Bond Movies 03 - Licence to Kill (11 page)

Like all field agents Bond had documents stashed in most of the major cities throughout the world, and he was also careful to cultivate friends and acquaintances wherever he went. Some had an inkling of his arcane work; others just got on with him, liked him for his company and conversation. David Wolkowsky, a man who had changed the Gulf side of Key West, by restoration and rebuilding, was among the latter, and Bond was unhappy about using him in this side of his life, but there was no other way. It was David who owned Ballast Key and the house he had built on it.

Before anything else, the money had to be removed. Three times he moved between the plane and the wooden pier. Twice to bring the heavy suitcases on to dry land, then one more time to check the cabin and storage compartment with a torch from the cockpit. The last time proved worthwhile, as he discovered two more of the blue shrink-wrapped packages, hidden away under the co-pilot’s seat. The money was drugs money, so he felt no moral qualms about it, for this loot would be used to bring Franz Sanchez to his final destiny – either death or a long spell of imprisonment.

Once the money was on the pier, he returned to the seaplane one last time, his torch on a lanyard around his neck. Rummaging in the storage compartment, he had discovered a set of tools, including a soft mallet and chisel. Starting the engine again, he taxied out into deep water, cut the motor and climbed down on to the floats. It took fifteen minutes to rip metal from the starboard float and the airplane was already taking in water and listing badly when he got to the second float which he treated in the same way. He was in the water now, with the plane gently sinking. To make certain, he punctured the fuselage in four different places, then kicked himself away lying on his back to watch the Beaver guzzle water and slowly go down. Tomorrow it might well be seen from the air, but by then he hoped to be far away.

He swam back to the island, using a lazy, but fast crawl, his nerve ends tingling, for these were waters where sharks came inshore. Luck held, and, soaking wet, he once more checked the cases on the pier and made his way up to the deserted house.

Using the torch he found the main door, dealt with the lock and went inside. In a couple of minutes he had found the telephone and was punching out a local, Key West, number. After four rings a languid voice answered.

‘David, it’s James. James Bond.’

‘Oh, how nice of you to call, James. Where are you?’

‘On your island, I’ve just broken into your house.’

‘My, how ingenious of you. Shall I send the local cops?’

‘I rather think it would be better if you didn’t know about it.’

‘About what?’

‘Me breaking into your house.’

‘What break-in?’ David replied with no hint of humour in his voice. ‘Now, what can I do for you? I suppose it’s some woman. Usually is.’

‘I need to be brought in, and deposited at the Casa Marina.’

‘Really? I thought you always stayed at the Pier House.’

‘So does the husband,’ Bond lied.

‘Oh, then the Casa would be better. I’ll get Steve to pop over and pick you up.’ Steve was also an old friend. A tall, fine-looking young man, and an excellent sailor.

‘Will he make it through the channel?’

‘Steve can take a boat anywhere. He knows the channel like the back of his proverbial hand. Anything else?’

‘If he could pick up a couple of cases of mine from the Pier House . . .’

‘Of course, James. Lovely to talk to you, we really must have lunch when you’ve finished deceiving husbands. Bye.’

And so it was. Steve already had the two cases, collected from the Pier House, aboard the light speedboat. ‘What in heaven’s name have you got in these – gold bars?’ he asked, picking up the cases of money.

‘Almost,’ Bond had smiled in the darkness.

The journey, from Ballast Key to Garrison Bight, had taken twice as long as usual, with Steve peering into the darkness, using a small floodlight to follow the twisting narrow channel, marked with red flags. But they eventually made it. There was a small bar at Garrison Bight, but it was frequented by fishermen who could not have cared what was being brought in from Ballast Key. Half an hour later, Bond was settled into the renovated Casa Marina Hotel, with its huge airy lobby, the smooth polished floorboards, great whirling fans and strange pedigree – for it had been originally built by the legendary Henry Flagler who constructed the Overseas Railroad and chose one of the most beautiful locations for the hotel, set between County and South Beaches, shaded by palms and backed by elegant lawns. The Casa Marina, like the Overseas Railroad, had not been one of Flagler’s successes. Between the wars it began to fail, and during Big Two was used by the Navy before returning to private ownership, apart from being taken over by the military during the Cuba crisis, after which it fell into disrepair, to be renovated again in 1977.

Now this pleasant hotel was a haven of peace for Bond. What was better, nobody knew he was there. He had only partially unpacked, making certain the money was secure in the two big cases, and taking a look in the special secret compartment in the briefcase Q-Branch had prepared for the Istanbul trip. Peeling away the false bottom, which was shielded from any airport X-ray eyes, he found, among other things, a spare automatic and holster.

He grunted, seeing they had given him a Walther PPK – not his favourite weapon, since it had been taken out of use with the SIS several years before. But, on closer inspection, he saw that it was not the old PPK, but the P.38K, the shorter, and more effective version.

Changing into dark slacks and a black roll-neck, and with comfortable black doe-skin moccasins on his feet, he slipped the pistol into a specially tailored holster pocket, out of sight on his hip, placing a small zippered wallet into his normal hip pocket on the left side. The time had come to return to the Leiter house, scene of disaster and tragedy.

He went on foot as he wanted no record of this visit, even from a cab driver’s memory. The house was still cordoned off with white tape, and there was a light, discouraging, police presence – one car containing two officers outside the main entrance, from which, Bond had figured out, the room that interested him could not be seen.

Stealthily, Bond made his way through the trees, climbing the wall, taking care that there were no alarm devices, or electronic eyes to trigger. Silently he moved towards the back of the house, and the door which led directly to the kitchen. He knelt down, removed the wallet from his hip pocket and extracted, first, a pinlight torch, and second, that simplest of lock-picking devices known in the trade as a ‘rake’.

The lock was easy enough. Old and well used. He inserted the rake into the keyhole and moved it slowly back and forth in a gentle, steady sawing movement, listening for the moment when the curves in the tool made contact with the pins and drivers inside the lock’s cylinder. Gradually, Bond increased speed and, within a minute, heard the pins snap up and the driver disengage. There was a click and the lock gave way, the door opening slightly.

If he went out the same way, Bond knew he could close the door and the lock would click back into place, leaving no trace that it had been forced. He stepped inside and made his way through the kitchen and main rooms, up the stairs, moving by feel and with no torch, for this could have been detected by the two cops outside.

At last he reached Leiter’s study. He had wanted to visit it sooner, but M’s sudden arrival had prevented it. He stepped inside and switched on the light. This could not be seen from the street, and he had to gamble on there being no guards on the rear of the house.

The last time he had been in the room it was a shambles, drawers turned over, books pulled from place and – the screaming horror still made his flesh creep and the back of his neck tingle – Felix had been dumped on the couch.

Since that incident, though, he had thought of his penultimate visit, during the wedding when he had walked in to find the tall brunette called Pam leaning over Felix’s shoulder as he tapped in something on the computer which still stood on the desk. He faithfully recalled everything Felix did at the time, and knew that whoever had turned over the room had left what he had been searching for. Bond knew, because Felix had hidden it in plain sight.

He walked over to the shelves near the desk and reached up to the lovely photograph of Della. There, in a small holder behind the picture, was a 3·5 computer disk. It had been there since Felix put it in place while Bond had waited to take him down for the cake-cutting ceremony.

He moved to the desk, sat down and touched the power switch on the extended keyboard. The drive and fan began to whirr slightly and the screen gave out its start-up message. Then the screen cleared, leaving the lozenge-shaped icon of a hard-disk drive in the top right-hand corner, and a small menu line across the top.

Bond slipped the 3·5 disk into the external drive. A moment later the icon of the disk came up below the hard-drive icon. Two clicks, with the mouse, on the image of the disk and the entire thing began to open up, the screen blacking out, then turning to grey, the application programme on the hard drive taking over whatever had been saved on the disk.

Then, almost before he realised it had happened, the screen filled with data. A list of files spread themselves over the screen, each in a little folder icon. The folder icons each had a name –
Sanchez: US Assets; Sanchez: Swiss Bank Accounts; Sanchez: Isthmus Accounts;
and finally,
Sanchez: Informants
.

Bond clicked on the last file. Eight names scrolled down the screen. Against each of the names there were details, but the one word,
Deceased
completed the data. Except for the final name. Bond peered at the screen and read –
Lexington Contact – P Bouvier. CIA Maximum support and protection, plus technical back-up. Next meeting: 21:00hrs, Thursday, Barrelhead. Bimini W.I
.

Bond nodded, as though he knew exactly what was supposed to happen. Indeed he did know the Barrelhead Saloon was in one of the worse areas of Bimini’s West Island. Tomorrow was Thursday, so P Bouvier would be waiting there for Felix. There was only one thing he could do. Take Felix’s place. He did not even think about who the contact Bouvier might possibly be. But he would know by tomorrow night. What worried him now was that this had only been a backup disk. He opened up the machine’s hard drive and checked through the programs. The data was there also. He would bet a hundred to one that Sanchez’s people had read everything here. They did not need the backup. It would interesting to see if the Bouvier contact actually turned up.

Back at the hotel, he checked that no intruders had found their way into his room – he had left the usual little traps: a matchstick here and a piece of cotton there. Nobody had searched the place.

He put the Walther under his pillow, secured the door, stripped off, performed his nightly toilet and slid into bed. He could do nothing until the morning – there was no point in worrying about things now – so he blanked everything from his mind, dropping into a deep, dreamless sleep.

At 8.45 the following evening, Bond drove the sleek powerboat alongside other light craft tied up at the dock in front of the Barrelhead Saloon.

There had been fun in buying the craft that morning, and Bond reflected that, with the many thousands of dollars at his disposal, much more fun was in store. After breakfasting, he had informed the hotel that he would be away for a day or two and asked them if they would put his luggage in their secure baggage area. They were delighted, and, after removing what amounted to a great deal of cash from one of the suitcases, he saw the baggage stowed, then left to walk down to the Key West Marina, thinking that a likely craft might be for sale.

In the event, there was nothing and the only likely target was a slim and sleek powerboat.

A young, rather unpleasant-looking man was tinkering with the engines and Bond called to him.

‘I rent your boat?’ he asked.

The young man did not even look up. ‘Not a chance,’ he mouthed.

‘What’s up. Engines faulty?’

‘No way. This baby’ll outstrip anything else in her class.’

‘Okay,’ Bond smiled. ‘How much to buy her from you?’

This time the man did look up, his lips twisting in a condescending smile. ‘More than you could afford, wise ass.’

Bond smiled again. ‘Name your price.’

The boat owner looked at him steadily. The look said, ‘What have I done to deserve meeting a nut this morning?’ Aloud he sneered, ‘To you? Two hundred K.’

‘That include a full tank of petrol?’ Bond began to pull cash from his pockets in ten-thousand-dollar packets. Carefully, he counted out twenty of the packets, revelling in the shocked look on the man’s face.

But now it was night, and in fifteen minutes he would be meeting Bouvier, Leiter’s final contact.

Right on time, he climbed from the boat and walked the few paces towards the saloon, thinking that it certainly was not the Ritz Grill. Inside it was even worse than he had expected. The decor was random and decidedly faded. The clientele looked to be the dregs of humanity. Some looked to be downright dangerously wicked as well. On a small stage, in the far corner, just about visible, a tired-looking stripper performed in a manner that would make it fun to watch paint dry. Cigarette smoke clogged the air and the noise level would have worried anyone who lived near the edge of a major airport’s runway.

A pair of men in outdated, and slightly mouldy dinner jackets stood inside the door. You did not have to be brain of the year to mark them down as bouncers. Bond approached them with caution.

‘Looking for someone called Bouvier,’ he said.

The larger of the two men, who, at a guess, had suffered from a broken nose at least half-a-dozen times, give or take a break, gestured, pointing into the darkest recesses of the room. Bond could just make out a shadowy silhouette sitting alone at a table at the far end of the long bar which reached from the stripper’s stage to the wall.

He made his way through the room with as much caution as he had approached the bouncers. There were only a few women in the place, and he would not have trusted them very far, while the men could not be trusted at all. They obviously did not like strangers, and were affronted by anyone trying to push through the crowd, for the tables were crammed into the place; chairback touched chairback, and Bond added extra courtesy into his journey. At last, he shouldered his way to the lone figure.