Blast from the Past

by Raymond Benson

Bond cursed and drove the cab onto the pavement as well. He floored the gas pedal and took off, following the town car. Cheryl was too stunned to scream.

  The other car reached the intersection at Sixth Avenue and shot out into moving traffic. Another cab rammed into its back fender, but it kept on going. Horns were braying as Bond's taxi burst out into the avenue. They managed to make it across without getting hit.

  They were still traveling west on a one-way, narrow street, and there was now nothing between the town car and Bond's taxi. Bond bore down, gaining on it. Then he saw a figure lean out of the car's window, pointing back at them.

  "Duck!" Bond yelled just as the windshield shattered above his head. He pulled out the Walther PPK, held it in his left hand out the window, and shot at the car. He knocked out a taillight. Bond was out of practice driving with the wheel on the left, and shooting with his left hand.

  At Seventh Avenue, the town car turned left and headed south. Bond zoomed into the intersection doing 60 miles per hour and almost hit a bus. Cheryl gripped the dashboard and stared straight ahead, not saying a word.

  The town car weaved in and out of traffic, scooting ahead and sailing through an intersection just as the light turned red. Bond, through his teeth, said, "Hold on!" He stepped on the gas and leaned on the horn of the cab. Cross traffic had already entered the intersection and another taxi pulled in front of Bond. He had to swerve to avoid broadsiding it, but nevertheless took off its back bumper and sent the cab spinning like a top in the middle of the intersection.

  The town car turned right onto another one-way street, heading west. Bond followed, hot on its tail. The figure leaned out of the car once again and fired at them, but missed.

  Cheryl suddenly snapped out of her deep freeze. "All right, that does it," she said, and pulled a Browning 9mm automatic pistol out of her bag.

  "Christ, Cheryl," said Bond, "now you think of that?"

  "Sorry, I was enjoying the ride," she said. She leaned out the passenger window. She fired twice. The man who was aiming at them dropped his gun on the street and withdrew into the car.

  "There're three people in the car," said Bond.

  "The driver, the woman and the man you just shot. Nice work."

  "Thanks," she said.

  Cheryl leaned out again to fire, but the town car reached Eighth Avenue, and turned south against the one-way traffic traveling north.

  "They must be mad!" she shouted, but Bond followed them. Sirens shrieked behind them.

  At 23rd Street, the town car turned right and drove west again. Bond sped after it across Ninth Avenue and onto Tenth. They were nearing the Hudson River.

  The town car slowed and turned into a loading dock of an old four-story building on Tenth Avenue, and Bond pulled in a block away next to the curb. He jumped out and took cover behind his open door. Cheryl ran to the side of the building and flattened herself against it. Bond followed and stood beside her, watching and listening.

  "What is this place?" he asked.

  "Some kind of warehouse. No telling who it belongs to," she said. "There's nothing this far west in Chelsea but old warehouses."

  Bond snaked nearer to the dock entrance, but a steel door barred the way to what appeared to be a parking garage. There was no visible way in on this side of the building. The sun was sinking fast, and an orange glow permeated the streets. The police sirens were lost in the distance, and this area of the city was deserted.

  There was a fire escape on the side of the building. "I'm going to get in up there. Go find a phone and call for back-up or whatever it is you do here," Bond ordered.

  "I don't think you should go in there alone," she said.

  "Go on, please, Cheryl," he said with determination, and then he leaped up and grabbed the bottom of the metal ladder. It rolled down with his weight.

  "All right," she said, "but I'm coming right back after you." She looked around, located a phone booth on the opposite corner, and ran for it.

  Bond climbed to the second floor. He tried the window, but it was locked or stuck. Up another flight, the window inched up a bit. Bond put all of his strength behind the effort and opened it wide enough for him to slip through.

  It was very dark inside. He stood still and allowed his eyes to adjust to the lighting. It was some kind of lounge area; chairs and couches dating from the Fifties dominated the room. He listened and could hear faint movement below him.

  He slowly moved across the room to the open door, but the wooden floor creaked as he walked. Damn! If they didn't know he had already entered the building, they were aware of his presence now.

  As soon as he stepped through the doorway, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head and all light was extinguished.

  CHAPTER 5

  The jolt of three slaps on the face brought Bond out of the pit of darkness. He was propped in a chair in a different room, some kind of old office, with junky furniture piled next to the walls. A single overhead light cast a dull yellow glow over the floor.

  The back of his head hurt like hell. His first reflex was to reach up with his right hand to rub his head, but the cold muzzle of a pistol jabbed his temple.

  "Don't move," a man's voice said.

  Bond groaned, squeezed his eyes twice, then focused on the blurry figure standing in front of him. It was the bag lady, but strangely changed. The rags were gone, and she was dressed in a black shirt and black trousers. Her face still seemed smooth, waxen, unreal. She was plump and short, probably no more than 5'2". The gray hair pulled back in a bun seemed fake -- it looked as if she wore a wig.

  "You don't recognize me, Mr. Bond?" she said. "Maybe this will help."

  The woman reached up to her hairline and gently began to peel off something stuck to her skin. No, she was actually peeling off her skin! She worked carefully, removing a thin mask of synthetic flesh that covered the right half of her face. Underneath was a grotesque skin condition that began on her right cheekbone and went up the side of her face and underneath the wig: the scarring of poorly executed plastic surgery. She was a female version of the phantom of the opera.

  "Hideous, Mr. Bond?" she said. "Take a good look. I want you to see what you did to me." She pronounced her Ws as Vs, like a B-movie Nazi.

  What the hell was she talking about? Bond forced himself to look at her again, and this time the feeling of recognition he had earlier experienced returned. He looked past the horrible mask and saw a square, brutal face with toadlike features. No! He felt his heart race when he realized who she was. A report claiming that the woman had been seen in Australia received some attention shortly after the Japanese affair, but this information proved to have been false. It was seemingly impossible, but there she was in front of him. She was supposed to be dead!

  "Irma Bunt," he said.

  "Oh, so you recognize me!" she cackled. She carefully replaced the skin mask as she talked. "You thought I was dead, didn't you? Everyone thought I was dead. Well, I was. I was dead for many years, until now." She chuckled to her self, then said slowly and with menace, "Now I am more alive than I ever was. It's a pity you survived the surprise I left for you in the bank. Now I'll have to take care of you here, but that might be more entertaining after all."

  Bond surveyed the situation. A man stood behind his chair and held a pistol to his head. Another man, the wounded one, was next to Irma Bunt. His shoulder was bloody, and he had crudely wrapped something around it. He was holding Bond's Walther PPK in his left hand. A third man was a few feet away, leaning against the wall and armed with what appeared to be an Uzi.

  "You are wondering how I am still alive," Fräulein Bunt said.

  Bond hoped he could stall her and keep her talking until Cheryl could arrive with the cavalry.

  "You're right, Fräulein, I am wondering. The last time I saw you, you were lying on the floor of that castle with a bump on your head."

  Her mask was once again in place. Bond couldn't decide which of her faces was more freakish.

  "You thought I pe
rished in the explosion, didn't you? I regained consciousness just as you were escaping on that balloon. I knew what was happening. I could hear the rumbling from below. I knew I had seconds to get out of there. You left poor Ernst in a heap on the floor, but there was nothing I could do for him. He was dead."

  As she talked, the flood of nightmarish memories returned to Bond. Ernst

  Stavro Blofeld had become a fugitive from the law after the Thunderball affair and the business in the Alps. With the demise of spectre, Blofeld and his companion, Irma Bunt, had fled to Japan, where he had assumed the identity of a horticulturist named Dr. Shatterhand. Blofeld had purchased an ancient, abandoned Japanese castle and built a "research lab" for exotic, poisonous plants and dangerous animals. Mad as a hatter, Blofeld's true intention had been to entice Japanese citizens to commit suicide in his so-called "garden of death." Bond had infiltrated the castle's defenses, knocked out Irma Bunt with a staff, strangled Blofeld and rigged the underground geyser to explode.

  "I was escaping in a small boat we kept for just such a purpose when it blew," Bunt continued. "I was hit in the head by debris and almost drowned. These men here saved me and have remained loyal. Like you, I lost my memory, I didn't know who I was. I was taken to a private German clinic near Kyoto, where I underwent several operations. There is a metal plate in the right side of my skull, and the skin on my face . . . well, my plastic surgeon could do very little with it. The damage was too great. I was in bed for a year, and rehabilitation lasted another two years of my life. It took another ten years for a psychiatrist to finally pull me out of the hole into which I had fallen. Then I remembered. I looked back at what I had lost, and forward to the years of suffering ahead of me. That's a long time to ponder one's future, Mr. Bond. At the time I didn't know exactly how, but I knew you would play a prominent role in it."

  "Why did you have to kill my son?" Bond seethed.

  "Ah, your son!" Bunt smiled. Her features were so distorted that the edge of her mouth lifted on only one side of her face. "My intelligence sources retraced your footsteps in Japan. I discovered your pretty little Kissy. There was a little boy living with her, about ten years old, when I finally found her, I kept watch and followed her all the way to America. I finally established that he had a link to you."

  She took a barber's razor and a small vial of liquid out of her pocket. "This is what I used on him. I lined the blade with a little fugu poison, and ever-so-subtly cut him one day as he was entering his building. Did you like my disguise? It fooled even you, Mr. Bond, didn't it?"

  Bond knew that fugu is poison extracted from a blowfish that lives in the waters of Japan. The Japanese have licensed fugu chefs prepare it in restaurants so that no mistakes are made. That explained the cut on James' arm.

  "You killed my wife, too, you bitch," Bond said, "and if you think I'm going to let you live after today, you're as mad as ever."

  "Oh, yes!" she gloated. "Your wife! The daughter of that criminal, the Corsican, Draco. That was an accident, Mr. Bond. Those bullets were meant for you. If you had died then, it would have saved us all a lot of trouble, no? It would have saved me my---"

  Bunt's lower lip trembled. Her eyes grew fierce and she suddenly shouted, "Look at me! Look at what you did to me, English pig! You destroyed my face!"

  "Fräulein Bunt," Bond said with venom, "you were never a beauty queen."

  The woman stepped up to him and slapped him twice. She was shaking with rage and madness. Bond started to jump up from the chair, but the thug behind him thrust the pistol roughly into his temple.

  "Don't move!" he commanded again.

  Bond had to think. His hands were free. Surely there was some way he could gain an advantage.

  Bunt stepped back, rubbing her palm, "My, my, Mr. Bond," she said, a bit more calmly. "You need a shave. You have quite a stubble. What do you think, Hans? Don't you think Mr. Bond needs a shave?"

  The man standing behind Bond grunted affirmatively.

  Irma Bunt opened the vial of fugu poison and poured it along the edge of the razor. "Now hold still, Mr. Bond. I think you would hate for me to slip and nick you. You know how fast this poison works? In five minutes, you become disoriented. In ten minutes you lose control of your muscles. In 15 you stop breathing. I understand the experience is excruciatingly painful. Hold his arms, Hans. Josef, cover him."

  The man behind Bond holstered the pistol and grabbed Bond's wrists. He twisted them sharply behind the chair and held them in a vise-like grip. He was very strong. The man with the Uzi moved forward and held the barrel up at Bond. Irma Bunt stepped closer, holding the razor in front of her, Syrupy liquid dripped from the blade.

  Bond refused to close his eyes as the woman pressed the cold razor against his right cheek. He stared into her yellow eyes as she slowly scraped the blade down his face and cleanly cut his beard.

  "It's a little rough without lather, is it not, Mr. Bond?" she said. "But you like close shaves, don't you?"

  Bond held his breath, willing his facial muscles not to jerk involuntarily. The woman brought the blade down again, finishing the job on the right cheek. She fingered the age-old, faint scar there.

  "Looks like you weren't so careful one morning, eh?" she said. "Now lift your chin, please. We need to do the neck now."

  She pulled his chin up and Bond stared at the ceiling. He felt the blade cut against the stubble. It was rougher going there, and he anticipated a sharp sting.

  The woman concentrated intently on her job, breathing heavily.

  A bead of sweat rolled down Bond's forehead and into his left eye. He winced and almost flinched away from the razor. The woman's breathing became even more pronounced. Bond glanced down at her and saw that her free hand was rubbing her breasts as she applied the razor. My God, he thought, she was sexually excited by this! The sadistic woman licked her lips, her eyes focused on Bond's vulnerable neck.

  "Now the left cheek, Mr. Bond," she said. He leveled his head and stared straight ahead, past the woman and Josef, the man with the Uzi. To his amazement, Cheryl Haven was peering into the doorway of the room, gun in hand. Their eyes met. She gestured toward Josef with a slight nod of her head. Bond deliberately closed his eyes and opened them. Cheryl quietly stepped into the doorway and assumed the firing stance.

  The blast hit Josef in the back and he fell forward. Bond simultaneously kicked up at Irma Bunt, knocking her away from him. The man holding his wrists released his grip and went for his gun, but Bond leaped out of the chair and tackled him. Cheryl immediately turned her gun on the wounded man and yelled, "Freeze! Drop the gun!" The surprised man dropped Bond's Walther and held up his one good arm. Irma Bunt dashed from the room.

  Hans delivered a blow to Bond's chin that knocked him onto the floor. With lightning speed, the man then drew his gun, but the blast from Cheryl's Browning hit him in the head, splattering his brains across the dirty wooden floor.

  "Thanks," Bond said, rubbing his chin.

  "Not a problem," she said, training her gun back on the wounded man. "The lady just took a powder."

  "You watch him, I'll go after her," Bond said. He picked up his Walther and ran from the room into a large, open space. What he saw disoriented him. The dimly lit warehouse was full of the ancient remains of what must have been parade floats. A storybook castle made of papier-mâché sat on a flatbed with wheels. A large cartoon dog built out of wood and steel lay on its side, one leg broken off. Other dilapidated structures of various subjects, from a giant hot dog to statues of American presidents, were scattered about in a bizarre and otherworldly fashion.

  Where had she gone? He listened to the room but heard no running footsteps. He ran toward the broken floats and began to search under, on and around them. She could be anywhere. The place was so full of junk she could easily blend in with the debris and not be noticed. He needed more light.

  He was looking around the body parts of a giant papier-mâché Abraham Lincoln when a shot rang out. The bullet zipped past him and into Lin
coln's head, shattering it into bits. The woman had a gun! Bond dove for cover, waited a moment, then peered out into the dark, open space. The shot had come from somewhere on the other side of the room.

  After a moment, a door behind one of the floats opened and a figure ran through it. Bond bolted upright and ran after her. It was a careless move, for she immediately leaned in and fired the gun at him. Bond dived for the floor and, with both hands on his Walther, fired into the open doorway. Too late. The figure had disappeared, running into the next room.

  Bond leaped to his feet, ran to the door and flattened himself against the wall beside it. Commando-style, he swung in and crouched, his gun ready. Again, his senses were assaulted by the surreal visuals. This small room was full of naked, broken male and female mannequins-loose arms, legs, torsos and complete bodies were piled together in a grotesque, frozen orgy. The image so confused Bond that he foolishly left himself wide open. The shot slammed into his left lower leg, shattering his fibula. Bond screamed and rolled over into a mass of plastic appendages. He unleashed a volley of ammunition toward the far side of the room, firing blindly at the mannequins. The noise was deafening, but Bond thought he heard a muffled cry.

  His leg was burning like hell. He took a moment to examine the damage. Blood poured from a wound a couple of inches above his ankle. He pressed his left foot against the wall to test his strength and tremendous pain shot through him. Was he crippled? Would he be able to walk again?

  Bond peered across the room at the mass of bodies and saw some movement. Pushing pieces of mannequins aside, Irma Bunt crawled out onto the floor. He had hit her after all. Her wig had fallen off, revealing the area where the metal plate had been implanted. The mask hung loose from her face as if an epidermal layer had been sliced away. She must have dropped her gun, for she used both hands to pull herself along the floor like a snail. Smeared blood trailed behind her. Bond watched in fascination and horror as she got within a few yards of him and then stopped, completely drained of energy. She looked straight at Bond and snarled, "English pig . . . ."