“—that it’s wise?” she finished. “I don’t know. We’re concerned about the reports coming in from Japan. Have you read the classified document on this man Yoshida?”
“I read the cover summary but haven’t had a chance to read the full report,” Bond said. “Goro Yoshida, a billionaire, the head of a conglomerate of industrial and chemical engineering firms in Japan and a suspect in organizing terrorists?”
“That’s right. Foreign intelligence suspects that he may be involved with acts of terrorism against the West, mainly America and Britain. The American embassy was bombed recently, but no one was hurt. Two people were hurt at the British embassy bombing, one was killed.”
“What do we know about him?” Bond asked.
“Only that he’s extremely wealthy and commands the loyalty of a number of followers who would die for him if he asked them to. A few years ago he left the running of his company to others and now lives in some remote part of Japan. We’re not sure what his political ambitions are. He may have ties with the Yakuza. ”
“Not much to go on, is there?”
“No, it’s all on a hunch from the Americans. They believe that he could be raising some kind of army of terrorists. He’s said to have very strong views on Japanese nationalism. He has been very outspoken about the way in which traditional Japanese culture and tradition have been corrupted by Western influences.”
“And you want me to find him and see what he’s up to?” Bond asked.
“That was the idea.”
Bond shuffled in his chair. “Ma’am, with all due respect, I don’t think I should leave the Union case. We are making progress, although I admit it’s slow. I would like to dig deeper into Olivier Cesari’s family background. The French provided us with a little, but I need to get back in touch with Mathis at the DGSE. The last time I spoke to him, two months ago, he said that he had a couple of interesting leads. He’s obviously on the trail of something big.”
“Or he’s dead,” M said.
The words cut him like ice. Bond sat back in the chair and admitted, “That’s possible, too.”
M took a sip of her drink. Bond continued, “If I know Mathis, then he’ll be extremely thorough this time before blowing any whistles. Ma’am, if I could have two more weeks to follow up some loose ends … at least allow me to locate Mathis … then, if I’ve learned nothing new, you could put me on the Yoshida assignment?”
M drummed her glass with her fingers as she held it.
“Give me one good reason why I should do that,” she said.
Bond thought a moment and said, “Because the Union have been too quiet. The New War has screeched to a grinding halt, as you will have noticed. In fact, we’ve had no Union activity that we know of since the incident in France. It can only mean one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re planning something.”
M continued to drum her glass.
“I’m sure you are familiar with the myth of the hydra,” she said. “Every time one of the heads was cut off, two more would grow in its place. That’s rather a good analogy for the Union, don’t you think? It seems that no matter how many times we’ve foiled their plans—that business in the Himalayas, or the affair in Gibraltar, for example—they always come back even more powerful than before. The FBI estimates that they have grown at a rate of 150 percent in two years. That’s frightening.”
“All the more reason why we need to concentrate everything we have on finding their leader, this Le Gérant. For once we have a very good lead on who this man might be—Olivier Cesari—and if the French aren’t going to look into his background and try to find him, then somebody should.”
“Very well,” M said. “Two weeks. If you can produce substantial information regarding the whereabouts of this man, or any evidence of new Union activity, then you can stay on the case.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She stood and took the decanter of Scotch. She refilled her glass and then did the same to Bond’s.
“Besides,” she said, “I hate them as much as you do.”
FIVE
THE TATTOO
NADIR YASSASIN WAS BEING DETAINED AT HER MAJESTY’S PLEASURE IN HMP Belmarsh, a Category A local prison that had become operational in 1991 in the London Borough of Greenwich. A Category A prisoner is one whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public, the police, or to the security of the state.
Despite the lack of freedom, the Union’s most accomplished strategist found prison life not at all what he expected; in fact, he found it to be relatively pleasant. It didn’t hurt that he was treated as a celebrity criminal, receiving special consideration when it came to his cell, his interaction with the general population, and personal activities. He was in the Seg Unit, separated from the rest of the prison, which suited him fine. His “peter,” the cell he lived in, was comfortable for the most part, and he had been afforded certain luxuries such as books, a television and no pad mate. When he went to the hotplate for meals, the other prisoners perceived him as someone mysterious and exotic. A Senior Officer was assigned to him when he was out of his cell, more for Yassasin’s protection than for keeping the peace.
The authorities had attempted to interrogate him about the Union for seventy-three days straight, but Yassasin never bent. Short of torture, there was no way that they were going to extract any information from him. Yassasin was thankful that he was in a civilized country. He had seen what the prison systems in some of the countries he had been to were capable of.
Yassasin finished a surprisingly satisfying bowl of vegetable soup in the hotplate, then stood and motioned to the SO that he was ready to go back to his cell. SO Evans, a burly bald-headed man from a working-class background, followed Yassasin out of the room as the other prisoners watched and whispered. The two men passed the latrine and Yassasin stopped, saying that he had to go.
“I’ll wait here,” Evans said.
Yassasin went inside and found himself alone. He looked into the mirror at his tall, dark reflection and decided that prison life had not done too much damage to his physique. He had not lost much weight, nor gained any for that matter.
Yassasin stepped to the wall of urinals and prepared to do his business when he felt a change in the air behind him. There was a rush of wind, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a Red Band—a uniform indicating that the wearer was a trusted prisoner who served as a messenger or escort without supervision in certain areas of the prison. Yassasin tried to turn in time, but something metal slammed against the side of his face. He felt as if lightning had struck him as everything went black, pain enveloped his head, and he crashed to the floor.
Belmarsh’s healthcare center was a good one, designated Type 3, which meant that there were in-patient facilities and 24-hour nurse cover. Sixteen of the thirty-eight available beds were filled—one by Nadir Yassasin, who had suffered a severe concussion and damage to his right eye.
SO Evans had caught the Red Band responsible for the attack. He was revealed to be a prisoner who had wanted to prove to his peers that he was capable of violence. He had used a metal wastepaper basket as a weapon. Apparently, when the prisoner received Red Band status, he had been denigrated by the general population and had become an outcast. He was simply trying to gain favor with his friends again. The prisoner was stripped of his Red Band, received CC (confined to cell) for a week, and charged with assault.
Two days after the attack, Yassasin’s headaches had improved but he was still having problems with his vision. An ophthalmologist was brought in from the outside to examine him as the prison doctors observed. SO Evans, feeling somewhat responsible for Yassasin’s condition, was present as well.
The doctor used a Keeler binocular indirect ophthalmoscope with a 20-dioptre lens to peer into Yassasin’s eyes after using a dilating solution on them.
“There are still some ruptured blood vessels back there,” the doctor said. “That probably accounts for your vision not being perfect. I think it s
hould get better with time. I also—wait, hold on …” The doctor peered closer at something in the right eye. “You have some kind of lesion on the retina. It appears to be laser scarring. Have you ever had any surgery on your eyes?”
Yassasin hesitated, then said no.
SO Evans asked, “What did you find?”
The doctor shrugged. “It’s some kind of lesion on his retina … the same kind that is made by lasers. This one is not in a vital spot that would affect vision. It’s almost as if it was put there on purpose, as some kind of signature. That’s not unusual. I’d swear this is some kind of … design. Whatever it is, it was put there by man. It’s not congenital.”
The doctor put it in his report as the SO looked at Yassasin and frowned.
After the lights were out that night, SO Evans slipped past the nurse’s station and moved quietly down the hallway to the main ward. The snores there were monstrously loud, worse than on the landings. All the better, Evans thought as he walked slowly and softly past the occupied beds.
Nadir Yassasin was sleeping quietly. He was lying on his back, head propped up on the pillow, with his arms resting gently on his chest. He might have been a corpse in the morgue, ready for viewing by family members and friends.
Evans took a pillow from one of the empty beds and stood over Yassasin. He reached into his pocket and removed a six-inch switchblade. Evans looked around him to make sure that no one was watching, then quickly flicked the blade open. In three expert moves, he thrust the knife into Yassasin’s throat, pulled it across, slitting it from ear to ear, and forced the spare pillow down over the victim’s face. Evans held the pillow there, muffling the gurgling sounds and soaking up the blood. After a minute of minor struggling, it was over. Even Evans was surprised by how quietly he had done it.
He cleaned the knife on the pillow, put it back into his pocket, and turned to leave, lingering in the hallway long enough for the nurse to turn her back once more. The SO scooted past the desk and out of the healthcare center without anyone knowing he’d been there.
The murder of Nadir Yassasin sent shock waves through SIS. The Governor of Belmarsh was up in arms, steadfastly defending the security of the prison. A thorough investigation turned up next to nothing. The nurses on duty at the time of the killing claimed complete ignorance of the event. None of the other patients in the healthcare center knew anything had happened until the next morning. It was as if Yassasin had been killed by a ghost.
The ophthalmologist’s report crossed M’s desk not quite a week later. After she had read it, she called Bond immediately.
She thrust the folder into his hands as soon as he walked into her office.
“Read this and tell me if it rings any bells.”
Bond sat down and read it twice. Both times he was struck by the discovery of the strange lesion on Yassasin’s right retina.
“When I was in Spain last year,” he said, “Margareta Piel inadvertently mentioned something about an ‘operation’ that Union members had to undergo, part of an initiation, I gather. Could this be it?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” M said. “I remembered that from your debriefing.”
“Can we get a picture of this lesion? The doctor states that it’s some type of pattern.”
“I’m sure we can,” M replied. “I have an idea—suppose that whoever killed Yassasinwanted to keep himfromtalking or something.”
“A Union man on the inside?”
“Why not?” M asked. “It’s happened before. I’ve already had a couple of chats with Belmarsh’s Governor. Yassasin apparently had very little contact with other prisoners. The assault in the latrine was a fluke. Prisoners don’t have access to the healthcare center without authorization.”
“It had to have been a guard,” Bond said. “A warder, someone on staff.”
“Precisely.”
Bond thought a minute. “If our theory is correct, this perpetrator would have the same lesion on his retina.”
M nodded. “I’m going to ask the governor to hold mandatory eye examinations for the entire staff. Let’s see if it smokes anyone out.”
It was a tough two days. The governor had ordered the eye examinations on the pretext that they were part of a new medical regime that all civil servants, policemen, and government employees throughout England had to go through. Only three members of Belmarsh’s staff refused the exam. One was a nurse who was told that she would be fired if she didn’t submit to the test. She had second thoughts on hearing that and went through with it. The second was a warder who was planning to retire in five more years. He had been afraid that the authorities would find out that he was practically blind in one eye and would have to take an early retirement. Once the truth came out, he had the exam and was transferred to desk duty with his pension intact. The third holdout was SO Evans.
After extensive questioning, Evans could not come up with a satisfactory reason why he shouldn’t have a simple eye exam. In the end, he agreed to do it. Dr. David Worrall, the ophthalmologist, was brought in and he confirmed that SO Evans also had the same, unique scarring on his retina.
The next day, Dr. Worrall was summoned to the SIS building on the Thames. Chief-of-Staff Bill Tanner ushered Worrall into M’s office, where he found himself confronted by M, Bond, the Belmarsh Governor and two representatives from the Ministry of Defence.
“Dr. Worrall,” the governor began, “we don’t mean to alarm you, but you’ve stumbled upon something that could very well be a matter of national security.”
“I guessed that it was about the retinal scarring I found on those men,” Worrall said.
“That’s correct. Could you please tell us, in laymen’s terms, what it is you found?”
Worrall removed a color photograph from his briefcase. On first glance, it seemed to be a pink blur with a long dark spot in the middle; but on closer examination, one could see that the spot was a geometric pattern. It looked like three pyramids in a row, the middle one inverted so that the sides of the pyramids “fitted” together:
“This is the tattoo that was on Mr. Yassasin and Mr. Evans’ retinas,” Worrall said. “Believe it or not, marks like these are made by some retina specialists when they perform laser surgery. It’s done with an Argon laser set at a very low wattage, say point one, and the mark takes up no more than five hundred microns … which is quite small. These lasers are used to perform all sorts of things—corrective surgery and the like. I know of at least two doctors who like to carve their initials on the retinas after they’re done. Like an artist signing a canvas.”
“Doesn’t that affect the vision?” M asked.
“Not if it’s in the right place,” Dr. Worrall answered. “You see, there are areas on the retina that constitute a person’s so-called ‘blind spots’. We all have them. They’re temporal to the area of sharpest vision—the macula. A doctor can see these areas by looking with an ophthalmoscope. As long as the tattoo is not placed anywhere near the macula or the optic nerve, then vision wouldn’t be affected at all.”
“Thank you, doctor,” the governor said.
After Worrall had gathered his things and was escorted out, M asked, “What the hell does it mean?”
Bond took the photograph and studied it. “It could be something very simple. It’s an illustration of a ‘union’—note how the three objects fit together nicely. One is inverted, and yet it belongs with the others.”
“Why would Union members have that? On their eye, for God’s sake,” M continued.
“The criminal mind works in mysterious ways. Perhaps I had better talk to this Evans fellow,” Bond suggested.
“So far he hasn’t said a word,” the governor said. “When he was put into a holding cell, he made a phone call. He refused help from any lawyers, but said that someone was coming to help him from France.”
“Then I had better talk to him before that,” Bond said.
Thus, a fewhours later, Bond found himself alonewith SOEvans in a holding cell at Belmarsh. H
e spent thirty fruitless minutes asking questions and receiving no answers. Finally, Evans asked for a cigarette.
“If I give you one, you’ll tell me what I want to know?” Bond asked.
Evans shrugged. “No Etonian pencil-pusher from SIS is goin’ to push me around,” he said.
Bond leaned forward over the table. “Look. You have a couple of options here. The first is that you’ll tell me everything I want to know, and it’ll be at your own volition. The second is that you’ll tell me everything I want to know, and it’ll be atmy volition. Which is it to be?”
“You don’t scare me. You can’t touch me,” Evans spat. “I know my rights.”
“Rights?” Bond asked. “What rights? Have you been charged with anything?”
“No.”
“And you’ve sent your lawyer away, is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
“You think the Union is going to come and rescue you?”
Evans shuffled in his chair. “Don’t know anythin’ about no Union. I jus’ know someone’s comin’ to get me out of here.”
In a lightning-fast move that toppled his chair and created a deafening noise that echoed loudly in the room, Bond suddenly jumped up, grabbed the man by his shirt and roughly pulled him to his feet. “Listen to me, as far as I’m concerned, you have no rights,” he said through his teeth. “You’re not a prisoner here. You have no lawyer present. We know you have no family, so no one would miss you. You’re going to be charged with murder. You’re withholding information that is vital to national security. If you think the Union are going to save you, think again. I don’t give a damn about you. I enjoy squashing vermin like you.” Bond locked Evans’ head in his arm and began to apply some pressure. “I could break your neck with a twist of my arm, you know. The sound it makes—have you ever heard it? A man’s neck being broken? There’s this tremendous pull and then a sudden—SNAP! If it’s done hard enough, the spinal cord is severed. If it doesn’t kill you, then you’re paralyzed for the rest of your life. Would you like to hear what it sounds like?”
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