Breakfast over, Bond went back into his bedroom, slipped out of the towelling robe he was wearing and put on comfortable slacks, shirt and light jacket – after strapping on the harness for his 9mm ASP, and the one for the nasty little telescopic Concealable Operations Baton, a handy and secure blunt instrument which could either stop a man, reassemble his bones in an incorrect order, or kill, if used by a trained man.
Before going down into the underground car park, he made one telephone call. He spoke to Bill Tanner for three minutes. Yes, the terrorist wounded in the Kilburn raid had been moved securely down to the clinic in Surrey, where Bond had visited Sir James Molony and Trilby Shrivenham the previous afternoon. And, yes, Tanner assured him, there had been a team watching Manderson Hall. Yes, the code words were known and had been kept contained within a trusted Service cabal. M, as they all suspected, was still with COBRA. ‘They won’t reach any operational agreements until late today, you can bet on it!’ Bill Tanner said, laughing as they closed the line.
Bond told May he did not know what time he would be home, if at all, and was met with a disapproving lecture on bodies needing rest and sleep as well as exercise – ‘And I know well, Mr James, what kind of exercise you were up to last night. Lipstick all over your collar. Whisht, away with you, you wicked man, you.’
He picked up Pearlman right on the button, the SAS sergeant sliding into the passenger seat next to him. He was shaved and well spruced up, casually dressed in cavalry twill slacks, a light cotton roll neck and blazer. ‘These threads do for the chief, then, boss?’ He grinned.
‘Admirable,’ Bond smiled back, taking in the man’s carefully groomed appearance, and trying to detect any slyness in his eyes.
The security van was still in place near the block in which Harry lived. She came out onto the pavement, looking radiant in black denim. Jeans and jacket by Calvin Klein, Bond thought, and a white shirt by heaven knew who.
She was her old self, greeting Bond with a dazzling smile and the kind of look that often passes between lovers. Harry and Pearlman were introduced, and Bond swung out into the traffic, taking the road towards the Hogarth roundabout, then heading for Guildford. As they passed through Hampton Court, with all its happy and tragic memories enshrined in the brickwork, Pearlman asked if they were on the right road.
‘I usually come this way for Surrey. Bushy Park, Hampton Court, it’s as good a road as any. A pretty run.’
‘I thought we were going to Pangbourne?’ Did he detect a hint of alarm in Harry’s voice from the rear of the car?
‘I thought you said Pangbourne, and all, boss.’ Something there, in Pearly’s voice.
‘Slight change of plan.’ He kept his eyes on the road. ‘Not Pangbourne after all. Our lords and masters decided we’d be better off trying a little interrogation.’
‘Interrogation?’ A slight rise to the upper register from Harry.
‘Who’s being interrogated, then, boss?’ Almost menacing.
‘The guy who got himself wounded trying to kill or snatch Harry here at Kilburn.’ His voice remained level, and, almost as he finished the sentence, the radio crackled into life.
‘Harvester One. Oddball to Harvester One.’
Lazily Bond reached forward for the hand mike. ‘Oddball, this is Harvester One. I hear you. Come in Oddball.’
‘Oddball to Harvester One. Earthquake. Repeat, Earthquake.’
‘Harvester One. Understood, Oddball. I’ll be in touch. Roger over and out.’
‘Thank you, Harvester One. Out.’
Bond understood all too well. ‘Earthquake’ was the agreed codeword if an incident had taken place that morning at Manderson Hall, Pangbourne, where a team had been watching since the early hours. Now something had happened. It meant that someone had tipped off the Meek Ones, or Scorpius, about the proposed visit by Bond and his team.
Inside the Bentley there was a new, unpleasant tension.
12
DEATH-NAME
‘This a private game, boss, or can anyone join in?’ Pearlman asked some fifteen minutes after the warning call came in.
‘Sorry.’ Bond was relaxed at the wheel of the car, concentrating on the road, yet ready for anything which might erupt from either Pearly or Harry Horner. ‘Sorry, I should have given you an extra briefing. You know we’re on a covert operation and you’ve both been given the okay to work with me. Name of the Op is Harvester – hence Harvester One. That’s me.’
‘Earthquake?’ Harry asked from the rear. In the driving mirror Bond saw that she had moved forward, her face framed between Pearlman’s shoulders and his own.
‘We were going out to the estate at Pangbourne where the Meek Ones used to have their HQ – ask Pearly about that. He did some observation down there. Literally my instructions were changed at the last minute. Earthquake sounds sinister, but it’s not. It only means they’re ready for us at the clinic we keep near Puttenham. Okay?’ He was a master dissembler.
‘The place where we’re going to interrogate the guy who got shot up in Kilburn?’
Bond gave a half-laugh. ‘Shot himself up, really. Moral to all of us – never fire a shotgun at close range, particularly when you’re shooting at a steel-plated door.’
‘It didn’t look like steel.’ Harriett sounded rather wistful, as though she was sorry for the man.
‘You’d have been happier if it’d been plain wood?’ Bond actually smiled. Both Pearly and Harriett were a little on edge. He wondered if they could both be plants. Two members of the Meek Ones. Sleeper or penetration agents in place to keep tabs on what the authorities were doing about this strange quasi-religious society or was he simply imagining the tension?
They continued in silence, negotiating the outskirts of Guildford and climbing the long dual carriageway leading to the Hog’s Back, Guildford Cathedral on the skyline to their left. Fifteen minutes later Bond took the turning off the Hog’s Back and they were soon being checked by the security people at the gates of the clinic. As usual there were two men on duty in the little gatehouse, while – Bond knew – another pair operated the phalanx of closed-circuit cameras which kept their probing eyes on the whole clinic, both inside and out.
An ambulance and three or four cars were parked in the grid just to the right of the main, low white building, and he noted that Sir James Molony’s Lancia was there, waxed, polished and gleaming in the weak sun which battled with cloud in an attempt to make a decent spring day.
The reception desk was manned by a former member of 42 Commando, Royal Marines: a man Bond knew had been invalided from the Service after being wounded in the Falklands War. Without any prompting the ex-Marine lifted the internal telephone and spoke quietly, saying that the party from London had arrived for Sir James Molony. They waited in silence, sitting around the reception area. Bond felt the other two looked uncomfortable, and his earlier intuition nagged and worried at his mind like a bad toothache.
It was ten minutes before Sir James appeared, spruce and smiling, doing some invisible hand-washing. By this time Bond was jumping at shadows, and the first thing to cross his mind was the meaning some psychiatrists put on that odd hand-washing motion – the Pontius Pilate syndrome, a signal of guilt pestering the subconscious.
He introduced the pair as his ‘colleagues’, giving no names. Molony shook hands with each in turn, calling Harriett ‘my dear’, and apologising for keeping them waiting. ‘Been dealing with the Shrivenham girl.’ He gave Bond a brisk smile.
‘How’s she coming along?’
‘Much better than I expected. Been awake and perfectly normal for several hours this morning. Then lapsed a little. Back in dreamland again now. It’ll take a few days, you know. Thank heaven her father’s gone back to town. But we have two uncles and her brother visiting today.’
Bond looked up sharply. ‘I didn’t know she had a brother.’
‘Oh my goodness, yes. Brother and a sister. Between ourselves I don’t get on with the brother. Asks too many questions. A little me
dical knowledge is a dangerous thing, James. The fellow read medicine at Oxford. Got sent down, though, so gave it all up.’
‘I wouldn’t mind a word with him when we’ve finished.’ In addition to his concern about Pearly and Harriett, something vague, but worrying, clicked into Bond’s mind about the Shrivenham son – Trilby’s brother. Something he’d heard or read? He tried to push it away in order to concentrate on the vital job in hand. ‘And our patient?’ he asked of Sir James Molony.
The consultant smiled – knowing and almost secret. ‘All ready for you. I presume your colleagues have experience of these things?’
‘Not sure.’ Bond turned to Pearly and Harriett. ‘Have either of you done any courses on drug-assisted interrogation?’
‘Yes,’ from Harriett.
‘No,’ from Pearly.
‘Well,’ Molony beamed at them, taking over from Bond. ‘It’s much more sophisticated than in the old days when we just used to pump the suspect full of Soap, and run questions past him.’ Soap was the old Service jargon for Sodium Pentothal. ‘We have better facilities now. Hypnotics that leave the mind and the subconscious clear, and the brain lucid.’ He turned back to Bond. ‘You’ll be doing all the work, I presume?’
‘Providing you do the medical stuff.’
‘Already done, dear boy, already done. He’s fast asleep. Just one quick shot of the truth serum – as the popular spy novels call it – and he’s all yours.’ Molony looked from Harriett to Pearly and back again. ‘It’s not really a truth serum, of course. But you get quite a long way down provided you ask the right questions.’ He turned his twinkling eyes onto Bond. ‘Presumably you’ve got the right questions?’
‘I hope so. Did anyone get any more details when he arrived down here? Name, anything like that?’
‘They tried, but he went blind, deaf and dumb. M agreed this was the only way. I was quite bucked when he told me last night that you were coming down.’
That’s torn it, Bond thought. He did not even look at Pearly and Harry, but the pair could not have missed the remark. Now they would know, guilty or not, that he had lied to them about the sudden change of plans. They would be more alert, if guilty; angry if innocent. There was a brief pause then Molony said they should be going down.
They walked along the corridor, past the sliding metal door of the room that housed the security watchers who, at this moment, would be operating their cameras, sweeping the grounds, forecourt, and all the open interior areas – the corridors and exits from the clinic. They probably had Molony and his three visitors on the screens now. Indeed they would have tracked them from the Bentley, and watched them in reception, even logged their conversation on tape.
Molony continued to talk. He had been very impressed with the security used to bring the Kilburn terrorist from the London Clinic. He described the operation as ‘smooth as a kidney transplant’. Sir James was known for his use of medical terms during informal conversation. It was said that he had once scandalised a dinner party by saying the pudding looked like a gall bladder.
Most of the bandages had been removed from the patient’s face, replaced by smaller adhesive dressings. The curtains were closed, and two Anglepoise lamps were adjusted to throw light on the top end of the bed. Molony gestured towards a chair set near to the man’s head. ‘Looks as if he’s had a rotten shave, eh?’ The consultant beamed again as Bond took his place on the chair.
‘We seem to be superfluous.’ Harriett’s tone hinted at pique. She was certainly close to anger.
‘Boss, we are to be trusted, I suppose?’ Pearlman asked.
‘Of course,’ Bond said quickly, ‘and no, no, you’re not superfluous. Far from it. Harry, you’ve had dealings with these people; Pearly’s been briefed. If anything comes up that strikes either of you as interesting, I want you to tell me. It might help some line of questioning.’ He slewed his body so that he could look towards Harriett. ‘This man, here. Have you ever seen him before?’
She came closer, peering over his shoulder. There was a long pause before she said, ‘He’s familiar. Two men interviewed me for the Avante Carte job – Hathaway, and a taller one – taller and of a much larger build. I saw no women when I went for the interview. There were other people about. I took them to be executives, and this was one of them. I remember thinking he was very smart: grey pin-striped suit; soft voice. Looked like any other businessman out after the job of managing a high-powered credit firm. Come to think of it, I saw him again. I was getting into a taxi outside the offices and I spotted him hailing a cab coming up behind mine.’
‘Did you watch it? The cab, I mean. Did it follow you?’
‘Maybe. It was rush hour. Difficult to see.’
Was all that true, Bond wondered. Or was it simply an attempt to reinforce her cover? ‘A general hood-of-all-work, I should imagine,’ he said, almost to himself. Then – ‘Okay, Sir James, let’s get on with it, if you’re ready.’
The injection took a couple of minutes to work. The patient lay, perfectly still, his head unmoving on the pillow, then there was a flicker of the eyelids. A minute later he seemed to be wide awake – eyes staring, unblinking, at the ceiling. Bond took a deep breath and spoke. ‘The meek shall inherit the earth,’ he began.
‘The blood of the fathers will fall upon the sons.
The blood of the mothers will pass also.’
The voice was natural, quiet, and with the slight trace of an accent Bond had noted at the London Clinic.
‘Tell me your name,’ he asked.
‘My name in the world, or my name in death?’
Bond felt a slight shiver pass through his body. The possible horror they had uncovered began to worm its way into his mind. Oh God, a voice said at the back of his brain. If this is what I think, we’re in for a time of true despair. ‘Both,’ he said at last. ‘Your name in the world, first.’
‘My true name is Ahmed. Ahmed el Kadar.’
‘You are from where?’
‘In the world my country is called Libya. But I have, naturally, disowned my country. I am a citizen of the world of the Meek Ones, which is the world in its final confusion.’
‘And your name in death?’
‘My name in death is Joseph.’
‘Is there significance in that name?’ As no response appeared to be forthcoming, he quickly repeated, ‘The meek shall inherit.’
‘If you know that, you know that death-names are chosen at random. Death is the only significant thing.’
Judging this to be some form of basic catechism, Bond asked, ‘Why is death the only significant thing?’
‘Death in itself has no significance. Only the way a Meek One dies, the bravery he shows, is significant, because it is his way, as a true believer, to paradise. The Meek shall only inherit if we – the ones chosen to go before – change the state of the world.’
‘Good.’ He seemed to be praising a diligent student. ‘How shall the Meek Ones change the world?’
‘By death. By bringing the final revolution which will set man, woman and child free from the yokes of man-made political ideals. The world can flourish only when those who rule – justly and unjustly – are laid low. And when all embrace the true way.’
‘Only then?’
‘Only when the corrupt ideals, which men call politics, are smashed open, and crushed like the eggs of a deadly spider. Only then can the world flourish and the people be free. All revolutions, until now, have been false, just as power, and the ambition to gain power in the imperfect world are false. The Meek shall inherit, but only when the endless wheel of revenge has turned full circle.’
‘Are all the Meek Ones ready?’
‘Those who have been chosen, and seen the truth, are ready and waiting.’
‘Where do they wait?’
‘In their appointed places. The unmarried and childless will do the simple tasks. The married, with children to follow after them, will do the great things. All have orders, or will be given orders. They are now scatte
red to the four corners of the earth. They will breed and die, so that their children can breed and die for the truth, until the wheel has turned fully.’
‘What are your own orders?’
‘I have carried out my first task, and failed.’
‘Joseph, what was your first task?’
‘To destroy the female serpent who came to kill our Father. Our Father, Valentine, is often at risk from enemies. They must all be destroyed. I failed. Next time I shall not fail.’
‘Have you a new task, Joseph?’
‘As I have failed, a new task will come.’
‘In the usual way?’
‘Of course.’
‘Directly from our Father, Valentine?’
‘Directly, from his mouth only, or from one who can speak his death-name.’
‘And his death-name is?’
There was a long silence. ‘Our Father – Valentine – Joseph? His death-name, Joseph?’
‘Only our Father Valentine’s death-name changes with the sun and the moon. It is a word we cannot repeat, even to each other.’
‘But he will come?’
The man in the bed smiled, as though in some kind of ecstasy. ‘He will come, or send one to take me to him. I know he will come soon.’
‘And when he comes you will be given a task which may lead to death?’
‘I have fathered a child, so I am a chosen Meek One. I am allowed a death-task, and the glory it will bring to me, and to my wife and our son. Yes, the next task will be a death-task.’
‘Do you know where our Father, Valentine, is now?’
‘We are all scattered, but, like the God of the Christians, our Father, Valentine, knows where each of us is at any time. He can reach and pluck us out, ordering us to a new task.’ The hair on Bond’s neck bristled, and he again felt the cold clammy sense of horror crawling over his own flesh. If he was reasoning correctly, this was worse than he had ever imagined. ‘Let our Father, Valentine, come for you, or send one to take you to him. It will be good, Joseph. Rest now.’ He signalled for Sir James to do what was needed to return the patient to peaceful sleep and erase all memory of this conversation from his mind.