“Too bad we have to lose so many good people on the film,” Fripp said. “Do you have a director in mind to replace Duling?”
“Are you kidding?” Essinger said. “Pirate Island will have to start again from scratch. We’re losing our lead actor and director.”
“And lead actress,” Wilcox reminded him.
Essinger stiffened slightly. “Yes.”
“But your insurance will cover it,” Wilcox said. “The entire production is protected. You’ll receive a shitload of cash, Léon. From your insurance company and from your wife’s inheritance. I wouldn’t mind being in your shoes after all this is over, fella.” Essinger took a sip of his beer and nodded. Sure, it would be great. As long as he was able to live with himself.
When Bond awoke that morning, his eyesight had returned to normal. When they had finally taken him back to his cell, an agonizing, eons-long fifteen minutes after Doctor Gerowitz began working on him, Bond’s vision was blurry due to the dilating solution he had received. At first he was alarmed that his eyes had been permanently damaged. But as the doctor had predicted, the laser had not harmed his vision. With no small amount of skill, Gerowitz had avoided the crucial sites at the back of the eyeball, namely the macula and optic nerve areas. Ironically, Bond was thankful that Gerowitz was good at what he did.
The only things that were sore were his eyelids, due to the retractors forcing them open. They felt as if they were made of sandpaper.
“I didn’t start noticing a change in my eyesight until the fourth day,” Mathis had told Bond. The idea, then, was to psychologically torture him as well as physically so. The day-to-day fear of becoming blind was almost too much to take. The good doctor would play havoc with areas in the eyeball that did not affect sight, pricking and burning him for a few seconds at a time without anesthesia. It was no wonder that Mathis was now so resigned. The ordeal would break anyone.
Bond was determined to find a way to avoid it.
They heard the keys rattle in the door at mid-morning. A guard came in with a tray of food—bowls of oatmeal and no utensils. Surprisingly, it tasted good, even scraped out by hand. The meal gave Bond the much-needed energy to formulate a plan.
He ate all but a small amount of the food. He carefully crawled to the hole in the wall and smeared the remaining oatmeal along the floor and into the straw.
Bond then moved closer to Mathis to tell him what he had in mind.
Tylyn Mignonne arrived in Cannes that afternoon and checked into the exclusive Carlton Hotel, the place to stay when at the film festival. In the past she had stayed at the Majestic and the Martinez, both first-class hotels, but the Carlton represented the top of the heap when it came to celebrity placement.
There was plenty about the film festival that Tylyn disliked. Mostly she felt that it had become way too snobbish for her taste. The organizers perceived it as a much bigger and more important event than it really was. She was constantly amazed by the lavish attention thrown at the Cannes Film Festival by the international media. There were more reporters and paparazzi at Cannes than there were film industry professionals. And even that inner circle was becoming more and more difficult to break into. She knew two journalists in Paris who were refused press accreditation simply because their publications weren’t big enough.
What particularly irked Tylyn was the fans’ behavior. She couldn’t believe they could stand in the Riviera sun outside a hotel for hours just to get a glimpse of a celebrity. Even in Hollywood it wasn’t that bad.
Because of the increase in media attention and interest from the masses, security had been beefed up considerably at the festival. Tylyn was more aware of uniformed guards everywhere. They were even stationed in front of her hotel, checking to make sure anyone who came in was staying there.
La Croisette, the main street that ran along the beach to the Palais, was already crowded and much of it blocked off from traffic. It was madness to get into a car anywhere near the festival grounds; it was easier to simply walk from one’s hotel to the Palais. However, that meant fighting one’s way through mobs of fans wanting a photo, an autograph, or even a kiss.
As Tylyn lay on the bed in her suite, she decided against going outside. The opening night screening was in a few hours—some film by a hot American director—and she felt obliged to go. She didn’t really want to. If she could have her way, she would stay secluded in her room until tomorrow night, when she absolutely had to make an appearance at Léon’s charity screening. But she had received scores of interview requests and she was under contract to give a few. She would be busy all day tomorrow up until the time of the screening, so why shouldn’t she take today off?
Having made the decision, she phoned her publicist and told her to give away the tickets.
She turned on the television and—surprise, surprise—the program was coverage of the film festival. There was a clip of Prince Edward and his wife Sophie, Countess of Wessex, arriving in Cannes that afternoon. The reporter said that Princess Caroline of Monaco would be arriving tomorrow for a grand event screening of Tsunami Rising. A roster of the celebrities scheduled to attend included a glamorous headshot of her.
She ran through the channels with the remote and eventually turned it off. She lay back on the bed and stared a hole through the plain white ceiling.
Tylyn had spent the last few days in an uncustomary daze of distraction. At one point during a take, director Duling had to shout at her to concentrate. She knew that she needed to snap out of it, but damn it, she had a lot of questions! Tylyn knew that her husband was up to something and that it had to do with James Bond. She couldn’t prove it, but it was the only possible explanation.
And what of James? Who was he really? Had what they experienced in the short time that they knew each other been real? No one could fake that kind of intensity, except perhaps a professional con man. If he had really lied to her about himself, it would break her heart. So far, she had been able to prevent that from happening because she refused to believe that he had been dishonest.
Instead, she concentrated on her memories of him: his steely blue eyes, the cruel mouth that had kissed her so passionately, his strong arms and hands, his expert and generous approach to lovemaking, his smile, his laugh …
She missed him deeply.
They came for Mathis at midday. He offered no resistance as two guards led him away, while a third kept an eye on Bond.
He was back thirty minutes later. Even though Mathis was already blind, Le Gérant had ordered the torture to continue simply to be cruel. Mathis looked deathly pale and was unable to speak coherently when they threw him down on the cell floor.
“Let’s go,” Antoine said to Bond.
Bond wondered how long the sadistic bastard was planning on keeping them alive. At this rate, he could torment them forever.
The second appointment with Dr. Gerowitz was half an hour of profound pain. From the moment Bond’s head was strapped down and the terrible retractors were placed on his eyelids, he had rarely felt a more powerful sense of helplessness and fear. Not once did the doctor ask him any questions. Bond was never instructed to give away MI6 secrets. All they wanted, it seemed, was to hurt him.
Hours later, after the blurry vision had diminished, Bond heard the scratching sounds in the corner of the cell.
“James?” Mathis whispered.
“I hear him,” Bond said quietly. He slowly raised himself from the floor and looked.
The rat had just come out of the hole and was sniffing the trail of now-sticky oatmeal that Bond had left. The rodent scampered along, scraping up the food and sniffing the straw around him.
Bond sat up and slowly crawled toward it. The cuffs around his hands limited his movements, but he managed to slide along without being too obvious. When he was within arm’s reach of the rat, he stopped and waited. The animal, chewing on a chunk of oatmeal, eyed Bond but didn’t seem to be afraid of him. In its tiny mind there was a belief that it was superior to the filthy human that
left so much waste in the room for it to enjoy. The rat knew that it could bite the hell out of a man, so it didn’t feel any need to be afraid.
With an unexpected lurch and the speed of a cobra, Bond grabbed the rat with both hands and clutched it around the neck. He squeezed as hard as he could, fighting the struggling rodent as its claws slashed his hands and wrists. He slammed the creature against the stone floor and continued to choke the life out of it. It took nearly a minute, but finally the rat was dead in Bond’s hands.
“Are you all right?” Mathis asked.
Bond came back carrying the rat carcass. It was as big as a squirrel.
“A little scratched up, but I’ll live,” Bond said. “Ask me again after I’m done with the really disgusting part.”
Before he could have second thoughts, Bond sunk his teeth into the rat’s back. He needed something that the animal had—the only problem was that it was on the inside of the rat. Since Bond had no knife to cut the damned thing open, he had to take a deep breath and use the only other sharp objects he could find.
It was dark outside when the guard finally brought Bond and Mathis their dinner. The keys rattled in the door and it swung open.
“All right, stay back and I’ll put these on the floor,” the man said, but was surprised when he didn’t see anyone sitting in the relatively clean section of the cell. He surveyed the room and saw two bodies in the straw. The man inched forward to get a better look. The one called Bond was face down. The other one was on his back, and there was blood and what looked like animal viscera all over his face.
What the hell happened? Had they killed each other?
The guard foolishly stepped closer, just as Bond had hoped he would. Bond lunged with the femur, puncturing the soft layer of skin beneath the guard’s chin. The rat’s leg bone, while brittle, had been whittled on stone to sharpen it. It served very well as a makeshift weapon—something that could take a person by surprise. The ploy worked beautifully.
The guard dropped the tray of food and screamed, but Bond didn’t stop there. He propelled himself at the guard, tackling him. He took hold of the man’s hair and slammed his head with tremendous force several times against the concrete floor. A pool of blood appeared underneath his skull.
Bond fumbled for the guard’s handgun, drew it and aimed it at the open doorway just as a second guard came in to investigate the noise.
The gun kicked twice, knocking the guard into the wall. He slid to a heap, leaving a bloody trail on the stone.
Bond turned back to the first guard and searched the man’s pockets. Thank God he had the right guard! Bond took the set of keys and just managed to twist his wrist enough to insert the appropriate one into his cuffs. Free at last, Bond unlocked the shackles on his ankles and then freed Mathis.
Mathis took an old rag and wiped the rat’s blood off his face. “We fooled him good, eh?”
“Come on,” Bond said as he took Mathis by the hand and led him out of the cell.
TWENTY - FOUR
THE BREAKOUT
IT WASN’T DIFFICULT TO BREAK INTO THE LOCKER WHERE THE GUARDS HAD put Bond’s weapons and clothes. He dressed quickly, made sure his Walther was loaded, clipped the camera to his belt, strapped on the knife, and he was ready to go. Mathis stood by with his own clothes, waiting for Bond to help him.
“Come on, René,” Bond said. “We had better hurry before someone else comes down here.”
“You must go without me, James,” Mathis said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I mean it, James. I would be a burden to you. By yourself, you just might make it out. If you have to drag me along, I will only slow you down and probably get us both killed.”
“You’re coming with me, now get dressed!”
“No, James.” Mathis dropped his clothes on the floor. “I insist. Go on. Get out of here. I’ll be fine. I’ll just go back into the cell and wait for you to bring reinforcements.”
Bond knew that Mathis was right, of course. He was loath to leave his friend, though.
“René …”
“Go!” Mathis said forcefully. “If you don’t leave now, I’m going to start shouting. I mean it.” He reached out with his right hand. “Good luck, my friend.”
Bond clasped the man’s hand and held it firmly. “I’ll be back for you. I promise. Your job is to stay alive until then.”
“I’ll do my best,” Mathis said. He smiled for the first time since Bond had been captured. “Now get the hell out of here.”
Bond left him and climbed the stone steps to the ground floor of the château. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was after midnight. He silently stepped down the corridor toward the room where they had first searched and beat him. Luckily, no one was about at this time of night. He listened at the wooden door at the end of the hall and thought that he could hear movement.
The element of surprise was his only ace. He lightly tapped on the door and readied himself. When it opened, Bond let go with a solid punch to the guard’s face. The man went tumbling backward into the room. Bond stepped inside, drew the Walther knife, and hurled it at the one remaining guard in the room. The blade pierced his chest with a dull thud. Bond rushed to him and covered the man’s mouth before he could scream. Once he collapsed to the floor, Bond removed the knife, wiped it clean on the man’s trousers, and made a quick examination of the first guard to make sure that he was still out.
The cabinets here were stocked with a variety of weapons. Bond took three hand grenades and a machine gun, then opened the door slightly to peer outside. Two men were talking to a man at the wheel of a delivery lorry. Markings on the side of the lorry indicated that it was a beverage supply vehicle. The motor was running; either the lorry had just pulled up or it was about to leave. Bond calmly walked outside with the PPK in hand, aimed it at the two men and said, “Hey!”
When they turned, the Walther recoiled twice.
Bond pointed the gun at the lorry driver. “Get out,” he commanded. The driver, eyes wide, jumped out and held up his hands. “Lie on the ground,” Bond ordered. When the man was face down, Bond said, “Don’t get up until I’m gone.”
He leapt into the driver’s seat, threw the lorry into gear, and backed out. He turned onto the dirt road and headed for the electrified fence gate.
Olivier Cesari was sleeping soundly, enjoying a dream in which he had just stalked and killed a young fawn. He possessed such agility and skill as a wolf that Cesari never wanted to wake from these dreams. As in dreams in which people imagined that they could fly, the feeling was so exhilarating that the reality of the waking world was in contrast a complete disappointment. If Cesari could have had his way, he would have remained asleep forever. In his dreams, he was the king of his realm, the master of everything he touched.
And he could see …
However, something wrestled Cesari away from his newly killed fawn. He looked up from the dead animal and saw the stag—the one that he had been hunting for months—the beast that represented the British secret agent who had caused him so much misery.
The stag was staring at him, taunting him, and telling him that the war wasn’t over by a long shot. Before Cesari the Wolf could run and leap at the wretched creature, the stag turned and bolted.
That was when Cesari woke and knew that James Bond had escaped. He reached for the phone and called down to the basement.
There was no answer.
Bond floored the accelerator, increasing his speed. The guards at the gate snapped out of their complacency and realized that something was terribly wrong with the lorry driver. They both pointed rifles at the vehicle and shouted for him to stop.
Bond ignored them.
The men jumped out of the way at the last second as the lorry burst through the metal gate. The electrified fence, now exposed, burst into flames at the breakpoint. One of the guards got on the radio just as the alarms went off in the complex.
Bond kept driving, eventually reaching the main paved
road. Instead of turning right, to head toward Sartène, Bond went left toward the prehistoric sites that he had seen before he was captured.
Within seconds, a Porsche and a Land Rover were behind him. He heard gunshots, but the lorry was so big that Bond couldn’t discern if the bullets had hit the back or not. Because of the vehicle’s bulk, the damned thing would only do a maximum of fifty miles per hour.
The Land Rover swerved into the left-hand lane and pulled beside the lorry. Bond ducked as a bullet smashed the driver’s side window, spraying shards of glass all over him. Bond drew the Walther and, with his left hand, aimed it out the open window and shot at the 4 × 4. The vehicle slammed against the lorry in an attempt to force it off the road, but the truck was too heavy. Bond tried the same maneuver by turning the wheel sharply to the left and banging the lorry into the Land Rover. The 4 × 4’s tires screeched as it shot over to the far side of the road, scraping against the brush, but the driver managed to bring it back beside Bond. The guard in the passenger seat of the 4 × 4 aimed again and shot at the lorry. This time a bullet whizzed past Bond’s face.
Damn!
Bond stuck his left arm out of the window again and squeezed the Walther’s trigger. The round caught the guard in the face. He was thrown back into the driver, causing another near collision. The 4 × 4 slowed down and moved back into its proper lane.
Off with the kid gloves, Bond thought. He grabbed one of his grenades, pulled the pin with his teeth, and carefully tossed it out the window. It landed and bounced on the road behind him. If his timing were any good at all, then …
The Land Rover drove over the grenade just as it exploded. The 4 × 4 bounced into the air, riding a ball of flame and smoke, then veered to the right, landed on its side, and slid for twenty feet.
The Porsche’s driver steered around the burning wreck and kept up the pursuit. He increased his speed and pulled up beside Bond in the left-hand lane. The passenger had a machine gun and proceeded to spray the side of the lorry with bullets. Bond stepped hard on the brakes so that the Porsche shot ahead of the lorry. He then aimed the Walther out the window and shot at the car’s tail. He was successful in putting several holes in the boot, but couldn’t get a good bead on tires or anyone inside. Firing a gun with his left hand out of a moving vehicle was not his strongest skill.
Never Dream Of Dying Page 23