by John Gardner
Simon did not let go of the gun, but merely fell backwards. His hands did not claw air, no sound came from his throat. He simply fell through the gondola door, through a thousand feet of clear air, his last long journey to hit the water below.
Bond made to grab at the Arab's Walther, now lying on the floor.
He felt the sting of a bullet cutting a shallow furrow along the flesh above his right hip and another sing past his ear.
He reached the Walther, but as he turned instinctively towards where Tamil Rahani should be, his finger on the trigger, he realised the instigator of this whole drama was not there.
"Parachute,' Nick said calmly. "Little bastard had a parachute.
Took the dive." Bond moved to the gondola door and, hanging on to the grab rail, leaned out.
Below, against the blue-grey water of the lake, was the white shape of Rahani's parachute, a light breeze carrying him away from Geneva, towards the French side of the lake.
"They're bound to pick him up,' Bond said aloud.
"Could you close the door, please." Nick's voice was as calm as only an experienced pilot's can sound under stress. "I've got to find somewhere to drop this blimp." He switched on the flight radio, flicking the dial with finger and thumb, adjusting the headset he had not been allowed to wear throughout the flight. A few seconds later, he turned his head slightly as Bond slumped into the seat beside him.
"We can go back to the strip. Apparently the Swiss military cleared it soon after we left. Looks as if we've had guardian angels watching over us.
They sat together on the balcony of a private room in the lakeside hotel: M, Bill Tanner, Cindy Chalmer, Percy and Bond, whose side still stung from the long bullet burn, although it was now dressed.
"You mean,' Bond said with cold anger, "that you already knew they had taken over the airstrip? You knew when you sent me off from London?" M nodded. He had told Bond how, because of the tight security surrounding the Summit Conference, anyone who was authorised had been given identifying ciphers.
On the night Bond had visited the house, off Northumberland Avenue, Bill Tanner's call to the Goodyear people had not elicited the correct sequence.
"We knew something had gone wrong,' said M calmly.
"We alerted everyone with need-to-know, arranged with the United States and the Soviet Union that any messages on their current emergency satellite frequencies should be accepted, but not passed on.
Just a precaution.
I mean, you can always be trusted, 007."
"Thank you,' Bond said with icy calm.
"Now look, 007,' M said sharply. "It's no good running away with the idea you're indispensable."
"I was to be thrown to the wolves then,' Bond almost shouted. "It wasn't necessary to leave me in outer darkness, as you once so neatly put it, but you let me go, knowing full well "Come, come. How dare you reproach your superiors in this way,' M put in tartly. Suddenly he leaned forward and placed a hand gently on Bond's arm and said in an uncharacteristic tone of paternal concern, "It was for your own good as much as ours, James. After all, you might have found a way of bringing in Holy - or Rahani, come to that. But that wasn't uppermost in our minds.
We had to find a way of restoring your good name. Look on it as a sort of rehabilitation."
"Rehabilitation?" Bond spat the word out with scorn.
"You see,' M went on quietly, "there had to be some role you could play for the sake of your public image.
The Press could hardly fail to notice high jinks on an airship directly over the place where the Summit talks were going on. Geneva's been stiff with journalists these past few days. We told the Swiss authorities they could let a certain amount of reporting through.
Saves us a tricky hushing-up job in a way. I think you'll be pleased with what the papers say tomorrow. Might not be a bad idea to get another question tabled in the House." Bond was silent. He gazed at M, who gave his arm a couple of reassuring pats before withdrawing his hand.
"I suppose you'll want to take some sick leave because of that scratch,' M said distantly.
Bond and Percy exchanged looks. "If it wouldn't inconvenience the Service, ~. "A month, then? Let all this fuss die down. We can't have the whole Department going public for the sake of your honour, 007." Cindy spoke for the first time. "What about Dazzle?
Mrs. St. John-Finnes?" Tanner told them there had been no trace of the lady who called herself Dazzle; just as Rahani had disappeared into thin air. A launch picked up his "chute. He had drifted well inshore, on the French side.
"Damn. I wanted a little time alone with that bastard." The delightful Cindy Chalmer could be lethal when roused.
Percy gave her a wicked smile. "You, Cindy, are going straight back to Langley. The order came through this morning." Cindy pouted, and Bond tried hard not to catch her eye. "And what about Dr Amadeus?" he asked.
"Oh, we're taking care of him,' Bill Tanner said a little earnestly. "We've always room for good computer men in the Service.
Anyway, Dr Amadeus turned out to be a brave young man.
"There is something else,' M grunted. "The Chief of Staff did not know this but in checking back through the files when you alerted us to Rahani, 007, we found some interesting information. You recall we've been keeping surveillance on him for some time?" Bond nodded as M slid a matt black and white print from the folder on his lap.
"Interesting?" The photograph showed Tamil Rahani locked in an embrace with Dazzle St. John-Finnes. "Looks as though they had plans for the future." Bond asked about Erewhon and was told that the Israelis had pinpointed the site. "Nobody there. Deserted. But they're keeping an eye on it. I doubt if Rahani will visit it again.
But he'll probably show up somewhere."
"Yes." Bond's voice was flat.
"Yes, I don't think we've heard the last of him, sir. After all, he boasted that he was Blofeld's successor.
"Come to think of it,' M mused, "I wonder if you should forgo that leave, 007. It may be vital to follow up...
"He's got to rest, sir, for a short time at least." Percy was almost ordering M. This was something the Head of Service rarely experienced. He looked at the willowy ash-blonde, astonishment on his face.
"Yes. Yes. Well, if you put it like that . . . I suppose Yes."
END OF THE AFFAIR
THEY first FLEW to Rome, and stayed for a week at the Villa Medici. Percy had never been to Rome and Bond enjoyed showing her as much as one can fit into seven short days.
From Rome they travelled to Greece, to take an island-hopping tour, starting in the Aegean with a couple of nights on Naxos. They stayed only one night on Rhodes, because of the tourist hordes, and then doubled back, spending a night here, two nights there.
Another week took them to the ionian sea, where they managed to find some secluded beaches and tavernas, off the package-holiday routes.
It was a time of distant voices from the past. The couple exchanged life-stories, told the long tales of their youth, made their separate confessions, and became totally immersed in each other's bodies. For Percy and Bond, the world became young again and time stood still, as only time can within the dark, secret mysteries of the Greek islands.
They ate lobster fresh from the sea and drank their fill of retsina. Sometimes the evenings ended with them dancing with the waiters under the vines of a roadside taverna, arm-stretching and calf-slapping. They discovered, as many have before, that the taverna-owners of the islands recognise the signs of love and take lovers to their hearts.
And during all their joy, Bond kept a wary eye on strangers, assuming that Percy, being a lady of the same trade, was doing likewise.
They did not spot the same face or even the same jewellery, which can he more important once. Vehicles, even motorcycles, did not show up twice. They were free.
But SPECTRE s teams were numerous and clever.
Neither James Bond nor Percy Prnud could know of shadows creeping in around them.
The teams were usually five s
trong, and they changed daily, never using the same car twice, always having a tail ready to follow on to the next island. A girl in one place, a happy Greek boy in another; first a student, then a middle-aged English couple; old Volkswagens, brand new Hondas, staid Peugeos. It was all the same to them.
The leader's orders were clear, and when the right moment came, he too arrived.
Bond and Percy spoke much of the future, yet, in the last week, while heading for Corfu, from where they planned to fly to London direct, they still could not come to any decision even though they had talked of marriage.
As the trip drew to an end they found a small bungalow hotel, away from beehive modern glass and concrete palaces. It was close to a secluded beach, which could be reached only by clambering over rocks.
Their room looked out on a slope of dusty olive trees and oddly Victorian-looking scrub.
Each day, in the late afternoon, they would return to their room, and, as dusk closed in and the cicadas began their endless song, the couple would make love, long and tender, with a rewarding fulfilment of a kind neither remembered experiencing before.
On their last night, with their packing to be done, and a special dinner ordered at the taverna, they followed their usual pattern, walking hand in hand up the slope from the beach, entering their room from the scrubby End of the olive grove, and leaving the windows open and the blinds drawn.
They soon became lost in each other, murmuring the sweet adolescent endearments, enjoying a private island of physical pleasure.
They were hardly aware of the darkness or the song of the night coming from the cicadas. Neither of them heard Tamil Rahani's car pull up quietly on the road below the hotel. Nor were they aware of his emissary, who moved, sure-footed in rope-soled sandals up from the road, treading softly through the olives until he reached the window.
Tamil Rahani, the successor to the Blofelds, had decreed they should both die, and he would be in at the death. His only regret was that it must be quick.
The short, sallow-faced man who was the most accomplished of SPECTRE'S silent killers, peered through the lattice of the blinds, smiled and carefully withdrew a six-inch ivory blowpipe. With even greater care he loaded the tiny wax dart filled with deadly pure nicotine and began to slide the end of the pipe through the lattice.
Percy lay, eyes closed, nearest the window.
Her reaction was conceived in long training, for she was like an animal in her instinct for danger. With a sudden move, she slid from under a startled Bond, one hand going for the floor and the small revolver that always lay at her side of the bed.
She fired twice, rolling naked on the floor as she did so - a textbook kill, the man clearly outlined through the blinds lifting back as though in slow motion, his dying breath expelling the wax dart into the air.
Bond was beside her in a second, the ASP in his hand.
As they emerged into the night air, they heard the sound of Rahani's car on the road below the hotel. They needed no telling who it was.
Later, when the body had been removed, calls made to London and Washington, and police and other authorities were satisfied, Bond and Percy drove into Corfu Town itself; to spend the night in one of the larger hotels.
"Well, at least that settles it. We should both know now, Percy began.
"Know?" They had managed to get a meal of sorts in their room, though Bond found it hard to relax.
"The future, James. We should both know about the future after that unpleasant episode."
"You mean that until Blofeld's successor is dead, neither of us will have peace?"
"That's part of it. Not all, though." She paused to sip her wine. "I killed, James, automatically and .
"And most efficiently, darling."
"Yes, that's what I mean. We're not like other people, are we? We're trained, and tidied, and obey orders fly into danger at a moment's notice." Bond thought for a moment. "You're right, of course, darling. What you mean is that people like us can't just stop, or lead normal lives."
"That's it, my dear James. It's been the best time. The very best. But..
"But now it's over.
She nodded, and he leaned across the table to kiss her.
"Who knows?" Bond asked of nobody in particular.
The next morning they rebooked tickets, and Bond saw her off' watching her aeroplane climb over the little hillock at the end of the runway, then turn to set course for Athens, where she would make her connection for Paris.
In an hour, he would be on his way back to London and one of his other lives, to play some other role for his country.