Bond found himself staring into a face that had a strange, babyish quality. It was utterly hairless apart from two faint commas that were his eyebrows. Scipio was almost certainly bald. At close quarters, the wig looked even less convincing than it had in the pictures, black and shiny, sitting lopsidedly on his skull as if it had been put on in the dark. He had very small, pale blue eyes that were straining to see past the bulging cushions of his cheeks and a pursed, circular mouth with thick lips. As he moved the great football of his head from side to side, Bond noticed a dark mauve line buried inside one of the folds of flesh, stretching all the way round his neck. This must be the scar that he had been left with when his throat was cut at the age of ten.
A second man stood just behind him and again Bond recognised him from the photograph that had been taken at the Caravelle bar. This was Scipio’s translator. He was a slender man, also bald but unafraid to show it, with a head that looked as if it had been carved out of white marble and then polished. His face was dominated by eyeglasses that were two glittering round discs held together by wire. His nose was slender, his mouth downturned, as if endlessly expressing disapproval. He was wearing a suit with a narrow tie and highly polished shoes. It was impossible to tell if he was older or younger than Scipio: the age of both men was indeterminate. He was completely expressionless, looking at Bond but hardly seeming to notice him, as if he had trained himself not to become too involved with whatever circumstance was presented to him.
And the other two men? They were dressed in black jackets and jerseys. One had a broken nose, disfiguring a face that had been ugly to begin with. Bond had seen their type before. They purposefully wore the blank faces and bored eyes of hired hands and he suspected that it must have been one of them who had wielded the club. They could hurt him, kill him or simply cut the wires and let him go. It made no difference to them. They would do what they were told. One of them stepped forward and removed the gag from Bond’s mouth. Bond breathed in gratefully but did not speak.
‘Bon dopu mezziornu, Mr Bond,’ Scipio said.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Bond,’ the translator began.
‘Sò quale vo site è perche site qui.’
‘I know who you are and why you are here.’
Bond watched the double act with a certain fascination. Scipio’s voice was hoarse and high-pitched, another result perhaps of his childhood injury. It was quite possible that his vocal cords had also been damaged by the knife that had slashed his lymphatic vessels. There was something forced and extravagant about the way he spoke. This was a man who had grown up in a world of vendettas and high drama and he had come to enjoy acting the part, particularly when he had, in every sense, a captive audience.
But it was all to no purpose. The translator was just doing his job and communicated in a way that was bland, matter-of-fact. Scipio might threaten his enemies with torture and death but the translator would relay the words as if they were a weather report. The two spoke at almost exactly the same time, in competition with each other. But whether he intended to or not, the translator was undermining his master. His was the voice of reason. He did not threaten. He simply explained.
‘You are James Bond 007 of the British secret service,’ the translator continued. His English was perfect but he had to adjust his sentences continually to keep up with the man who was speaking, occasionally backtracking as he struggled to find the right word. ‘It was a mistake … a great mistake for you to come here to the south of France. A friend of yours also came here and attempted to impose himself on my … Mr Scipio’s … business affairs. He paid the price. Do your employers not understand … have they not understood … by now that you have no place here? I have no interest in your country. It has never entered my mind even for one second. But that is the arrogance of the British. You are a tiny island with bad weather and bad food also but you still think you rule the world. You will not wake up to the fact that you are becoming irrelevant and were it not for your geographical location and your friendship … kinship with Europe, you would be irrelevant already.’
Scipio paused and ran a tongue between his lips. Bond watched the obscene, moist thing run from one side to the other. The translator was staring at him, the glass moons of his spectacles glinting dully in the soft electric light. ‘Perchè vanu mandatu qui?’
‘Why did they send you here? Have I not made it clear that I have all … that I have total control here in Marseilles – the port, the city, the police, the justice system? It is all mine!’ He spread his hands as if to emphasise his point. ‘I believe your presence here to be an impertinence. You are playing with the big boys, Mr Bond, and you have not been invited. I am busy. There are many other things I could be doing with my time but it seems that I must send a second message to London, warning them to stay out of my way. And this time I am going to make sure they listen.
‘You will be the carrier … you will carry that message. I could kill you here … right now in one of many ways. I have only to give the order. But sometimes, Mr Bond, there are worse things than death. This is … this is what you are about to discover.’
Even speaking was an exertion for Scipio and he stopped to recover his breath. Bond wondered how his heart could possibly cope, constantly straining underneath all that weight, pumping blood down arteries that must no longer be fit for purpose.
He chose that moment to answer back. ‘We know who you are, Mr Scipio,’ he said. ‘We know about your business here in Marseilles but you may be surprised to learn that we aren’t interested in you. For all your bluster, you’re just a low-level crook. I’m here for other reasons. And I should warn you that anything you do to me will be paid back tenfold. You would be more sensible to let me go and pretend we never met. In fact I would recommend that you run away and hide while you still can, although, looking at the size of you, I would imagine that might not be so easy.
‘As for your remarks about my country, you wouldn’t be the first psychopath to underestimate us. The last one ended up blowing his brains out in a Berlin bunker. We hanged all his associates. You are a very large man but you are small by comparison. I’d get out now, while you have the chance.’
The translator had been taken by surprise but had quickly begun converting the words into Corsican, expressing them in the same dull monotone so that by the time they arrived in Scipio’s ears they had been stripped of their venom and their contempt.
Scipio waited until he had finished, then began again.
‘Bravely spoken, Mr Bond. I have respect for you. In my country … in my original country, we expect our enemies to be courageous. Courage, as much as hatred, is the fuel of the vendetta. Well, we are about to … we will now put all that to the test. I am going to send you back to your masters a different man to the one who is sitting before me now. I am going to teach you a lesson you will not forget. You are a young man and, as I understand it, you have only recently been elevated to the Double-O Section. Perhaps you will consider, after this, that you have chosen the wrong vocation. Carlo, Simone … Appruntà ellu!’
These last words were spoken not to Bond but to the two men who had been standing silently throughout the exchange. At once they began to move. Automatically, Bond tensed himself, his hands straining at the wires. It was useless. He could only watch helplessly as one of the men went over to the shelves and drew on a pair of thick, rubber gloves. Once they were secure, he reached up and grabbed hold of a heavy glass container, almost barrel-shaped, with a transparent liquid inside. Meanwhile, his colleague had leaned over Bond and pulled his jacket back over his shoulders. Then, reaching out with both hands, he tore Bond’s shirt open, exposing his chest and stomach. Bond watched with queasy fascination as the first man walked over to Scipio, carrying the bottle.
‘Hydrochloric acid.’ Scipio spoke the two words in English and the translator repeated them before they continued in their separate languages. ‘It is also known as spirits of salt. One of the wonders of the human body is that we produce much … m
any quantities of hydrochloric acid in our gut even though it has the ability to do us great harm. How much harm, you are about to discover, Mr Bond. I would like, first, to show you … to give you a demonstration.’
He nodded and the man with the rubber gloves set the container down and opened it, being careful not to breathe in the fumes. The second man dragged a metal table across the floor, placing it a short distance in front of Bond. Then he went over to the shelves, chose an empty glass vial and carefully positioned it in the middle of the table. Very carefully, controlling the flow, the first man filled it with at least two pints of the liquid from the container. Even from where he was sitting, Bond could smell the chemical and his eyes began to sting. When the vial was full, he screwed the lid back onto the container and carried it away. Bond had a very good idea what was being planned. He could feel his body rebelling as his animal instincts took over, fear feeding his imagination and both tearing through his entire being.
‘Show him!’ Scipio instructed.
The man with the rubber gloves tilted the vial so that some of the liquid spilled out onto the table. As it came into contact with the silver surface, there was an angry hissing and white smoke rose into the air. The metal bubbled and changed colour, eaten away by the acid. Bond choked. For a moment he was blinded but he could still hear the acid doing its work. Scipio and the translator watched in silence. Finally, the demonstration was over. The top of the table was pitted with holes, the metal contorted into ugly grooves. Some of the acid had dripped through to the floor below and that was burning too. The chemical stink was in Bond’s nose and throat. He was not crying but involuntary tears were streaming from his eyes. He tried to block out thoughts of what was to come, but inside he was screaming.
‘I am certain you are a man with imagination,’ Scipio said. ‘You are not going to die today, Mr Bond, but I want you to imagine that you return to London blind and disfigured. Your friends and colleagues will no longer be able to recognise you. You will have no hair. Your lips and nose … they will have been eaten away. It will be impossible for you to continue in your current occupation. Indeed, there will be no work for you anywhere in secret intelligence. How can you be secret when you have the appearance of a freak? You will retire and spend the rest of your days in some sort of home although I understand … I am told that the pain will never go away. In truth, it makes me sad to do this to you. You are a very handsome man. I admire good looks, especially in the masculine form. But, as I have explained … as I have already explained, I must send a message. Remember what I have said. This is my domain and you and your people must learn to stay away.’
Scipio stood up. He folded his shooting stick away.
‘Wait!’ Bond rasped.
Scipio made no reply. He simply nodded.
The henchman, protected by the rubber gloves, threw the entire contents of the vial into Bond’s face.
Bond screamed. He felt the hideous liquid, ice cold with its first touch, splash into his hair, his face, his eyes, his bared shoulders and chest. At the same time, he jerked backwards, overturning the chair and crashing down to the ground. The acid was burning into him, taking away his hair, his skin, the flesh beneath. His chest and his stomach were on fire. Some of the liquid had soaked into his trousers and was already attacking his groin. He was blind. He could feel his eyes shrivelling in their sockets. He was still screaming. He was being consumed, on fire. He was …
… alone.
Scipio had gone. His men had gone with him. Bond was lying on his back with his arms trapped by his own weight and the bulk of the chair, his legs bent above him. He was covered in the liquid and there was a puddle of it around his shoulders but the pain he was feeling had concentrated itself in the back of his head where it had struck the floor. And nowhere else. He was soaking wet, half out of his mind with the horror of it all, but he wasn’t burning. His vision had cleared and once again he could see.
It wasn’t hydrochloric acid.
Bond had been through the worst agony he could possibly imagine but he understood now, just as Scipio had told him, it had only been his imagination. At some stage during the presentation, perhaps when he had been overcome by the fumes, they had switched the vial and it was chilled water that had been thrown into his face. The rest of it Bond had inflicted on himself and even now, knowing the truth, he could still feel his system recoiling in shock, his heart beating at twice its normal speed. The sudden trauma might have killed an older man.
It had been a brilliantly conceived lesson in terror and absolute power.
Later, much later, he heard the door grind open a second time and a man come hurrying in. Bond was still lying with his arms pinned behind him, his feet above his head.
‘James?’ It was Reade Griffith. The CIA man rushed over to him. ‘Jesus! What happened to you? I’ve been looking for you all over this joint. They told me you’d left another way but of course I wasn’t buying any of that. What have they done to you? Are you OK?’
‘Scipio …’ To his surprise, Bond was barely able to talk. His breath was catching in his chest. It was as if his entire body had voluntarily shut down.
‘He was here?’ Griffith picked up the back of the chair, carrying Bond with it, tilting it back onto its legs. Bond’s shirt hung open, the buttons torn. ‘I’m going to have to find some wire cutters. Your wrists are bleeding. Hang in there. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Bond closed his eyes and tried to force himself to relax. He knew he’d had a close escape. For some reason, Scipio had decided to give him no more than a warning. But what a warning! Bond found himself contemplating the sheer, cold-blooded brilliance of it. It had been a display of total confidence. And what was that business about good looks ‘in the masculine form’? Bond put it out of his mind. He knew that in the new world to which he belonged, it was absolutely vital to have the edge over his adversaries. If he didn’t believe that he was stronger than them, he would never defeat them.
That edge had just been ruthlessly torn away. Sitting there, dripping wet, exhausted, Bond wondered how he would ever get it back.
11
Shame Lady
Later that evening, coming out of a scalding hot shower with a glass of Haig & Haig whisky inside him, Bond felt a lot better. His wrists were still hurting and he had thought about treating the cuts with a tube of Smith’s Cream that he carried in his washbag. But he didn’t want to walk out smelling like a pharmacy counter. Instead, he’d dried himself, got dressed, then wound a bandage around both wrists, concealing them beneath the cuffs of his ivory-white silk shirt. That would have to do. He still had a vague, throbbing headache but the whisky would help settle that. As he left the bedroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and stopped to examine the blue-grey eyes, the lines of his jaw, the scar on his right cheek which he had come to accept as an integral part of who he was. Just a few hours ago, it could all have been taken from him.
Standing there, he considered his reflection as it might have been if Scipio had followed through with his threat and it occurred to him that although he had often thought about life or death, he tried to avoid dwelling on the myriad possibilities in between. Which would he prefer? To die instantly or to spend the next thirty years with pain and disfigurement? He’d had the same thought once or twice during the war. The bravest men had not necessarily been the ones who had been killed but those who had been left to struggle through the rest of their lives with however much of them remained.
He flicked the light off and went down to the Royal Lounge, where Reade Griffith was waiting for him, gazing up at the spectacular chandelier that had supposedly been commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II but delivered, too late, after the start of the Russian Revolution. ‘I see they put you up in style,’ he said, as Bond took a seat opposite him. ‘I ordered bourbon on the rocks. I hope that’s OK.’
‘Bourbon will be fine,’ Bond said.
A waiter brought the drinks over and Bond lit a cigarette. On the other side of th
e room, a man in black tie was playing ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ on a grand piano. It was typical hotel music, filling the space without actually entertaining anyone.
‘So how are you feeling?’
Bond nodded. ‘OK.’
‘Still going to the party?’
There was no need to ask. As well as the silk shirt, Bond was wearing a midnight blue, single-breasted suit with turnback cuffs, a charcoal grenadine tie and black moccasin shoes. He looked completely relaxed, one leg crossed over the other. He lifted his glass and the two men drank.
Although it had been left unsaid, they were both disappointed by the results of their visit to Ferrix Chimiques. W.E., the initials on the invoice, stood for Wolfe Europe, a subsidiary of Wolfe America, the company that Bond had heard about when he was in London. On the face of it, this was a significant development. The chemical import/export business was clearly connected to Jean-Paul Scipio and the Corsican syndicate. He might even own it. It seemed that Bond had found a connection to Irwin Wolfe.
But Reade Griffith had checked out the chemical compound Wolfe Europe had purchased and there was a perfectly simple explanation for it. Acetic anhydride was used to convert cellulose to cellulose acetate – the main component of photographic film. ‘I don’t get it,’ he sighed. ‘Your guy went to all the trouble to get the invoice. He stashed it away on the roof. But it’s meaningless! Wolfe has to buy his chemicals someplace so he buys them from Ferrix Chimiques. What’s the big deal?’
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