It was all clear now. Ronson had been right, it was an alligator and not a crocodile that had killed Head of B. And the mysterious involvement with SMERSH, what did that mean? Alligator was playing for high stakes and it was up to B*nd to discover the game. It certainly wasn’t “Go Fish.” Another thought occurred to him.
“You said your loved one was named Roger. What was his last name?”
“Entwhistle,” she replied. “Roger Entwhistle.”
B*nd whistled softly. So that was what had happened to 004. And he, B*nd, had been indirectly responsible for his death. Well now he had Alligator on four counts. Head of B., Ronson, 004, and the connexion with SMERSH. In his book any one was enough. He gritted his teeth angrily. What a bloody fool he’d been. He should have seen through it long before. He spoke softly.
“Have you ever done any diving? With a lung?”
“Yes,” she said, “Quite a bit. Why?”
“We’re going to take a look around Mr. Lacertus Alligator’s new home.”
He stubbed out his cigarette and drew her to him.
14. Alligator’s Lair
THEY sat at one of the small tables in the bar of the White Heron, waiting for Squabble to arrive with the diving gear. Anagram had prepared a light lunch of smoked salmon and fine Crottin de Chavignol from Beri. B*nd cut a large piece of the cheese, ate it with a thick slice of black bread, and washed it down with a glass of the Isabellita, an excellent Manzanilla sherry, she had brought. He smiled at her.
She was dressed in a thin Liberty print sleeveless blouse and long, tapered Hornburg slacks from Calypso. On her feet were the neat, economical though sturdy sandals known to the natives as “flip-flops.” She looked deep into his eyes.
“J*mes,” she said, “have you ever been in love?”
B*nd thought of the fate of 004 and laughed shortly.
“Just with an old man with damnably clear frosty grey eyes,” he answered.
She laughed, not understanding.
B*nd got to his feet. “I told Squabble to be here around six,” he said. “That will give us an hour before sunset to check our equipment. How would you like to spend the afternoon?”
She smiled provocatively and took his hand. “I thought we might go out to Flatt’s and look at the aquarium,” she said, her eyes glowing mischievously into his.
He laughed, kissed her roughly, and led her up the stairs.
Squabble arrived punctually at six o’clock, and B*nd knew immediately that Ronson had been right in his choice. He was a tall, broad-shouldered negro with the blue eyes often found in St. David’s Islanders. The heritage of the hardy buccaneers and whalers who had once made Bermuda their base. He extended a strong, brown hand.
“How you soun’, mate?” he asked in the traditional greeting.
B*nd took the hand and shook it warmly. “Think you could guide us out to Ireland Island?” he asked.
“You mean de house uv de crazy purple man?”
B*nd nodded.
Squabble smiled broadly, flashing his white, even teeth.
“Veil I alvays did vonder vhat vent on out there,” he said. “I spect I could get you ther’ alright, but, um, um, I ain’ gone say vhat happens vhen ve arri’e, though.”
B*nd smiled at the “um ums,” not a sign of hesitancy but a typical “Mudian” speech mannerism.
“Neither am I,” he said. “How’s swimming out there?”
Squabble gestured towards the SCUBA gear. “Vif dese?”
B*nd nodded.
“Not so bad. Most uv de shark stay, um, um, outside de reef. Don’ come in to de Great Soun’. Few ’cuda, cutde fish, and morays. Scuttles von’t hurt you, too small. ‘Cuda don’t attack ‘less you wex ’em or ther’s blood inna vater. Morays,” he shrugged, “veil, um, um, you just got to keep yo’ eyes peeled fo’ morays.”
They left as soon as it was dark, the aqualungs strapped to the backs of their bikes. Anagram handled her little Zundapp as surely as she had the Mercedes, leaning into the turns and accelerating on the hills. Squabble led on a low-slung Cyrus with B*nd and the girl riding abreast behind him. The negro pointed out places of interest as they whizzed by, and B*nd exhilarated in the cool night air, the occasional whiff of honey-suckle, and the clear, moonlit sky silhouetting the dark shapes of the palms, poincianas, and pride of Indias. Even the blighted cedars were beautiful in the silver light, stretching their gaunt, wind-bent fingers up into the dark.
Anagram raised her voice above the whine of the motors. “Could we stop for a moment? I think my diving gear is coming loose.”
They pulled over to the roadside and B*nd tightened the straps. Suddenly there was a loud blast on a horn and a purple Austin A-40 travelling in excess of the twenty m.p.h. speed limit squealed by them.
“It’s him,” cried Anagram, “Alligator!”
“Come on,” said B*nd.
They jumped on their bikes, and, following Squabble’s example, leaned over the handlebars to reduce wind resistance.
In the car ahead Pazardzhik leaned over, tapped Alligator on the shoulder, and pointed behind them.
“What is it, chum? Oh, think we’re being followed, eh? Soon take care of that.” He chuckled evilly as he gripped a lever on the floor and pulled. There was a scraping sound as a trap door opened in the rear of the car and a huge gob of ambergris tumbled out into the road. “You will soon see, my friends,” he murmured, “that when Lacertus Alligator does something, he does it up brown. Or rather,” he cackled hysterically, “purple!”
Squabble’s higher-geared bike had drawn ahead of the other two. They rounded a corner and Anagram screamed.
“Look out,” she cried.
It was too late. Squabble’s bike hit the slippery mound and swerved, smashing into the wall to the right and sending him hurtling over its handlebars’ onto the rocks below. B*nd had slammed on his brakes and forced the girl into the oleanders on the left. The bikes bumped gently into the soft foliage.
B*nd hurried to the wall and looked over. He turned to the girl. “Dead,” he said. He pointed to the green liquid pool of slime in the road. “Ambergris. Fiendishly clever. Whale vomit is pretty hard to trace.”
They walked their bikes around the treacherous area. B*nd stopped and lit a cigarette.
“Well, we lost him. But he’s obviously headed for Ireland Island. Luckily I took the precaution of bringing a map. We’ll have to feel our way when we get there. You all right?”
She nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.”
They proceeded slowly out of Southampton and into Sandys Parish, bumped briefly over the world’s smallest drawbridge onto Somerset Island, and crawled up Scaur Hill through the great rock cutting. They looked at the rough-hewn walls, covered many years before by some unknown hand with religious inscriptions which time and weather had failed to wash away. Then came the long flat stretch around Ely’s harbour. The lights of a house glowed across the water from the top of Wreck Hill, and B*nd thought back to the days when great fires burned there, luring ships onto the rocks. The waiting Bermudians would then put out in their longboats and claim the hapless vessel as salvage. Those forays into the night had been the basis of many of the vast local fortunes, and the heirs hadn’t changed much since then, B*nd reflected.
They crossed Watford bridge with Mangrove Bay to their left. Boaz Island slipped by under their wheels. They came to another bridge and drew to a halt. A huge sign proclaimed “Alligator’s Lair, Trespassers Will be Shot on Sight. Keep Out.” Below it was a mailbox bearing the name L. Alligator. A heavy steel gate barred their way. Beyond it they could see the bridge brilliantly illuminated by huge purple floodlamps. Armed guards paced its length.
“This is it,” B*nd said grimly. “Let’s go.”
They untied the diving gear and disappeared into the shadows.
15. Death of a Frogman
THE island is shaped like a huge fish hook and they had followed its curve in a gradual U turn. Now as B*nd looked across the sparkli
ng water of the Great Sound, he could see the lights of Warwick Parish winking in the distance. He tore his mind from the thought of the White Heron, his warm, comfortable bed, and Anagram . . .
He looked at her beautiful body as she changed into her bathing suit, remembering how it had been. She slipped expertly into the heavy harness. They kissed one last time, long and fiercely, adjusted their face masks, and plunged into the water.
The reef shelved slowly down and B*nd kicked gently, keeping the girl in sight out of the corner of his eye. He breathed deeply, adjusting to the mouth piece, and put his legs, into an easy relaxed crawl. Through the surface the moonlight filtered down, making the ocean floor a flickering landscape. Small fish, black-striped sergeant-majors, silvery grunts and snappers, and an occasional red-squirrel darted away from his approaching shadow.
He squinted sideways at the girl, slightly below and to the right of him. She was swimming strongly, rhythmically. Her body was white against the outcroppings of coral and the weaving clusters of anemones, and then almost invisible above the stretches of sand. Below her black sea puddings spotted the sand like the droppings of some great prehistoric monster. A conch moved painfully along, inching itself forward on its single foot.
She turned to look up at B*nd and suddenly froze, pointing frantically above him. Instinctively he kicked hard, jack-knifing his body downwards. A sharp pain flashed through the calf of his left leg, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a spear bury itself in the sand below. CO2 gun, he thought. It would take a full forty seconds for his assailant to reload and fire again. B*nd’s knife was in his hand as his feet touched bottom. He wheeled and kicked hard. Above him a man in a dark rubber suit was frantically pushing another spear into his gun. As B*nd shot toward him he let go of the gun and held the spear in front of him. The water slowed his thrust and it glanced harmlessly off the aqualung as B*nd felt his knife bite through the rubber into the man’s belly. He wrenched sickeningly as helpless fingers scrabbled at the face of his mask. The man pulled away, clutching at the cloud of blood that drifted from his stomach. In one last effort he stiffened his body, raised his arm in the Nazi salute, and died.
B*nd hung motionless in the water, waiting for the hammering pulse in his throat to quiet.
Below him Anagram was clinging to the hourglass waist of a niggerhead, the man’s spear held tight in her right hand, glinting in the reflection of the quicksilver surface. B*nd smiled grimly, gave her the thumbs-up signal, and swam down to her side.
As he neared the bottom he noticed a gentle movement in the sand to his left. A big sting ray, he thought, emerging from its cover. He looked around. Suddenly the whole ocean floor seemed alive, the mackerel-shadowed sand had become a softly shifting surface, a strange, unreal pattern of whirling shapes. Frightened fish darted about, not knowing which way to turn. The whirling increased, and B*nd felt himself sucked and buffeted by powerful currents. His left arm encircled the girl’s waist, while his right went instinctively to his knife. Desperately they tried to swim, but the water dragged them inexorably back. B*nd grabbed at a niggerhead and felt his skin rip as it was torn from his grasp. They were being drawn towards a large square opening in the reef. He felt the girl’s body being wrenched from his arms and with superhuman strength he held on, protecting her from the outcroppings of coral. He gasped as his aqualung smashed against the mouth of the opening and then they were inside, being forced through a dark, narrowing tunnel at sickening speed. As he caromed off the sides he noted that they were of smooth solid steel. No chance of a hand or foot hold. A stunned angel fish sped with them, helpless in the terrible current.
B*nd bit into the rubber mouthpiece, trying desperately not to black out The girl’s arms were still around him. They were going straight up, the water, he realized now, not sucking but forcing them from below.
Suddenly it was light. B*nd felt himself borne for an instant on the crest of a mighty fountain of water, and then falling, falling. His body smashed onto a solid floor, the girl on top of him. Water was pouring down onto their heads. With his last ounce of strength he pulled himself to his knees and, crawling, dragged her out from under the cascading torrent.
He tore off his mask and lay face down, gasping for breath, waiting for the screaming in his ears to die away. All around him lay fish of all sizes, some lying still, others flipping feebly, vomited up from the deep. To his right Anagram lay on her side, her face still obscured by her mask. The top half of her bathing suit had been torn away by the force. Behind him the thunder of the water slowly subsided. There was a deep hollow gurgle, and then no sound except for the flapping of a fish.
A harsh, shrill laugh broke the silence. Groggily, B*nd looked up. It was Alligator, dressed in purple waders and slicker and carrying a heavy silver-tipped cane. He looked at B*nd and sneered.
“Why Mr. Boom, this is a pleasant surprise. Welcome to Alligator’s Lair, chum.”
B*nd’s eyes glowed hatred, and summoning his every nerve he struggled halfway to his feet. He swayed, trying to control his weakened, battered muscles.
Alligator’s voice was ice.
“I’m surprised at you, Commander,” he hissed. “You should know better than to try anything with me.”
The heavy walking stick smashed once into B*nd’s temple, and he collapsed.
16. The Pleasure of His Company
WHEN B*nd regained consciousness, he found himself slumped back in a massive cast iron chair in the middle of a tiny, dimly-lit room. He was clothed only in a white terry cloth bathrobe which was several sizes too small. For a moment his mind was a complete blank; he was only conscious of a dull pain in all his joints, and an intense throbbing in the area of his left temple. Where was he? What had happened? Then his mind cleared and he remembered the undersea combat with Alligator’s guard, the strange movements on the ocean floor, the desperate struggle with the mighty ocean current that had pulled him into Alligator’s clutches, and the savage blow on the head with the silver-tipped cane. He pulled himself slowly to his feet and pain shot through his leg muscles. A heavy clanging sound from the floor and a chafing sensation about his right ankle led him to look down. He saw that he had been shackled to the chair, which, in its turn, had been securely bolted to the floor. No chance of escape, B*nd thought.
Suddenly he remembered the girl. What had Alligator done with her? He glanced quickly around the room but it was empty; indeed, it was entirely barren of furniture, save for the chair and a low mahogany table next to it upon which, B*nd noticed, was a pencil, a dinner bell, and a small pile of papers. B*nd sat down again and examined these more closely.
At the top of the pile was an off-white card engraved in purple ink. “Mr. Lacertus Alligator,” B*nd read, “requests the pleasure of your company for dinner. The favour of a reply is hardly necessary.”
B*nd put the card aside with an involuntary shrug, and picked up the next item in the stack, a long, blank, yellow pad to which had been stapled another card, this one bearing a message written in a neat, purple, longhand script. “Consulting the menu you will find on the table to your left,” it read, “select one hors d’oeuvre, one soup, one entree, two vegetables, and one beverage. The dessert will be provided by your host. Indicate your choices on the affixed pad. Then ring the bell and your order will be taken.”
B*nd longed for a cigarette. He felt like a death-row prisoner being awarded his final supper. But despite the overwhelming tension of his dilemma, he was never one to ignore the graces of fine food and drink, and, considering the situation in which he found himself, he set about planning his dinner with a not unremarkable degree of relish. To start, he ordered some chilled whole eggplant caviar (chopped, not mashed) with an extra half tablespoon of finely chopped scallion on the side, and a bowl of hot shrimp bisque (noting that the shrimp should be de-veined before they were cooked).
For his entree, B*nd selected boef en miroton. “One tablespoon of butter should be heated in the skillet before preparing,” he wrote. “The half-
pound of onions that are now placed in the skillet should be cooked until they are slightly browned. Care must be taken to stir continually while the flour, consomme, salt, pepper, and vinegar are added. The twenty-five-minute cooking which follows must be done over a low flame.
“Meanwhile five medium-sized potatoes should have been cut in slices no less than one inch, nor more than one and one-half inches thick and arranged in a crown about an ovenproof casserole so that (and this is essential) each slice overlaps another. The beef, which should meanwhile have been cut into thin slices, must now be placed in the centre of the crown, after which the onion mixture, two tablespoons of breadcrumbs, and the remaining butter should be sprinkled upon it. The casserole should now be baked at precisely 450° F. for ten minutes.
“For my vegetables, first I should like asparagus tips, cooked for fifteen minutes in salted, boiling water. Serve them with sauce blanche, which has been brought to a boil, in preparation, but has not been allowed to boil.
“Second, I should like mushrooms nicoise. Bake them for five minutes in a 350° F. oven before adding the tomatoes. Then bake them fifteen minutes more. Do not fail to sprinkle them with parsley, or to garnish them with olives.
“Lastly, for my beverage, I would like a cold bottle of Schlitz. Thank you. Yours sincerely, J*mes B*nd.” He reached for the dinner bell and rang it. A few moments later there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” B*nd called, and a German in a purple dinner jacket appeared. “Your bidding, sir,” he said. B*nd handed him his order.
“Very good, sir,” said the German. “Thank you, sir.” He bowed and left the room.
B*nd sat back and tried to puzzle out his situation. Why had Alligator built the huge replica of Parliament? Why had he taken such pains to keep people away? What were his plans for B*nd?
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