James Bond Anthology (223 page)

He was six strokes away. He stopped suddenly, ducked his head, and jack-knifed down. He felt the small shock-wave of the silent explosion of gas and something hit his foot. Now! He soared up below the man and scythed upwards with his knife. The blade went in. He felt the black rubber against his hand. Then the butt of the gun hit him behind the ear and a white hand came down and scrabbled at his air-pipe. Bond slashed wildly with the knife, his hand moving with terrifying slowness through the water. The point ripped something. The hand let go of the mask, but now Bond couldn’t see. Again the butt of the gun crashed down on his head. Now the water was full of black smoke, heavy, stringy stuff that clung to the glass of his mask. Bond backed painfully, slowly away, clawing at the glass. At last it cleared. The black smoke was coming out of the man, out of his stomach. But the gun was coming up again slowly, agonizingly, as if it weighed a ton, and the bright sting of the spear showed at its mouth. Now the webbed feet were hardly stirring, but the man was sinking slowly down to Bond’s level. Suspended straight in the water, he looked like one of those little celluloid figures in a Ptolemy jar that rise and fall gracefully with pressure on the rubber top to the jar. Bond couldn’t get his limbs to obey. They felt like lead. He shook his head to clear it, but still his hands and flippers moved only half consciously, all speed gone. Now he could see the bared teeth round the other man’s rubber mouthpiece. The gun was at his head, at his throat, at his heart. Bond’s hands crept up his chest to protect him while his flippers moved sluggishly, like broken wings, below him.

And then, suddenly, the man was hurled towards Bond as if he had been kicked in the back. His arms spread in a curious gesture of embrace for Bond and the gun tumbled slowly away between them and disappeared. A puff of black blood spread out into the sea from behind the man’s back and his hands wavered out and up in vague surrender while his head twisted on his shoulders to see what had done this to him.

And now, a few yards behind the man, shreds of black rubber hanging from its jaws, Bond saw the barracuda. It was lying broadside on, seven or eight feet of silver and blue torpedo, and round its jaws there was a thin mist of blood, the taste in the water that had triggered its attack.

Now the great tiger’s eye looked coldly at Bond and then downwards at the slowly sinking man. It gave a horrible yawning gulp to rid itself of the shreds of rubber, turned lazily three-quarters on, quivered in all its length and dived like a bolt of white light. It hit the man on the right shoulder with wide open jaws, shook him once, furiously, like a dog with a rat, and then backed away. Bond felt the vomit rising in his gorge like molten lava. He swallowed it down and slowly, as if in a dream, began swimming with languid, sleepy strokes away from the scene.

Bond had not gone many yards when something hit the surface to his left and the moonlight glinted on a silvery kind of egg that turned lazily over and over as it went down. It meant nothing to Bond, but, two strokes later, he received a violent blow in the stomach that knocked him sideways. It also knocked sense into him and he began to move fast through the water, at the same time planing downwards towards the bottom. More buffets hit him in quick succession, but the grenades were bracketing the blood patch near the ship’s hull and the shock-waves of the explosions became less.

The bottom showed up – the friendly waving fur, the great black toadstools of the dead sponges and the darting shoals of small fish fleeing with Bond from the explosions. Now Bond swam with all his strength. At any moment a boat would be got over the side and another diver would go down. With any luck he would find no traces of Bond’s visit and conclude that the underwater sentry had been killed by shark or barracuda. It would be interesting to see what Largo would report to the harbour police. Difficult to explain the necessity for an armed underwater sentry for a pleasure yacht in a peaceful harbour!

Bond trudged on across the shifting seagrass. His head ached furiously. Gingerly he put up a hand and felt the two great bruises. The skin felt intact. But for the cushion of water, the two blows with the butt of the gun would have knocked him out. As it was, he still felt half stunned and when he came to the end of the seagrass and to the soft white moon landscape with its occasional little volcano puffs from the sea-worms he felt as if he was on the edge of delirium. Wild commotion at the edge of his field of vision shocked him out of the semi-trance. A giant fish, the barracuda, was passing him. It seemed to have gone mad. It was snaking along, biting at its tail, its long body curling and snapping back in a jack-knife motion, its mouth opening wide and shutting again in spasms. Bond watched it hurtle away into the grey mist. He felt somehow sorry to see the wonderful king of the sea reduced to this hideous jiggling automaton. There was something obscene about it, like the blind weaving of a punchy boxer before he finally crashes to the canvas. One of the explosions must have crushed a nerve centre, wrecked some delicate balance mechanism in the fish’s brain. It wouldn’t last long. A greater predator than itself, a shark, would note the signs, the loss of symmetry that is suicide in the sea. He would follow for a while until the spasms slackened. Then the shark would make a short jabbing run. The barracuda would react sluggishly and that would be the end – in three great grunting bites, the head first and then the still jerking body. And the shark would cruise quietly on, its sickle mouth trailing morsels for the black and yellow pilot fish below his jaws and perhaps for the remora or two, the parasites that travel with the great host, that pick the shark’s teeth when it is sleeping and the jaws are relaxed.

And now there were the grey-slimed motor tyres, the bottles, the cans and the scaffolding of the wharf. Bond slid over the shelving sand and knelt in the shallows, his head down, not capable of carrying the heavy aqualung up the beach, an exhausted animal ready to drop.

17 | THE RED-EYED CATACOMB

Bond, putting on his clothes, dodged the comments of Constable Santos. It seemed there had been sort of underwater explosions, with eruptions on the surface, on the starboard side of the yacht. Several men had appeared on deck and there had been some kind of commotion. A boat had been lowered on the port side, out of sight of the shore. Bond said he knew nothing of these things. He had cracked his head against the side of the ship. Silly thing to do. He had seen what he had wanted to see and had then swum back. Entirely successful. The Constable had been a great help. Thank you very much and good night. Bond would be seeing the Commissioner in the morning.

Bond walked with careful steadiness up the side street to where he had parked Leiter’s Ford. He got to the hotel and telephoned Leiter’s room and together they drove to police headquarters. Bond described what had happened and what he had discovered. Now he didn’t care what the consequences might be. He was going to make a report. It was eight a.m. in London and there were under forty hours to go to zero hour. All these straws added up to half a haystack. His suspicions were boiling like a pressure cooker. He couldn’t sit on the lid any longer.

Leiter said decisively, ‘You do just that. And I’ll file a copy to C.I.A. and endorse it. What’s more I’m going to call up the
Manta
and tell her to get the hell over here.’

‘You are?’ Bond was amazed at this change of tune. ‘What’s got into you all of a sudden?’

‘Well, I was sculling around the Casino taking a good look at anyone I thought might be a shareholder or a treasure hunter. They were mostly in groups, standing around trying to put up the front of having a good time – sunshine holiday and all that. They weren’t succeeding. Largo was doing all the work, being gay and boyish. The others looked like private dicks or the rest of the Torrio gang just after the St Valentine’s Day massacre. Never seen such a bunch of thugs in my life – dressed up in tuxedos and smoking cigars and drinking champagne and all that – just a glass or two to show the Christmas spirit. Orders, I suppose. But all of them with that smell one gets to know in the Service, or in Pinkertons for the matter of that. You know, careful, coldfish, thinking-of-something-else kinda look the pros have. Well, none of the faces meant anything to me until I came across a little guy with a furrowed brow and a big egg-head with pebble glasses who looked like a Mormon who’s got into a whorehouse by mistake. He was peering about nervously and every time one of these other guys spoke to him he blushed and said what a wonderful place it was and he was having a swell time. I got close enough to hear him say the same thing to two different guys. Rest of the time he just mooned around, sort of helpless and almost sucking a corner of his handkerchief, if you get me. Well that face meant something to me. I knew I’d seen it before somewhere. You know how it is. So after puzzling for a bit I went to the reception and told one of the guys behind the desk in a cheery fashion that I thought I’d located an old class-mate who’d migrated to Europe, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. Very embarrassing as he seemed to recognize me. Would the guy help? So he came along and I pointed this feller out and he went back to his desk and went through the membership cards and came up with the one I wanted. Seemed he was a man called Traut, Emil Traut. Swiss passport. One of Mr Largo’s group from the yacht.’ Leiter paused. ‘Well I guess it was the Swiss passport that did it.’ He turned to Bond. ‘Remember a fellow called Kotze, East German physicist? Came over to the West about five years ago and sang all he knew to the Joint Scientific Intelligence boys? Then he disappeared, thanks to a fat payment for the info, and went to ground in Switzerland. Well, James. Take my word for it. That’s the same guy. The file went through my hands when I was still with C.I.A. doing desk work in Washington. All came back to me. It was one hell of a scoop at the time. Only saw his mug on the file, but there’s absolutely no doubt about it. That man’s Kotze. And now what the hell is a top physicist doing on board the
Disco
? Fits doesn’t it?’

They had come to police headquarters. Lights burned only on the ground floor. Bond waited until they had reported to the duty sergeant and had gone up to their room before he answered. He stood in the middle of the room and looked at Leiter. He said, ‘That’s the clincher, Felix. So now what do we do?’

‘With what you got this evening, I’d pull the whole lot in on suspicion. No question at all.’

‘Suspicion of what? Largo would reach for his lawyer and they’d be out in five minutes. Democratic processes of the law and so forth. And what single fact have we got that Largo couldn’t dodge? All right, so Traut is Kotze. We’re hunting for treasure, gentlemen, we need an expert mineralogist. This man offered his services. Said his name was Traut. No doubt he’s still worried about the Russians getting after him. Next question? Yes, we’ve got an underwater compartment on the
Disco
. We’re going to hunt treasure through it. Inspect it? Well, if you must. There you are, gentlemen – underwater gear, skids, perhaps even a small bathyscaphe. Underwater sentry? Of course. People have spent six months trying to find out what we’re after, how we’re going to get it. We’re professionals, gentlemen. We like to keep our secrets. And anyway, what was this Mr Bond, this rich gentleman looking for a property in Nassau, doing underneath my ship in the middle of the night? Petacchi? Never heard of him. Don’t care what Miss Vitali’s family name was. Always known her as Vitali …’ Bond made a throwaway gesture with one hand. ‘See what I mean? This treasure-hunting cover is perfect. It explains everything. And what are we left with? Largo pulls himself up to his full height and says, “Thanks, gentlemen. So I may go now? And so I shall, within the hour, I shall find another base for my work and you will be hearing from my lawyers forthwith – wrongful detention and trespass. And good luck to your tourist trade, gentlemen.” ’ Bond smiled grimly. ‘See what I mean?’

Leiter said impatiently. ‘So what do we do? Limpet mine? Send her to the bottom – in error, so to speak?’

‘No. We’re going to wait.’ At the expression on Leiter’s face, Bond held up a hand. ‘We’re going to send our report, in careful, guarded terms so we don’t get an airborne division landing on Windsor Field. And we’re going to say the
Manta
is all we need. And so it is. With her, we can keep tabs on the
Disco
just as we please. And we’ll stay under cover, keep a hidden watch on the yacht and see what happens. At present we’re not suspected. Largo’s plan, if there is one, that is, and don’t forget this treasure-hunting business still covers everything perfectly well, is going along all right. All he’s got to do now is collect the bombs and make for Target No. 1 ready for zero hour in around thirty hours’ time. We can do absolutely nothing to him until he’s got one or both of those bombs on board or we catch him at their hiding place. Now, that can’t be far away. Nor can the Vindicator, if she’s hereabouts. So tomorrow we take that amphibian they’ve got for us and hunt the area inside a radius of a hundred miles. We’ll hunt the seas and not the land. She must be in shoal water somewhere and damned well hidden. With this calm weather, we should be able to locate her – if she’s here. Now, come on! Let’s get those reports off and get some sleep. And say we’re out of communication for ten hours. And
Disco
nnect your telephone when you get back to your room. However careful we are, this signal is going to set the Potomac on fire as well as the Thames.’

Six hours later, in the crystal light of early morning, they were out at Windsor Field and the ground crew was hauling the little Grumman Amphibian out of the hangar with a jeep. They had climbed on board and Leiter was gunning the engines when a uniformed motorcycle dispatch rider came driving uncertainly towards them, across the tarmac.