Brokenclaw

by Gardner, John

  They ate a simple meal of what Chi-Chi called her Caesar salad, but which Bond would have called a very good Salade Niçoise, followed by raspberries from her freezer with whipped cream. The coffee, he noticed, was Swedish, the Traditional Roast, freshly ground.

  They sat over the coffee and brandy looking at the great undulating strings of lights marking the bridge, until Chi-Chi stifled a yawn.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Bond reached over and held her hand. ‘I haven’t been talking much. A lot on my mind, Chi-Chi.’

  ‘There is an old proverb.’ She looked at him from under lowered lids. ‘I think maybe it is Chinese, and it says, “Those who have love need no prattle.”’

  Bond gave her a smile with his eyes. ‘I didn’t know there was a Chinese word for prattle.’

  ‘Maybe it’s an old English proverb.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He was silent again for a moment. Then, ‘You remember when we woke in Brokenclaw’s lair? The morning when we thought we were in Virginia?’

  ‘Could I forget?’

  ‘I thought I had forgotten, but at one point during that day I remembered something. It was a sundial in Virginia. At the university of that state, there’s an inscription on a sundial which says—

  Time is

  Too slow for those who wait,

  Too swift for those who fear,

  Too long for those who grieve,

  Too short for those who rejoice,

  But for those who love, time is

  Eternity.

  Hours fly,

  Flowers die,

  New days,

  New ways,

  Pass by.

  Love stays.

  ‘I thought of that; remembered that, on the morning we saw the Blue Ridge from the bottom of a devil’s pit, Chi-Chi, and I’ll never think of you without remembering those words.’

  She rose, took his hand and gently led him back into the bedroom.

  They spent a lazy lovers’ Sunday, rising late and eating brunch together on the small table by the picture window. It was two in the afternoon before they finished the meal – orange juice, eggs, bacon, waffles with real maple syrup and coffee. Then they showered and went back to bed, rising again around six.

  ‘I wanted to make us a splendid dinner tonight. A kind of celebration.’ Chi-Chi was in the kitchen. ‘I have everything but wine, and you love wine, James.’

  ‘I can live without it.’ He kissed her. ‘But why don’t I try to find some? American cities always have shops open on a Sunday.’

  She gave a little pout. ‘There’s quite a good liquor store two blocks up. But I don’t want you to go. I’ll put some clothes on and come with you.’

  ‘And that’ll take weeks. I’ll try to get us some champagne. Does your liquor store sell champagne? And is that okay for the surprise you’re preparing?’

  ‘Couldn’t be better.’ She kissed him again. ‘Please don’t be long, darling. I can get my treat in the oven and we can have a whole free hour until it’s ready.’

  On his way out, Bond picked up the ASP which had never been far away from him since their arrival. ‘The password’s “Time”,’ he said, and she laughed.

  ‘I mean it, Chi-Chi. Don’t open up unless it’s me. Our friend Lee’s still around, and I don’t think he’s the kind of man who forgives and forgets. Eventually we’re going to have to round him up or kill him. He must know that.’

  ‘Time,’ she said, frowning. ‘Yes, I do know we’ll have to get him and I can’t wait. I can’t wait to get him either.’

  ‘Hussy!’ Bond stuck the pistol in his waistband behind his right hip and left.

  It took almost half-an-hour, and all he could get was Californian champagne, but by now, he was quite converted to American wines.

  He knew something was wrong before the lift reached Chi-Chi’s floor. Instinct, he wondered, then realised it had nothing to do with instinct; the lift held traces of Bal à Versailles, and that was what Chi-Chi had been wearing.

  The door hung half off its hinges, and she had put up a struggle, for the place was a mess. One chair smashed, a table lamp thrown across the room, the glass over the poster fragmented and the drapes on one side of the picture window pulled so that they hung sideways from their fixings as though she had grabbed at them and fallen.

  ‘Chi-Chi!’ he called, knowing there would be no reply. Again, ‘Chi-Chi!’ as he ran to the bedroom.

  She was not there either, but the beautiful Eyvind Earle oil painting was ripped and riven by an arrow from which hung a message.

  If you want to see her alive again, you will come to Muir Woods alone at one thirty precisely tonight.

  LEE

  Bond went through to the living room, picked up an overturned table and found the telephone on the floor beside it. He was about to dial when he had second thoughts. Training? Experience? Or just the automatic reaction of one who always thinks in terms of listening devices and surveillance.

  He rode the lift down to the street again, found a telephone booth and dialled a number.

  When it was answered, he said, ‘Ed, I need you. Now.’ His voice was unsteady and the words, ‘Flowers die, New days, New ways, Pass by. Love stays’ screamed through his head.

  18

  THE CHELAN MOUNTAINS

  He waited in the lobby of the apartment building until Rushia arrived fifteen minutes later.

  ‘What the heck’s the matter, James? You look like a ghost.’

  Bond found himself unable to speak. He just nodded, indicating that Rushia should follow him.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t any lovers’ tiff,’ Rushia said, standing just inside the door of Chi-Chi’s apartment.

  ‘It’s not funny, Ed. Look in the bedroom.’

  ‘Oh, shit. No!’ Rushia came out of the bedroom and motioned Bond into a chair. ‘You called the cops.’

  He shook his head. ‘The last thing I want is cops.’

  ‘Then you’re going to Muir Woods? It’s not exactly private there. They have forest rangers and all. It’s a National Monument, for crying out loud.’

  Bond had visited the woods on several occasions, and like thousands of others, had marvelled at the giant redwood trees which tower on the edge of Mount Tamalpais State Park. ‘I’m going nowhere near Muir Woods,’ he said, a dull edge to his voice.

  ‘So what the hell happens to Chi-Chi? Lee says you have to be there if you ever want to see her alive again. James, old buddy, you’re risking her life.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Because I think the Muir Woods thing is a set-up. I think I know where that bastard Brokenclaw Lee is holed up.’

  ‘You think you know? Hell, James, this isn’t a time for hunches. You’ve got to know, not just have some kind of an instinct.’

  ‘Okay, then – I know where he is. The Muir Woods meeting’s almost certainly a blind. Sure, it’s probably some sort of ambush as well, but I’m heading for the place I know he’s at.’

  ‘So what do I do? Sit on my thumbs and eat Gummi Bears?’

  ‘We’re all supposed to be in that conference tomorrow morning, Ed. Well, sure as hell, Chi-Chi isn’t going to be there. Neither am I, and if you agree to help, neither will you.’

  ‘Is that right? We going AWOL, James? If you say yes to that, I didn’t hear you. What I heard was we’re taking some of the leave due to both of us.’

  ‘You’ll come?’

  ‘Only if you’re really sure.’

  ‘Near as dammit.’

  ‘That’s near enough for me. Hey,’ Rushia’s eyes were focused on something near the sagging drapes. ‘What the heck’s that doo-hickey down there?’

  Bond saw it as Rushia pointed. Something small, glinting on the carpet. He reached down and came up with a stick pin, the kind of thing people wore in their lapels to show they belonged to the Rotarians or the Elks. This one had three tiny letters fixed to its head. The letters spelled out FBI.

  ‘So now we know who s
natched her.’ Bond looked blankly at the pin. ‘I’m not only going to get Brokenclaw, but I think I’ll probably also have a go at those crooks Nolan and Wood.’

  ‘Just say the word, James, and I’m with you.’

  ‘It’s more than just a word, Ed. I need inside help. Information. I need to know stuff that I think you can get for me.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  Bond talked carefully for a good half-an-hour. When he had finished, Rushia leaned back in his chair. ‘There’s an awful lot of it, James, but I can probably get it all within an hour or so – make that two hours, so why don’t you get this place squared away while I go and do the jobs? I’ll call you as soon as I have anything. Better, I’ll come and pick you up but I also think we’ve got to watch our backs; leave some billay doo, as they say in Paris, France, just to make certain the old folks at home know roughly where we’re heading.’

  ‘I leave that entirely to you, Ed, but the last thing I want is the cavalry coming to my rescue. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it alone. It’s an end game. Me and Brokenclaw alone.’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t see it your way?’

  ‘The man has a gigantic ego, Ed. I can’t see him turning down a chance to beat me, one on one, as your people say.’

  ‘A one on one with that guy could mean something pretty deadly, Jim.’

  ‘Don’t ever call me Jim.’ There was no humour in his voice. ‘I know a guy called Geoffrey in the business, back in London. He has a damned great notice in his office. It says ‘The name is Geoffrey, not Geoff.’ That’s the way I feel. The name’s James, not Jim.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Rushia said with exaggerated politeness. ‘Just didn’t know you cared.’

  When he had gone, Bond began to tidy up. He hauled the door back into place, took down the shattered poster and generally made the apartment look a little less messy.

  The telephone rang around midnight. Rushia said he had everything they needed. He would pick him up within the hour.

  ‘We’ll have to charter,’ Rushia said when Bond was seated next to him in a big green Chevy sedan. ‘I don’t see us getting on any regular flights. I left word, by the way. Said all three of us had gotten a sniff of Brokenclaw and couldn’t raise anyone else.’

  ‘Will that hold up?’

  ‘Maybe not for ever, but it should give us twenty-four hours.’ Then he started in on the information Bond required.

  The area around the Chelan Mountains, high in the north of Washington State, was what Ed called ‘Vacation Land’. ‘There’re scenic routes to walk or drive. They ski there in the winter – there’s been no snow as yet this year, but it’s going to be cold. We’ll need some heavy clothing, but most of the holiday stuff goes on south of Lake Chelan. This reservation you talked about . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s a semi-official thing. Washington State has a lot of regular Indian Reservations. The one you’re after isn’t just confined to Blackfoot people either.’

  Bond waited. Since he had seen the arrow piercing the oil painting in Chi-Chi’s bedroom and read the message attached to it, he had heard one thing over and over again in Brokenclaw’s voice—

  ‘I doubt if I could live with myself if I did not spend time among my other people. I need to recharge my batteries like the next man. There are members of the old Blackfoot Confederacy who live apart. High in the Chelan Mountains, in Washington State, there is a peaceful camp where they live out their lives in the old way. I go there often. I like to breathe the smoke from my tepee, reflect on life, talk to my ancestors.’

  It was not a mere hunch that had brought him to the conclusion that Brokenclaw had gone off to this ‘peaceful camp’ as he had called it. This was logic. If Brokenclaw believed in his own powers of escape, evasion and ability to remain outside the law, the camp in the Chelan Mountains was the one place he would go. Maybe to recharge his batteries, possibly to take stock, to think out his next move. He would have funds outside the United States, and in the peace of the mountains, he could, as he put it, breathe the smoke from his tepee and make a decision.

  If he wanted revenge on the two people who had been the cause of his downfall, it was in those mountains he would wreak that revenge. Chi-Chi would be there, and Brokenclaw’s logic must have told him that Bond would eventually follow.

  ‘Not just Blackfoot people?’ he queried.

  Rushia took the car on to the airport road. ‘Nope. Around twelve years ago a number of Indians from various tribes settled in the Yakima, Colville, Warm Springs and Nez Perce Reservations, asked if they could live outside their allotted reservations in a camp of their own choice. There were Blackfoot Confederacy people, Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow and Mandans. They swore an oath that they would live together in peace, but they wanted to live in the old way. Up there they don’t bother anyone. They’re self-supporting, they use original tools, they hunt game and small animals and they keep to themselves.

  ‘Somehow they’ve worked out a common understanding with one another. There have been rumours that they practise a lot of their old, somewhat barbarous ceremonies, but, as long as nobody bothers them, they don’t cause any trouble. I have a map that’ll take you right up to the camp.’

  ‘Where do we go first?’

  ‘We hire an air taxi, James. That’d be our fastest route, a jet if possible, to the field at Wenatchee. Then we hire a Range Rover or some such. There’s a track that’ll take us to within five miles of the place. It’s uphill, through wooded country, but the paths are there if you look for them. Map’s in the glove compartment here.’

  ‘I’ll look at it on the aircraft. If we can get an aircraft.’

  They got a Learjet, and when they said where they wanted to go, they also got a strange look. ‘Something going on up near Wenatchee?’ the man from Weatherproof Air Services asked.

  ‘Not that we know of. This is a mission we’re on. Government business.’

  ‘Why don’t you get a government airplane, then?’

  ‘You know what it’s like.’ Ed became very confidential, very trusting. ‘So many damned forms. We want to get up there as quickly as possible, not wait for a week. We put the Learjet on Amex and shove it in for expenses when the time comes. You know how the old song goes?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why did you ask if something was going on up in Wenatchee?’ Bond asked.

  ‘Because you’re the second job we’ve had tonight. Same route. Had to use our one DC-3, the old workhorse herself. Slow, but still flying.’

  ‘You couldn’t give them a Learjet?’

  The man shook his head. ‘Another government job.’ He dropped his voice. ‘FBI. One agent and a male nurse. Taking a woman back home. She’s been in some accident. Looked in a bad way. Unconscious. Had to get her on a stretcher.’

  ‘How long ago?’ Rushia asked.

  ‘Why the interest?’

  Rushia sighed. ‘If you really want to know, it’s connected to the case we’re on.’

  ‘Well, they left about three-quarters of an hour ago. If we get your flightplan filed and okayed quickly enough, you’ll be landing within ten minutes or so of the DC-3.’

  ‘Let’s go then.’ Bond was not smiling.

  The DC-3 was parked near the terminal building at Wenatchee, under the big floodlights. They saw it as they came in to land, and, as the Learjet taxied in, both Rushia and Bond craned to see if there was any activity around the aircraft.

  In the terminal, Rushia went in search of the crew while Bond headed for the car rental services. He tried Avis first and found they had only just let their last Range Rover go. ‘Big call for them around these parts,’ the girl said. ‘I can let you have an almost new Isuzu Trooper. It’ll do the same job for you.’

  It was two thirty in the morning when, with Rushia at the wheel and Bond following the map, they left the airport, heading north.

  ‘They’re coming back,’ Rushia announced as the Trooper pulled away and picked up speed.

&nbs
p; ‘Who’s coming back?’ Bond’s mind was ahead of them. Already he was flexing his mental and physical muscles for the showdown with Brokenclaw.

  ‘Who d’you think, dummy? Dorothy and Toto? Your friends Wolan and Nood . . .’

  ‘Nolan and Wood. They’re coming back this way?’

  ‘Certain as the unexpected.’

  ‘Speak to me, Ed.’

  ‘Okay. Read my lips. Your two ex-FBI buddies are coming back. The DC-3 crew are waiting for them. They hired a Range Rover and they’ve got twenty minutes’ start on us.’

  ‘Then . . .’

  ‘You haven’t heard the best part.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘They’re coming back with another guy. One of them told the pilot. They want him to take them to Bracket Field, the other side of LA. You might like to know that the other guy’s an Oriental gentleman. Old and infirm, they said. Some charter is picking him up from Bracket Field. Right? Happy now?’

  In the darkness, Bond smiled.

  They drove for ninety minutes, keeping to the Columbia River on their right and the dark mass that was forest and mountains to their left. They went through the town of Chelan and on, until they reached a narrow road to the left.

  ‘This the one that peters out into a track about twenty miles up?’ Rushia asked.

  ‘About five miles from the camp, yes. Can you do it without lights?’

  ‘Not yet I can’t. Not if you want to get there.’

  ‘Pull over at any sign of lights.’ Bond already had his automatic pistol out.

  The road was little more than a track, and both expressed their doubts about getting vehicles past each other. ‘If they suddenly come hurtling down with their Oriental gent on board, we’re in for H’ang Chow Mein,’ Ed chuckled. ‘Or Bondburger.’

  The going was slow, and thirty minutes later it was light enough to kill the headlights. Ten after that they saw the Range Rover.