by John Gardner
‘Ah, even New York accepted our price of twenty-two grand a kilo.’ Truman-Lodge sounded ecstatic. ‘Twenty-two grand and they ordered five hundred kilos. Lord, you have to laugh at old Prof Joe . . .’ He seemed to be going into an imitation of the so-called Professor, ‘And we have a wonderful donation from New York City. Five hundred dollars.’
Sanchez’s voice butted in. ‘Yeah, one day Joe’s going to slip up, though. He’s going to get an order like that and he’ll miss the word City off New York, or the word “beautiful” off Boston, or “lovely” off LA, and we’ll be sitting here wondering what’s gone wrong. I worry, William. I worry that the guy’ll slip one day.’
Ingenious was right, Bond thought. An auction with bids and orders, all done on coast to coast television. ‘The problem is, how do they get the stuff delivered?’ he asked.
‘Search me,’ Pam shrugged.
They listened some more, and there was talk of the oriental group and the meeting to take place on the following night.
‘That’s when I do it. Lupe mentioned the meeting tomorrow,’ Bond said, glancing at his watch. ‘I really mean today, don’t I? But that’s the time to do it.’
‘When you do what?’
‘Take out Sanchez.’
‘Don’t be stupid, James. How in hell . . . ?’
‘Let me sleep on it.’
‘Oh, James, come on, tell me.’ Suddenly her short fuse showed again. ‘You’re going to get at him through that little Mexican broad?’
‘Don’t be silly, Pam. She’s a means to an end.’
‘Okay, but what kind of end?’
‘Wait. Tomorrow night. I’ll have it fixed by tomorrow night.’
‘You won’t tell me a damned thing will you?’
‘Not tonight.’ He followed her towards the bedroom.
Pam stepped inside, turned, and as he was about to follow her, she gave him a thin-lipped smile. ‘Okay, you can sleep on it, James. Happy dreams.’ The door closed in his face and there was that sickening sound of a deadbolt being slid into place.
Slowly, Bond walked across the room towards the spare bedroom and tapped on the door. From inside came a cheery ‘Come in’. Q was sitting up in one of the twin beds reading a spy thriller.
‘I hope you don’t snore, Q.’ James Bond looked distinctly unhappy.
11
CRYSTAL NIGHT
Pam appeared to have recovered from her flaring bout of temper by the next morning, and, by constant monitoring of the Jabberwocky, they made certain the reception for the oriental party was timed to begin with cocktails at 8.30 in Sanchez’s apartment, followed by the meeting, which Bond presumed would be in the boardroom, through the sliding doors. After the meeting there was to be what Q described – on listening to the arrangements and orders on the tape – as ‘A right good blow-out’.
Bond thought Q did not realise the accuracy of this last statement.
Pam was dispatched to the nearest establishment that hired out fancy dress, after taking Q’s measurements. Bond telephoned reception saying he wanted the Rolls outside at eight, but he would not require the chauffeur tonight. He then stretched out on his bed to go over the finer points of his plan. Tonight, if luck was with him, they would see the end of Franz Sanchez. That would, at least, be revenge and a beginning to the collapse of the man’s empire.
At exactly 8.20 that night, the Rolls pulled up in front of the casino. Pam had bought a new gown for the occasion; Bond was in his tuxedo, the pieces of hardware he would need skilfully hidden. A spare automatic, the pocket version of an FN high-power 9mm with shortened butt and slide, was in an ankle holster; the telescope-like grappling iron and rope was attached to his left calf, while two innocuous tubes of toothpaste and the pen which concealed detonators and a remote control system, were distributed around his inside pockets. Last of all, he had clipped the Jabberwocky to his belt and secured a slim pair of lightweight earphones around it. With the W9 bugs in place he could at least listen to part of the meeting.
Q was at the wheel of the Rolls, looking the part in the grey chauffeur’s outfit rented by Pam that morning. Outside, the guards were there in force with the omnipresent pump-action shotguns. ‘Everyone know what to do?’ Bond whispered the question. Pam and Q nodded.
Inside, there was obviously more security than usual, strangers were being checked out and beefy men in tuxedos tried to look inconspicuous. Pam and Bond were greeted by the manager they had seen the previous night who told them to collect whatever plaques they required.
Bond went over to the cashier, returning to Pam with a pile of $10,000 plaques. ‘Open your hands,’ he said with a smile, his ice-blue eyes melting as he counted ten of the plaques into her cupped palms. ‘Slight change of plan,’ he continued as they walked into the salon privé.
‘What change?’ Pam sounded distinctly concerned.
‘That hundred K’s for you, my dear. Extra bonus. Your job’s over and done with. Contact Q once I’ve picked up the other item, and fly out of here, now – tonight. I’ll make my own way back.’
She curled her fingers around his arm. ‘James, I want to stay. I want to see it ended as well.’
‘Go!’ It was a serious order. ‘Anyway, I work better alone.’ He turned on his heel and headed towards the bar. Armed guards stood at the bank of elevators, checking a steady stream of tuxedo-clad waiters who pushed trolleys of food from the direction of the pantry and kitchen which were behind the wall far away across the room, and to the right of the pillared alcove in which the elevators stood. Last night, as he had waited there with Lupe, Bond had already noticed there was an exit from the kitchen area, shielded from the salon privé by the alcove. Another door, leading to the kitchen, was set in the long wall which now faced him as he sat at the bar, sipping a virgin colada. He would take no chances tonight. There would be plenty of champagne later if the job was successful.
The room was more crowded than the previous evening with all the tables open and waiters scurrying from bar and kitchen. He saw one pair of the oriental party head for the elevators, then bided his time, waiting for the right moment when everybody was almost distractedly busy.
Without any fuss, he slowly walked over to the kitchen door and went inside, casually picking up a napkin from a stack just inside the door. Nobody queried him as he collected a cart, replete with cocktail snacks, and pushed it out of the far door which led to the elevators.
A guard checked the cart before he was allowed to pass into the elevator. On the previous evening it had taken 1·5 minutes to reach Sanchez’s apartment, so there was little time for niceties. It took thirty seconds to unhook the grappling iron; fifteen to spring open the grapples and release the rope and another fifteen to hurl it at the inspection hatch in the roof of the cage. Then a further fifteen seconds for Bond to shin up the rope, through the inspection hatch and return things to normal.
Standing on the top of the cage, now collecting more waiters, who must have been surprised at a cartful of food standing unattended, Bond slipped the buttons on his tuxedo jacket and folded away the grapples and rope. To either side of him were the huge girders of the elevator shaft. Above, he could see the square inspection hatch which had to lead to the building’s roof. As the elevator began its journey downwards again, he leapt for the girders, clung on and began a steady climb. Near the top a metal ladder was set into the wall of the shaft, and it took only a couple of minutes to reach the trapdoor which, as he had thought, led to the roof.
There was a light warm breeze and the buzz of an air-conditioning plant. The flags, one with the casino logo, the other the presidential flag, only moved slightly in the dry air. Bond stood above them, looking down into the street below. Cars came and went. Lights stretched out over the city and he could see a jet climbing out after its take-off from Isthmus City Airport.
Directly below the flagstaffs there was the sculpture of the reclining naked woman whose arms stretched upwards towards him. Below her, he knew, were the large armour-plate
d windows of Sanchez’s apartment, the boardroom and Lord knew what else – offices, a dining room perhaps? He took out the Jabberwocky, clipped it on to his belt, put on the earphones and moved the switch to on. A babble filled his ears so that he had to adjust the volume. Obviously the cocktail party was going well. There was time to spare as he wanted the whole crew – Sanchez, his various henchmen and the group of orientals – in the boardroom before he started the first part of his work.
He moved the toothpaste tubes of RDX into the breast pocket of his, now oil-streaked jacket, made certain the pen was within easy reach, then opened up the grappling iron again, this time clipping the rope on to the D-ring that Q had fixed to his belt, under the cummerbund.
Bond smiled to himself. The nylon rope was almost half an inch thick, and there was a lot of it. ‘How the devil do you get this much into the cylinder, and the grappling irons?’ he had asked Q.
Briskly, Q had replied, ‘All done by mirrors, 007. Surely you know I’ve been a member of the Magic Circle for a long time.’
Now, poised between the mastheads on the roof of Sanchez’s casino, Bond made fast the grapple to the stone surround, pulling, and testing to be certain that neither the grapple would slip nor the stonework give way.
The noise was dying down in his earphones as someone – he thought Heller – was calling the party to order and asking them to step into the boardroom. There was a gasp as Sanchez obviously did his trick of electronically sliding back the wall, then a change of sound as people moved through, a scraping of chairs, coughs, the whine of the wall moving back into place.
The moment had come, and Bond gently lowered himself over the edge. Through the earphones he heard Sanchez speak, calling the meeting to order.
‘I wish to welcome you here. By now you will have met my trusted staff. Mr Truman-Lodge, my financial manager, and Colonel Heller, head of security for all the Sanchez enterprises.’
Slowly, Bond allowed the nylon rope to unwind on its spring until he slid neatly into the outstretched arms of the statue.
Sanchez was still speaking.
‘This is an historic moment. East meets West. Drug dealers of the world unite.’ His audience chuckled as he continued. ‘Asia is a new market for us. Mr Truman-Lodge, here, will tell you the simple way in which we can all become billionaires ten times over. But I have another message for you. In this business there is a lot of cash; therefore there are a lot of people standing around with their hands out . . .’
‘In a word, bribery.’ Another voice, vaguely Chinese. It was followed by another laugh.
‘You said it!’ Sanchez again. ‘So you pay! Everyone and his brother is on the payroll . . .’
Bond stepped out of the statue’s arms, letting the rope lower him to the darkened window of Sanchez’s apartment. Light flooded from the next window, that of the boardroom where Sanchez was still speaking.
‘. . . So you buy a mayor, a police chief, a general, a president. The beauty of it is that one day you wake up and find you own the whole goddamned country. And that’s good, because then you just take what you want: a bank, a gambling casino, an airline concession. Why? I tell you why. Because it’s easier for a politician to take silver than lead.’ This, Bond thought, really brought the house down. He swallowed the bile in his mouth which came unbidden when he thought of the evil just a few feet from where he hung, precariously, on the long window ledge of Sanchez’s apartment.
He had tugged at the rope and now swayed safely with his feet inches from the lower edge of the glass. From here, he could reach both the top and left-hand side of the window. Gingerly, he removed the first of the family-sized toothpaste tubes, and began the arduous job of packing the pliable C-4 along the left downside of the window.
In his earphones, and in reality a few feet away, Sanchez continued.
‘You see, we have an invisible empire, from Chile to Alaska.’ What I wish to do, amigos, is to make you part of that empire. I want the Pacific to be our little puddle. You all have good business deals going for you, but by joining with me, you will see that it can not only be safe, but also truly rewarding. You can double your take in a month. After that? Well, I’ll let Mr Truman-Lodge explain some of it to you.’
It was an arm-wrenching job, squeezing out the C-4 in little snakes and running it, like putty, along the window’s edge. This became even more difficult when Bond had to reach up and pack the stuff along the top of the window itself. Truman-Lodge was being not a little boring.
‘Here is a demographic report which breaks down each territory by age and socio-economic group. You will see there is a huge potential demand for our product, given the implementation of aggressive marketing programmes . . .’
Bond was around a quarter of the way along the top of the window, when, concentrating on packing the C-4, he did not notice a missing piece of masonry below his feet. He slipped, swung dizzily downward, then had to manipulate the rope again to bring himself up. He said a quiet prayer of thanksgiving that he had managed to hold on to the tube, which was rapidly running out.
Manipulating the rope, he found himself rising too fast. He pulled to a stop, swung outwards and hit the window with an audible bump. Through the earphones he heard Truman-Lodge pause, then the scrape of a chair and the sound of footsteps, coming to investigate. Heller, he thought as he pushed himself away from the window again, swinging wide and hitting the stone to his left, dragging the rope out of sight, pushing his body close to the wall only a few inches away from the window.
Truman-Lodge droned on, ‘As in the United States, Senor Sanchez is prepared to sell exclusive franchises. The price is set, and there can be no haggling. One hundred million dollars for each territory. We supply first-rate merchandise exclusively to you. Ten tons a month. That’s twenty-thousand dollars a key Hong Kong, right? That works out at twenty-million per metric tonne, if you need that information. A fair price, I’m sure you’ll agree.’ There were quiet murmurs of assent.
Bond held his breath. He could feel, if not see, a figure inside Sanchez’s apartment. The seconds seemed like hours. Then, he heard the footsteps returning, and the W9 bug planted in the boardroom even picked up the whisper of Heller’s voice. ‘Nothing around. All clear.’
Bond swung back against the window again, finishing the first tube and unscrewing a second. He still had quite a way to go.
‘We guarantee quality and price for five years,’ Truman-Lodge said. ‘Any questions?’
By this time, Bond had managed to cover the top of the window and the left and right sides; now he allowed the rope to lower him below the level of the window, where he worked hard at setting the C-4 along the bottom edge of the glass. Truman-Lodge’s words came at the end of a lengthy speech, and there were general murmurs of acceptance. Then a heavily accented Chinese voice spoke up.
‘Senor Sanchez, since our arrival here we’ve eaten well, heard a lot of good stories, and generally enjoyed ourselves. However, you are asking us to put up a great deal of money to receive first-class merchandise. I like the idea, but, so far, we have no evidence that you can meet the demand. In other words, I, for one, would like to see the hardware.’
Bond finally came to the end of the lower section of window. He re-sealed the small amount of explosive in the tube, dropped it into his pocket, then felt for the pen.
Sanchez’s voice came clear into the earphones.
‘Mr Kwang. You don’t pay for hardware. You pay for my personal guarantee and protection.’
So, it was the big Hong Kong delegate who was turning difficult. Bond uncapped the pen and rolled one of the radio-controlled detonators into the palm of his hand. Recapping the pen, he pushed the detonator into the C-4, at the outer left-hand edge. It crossed his mind that very soon there would be a lot of flying glass. He could almost see the way the armoured thick glass would fragment and splinter, turning itself into a million crystals.
As Bond tugged at the rope to activate the spring mechanism which would take him to the top of
the roof again, so Kwang was still arguing with Sanchez.
‘How do we know you have the capacity, Senor Sanchez?’
As Bond reached the top of the building there seemed to be a long pause before Sanchez spoke. As he allowed the rope to disappear into the grapple’s cylinder, and threw out what remained of the C-4 and the few spare detonators, Bond heard Sanchez undergo an amazing change of heart. Even his voice altered.
‘Hey, amigos, you’re right. We’re partners, no? Give it a couple of days. Until your colleagues arrive. A couple of days and you’ll all go to our main distribution centre. You’ll need to pack overnight bags. Now that’s settled, yes? Okay, on the far side of this room we have yet another surprise. A little festivity I have arranged for you with food, wine, women and song. Enjoy yourselves.’ There was a whining sound and gasps of pleasure.
Bond, now making for the rear of the roof, reckoned that the far wall of the boardroom also had a sliding mechanism leading to another large room. Heaven knew what kind of an orgy Sanchez had prepared for them there.
He looked over the roof-coping, down into the streets behind the casino. They appeared to be deserted. He knew the casino did not go right back to the end of the building, and that the exits were located in the sides.
For the second time that night, he fitted the grapple around the coping, tested it, and began to allow the rope to pay out, gently taking him down into the empty street below. As he dropped, so he heard another conversation. This time, he thought, in Sanchez’s apartment. Truman-Lodge’s voice said, ‘I don’t like this. That damned Kwang spells trouble. Why show them the laboratories?’
As Bond’s feet touched the pavement, Sanchez replied, ‘My dear William, would you put up a hundred million dollars without a little reassurance? Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to blow our operation.’