Doubleshot

by Raymond Benson

  But it was not James Bond’s kind of place. While he appreciated the food at the Ivy, which was always excellent, the idea of going to a restaurant to see and be seen was not his style. He preferred anonymity and quiet. The Ivy can be a noisy place when it was crowded, which it usually is. Tables have to be booked weeks, if not months, in advance.

  When he entered the Ivy shortly after 8:15, the maître d’ asked, “May I help you, sir?”

  Bond peered past him. “I’m meeting someone. May I take a look and see if they’re already here?”

  “What is the name?”

  “I’m not sure whose name the reservation was under. They’re doctors.”

  The maître d’ shrugged and gestured toward the dining room as if to say, “Be my guest.” Bond nodded and walked past him. He entered the crowded dining room that was buzzing with noise and excitement. London’s favorites were out in force, all deeply animated in conversation and luxuriating in culinary delights. At least a halfdozen people were on their feet talking and laughing with diners.

  He finally spotted her at a large table conversing with two other women and two men. Bond guessed that they were all physicians.

  Dr. Feare was the youngest and most attractive in the group. She had bright blue eyes, a long but pretty nose, thin lips that seemed to be always on the verge of a sexy smile, and shoulder-length blond hair. Bond had found her to be good-looking, but the clinical atmosphere of a physician’s office tends to neutralize any thoughts of sex. Here, in the restaurant’s golden illumination, Kimberley Feare looked marvelous.

  Bond turned and slipped out of the room. As he passed the maître d’ he said, “Wrong restaurant. Sorry.”

  He went outside and quickly crossed the street. Luckily, the light was fading; loitering in the shadows would be less noticeable. Bond took a position under an awning, leaned against the building, and waited.

  The pounding in his head seemed to mark the seconds.…

  At one point, Bond felt that he was being watched. He scanned the street and buildings around him, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. His nerves were acting up again, he told himself.

  It was nearly an hour later, long after the sun had vanished, when Dr. Feare emerged from the restaurant. The others were with her. They noisily said good-bye to one another, shaking hands and hugging, then all went their separate ways. Dr. Feare got into a waiting taxi.

  Another taxi pulled around the corner. A stroke of luck! Bond hailed it and got inside.

  “Follow that taxi, please,” Bond said.

  The driver accepted this as a challenge and said, “Right.”

  After a brief uneventful drive, Dr. Feare’s taxi pulled up in front of her building on Harley Street. It was the same building in which Sir James Molony kept his office, as well as his own flat. A battery of doctors who all had private offices in the building shared the groundfloor waiting room. A few of them lived there as well.

  Bond instructed his driver to stop fifty feet behind it. He got out, paid, and approached the doctor just as she was completing the transaction with her own driver.

  “Dr. Feare?” Bond asked.

  She looked up, startled, but then she relaxed when she recognized a familiar face. “Yes?”

  “james Bond. I saw you a few weeks ago.…”

  “Right! My nurse told me that you had called. Mr. Bond, how are you?” She smiled.

  “I was hoping that you could tell me,” Bond said. “Please excuse the invasion of your privacy, but I simply had to see you.”

  The cab drove away and left them standing in front of the building. The porter was just inside the glass windows, watching them.

  Her expression changed to one of concern. “Oh dear, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m leaving the country tomorrow morning on classified business. There wasn’t time to make a proper appointment.”

  Dr. Feare frowned. “I thought that you were off-duty. Medical leave.”

  “Never mind that,” Bond said. “Please, is there somewhere we can talk?”

  She looked at him closely, noting the amount of stress his face revealed. “You’re right, you don’t look well, Mr. Bond. You have dark circles under your eyes.”

  “Sleep deprivation,” Bond said. “It’s the bloody headaches. They’re becoming worse, and I don’t think those pills you prescribed are doing anything for me. And … well, I seem to have experienced another episode of blacking out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t want to mention seeing the double just yet. “I got a feeling of overwhelming anxiety—almost like I was having a heart attack—as well as a pounding in the head. Suddenly, I passed out. I woke up an hour or so later, and I couldn’t remember what had happened. The odd thing is that I’dmoved. I was n’t in the same place I was when I blacked out.”

  “Mr. Bond, you should have called me immediately,” she said. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Just today.”

  “I see. Perhaps you should come upstairs. Letme have a look at you.”

  He followed her into the building. She greeted the porter and led the way through the luxurious marble-floored lobby area. The clinic’s waiting room was to the left, now closed and locked, of course. He followed her straight ahead into a lift, where she pressed button number 5.

  Dr. Feare’s flat was a modest one-bedroom with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a dining alcove. It was tastefully decorated in green and white, but it was also decidedly feminine, and very comfortable. A large rug covered the living room floor. A glass-top coffee table was the focus, and a green leather couch and two chairs surrounded it. A television and stereo system stood in the corner, near the window.

  She took off her jacket and flung it over a chair. “Have a seat in the living room, Mr. Bond. Make yourself comfortable. I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?”

  “That would be lovely,” he answered.

  She went into the kitchen. Bond removed the jacket, followed by the shoulder holster, and draped them over a chair. He then stood idly in the living room, glancing at the various knickknacks and pieces of art on the walls. Dr. Feare evidently liked to collect miniature elephants, as she had at least two dozen of them on a silver tray.

  All of them were posed so that they had their heads raised, trunks in the air. The elephants were made of various substances: glass, silver, wood, onyx, even gold.

  “When the trunks are raised like that, it means good luck,” she said, bringing out a small tray with cups and a bottle of mineral water. She placed it on the coffee table and approached him.

  “First of all, do you have your medication with you by any chance?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Bond said, sitting on the sofa. “And please call me James. I haven’t taken this evening’s dose yet. I thought I should talk to you first.”

  “Let me see your pills.”

  He took the small container out of his pocket and handed it to her. She opened it, poured a few into her palm, nodded, then replaced them. She handed the container back to him. “Just checking to see that you had the right pills. Go ahead. Take four tablets instead of two.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, James.”

  Bond swallowed four pills with the water.

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He watched her move back to the kitchen, admiring the shape of her hips. She was a lovely woman. Despite her youth, there was something comforting about her. Bond found her very attractive.

  A few minutes later, she brought in a coffeepot and they sat on the couch together.

  “Black, please,” he said. She added a little cream to hers, but no sugar.

  “Is the headache worse before these episodes?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’ve had only one other blackout, if you recall. Three months ago. What could have caused it?”

  “It could be a number of things,” she said. “We don’t call it a blackout; we call it poriomania, a
condition in which the patient suffers a loss of cognizance, yet his body continues to function normally. It’s uncommon, but it happens, especially with raging alcoholics and people who might have post-traumatic epilepsy, which we considered before. Normally it occurs six months or later after an injury, but in your case it was much sooner.”

  Bond didn’t like the sound of that.

  “James, I suggest that we run some more tests. I’d like to do another EEG. That lesion in your head may not be shrinking like we hoped. Must you leave the country tomorrow?”

  “Yes. It will have to wait until I return.”

  “But James, you have a dangerous condition. You might never know when you’ll have another episode of poriomania.”

  “I promise not to drive. Last time you told me that my symptoms could be stress-related. I’d like to believe that. I’m convinced that if I get out of this bloody rut I’m in and get back on the active duty list, I’ll be fine.”

  He realized that he inadvertently gave away the fact that he was indeed still on medical leave.

  “I see,” she said. “Then you don’t have to leave tomorrow.”

  “It’s personal,” he replied. “I need to go.”

  “I’m not sure that’s what you need, James. You must take this seriously,” she said, placing her hand on top of his. She hadn’t meant for it to be an intimate gesture, yet neither of them could deny the electricity they felt. Encouraged by the look in her eyes, Bond raised the charm a notch by turning his hand and squeezing hers.

  “Or perhaps I need a different kind of diversion,” he suggested. He gave her a smile that penetrated her defenses.

  Whether or not it was due to the wine she had consumed earlier, or perhaps to the immense amount of charisma that he had, Kimberley Feare suddenly felt vulnerable. She tried to tell herself that he was, after all, a patient, but his overwhelming masculinity instantly crushed that delineation. He was one of the most attractive men she had ever met, and she was alone with him in her flat.

  Bond knew enough about women to recognize when the barriers were down. The seduction of a woman had everything to do with attitude, not looks or wit. Bond reflected—just for a moment—how unprofessional it might be for her to sleep with him. Most women in her position would have resisted going this far. Bond chalked it up to her youth and enthusiasm, and, giving himself a small boost to his ego, to his experience with the opposite sex.

  He turned to her and put his arms around her. She looked up at him, her mouth parted. Her lower lip trembled a bit, and he could feel her shaking.

  Bond brought his mouth down on hers and roughly held her against him. She submitted with a soft moan, then opened her mouth to receive his tongue. They kissed passionately until she finally, gently, pushed him away.

  “Mr. B—James, please,” she said, breathlessly. She took a sip of coffee, then said, “Uhm, tell me more about your, uhm, condition.

  You said you haven’t been sleeping well?”

  “That’s right,” he said, lightly brushing a strand of blond hair from her face.

  “Any hallucinations?”

  Bond hesitated.

  “Seen anything unusual? Things that shouldn’t have been there?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied truthfully.

  She reached up and rubbed his eyebrow slowly with her thumb, as if to brush away something caught there.

  “Feelings of paranoia?”

  Bond closed his eyes as she continued to massage his forehead with both thumbs. “Mmm hmm,” he answered.

  “James, we have to do another EEG.”

  She rubbed his temples with care for another thirty seconds, then stopped. She was unsure how to handle the situation or her desire.

  After a few sips of coffee in silence, she looked at him and tried to smile. He took this as an invitation and leaned in to kiss her again. She nearly spilled her cup setting it on the saucer, then pulled him down on the couch on top of her. Her hands ran through his hair, pulling it, clawing the back of his neck with her fingernails. With his mouth firmly on hers, he brought his right hand up the side of her left leg, pushing the skirt up until it was above the tops of her nylon stockings.

  They rolled off the couch, crashing into the coffee table and spilling the coffee. They didn’t notice, though—such was the unexpected passion that had overtaken them.

  They lay naked on the carpet next to the overturned coffee table. Bond had lit a cigarette and was using a saucer as an ashtray. The sex had been intense, as if neither of them could get enough of each other. The world outside could have been on the brink of disaster, but they would not have known it. The first time had been rushed and anxious, almost a selfish race to pleasure themselves rather than climax together. The second time was more relaxed and slower, but just as fierce. There was more give-and-take, and they had focused their energies on each other. They were by now exhausted.

  Now she snuggled next to him, her firm breasts pressed up against his rib cage. She was still attempting to catch her breath and said, “Just so you know, I don’t do this with all my patients.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” he said. The throbbing in his head had just returned, and he rubbed his brow.

  “I think it was your brooding angst that was so dreadfully attractive,” she said with a laugh. “What’s wrong? Head again?”

  He nodded.

  “I tell you what.” She sat up. “I’m going to the loo. When I get back, I’ll give you a proper massage. We’ll see if I can work out some of that tension.”

  He closed his eyes as the warmth of her body disappeared. When he heard the bathroom door shut, he tried to sit up, but found that he couldn’t. The room was spinning again, just like when he had been on that rooftop earlier in the day.

  So he lay there for a few minutes with his eyes closed. When he thought that he heard something at her front door, but wasn’t positive, he tried to sit up again.

  Bond cursed aloud and reached for one of the leather chairs nearby. He managed to pull himself up to his knees, but now the pain in his head increased tenfold. This was accompanied by the dreaded anxiety that flooded his senses. Once again, his heart began to pound, bringing on that horrible feeling that he was about to die.

  “Kimberley …” he tried to call, but his voice came out in a whisper. Exerting every bit of strength in his body, he pulled himself up against the chair and got to his feet.

  The room went dark as he lost his balance and fell over the glass coffee table.

  He was aware of a cold sensation on his right cheek. It was hard and wet.

  A tile floor. Shards of broken mirror.

  He opened his eyes and saw a toilet. But something was wrong. The normally white appliance was streaked in red.

  Blood.

  Bond felt a burst of adrenaline as life poured back into his body. He groaned and rolled over.

  He was lying in Kimberley Feare’s bathroom, naked. He coughed and put his hand to his face so that he could rub the haze from his vision. He got a jolt when he saw that his hand was covered in blood.

  He sat up quickly, alarmed.

  There was blood all over the bathroom and on his body. The mirror had been shattered. He examined himself and found several cuts on his arms, legs, and torso. He vaguely remembered falling into the glass coffee table.

  He gingerly got to his feet and looked in the broken glass around him.

  My God.

  Dozens of ghosts stared back at him.

  His skin was pale, frosty white. Streaks of blood went from his face and down his chest. Looking around the bathroom, he saw that the door was closed and noticed that his hand and footprints were all over the place in blood. On the floor by the door was a large bloody kitchen knife. He already knew that his prints probably covered it.

  “Kimberley?” he called.

  Dreading the worst, he opened the door and looked out.

  The living room was a shambles. The glass coffee table had been broken. The cups, saucer
s, and coffeepot were on the rug. Their clothes lay in heaps on the floor, some of them torn. The collection of elephants had been scattered, some broken.

  The green-and-white design scheme of the flat had been smeared with red.

  “Kimberley!”

  Bond stumbled to the open door of the bedroom and gaped in horror at the gruesome tableau before him.

  Kimberley Feare was lying on the bed, naked, covered in blood. Her throat had been slashed, ear to ear, and she had been stabbed several times.

  NINE

  SUNRISE IN THREE

  COUNTRIES

  JAMES BOND RARELY PANICKED, BUT HE WAS ON THE VERGE OF DOING SO NOW.

  Did he kill this woman? What the hell was going on?

  Trembling, he stepped into the bedroom to take a closer look. The multiple stab wounds suggested rage on the part of the killer. The blood trails on the carpet indicated that the body had been dragged from the living room and placed on the bed. She had probably been killed in the other room. Bond suspected that the throat-cutting had probably been done in here, postmortem.

  But who could have done it? Not he! He might be a professional killer in the line of duty, but he was incapable of doing this to a person.

  Or was he?

  Bond backed out of the room, frantically going over everything that had happened in the last few hours. He looked at the clock in the living room: it was 2:48 in the morning. He had been unconscious for a long time.

  He moved to the front door and saw that it was still locked.

  My God, what the hell happened here? Was he losing his mind?

  Shaken by the turn of events and the uncertainty of his mental condition, Bond began to act irrationally. He rushed into the bathroom, grabbed some towels, and started wiping up the blood. He mopped up the hand and footprints, cleaned off the knife, and scrubbed down the walls and broken mirror. After ten minutes, the towels were soaked in blood, and the place was still a mess.

  What the hell am I doing? he thought. I DID NOT DO THIS!

  He sat on the toilet seat.

  Think … think … Calm down …