The Israel Bond Omnibus (30 page)

“I,” began his captor, “am the son of a Singapore opium merchant, Nu Nu, who sold the flower juice of happiness from his boat outside the jurisdiction of the British harbor police. The craft was known throughout all Southeast Asia as ‘Nu Nu’s Junk Junk.’ My father, whilst on a business trip to London, fell in love with a buxom English music hall dancer, Tessie Watts; bedded with her. I am the illegitimate product of that night of shame, named for both of them. My name is Watts Nu.

“My father hated me from birth when the evidences of my mother’s lineage, the unslanted eye, the blond hair, began to crop up on my body. I spent a dismal childhood, scorned by people of both races... a
chi-chi
, as the British call half-breeds... an outcast. Though he loathed me, my father, traditionally responsible as all Chinese fathers are, did see to all my wants and had me educated at the Jean Hersholt College of Medicine in Hopei. So highly was I regarded by my professors that they convinced the DuPont Corporation to underwrite my experiments with a new type of chemical aphrodisiac which even today is selling by the millions. You have no doubt purchased it yourself upon occasions. Erectex?”

“Yes,” said Bond. “With the slogan ‘Better Loving Through Chemistry.’ Go on, Doctor, I now find your story fascinating.”

That’s it, Bond, use your chicken noodle. Flatter this maniac; gain precious time to figure a way out.

“But mere wealth meant nothing to me, Mr. Bond. One thing alone kept me groping through a hostile environment that denied me love, affection and understanding—the thought of revenge. Revenge upon my father, my mother, the whole rotten structure of mankind.”

“Was there no one to give you sympathy?” asked Bond, genuinely touched despite his predicament. “There are many fine therapists who might have helped you make an adjustment, find some beauty and meaning.”

“Charlatans! Amateurish dabblers in a mystery too profound for their shallow minds! But there was one,” and a strange mist came over those incongruous eyes, “who might have helped. I poured out my heart, my frustration, my fears in a thirty-eight-page letter to her. A letter that began ‘Dear Abby’... and when she did not deign to answer,” his voice rose to a crescendo of fury, “I knew I had squandered my valuable time on a moment of weakness! I pulled up stakes and came to this island where I purchased this broken-down pagoda and turned it into a resort for hate groups, wisely deducing there was a market for this kind of enterprise. At last there is a place where the world’s malcontents, with whom I feel a camaraderie, can come for two weeks at a time and rest up for their campaigns. It also serves as an excellent front for a terror organization—”

“SPECTRE,” Bond said.

“Ah, you have overheard something you should not have. But it will be of no benefit to you, Mr. Bond. Yes, that is the name. And it is headed by an unique individual whom I met in...” he paused, “I don’t think I’ll tell you where... but it was a year ago. He is an acknowledged master in the intelligence field and I defer to him because of his organizational genius. His hatred of mankind surpasses even mine, my friend, and together we have made a joint pact. Our goal comes nearer with each passing day.”

“What is that goal, Dr. Nu?”

“To rule the world, what else? And we shall! Our organization consists of three-man teams in key spots in every land, people who are totally corrupt and ruthless, who believe as my leader and I do. Among them are three top television executives and three professional football scouts in America, three used car dealers in Canada, three ex-members of Mosley’s fascist party in Great Britain, three South African penny whistle players in Jo’burg, a trio of French waiters in Lyons, three rapacious ski instructors at Saint Moritz, three scientists who defected from Red China and are working on a bomb with the destructive force of one hundred wontons (Bond shuddered)... but I could go on all night.”

“Have you ever considered that your Communist paymasters have their own vision of world domination and might not take too kindly to you if they found out about yours?”

Dr. Nu’s smile was one of superior unconcern. “That possibility has been considered. But they do not know of the scope and purpose of our organization and believe we are content to foment these insurrections for mere money. They are unaware of the bomb we soon will have at our disposal and our even more powerful weapon, the world’s most formidable army which I have created. You have already been thwarted by their espionage.”

“The insects?”

“Yes, you see...”

There was a scream and two of the sinister Oriental guards came into the room, a struggling hooded figure dragged between them.

“A snooper, Dr. Nu, discovered by one of our centipede sentinels outside the temple,” said one with deference.

“You see,” Dr. Nu chuckled. “Our allies are ubiquitous, Mr. Bond. Let us see who has blundered into our net.” And he lifted the hood.

It was —Sister Sweetcakes!

“Sister, you sweet fool! I told you to go back to OLEO! Take your hands off her, you damn yellow swine!”

“Release her. She cannot cause us harm,” the doctor stated placidly.

“Mr. Bond,” she started; then let go a sob. “I could not let you face this alone.” And buried that ethereal face in her hands.

Dr. Nu looked at her for a moment. “Your entrance, Sister, coincides with one of my daily rituals, not as devout as yours, perhaps, but far more interesting. It is time to make Herbie happy.”

“Herbie?” Bond hoped the doctor would not sense the alarm in his query.

“Yes, one of my dearest friends from a singularly isolated sector of jungle in the heart of the Amazon Basin. But come let us meet Herbie, dear guests.”

A guard’s cutters nipped off the biting strands of Anaconda Copper wire that bound his legs to the chair. (And I own fifty shares of the damn stuff, he thought, with justifiable bitterness.) He felt the blood slowly circulating again, squeezed his toes together to facilitate the process.

They were led by the guard and their giant host down a dark corridor; then up a winding flight of stairs to a door marked “Laboratory.”

It opened to reveal a gleaming white laboratory. There were lab tables containing test tubes of various sizes, complicated machinery, something Bond took to be a computer, and a huge circular conference table topped with vases of heady jungle flowers.

“I shall explain that machine to you shortly, Mr. Bond, after we pay our respects to Herbie.”

At the end of the laboratory was a door. “It is quite aromatic in there, my friends, but you will become accustomed to it quickly.”

He opened it. They were in a huge greenhouse, moist and laden with the pungent smells of rain forest plants of which there were an exotic variety.

“This,” said Dr. Nu, pointing to a green snake of a rope potted and tied to a long stick, “is the Malaysian death vine which claimed one of your Israelis, I believe. The genus
tutti cammarata,
as it is known in Latin. Do not go near the thorns. You have already witnessed their efficacy. They pierce the skin, injecting a derivative of the
larosa semolina
toxin. And this—” he bent to pick up a small clay pot—“holds a tiny species of Jamaican flora called the night-blooming day shade. From its seeds can be made a drug that draws the color out of the skin, nerves, and vital organs, a necessary first step toward achieving the state of invisibility. There is a minor drawback, however. The bones are turned kelly green. The only practical use I have discovered for it as yet is selling skeletons for Irish Halloween parties. And,” the round eye twinkled to its slanted partner, “here is Herbie.”

It was a plant, even taller than the doctor, and, as they approached it, it came alive! Several leaf-covered tendrils began a seductive swaying as though they were the enticing arms of a belly dancer.

“This is as close as all of us but one shall get,” said the doctor.

“All right,” Bond said. “It should be dancing at the Roundtable.
Nu,
Dr. Nu? I’m getting sick of this charade.”

“I could not agree with you more, Oy Oy Seven,” Dr. Nu said. “But Herbie’s accomplishments go beyond simple manipulations of his handsome arms. Herbie is, incidentally, a nickname. His full moniker, as they say in those cowboy and Indian thrillers, is
herbis homnis fressoris...
man-eating plant.”

From somewhere deep in Herbie’s green depths came a rumble... and something that sounded like a slurp!

“He knows why we are here, Mr. Bond.”

“Oh.” Sister sagged in the arms of the guards. “Let it be me— not him. Let it be me.”

Bond’s voice was a tremulous choke. “All right, take her away and get it over with, you fiend! Don’t subject her to any more of this.”

“But, Mr. Bond.” The polished voice held a note of surprise. “You completely misunderstand. I am going to take Sister up on her offer. It is she who will furnish Herbie with his banquet tonight. I have something subtler in mind for you.” He turned to the guards. “Throw her in!”

“I’ll kill you all, you—” Bond roared, a red ray of anger across his eyes. He closed the fingers of his bound hands into one fist, brought it up savagely under the jaw of one of the Orientals, experiencing a sweet fierce joy as the fist drove the man’s teeth through his tongue. The other, however, had side-stepped his desperate rhinolike charge and brought the butt of his Wembly-Vicar automatic against Bond’s head. Oy Oy Seven fell woozily on all fours, felt himself being dragged out of the greenhouse, knees rubbed raw by the Armstrong mosaic title floor.

His last, despairing look was on Sister. Screaming, she was enveloped in three of Herbie’s tentacles, a primordial sucking sound coming from heaven alone knew what part of that revolting anatomy.

Then the door shut. And there was only Dr. Nu, arms folded, eyes aglow with a dreamy madness as her screams grew fainter, then ceased.