James Bond Anthology (296 page)

(Bond had become enamoured of the civilized, vaguely Roman, bathing habits of the Japanese. Was it because of these, because they washed
outside
the bath instead of wallowing in their own effluvia, that they all smelled so clean? Tiger said bluntly that, at the very best, Westerners smelled of sweet pork.)

The restaurant had a giant blow-fish hanging as a sign above the door, and inside, to Bond’s relief, there were Western-style chairs and tables at which a smattering of people were eating with the intense concentration of the Japanese. They were expected and their table had been prepared. Bond said, ‘Now then, Tiger, I’m not going to commit honourable suicide without at least five bottles of
saké
inside me.’ The flasks were brought, all five of them, to the accompaniment of much tittering by the waitresses. Bond downed the lot, tumbler by tumbler, and expressed himself satisfied. ‘Now you can bring on this blasted blow-fish,’ he said belligerently, ‘and if it kills me it will be doing a good turn to our friend the doctor in his castle.’

A very beautiful white porcelain dish as big as a bicycle wheel was brought forward with much ceremony. On it were arranged, in the pattern of a huge flower, petal upon petal of a very thinly sliced and rather transparent white fish. Bond followed Tiger’s example and set to with his chopsticks. He was proud of the fact that he had reached Black Belt standard with these instruments – the ability to eat an underdone fried egg with them.

The fish tasted of nothing, not even of fish. But it was very pleasant on the palate and Bond was effusive in his compliments because Tiger, smacking his lips over each morsel, obviously expected it of him. There followed various side-dishes containing other parts of the fish, and more
saké
, but this time containing raw
fugu
fins.

Bond sat back and lit a cigarette. He said, ‘Well, Tiger. This is nearly the end of my education. Tomorrow you say I am to leave the nest. How many marks out of a hundred?’

Tiger looked at him quizzically. ‘You have done well, Bondo-san. Apart from your inclination to make Western jokes about Eastern customs. Fortunately I am a man of infinite patience, and I must admit that your company has given me much pleasure and a certain amount of amusement. I will award you seventy-five marks out of a possible hundred.’

As they rose to go, a man brushed past Bond to get to the exit. He was a stocky man with a white
masko
over his mouth and he wore an ugly leather hat. The man on the train!

Well, well! thought Bond. If he shows up on the last lap to Fukuoka, I’ll get him. If not I’ll reluctantly put it down to ‘Funny Coincidence Department’. But it looks like nought out of a hundred to Tiger for powers of observation.

PART TWO |
…
THAN TO ARRIVE
’

12 | APPOINTMENT IN SAMARA

At six in the morning, a car from the Prefect of Police in Fukuoka came for them. There were two police corporals in the front seat. They went off northwards on the coast road at a good pace. After a while, Bond said, ‘Tiger, we’re being followed. I don’t care what you say. The man who stole my wallet was in the
fugu
restaurant last night, and he’s now a mile behind on a motor-cycle – or I’ll eat my hat. Be a good chap and tell the driver to dodge up a side-road and then go after him and get him. I’ve got a sharp nose for these things and I ask you to do what I say.’

Tiger grunted. He looked back and then issued rapid instructions to the driver. The driver said, ‘
Hai
!’ briskly, and the corporal at his side unbuttoned the holster of his M-14 automatic. Tiger flexed his powerful fingers.

They came to a track on the left which went into the scrub. The driver did a good racing change and pulled in out of sight of the road. He cut his engine. They listened. The roar of a motor-cycle approached and receded. The driver reversed sharply on to the road and tore off in pursuit. Tiger issued more sharp instructions. He said to Bond, ‘I have told him to try warning the man with his siren and if he doesn’t stop to ride him into the ditch.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re giving him a chance,’ said Bond, beginning to have qualms. ‘I may be wrong and he may only be a Fuller brush man in a hurry.’

They were doing eighty along the winding road. They soon came up with the man’s dust and then there was the machine itself. The man was hunched over the handlebars, going like hell.

The driver said something. Tiger translated, ‘He says it’s a 500 cc. Honda. On that, he could easily get away from us. But even Japanese crooks are men of discipline. He will prefer to obey the siren.’

The siren wailed and then screamed. The white mask gleamed as the man glanced over his shoulder. He braked slowly to a stop. His right hand went inside his jacket. Bond had his hand on the door-latch. He said, ‘Watch out, Tiger, he’s got a gun!’ and, as they pulled up alongside, he hurled himself out of the door and crashed into the man, knocking him and his machine to the ground. The corporal beside the driver took a flying leap and the two bodies rolled into the ditch. Almost immediately the corporal got to his feet. He had a blood-stained knife in his hand. He threw it aside and tore at the man’s coat and shirt. He looked up and shook his head. Tiger shouted something and the corporal began slapping the man’s face as hard as he could from side to side. The
masko
was knocked off and Bond recognized the snarling rictus of death. He said, sickened, ‘Stop him, Tiger! The man’s dead.’

Tiger walked down into the ditch. He picked up the man’s knife and bent down and slit the right sleeve of the corpse up to the shoulder. He looked and then called Bond down. He pointed to a black ideogram tattooed in the crook of the man’s arm. He said, ‘You were right, Bondo-san. He is a Black Dragon.’ He stood up and, his face contorted, spat out: ‘
Shimata
!’

The two policemen were standing by looking politely baffled. Tiger gave them orders. They searched the man’s clothing and extracted various commonplace objects including Bond’s wallet, with the five thousand yen still intact, and a cheap diary. They handed everything to Tiger and then hauled the corpse out of the ditch and stuffed it roughly into the boot of the car. Then they hid the motor-cycle in some bushes and everyone dusted themselves and got back into the car.

After a few moments, Tiger said thoughtfully, ‘It is incredible! These people must have a permanent tail on me in Tokyo.’ He riffled through the diary. ‘Yes, all my movements for the past week and all the stopping-places on our journey. You are simply described as a
gaijin
. But he could have telephoned a description. This is indeed an unfortunate business, Bondo-san. I apologize most deeply. You may already be incriminated. I will naturally absolve you from your mission. It is entirely my fault for being careless. I have not been taking these people seriously enough. I must talk with Tokyo as soon as we get to Fukuoka. But at least you have seen an example of the measures Doctor Shatterhand takes for his protection. There is certainly more to this man than meets the eye. At some time in his life he must have been an experienced intelligence agent. To have discovered my identity, for instance, which is a State secret. To have recognized me as his chief enemy. To have taken the appropriate counter-measures to ensure his privacy. This is either a great madman or a great criminal. You agree, Bondo-san?’

‘Looks mighty like it. I’m really getting quite keen to have a sight of the fellow. And don’t worry about the mission. This was probably just the jolt I needed to get the wind under my tail.’

The headquarters of the local department of the Sosaka, the C.I.D., for the southern island of Kyūshū, was just off the main street of Fukuoka. It was a stern-looking building in yellow lavatory brick in a style derived from the German. Tiger confirmed that it had been the headquarters of the Kempeitai, the Japanese Gestapo, before and during the war. Tiger was received with pomp. The office of the Chief of the C.I.D. was small and cluttered. Superintendent Ando himself looked to Bond like any other Japanese salary-man, but he had a military bearing and the eyes behind the rimless spectacles were quick and hard. Bond sat patiently smoking while much conversation went on. A blown-up aerial mosaic of the Castle of Death and the surrounding country was produced from a filing cabinet and laid out on the desk. Superintendent Ando weighed down the corners with ashtrays and other hardware and Tiger called him over with a respect, Bond noticed, that was not lost on the Superintendent. It crossed Bond’s mind that he had heaped much ON on Tiger, or alternatively that Tiger had lost much face vis-à-vis Bond by the business of the Black Dragon agent. Tiger said, ‘Please to examine this photograph, Bondo-san. The Superintendent says that a clandestine approach from the landward side is now very difficult. The suicides pay local peasants to lead them through these marshlands,’ he pointed, ‘and there are recognized breaches in the walls surrounding the property which are constantly changed and kept open for the suicides. Every time the Superintendent posts a guard at one of them, another is made known to the peasants by the castle guards. He says he is at his wits’ end. Twenty bodies have been fetched to the mortuary in the past week. The Superintendent wishes to hand in his resignation.’

‘Naturally,’ said Bond. ‘And then perhaps honourable
fugu
poisoning. Let’s have a look.’

At first glance, Bond’s heart quailed. He might just as well try and storm Windsor Castle single-handed! The estate covered the whole expanse of a small promontory that jutted out into the sea from a rocky coast, and the two-hundred-foot cliff round the promontory had been revetted with giant stone blocks down to the breaking waves to form an unbroken wall that sloped slightly up to gun-ports and the irregularly sited, tiled watch-towers. From the top of this wall there appeared to be a ten-foot drop into the park, heavily treed and shrubbed between winding streams and a broad lake with a small island in its centre. Steam appeared to be rising from the lake and there were occasional wisps of it among the shrubbery. At the back of the property stood the castle, protected from the low-lying countryside by a comparatively modest wall. It would be over this wall that the suicides gained access. The castle itself was a giant five-storeyed affair in the Japanese tradition, with swooping, winged roofs of glazed tile. Dolphin-shaped finials decorated the topmost storey, and there was a profusion of other decorative devices, small balconies, isolated turrets and gazebos so that the whole black-painted edifice, edged here and there with what Tiger said was gold paint, gave the impression of a brilliant attempt to make a stage setting for Dracula. Bond picked up a large magnifying glass and ran over the whole property inch by inch, but there was nothing more to be gleaned except the presence of an occasional diminutive figure at work in the park or raking the gravel round the castle.

Bond laid down the glass. He said gloomily, ‘That’s not a castle! That’s a fortress! How am I supposed to get into the bloody place?’

‘The Superintendent asks if you are a good swimmer. I have had a complete outfit sent down from my
ninjutsu
establishment. The seaward wall would present no problems.’

‘I can swim well enough, but how do I get to the base of the wall? Where do I start from?’

‘The Superintendent says there is an Ama island called Kuro only half a mile out to sea.’

‘What’s an Ama island?’

‘They exist at different places round Japan. I believe there are some fifty such settlements. The Ama are a tribe whose girls dive for the
awabi
shells – that is our local abalone. A clam. It is a great delicacy. They sometimes dive for pearl oysters. They dive naked. Some of them are very beautiful. But they keep themselves very much to themselves and visitors to their islands are completely discouraged. They have their own primitive culture and customs. I suppose you could compare them to sea-gypsies. They rarely marry outside the tribe, and it is that which has made them a race apart.’

‘Sounds intriguing, but how am I going to make a base on this Kuro Island? I may have to wait days for the weather to be right.’

Tiger spoke rapidly to the Superintendent and there was a lengthy reply. ‘
Ah, so desu ka
!’ said Tiger with interest and enthusiasm. He turned to Bond. ‘It seems that the Superintendent is distantly related to a family on Kuro. It is a most interesting family. There is a father and a mother and one daughter. She is called Kissy Suzuki. I have heard of her. When she was seventeen, she became famous in Japan by being chosen to go to Hollywood to make a film. They wanted a Japanese diving girl of great beauty and someone had heard of her. She made the film, but hated Hollywood and longed only to return to her Ama life. She could have made a fortune, but she retired to this obscure island. There was a great to-do in the press at the time, and it was judged that she had behaved most honourably. They christened her “The Japanese Garbo”. But Kissy will now be twenty-three and everyone has forgotten about her. The Superintendent says that he could arrange for you to stay with this family. They seem to have some obligation towards him. He says it is a simple house, but comfortable because of the money this girl earned in Hollywood. The other houses on the island are nothing but fishermen’s shacks.’