Solo (30 page)

The man was shivering, knees drawn up to his chest, lying on a befouled sheet. An African man, naked except for a pair of filthy underpants. He turned towards Bond and muttered something. His head was shaven and he had a small goatee beard. Gabriel Adeka.

Bond stepped forward, recoiling slightly from the feculent smell. Gabriel Adeka in the grip of terrible cold turkey. His face and shaved head were shiny with sweat and his whole body shook with recurring tremors. On a table across the room was an enamel kidney dish, a Bunsen burner attached to a camping gas canister, a length of rubber tubing, some spoons and several syringes still wrapped in their plastic seals. All the paraphernalia required for shooting up heroin.

Bond was thinking hard – so this was why no one saw Gabriel Adeka any more. Breed had turned him into a junkie and kept him locked in this cellar, no doubt on a regime of drug-injection and then deprivation, turning him into this dehumanised, desperate addict.

Gabriel Adeka reached out a shivering hand to Bond, his big eyes imploring, beseeching. Give me more, I beg you, give me my nirvana in a needle.

Except it wasn’t Gabriel Adeka, Bond now saw, and grew rigid at the recognition. The last time he’d seen this man he had been lying in a hospital bed in Port Dunbar. Brigadier Solomon Adeka, military genius, the ‘African Napoleon’, begging for a syringe full of heroin.

‘It’s a terrible thing, addiction,’ a voice said. ‘Put your gun down on the table and turn round very slowly.’

Bond did as he was told and laid his gun down beside the syringes and swivelled round carefully.

Standing in the doorway was the tall lanky figure of Hulbert Linck – except his blond hair was cut short and dyed black and he had a full beard. He was wearing a tan canvas windcheater and jeans and was covering Bond with an automatic pistol. He stepped into the room, glancing at Adeka.

‘Forgive the precaution, Mr Bond – I hope you understand. This is all Kobus Breed’s doing,’ he said. ‘Breed has kept me and Adeka here prisoners while he and his men use the charity to smuggle drugs into the USA. He’s becoming extremely rich extremely fast.’ Linck smiled. ‘Funny that it should be you, Bond, who’s come to our rescue.’ He lowered his gun and put it on the table beside Bond’s.

‘We are very happy to surrender ourselves to you,’ Linck said. ‘Very happy.’

The first shot hit Linck just in front of his left ear sending a fine skein of blood spraying from his head and the second smashed into his chest, slamming him heavily against the wall. He slid down it, leaving a thin smeary trail of blood and toppled over. Adeka screamed and gibbered, huddling in the corner.

Agent Massinette irrupted into the room, gun levelled at Adeka. He was followed immediately by Brig Leiter. Bond heard the clatter of other footsteps coming down the corridor overhead.

‘You OK, Mr Bond?’ Brig Leiter said.

Bond had his eyes on Massinette, who was crouching over Linck’s body searching his pockets.

‘Why the fuck did you shoot him?’ Bond said, his voice heavy with fury.

Massinette turned and stood up.

‘He had a gun and was going to kill you.’

‘He was putting his gun down. He was surrendering to me.’

‘It didn’t look like that from the bottom of the stairs,’ Brig said. ‘We couldn’t take any chances.’

Massinette stooped and took something from Linck’s pocket. He had another gun in his hand, a little Smith and Wesson .22 revolver, it looked like.

‘This was in his pocket, Mr Bond,’ Massinette said. ‘He was fooling you. He had other plans.’

Bond looked at the two agents.

‘I apologise,’ he said, though he knew full well that Massinette had just planted the second gun on Linck’s body. But why? He stopped himself from trying to answer that question as Felix Leiter came into the room.

‘You took your time,’ Bond said. ‘Still, very pleased to see your ugly face.’

They shook hands warmly. Right hand to left hand.

‘The company you keep, James,’ Felix said, tut-tutting with a smile. ‘Where’s Kobus Breed?’

‘Out on the back lawn – dead. I’ll show you. You’d better get some medical help for Adeka here. He’s in a bad way.’

‘I’ll get on to it,’ Brig said, taking a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and calling for an ambulance and medics.

Bond and Felix climbed the stairs and moved through the clinic towards the hallway.

Felix clapped Bond on the back.

‘Your friend Mr McHarg called the police with some story about a mansion, gunshots and someone called James Bond. When we’d discovered you weren’t on the plane to London we’d put out an APB on you. The police called us and asked if this Bond fellow was part of our operation. Very clever, James.’

‘Sometimes you earn your own luck,’ Bond said, deciding not to mention his suspicions of Massinette just at this moment. For all he knew Brig Leiter may have been a part in the assassination of Hulbert Linck and he wanted to ensure his facts were right before any accusations were made.

Bond paused in the hallway and looked up the stairs. Linck must have been waiting up there somewhere, he supposed. But why would the CIA want Linck dead . . . ?

‘Got a cigarette?’ Bond asked.

Felix reached into his pocket with his good hand and shook out a packet of Rothmans. Then with the elaborate titanium device that had replaced his other hand – a small curved hook and two other hinged digits – he took out a book of matches. Bond watched in some amazement as the claw selected, ripped off and lit a match before applying it to the end of Bond’s cigarette.

Bond inhaled deeply, relishing the tobacco rush.

‘That’s quite a gadget you’ve got there,’ he said. ‘New model?’

‘Yeah,’ Felix said with a grin. ‘I can pick gnat shit out of pepper with this baby.’

Bond laughed. ‘Thank God you’re here, Felix. Have I got a tale to tell you. Come on, I’ll show you Breed first.’

They went to the main drawing room and Bond pushed through the garden doors and stepped out on to the lawn.

Kobus Breed had disappeared.

‘We found two guards,’ Leiter said. ‘One of them had almost bled to death and the other was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.’

It was dawn and they were standing on the gravelled sweep in front of the house. An ambulance had taken Adeka to hospital while police and forensic teams were searching the building. Forty kilos of heroin had been recovered.

‘The third guard was called Henrick,’ Bond said, leaning against a police car. ‘I slugged him – but he seemed so unconscious I didn’t bother to bind his ankles. He must have come round, untied himself somehow, gone back to the house and found Breed’s body. Must have carted it away for some reason.’

‘You sure you killed Breed?’ Felix asked.

‘I
was
sure,’ Bond said. ‘Now I don’t know. He was shockingly injured.’

Bond felt sick and angry with himself. Had Henrick simply wanted to deny the authorities a corpse? Or had there been some vital sign of life in Breed’s ruined body? Was Breed lying at the bottom of some river nearby weighted with stones? Or was he in some secret surgical theatre being put back together? Bond was troubled – perhaps the
coup de grâce
of the switchblade had just missed.

‘Don’t worry about Breed,’ Felix said. ‘We’ll pick him up. If you did the damage you say you did he’ll have to find a doctor or go to a hospital. Or maybe he’ll just die.’

‘Possibly,’ Bond said, wondering if there was any way Breed could be realistically patched up. His right shoulder and arm had been shattered, pulverised. He wondered what kind of new deformities a living Kobus Breed would display.

‘Don’t look so serious, James,’ Felix said. ‘You broke up a giant drug-smuggling operation. We got the bad guys – most of them – and saved Gabriel Adeka. Not bad for a British spy on vacation.’

Bond decided to tell Felix the reality of the situation.

‘He’s not Gabriel Adeka,’ Bond said, flatly.

‘You need to go back to your hotel, take a shower, have some breakfast, sleep for a day – and you’ll be your old self again.’

‘I’m sorry, Felix,’ Bond said. ‘That man’s not Gabriel Adeka – he’s Solomon Adeka. Brigadier Solomon Adeka, former C.-in-C. of the Dahum armed forces. He’s disguised as Gabriel Adeka – people are meant to think he’s Gabriel Adeka. But he isn’t.’

‘How do you know?’ Felix wasn’t smiling any more.

‘Because I’ve met him. And I’ve met his brother. I recognised him. I know them both.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Yes. But . . .’

‘But what?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Let nothing stand in the way of proof, James.’

‘All right,’ Bond said, calling Felix’s bluff. ‘Can you whistle us up an aeroplane?’

Bond felt very strange being back in Port Dunbar. It was as if the events between his last visit and this one had taken place in a malign parallel universe. Here he was standing in the cemetery that ringed the small cathedral almost exactly in the same location – at the back, the modest spire of the cathedral to his left – as when he had witnessed Brigadier Solomon Adeka’s funeral. Except that this time he was alongside Felix Leiter and the guard of honour had been replaced by a magistrate and his clerk, some officials from the interim government of Zanzarim and a small, tracked, orange excavator that was manoeuvring into position in front of Solomon Adeka’s grave.

Twenty-four hours after the events at Rowanoak Hall, Felix and Bond had been flown out of Andrews Field on a USAF Boeing 707 transport. They had been met at Sinsikrou airport by the American ambassador to Zanzarim and then, in a small convoy of embassy cars, they had been driven down the transnational highway to Port Dunbar, where government officials received them at the cathedral and informed them that all relevant permissions and waivers from the ecclesiastical authorities for the disinterment of Solomon Adeka’s body had been granted. Bond had been impressed by the level of power and influence such despatch had displayed. It seemed that Felix Leiter just had to snap his fingers and all his demands were met. Why such efficient haste? Bond wondered.Why were they being treated like visiting dignitaries? Once again he felt there were other agendas beside his own that were for the moment invisible to him. He was also aware – because he knew Felix so well – that he was not telling him everything. No matter: he could bide his time because Felix would indeed tell him if he insisted – they were too good and too old a pair of friends to hold anything back if total honesty was demanded. But Bond decided it might be more interesting to watch and wait.

Driving through the city towards the cathedral, Bond could see from the windows of their limousine that Port Dunbar had reclaimed its usual bustle and energy. The journey south had also demonstrated that almost every sign of the civil war was being swiftly erased. There were some temporary Bailey bridges across rivers; here and there a few burnt-out vehicles waited to be carried away for scrap. And there were many more Zanza Force soldiers on the streets – manning checkpoints, directing traffic – than was normal for a peaceful country. All the same, Bond thought, you would hardly believe a bitter civil war had raged here for two years, remembering the time he’d spent in the beleaguered Republic of Dahum as it entered its final days and hours. Once again he thought it was as if he’d existed in a parallel universe or a dream of some kind. A bad dream, Bond corrected himself, because it featured Kobus Breed.

There was a call from the graveside and Bond and Felix made their way towards the small crowd that had gathered now that the key moment was at hand.

The tracks of the digger clattered noisily as it lined itself up and its lobster claw delicately began to scrape away the packed earth in front of the gravestone.

‘I remember this funeral well,’ Bond said. ‘It was all very elaborate and formal. Very cleverly planned – orations, rifle salutes, grieving populace . . . How is Adeka anyway, have you heard?’

‘They say he’s doing very well,’ Felix said. ‘Getting the best possible help. Should make a full recovery.’

‘Must be strange coming back from the dead.’

‘Ha-ha,’ Felix said, drily. He was still highly sceptical, but he knew this was the one and only way of proving or disproving Bond’s claim.

The lid of the coffin was revealed and six gravediggers stepped forward. After some diligent spadework the whole of the coffin was uncovered and heavy strapping was tied to its brass handles and attached to the digger’s boom. Slowly, easily, the coffin was raised, lifted clear of the earth and lowered to the ground. Two of the gravediggers prised open the lid with jemmies.

The gasp of astonishment from those peering in was almost comic. Three sacks of cement were removed and laid beside each other on the parched turf.

Felix looked serious and prodded a sack with his foot as if it might suddenly become corporeal. He looked at Bond.

‘Looks like three sacks of cement to me,’ Bond said.

‘Well, I’ll be hog-tied,’ Felix said, not amused. ‘You were right.’

Bond shrugged modestly.

‘So,’ Felix said, ‘if the man we’ve got is Solomon Adeka, where’s his brother Gabriel?’

Bond lit a cigarette. ‘I suspect that if I took you to a small shop in Bayswater and you dug up the concrete floor you’d find his mortal remains.’ He paused, thinking. ‘It was all very elaborately planned.’

Felix looked shrewdly at Bond.

‘Do you know what’s going on, James?’

‘About eighty per cent, I reckon,’ Bond said with a smile. ‘I have a feeling you might be able to supply the missing twenty.’

Felix prodded a bag of cement again with his shoe, thinking. Then he looked up.

‘Let’s go and get a serious drink someplace,’ he said.

The Grand Central Hotel in Port Dunbar had possessed a variety of names in its short history: the Schloss Gustavberg, the Relais de la Côte d’Or and the Royal Sutherland. Now it was the bland Grand Central, having been requisitioned by the Dahum junta for use as its centre of government bureaucracy during the civil war. It was as if all that history was meant to be effaced by the re-christening. The Grand Central heralded a new and more prosperous future.