliff towering above them. He could smell the sea close at hand and there was the hum of traffic in the distance.

  When they reached the wooded area, some hundred yards from the exit, Bond saw that in fact there were only some forty tall trees forming a rough circle. Inside the circle the way was barred by a high fence, cunningly decorated with evergreens, so that even from a few paces away the circle of trees appeared to be a dense copse.

  The pilot pushed through one pair of trees and pulled down on a branch which opened a small door into the copse. Inside, they were in a fully operational hangar, on the floor of which was a large painted white H.

  A French-built variation of the AS 350 Ecureuil – Squirrel – helicopter sat on the H with a team of three mechanics nearby.

  The pilot spoke with the mechanics for a moment, and one
of them walked over to what looked like an ordinary household fuse box set into the curved wall. As the pilot beckoned to Bond and Ding, so, from the corner of his eye, Bond saw the mechanic operate a lever as though turning on current. There was a soft whining sound, and looking up, he saw the roof above them slowly separate into two halves, opening up like the dome of a planetarium.

  By the time they were all settled into the machine, Bond and Ding occupying two seats directly behind the pilot, the dome had fully opened. The motor started and the rotors began to turn slowly.

  The pilot adjusted his headset, waved the mechanics off and opened the throttles. Gently the helicopter rose clear of the camouflaged hangar.

  At around a thousand feet the pilot began speaking, obviously making contact with the Bay Area ATC. The machine slid sideways and Bond caught a good view of the large house and grounds, mentally memorising its position in relation to the PCH which they could see clearly some five miles away. The house was well protected, almost ringed by rocky outcrops and with the high rise of jagged rock sweeping up behind it.

  They banked and began to track the coastline towards Monterey and San Francisco itself. The sun was high and warm with no sign of cloud or mist obscuring that most pleasing view of San Francisco Bay as they came in across Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, with the long unmistakable outline of the Golden Gate Bridge to their left and the great landmarks of the city standing out like some giant diorama – Telegraph Hill with Coit Tower sprouting from the summit, the tall, needle-like TransAmerica Pyramid, the Embarcadero with the piers reaching like oblong fingers clutching towards Oakland.