The Spy Who Loved Me Page 7

  As if to demonstrate the image, the Sphinx was once more illuminated, and as Bond’s eyes were automatically drawn towards the source of light he saw a sight which brought him abruptly to a halt. Silhouetted against the distant Sphinx was a giant figure which at first glance seemed like some statue, unrecorded since the dawn of history. Its head was huge and ungainly and its arms stood away from the body in the pose of a wrestler flexing to take hold of an opponent. Viewed behind it, the Sphinx seemed an appropriate mount to bear this Colossus away across the desert. And then the giant moved. The head swivelled towards Bond, the eyes blazed and the light shone from its mouth as from a lighthouse.

  And then everything was plunged into darkness.

  Fekkesh was desperate. Desperate as a man who has taken out a mortgage he cannot repay, or gambled in a game when the stakes are too high, or promised a woman he loves something he can never give her. But most of all he was desperate because he knew that his time was running out. That he was going to die. When he found the opening in the wall, he pressed into it like a bug into a crack. Anywhere to get away from the big man who killed for Stromberg. Why? Why had he listened to them? What had they been able to do to him to make him believe that he could ever turn against Stromberg and get away with it? Especially with this. It was too big. He had been insane. He should have stayed on the fringe. Taken the money, been grateful.

  Something impeded the passage of air to his nostrils and Fekkesh froze. The man was standing in the opening. In the darkness, the sound of his heavy breathing sounded like the sawing of wood. At that moment, Fekkesh gave up the ghost. He hunched his shoulders and began to whimper. God, please make it quick, he prayed. Please spare me too much pain. He thought of his children and of Felicca, waiting at the flat, but most of all his mind was full of a blind inchoate terror that numbed him like an injection sinking deeper and deeper into his gums. He pressed his eyes tight shut and dug his nails into his palms. God, let it happen soon. He was tightening like a spring that had to break.

  When the hand fell upon his knee it was almost a relief. He braced himself and opened his eyes. The outline of the face was visible against the stars. There seemed to be no malice in it. No hatred. No cruelty. If this was the face that animals wore before they ate each other then it was not too bad. And then the mouth opened and Fekkesh saw the two rows of jagged, stainless-steel teeth. And then he started screaming. And Jaws pulled him down like a rag doll upon the scaffold of his knee and bit through the back of his neck as easily as if it had been a stick of celery.

  To Bond, the noise that ended the screams was like that of a stick breaking. He raced towards it and arrived as the huge man materialized from between two blocks of stone like a spirit escaping from some rifled sarcophagus. For a second the two men faced each other and then Jaws showed his gleaming teeth in a contemptuous smile and turned on his heel to be swallowed up by the night. Bond hesitated, torn between the knowledge that he must find Fekkesh and an impulse to pursue this terrifying giant with the gleaming teeth. There was no choice. Fekkesh came first. Bond held his gun low and edged his shoulder round one of the thirty-ton blocks of stone that formed the base of the pyramid. His heart sank as he saw a foot protruding from the shadows. He knelt down swifdy and felt for the man’s heart. Something glistened in the darkness; a pool of blood spreading from the neck and shoulders. Someone, there were no prizes for guessing who must have chopped half through the man’s neck. Bond forgot about the heart and pushed back the man’s head. The face with the wide staring eyes was recognizable. Fekkesh. .

  Swiftly and skilfully Bond went through the pockets of Fekkesh’s shabby suit. The breast pocket yielded a small diary. Bond quickly felt inside his own jacket and produced a silver pencil with a number of modifications by Aspreys. Two presses of the clip turned it into a torch. Bond flicked through the diary with the aid of its thin beam. The address section was empty and there were no telephone numbers. The day-to-day entries seemed all connected with work. Bond’s sketchy Arabic unscrambled ‘Meeting of Khem-en-du Excavation Committee’ and a luncheon appointment with the directors of the Coptic Museum. There was even a note to remember Felicca’s birthday. Some tiny and nearly dried-up reservoir of sentiment in Bond was pleased to see that this date had passed. He hoped the lovers had enjoyed it.

  There was an entry for the following Thursday: ‘Max Kalba, Mujaba Club. 7.30 pm.’ Neither the name nor the club meant anything to Bond but it was the only lead he had unless he searched Fekkesh’s flat and could get into his office at the Cairo Museum. That and find the big man. There could not be many countries in the world where he would find it easy to hide in a crowd. Bond shivered as he looked down at the broken body at his feet. How could the neck have been torn open like that? It was almost as if - no. He rejected the suggestion as being too horrible, too absurd. But, there again, he had once examined a rat after a terrier had killed it and - almost against his will, Bond’s gaze dropped once more to the bulging eyes, the thin sharp-nosed features, the blood beginning to coagulate around the jagged puncture marks. Fighting against nausea, he thrust the diary into his pocket and turned away from this place of terrible death.

  Outside, it was dark and the only sound was the distant one of car doors slamming and tour operators calling the faithful to get into their Russian-built coaches. The son-et-lnmiere must be over. Bond brushed the sand from his knees and began to walk round the great black bulk of Cheops to where the car headlights were sawing at the darkness. What had Napoleon calculated? That there was enough stone in the three pyramids of Gizeh to build a wall ten feet high around France - Bond preferred to deal in feet even when the calculations were being made by Napoleon.

  Bond heard the soft footfall in the sand too late and turned the wrong way. A flash of lightning struck him behind the right ear and a deep pit opened up at his feet. He tumbled slowly into it and looking back as he rolled over and over could see that the triangular face of Cheops was rising not four hundred and fifty-five feet into the sky, but for ever until it blotted out the heavens like a great black cliff.

  Shock Tactics

  Somebody was tapping on Bond’s head and asking to come in. The sound was a long way away and heard through many closed doors but it was distinctive and persistent. Bond waited, hoping that whoever it was would go away, but the sound continued, rhythmic and jarring. With each tap a tiny filament of pain ran through Bond’s brain. It was no good. He would have to see who was there. Grumbling to himself he began to force his eyes open. How difficult it was. He must have been deep in sleep. Curse them for disturbing him. Now, who was there in the thick swirling mist? Bond screwed up his eyes to concentrate. The face was like a hallowee’en mask, round and shiny with two deep-socketed eyes that seemed to be pouring out rivulets of tears. The tears fell like twin cascades to be sucked into the recessed corners of a broad, straight mouth thatched with a white moustache of horizontal hairs. Bond was puzzled. None of the features moved. And there was no nose. And the strange lustre of the perfect round face. It was shiny. Shiny as a button.

  Slowly, Bond’s mind cleared and he realized what he was looking at. One of the buttons on the shirt of the man who was standing in front of him. . .

  ‘He is conscious.’ The voice was Russian.

  A rough hand jerked Bond's head backwards and he looked into a square, clumsily-featured face that might have been whittled with a blunt penknife. So, the two men at the son-et- lumiére had been Russians. At least, this one was. Bond did not say anything but concentrated on clearing his head and testing the rope that secured his hands behind the back of a chair. It must have been tightened nearly to the bone. His ankles were also bound to the two front legs of the chair. This was ominous. The more so when one examined the apparatus that the second man was connecting to a heavy-duty battery. It was a small metal box with an on/off switch and a glass panel showing a red calibrated dial. There was also a lever, currently resting at the top of its vertical slot and, most sinister of all, two long thin wires lea
ding away from the side of the box and ending in metal claws.

  Bond forgot about the throbbing lump on the back of his head. He knew what the box was and he knew what they were going to do to him. The man who had been connecting the battery leads stood up and nodded to his companion. They were ready. There was no sign of the big man.

  Bond looked round the shabby, featureless room and tried to find items to concentrate on. If you were being tortured it helped to focus on something. Direct yourself away from the agony and the information you were supposed to be giving to some totally unrelated, meaningless object. Bond’s eyes glanced off the naked lightbulb and lit upon a calendar on the far wall. It showed the Egyptian version of a pin-up, a pretty black-haired girl showing her face but nothing else and extending a shy hand towards a motor scooter. She gazed at Bond as she must have gazed at the cameraman, not quite certain what either of them was doing. Yes, she would do. They would see this thing through together.

  ‘Mr Bond.’ It was a surprise to hear his own name, and spoken in good English with only the faintest trace of accent. ‘The answer to one simple question can save you excruciating pain and mutilation. Where is the blueprint of the tracking system?’ Despite his predicament, Bond felt like laughing out loud. ‘I don’t have the tracking system.’

  The man holding the metal claws began to tap them together like castanets.

  ‘Then why did you kill Fekkesh?'

  The question threw Bond. They had killed Fekkesh. The big gorilla with a mouth like a barracuda had chewed a hole out of his neck. What were they getting at? They must be laying some kind of trap. Did they think that Fekkesh had handed over the blueprint before he was killed? Or perhaps hidden it somewhere for Bond to find? That must be it. They wanted to tie up the loose ends.

  Bond took a deep breath before replying because he knew that his answer was going to cause him a lot of pain.

  ‘Sorry, chum. You’ve drawn the same answer. I didn’t kill him.' No flicker of emotion passed through the man’s face. He shrugged and then bent forward and started to unbuckle Bond’s belt. Bond’s stomach froze. If the beads of sweat that were pouring off him ran over it they would turn into icicles. He looked towards the man standing by the metal box and then turned away. The man’s eyes were glistening lasciviously. Pain was his mistress. The top of Bond’s trousers was unhooked and the buttons undone one by one. He was like a child being taken to the lavatory. Then the trousers and underpants were pulled down to his knees. Bond sought the surprised eyes of the girl in the calendar. It was strange but he felt embarrassed looking at her. She was like the girl at the dentist who hands you a glass of pink water that your numb mouth finds it difficult to spit into. Her disdaining smile apologizing for your clumsiness.

  ‘This is your final chance. Where is the microfilm?’

  ‘Go and — yourself! ! ’

  The man did not reward Bond’s obscenity with a slap across the face. He was a professional and he could afford to conserve his energy. An electric current passed through the genitals was a million times more effective than beating a man’s face to a bloody pulp. He stood back and his accomplice hurried forward with the claws. There was about him an indecent, scuttling haste, like a crab closing with a cracked mollusc. His breath stank and Bond turned his head away from the noisome odour. He glimpsed the claws sprung wide and then winced as the metal closed about his soft flesh. This pain was bad enough. How could he stand more?

  The operator bit his lip for an instant and then returned to the machine. He moved his hand to the on/off switch and then turned to Bond as if to photograph him in repose. Bond could feel him estimating how much give there was in the ropes. How far Bond’s tortured, screaming body would be able to leap into the air. Then, he pressed down the switch.

  Immediately, Bond felt a nerve-jangling tremor fanning out from the most sensitive of his organs. It was not a pain but it set his teeth on edge. The machine had come to life and was saying that it was ready to inflict agony. Bond concentrated on the girl in the calendar and tried to bury himself deep in her soft, brown eyes.

  ‘You are stupid, Mr Bond. Because, in the end, you arc going to tell us everything we want to know.' Bond’s gaze did not deviate. ‘We will start slowly, just to give you a taste of what is to come.’

  Keep looking into the kind brown eyes. The nice lady is trying to sell you a motorcycle. With a motorcycle you could drive away from this room and never come back. You could The scream left Bond's body as if it were taking most of his vital organs with it. He felt his body dismantling to make way for its passage through his throat, but his throat wasn’t big enough. The scream escaped through his brain, through his ears. Everywhere. He had been prepared for pain but this was too horrible. It was a physical invasion of his body. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. As if his whole nervous system had been turned over with a sharpened spade.

  ‘You see.’ The voice came through the mists of purple pain. ‘It is not pleasant, is it? And it can go on, and on, and on.1 Bond’s body was awash with sweat. He could feel it dripping down on to his chest. There was a cruel throbbing from his wrists telling of the strain he must have put on his tightly tethered hands when the current threw him forward. ‘But do not despair. It is when you can no longer feel that you should become worried. For then you will no longer be a man.’ God save me, thought Bond. Is there any other force on Earth or in Heaven that can pluck me from this crucifying rack of pain? ‘Would you rather talk now, or later?’

  Bond pulled his head up and once more focused on the calendar. Come on, Sweetheart. We can do better than this. I thought we had something beautiful going between us. I thought we were on the brink of something -

  This time, Bond was prepared for the wave of pain. It swept in like a rising tide, probing familiar ground, infiltrating pre-explored crevasses. And then it edged forward, overlapping itself to invade new territory. Saturating unexplored sand, drawing forth new screams of seared, screeching agony. The hinges of Bond’s mouth snapped back and his throat divided into the columns of an organ as he hurled himself forward against the cruel ropes. The roman candle of pain between his legs was burning out his soul.

  ‘Niet!’

  The waves fell back and the sea of suffering slowly withdrew. Bond, head on sweat-soaked chest, strained his throbbing cars for another sound of that female voice.

  ‘Fools! Imbeciles! Are you trying to kill him?’ She was speaking Russian but Bond could keep pace with her. His time for a diploma at the defector Vozdvishensky’s language symposium for employees of the ‘Ministry of Defence' had broken all records. ‘What information can he yield us dead?’ There was an immediate murmur of disgruntled disapproval. Bond opened one eye, straining to catch sight of this newcomer. He saw two slim trouser-legs. One petulant heel tapping against the floor. ‘Must I remind you again who is in control of this operation? Untie him and revive him. We have drugs that can do this work.* Not entirely an altruist, thought Bond.

  ‘But Major. With respect.’ The voice belonged to the senior torturer and had precious little respect in it. ‘We have experience of these methods. We have enjoyed much success with them. The man will not die until we want him to.*

  ‘Nevertheless. Do as I say! ’

  Bond gambled that all eyes would be upon the speaker, and turned his head slightly. Through half-closed eyes he could make out an erect female presence that was familiar. The girl he had seen at the son-et-lumiére. So, she was one of them. Not one of them but in control of them. He could understand the reaction of the others. Having to receive orders from a woman after years of torturing people their way. Why couldn't she find a job in a factory or on a collective farm? God knew, they needed all the help they could get.

  Bond continued to push back the heavy curtains of throbbing aching pain and stifled the scream that rose to his lips as the claws were plucked from his flayed organ. He heard a knife click open and the blade began to saw through the ropes about his ankles. This was it. His only chan
ce was approaching. If he didn’t make a move soon he was finished. They would open him up by one means or the other and when they found there was nothing inside they would kill him. The girl wasn’t being squeamish, she was practical.

  Bond risked another glance. The operator of the machine was sulkily wrapping the connection wires round his fingers. Suddenly the mist of pain rose as it was penetrated by the bright sunlight of an idea. It might just work. Bond lolled forward and felt the knife sawing through the ropes at his tortured wrists. Half way through, three-quarters, seven-eighths. He braced himself and, as the rope parted, hurled himself towards the hideous instrument of torture that had set out to emasculate him. It was still humming and a red light glowed. Too late, the operator saw what was in his mind and desperately sought to free his fingers from the enveloping wire. Bond drove the lever down so that it buckled against the bottom of the slot. The needle on the gauge leapt forward and with a bright flash the man’s body jack-knifed in the air. There was a two-tier scream and a disgusting smell of burning, frizzled flesh. The man’s features flattened against the wall with a sickening, blood-smearing crunch but he was dead one-twentieth of a second before the impact.

  Instinctively, Bond ducked to one side and the knife arm flashed past his throat. With automatic deference to the classic defence riposte, his right arm cut across and his body swivelled with it. The two forearms met halfway between the two bodies and the withdrawing knife arm was jarred to one side. Bond saw the opening and drove hard and upwards. His stiff, locked wrist travelled two feet and the heel of his left hand, with the fingers spread wide for extra rigidity, came up under the spokesman’s throat with terrifying force. He staggered back and in the same instant, Bond lashed out with the edge of his finger-locked hand turned into an axe-blade. The blow hacked into the Adam’s apple in the middle of the taut throat and the man fell like a tree.