Doubleshot

THREE

FORTUNE COOKIE

MEETING YOUR DOUBLE MEANS CERTAIN DEATH.

James Bond blinked and read the fortune again.

Odd, he thought. He had never seen such a downbeat fortune cookie in a commercial Chinese restaurant before. That, on top of the havoc raised by the crying toddler who had just been in the restaurant with his rude and demanding father, had brought back Bond’s headache.

“Harvey!” he called. The fat Chinese man wearing a messy apron stuck his head out of the swing door that led to the kitchen.

“What now? You not full yet?” he asked in his unintentionally belligerent way. Bond had known Harvey Lo long enough to know that he was never really perturbed by his customers. It just seemed that way.

“Come here,” Bond said, motioning him over. Harvey looked over his shoulder. “Read this.”

“It fortune.”

“I know it’s a fortune. Read it.”

Harvey took the little piece of paper and squinted, reading and whispering to himself. He furrowed his brow. “This not our fortune,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I never see this fortune before. I know all the fortunes. There are twenty-five fortunes, all the same, all mixed up in cookies. This not one of them.”

Bond retrieved the slip of paper. “I think I’ll keep it as a souvenir, Harvey,” he said. “Maybe it’s a lucky fortune.”

“Does not sound lucky to me. Sorry about that, Mr. Bond.”

“Not a problem.” Bond dug into his trousers and found a tenpound note. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Harvey beamed. The only time he smiled was when he was paid. “How was food? You like?”

“Same as always, Harvey. Not quite spicy enough.” Bond had ordered shrimp and cashews, Szechuan style, with a bowl of hot and sour soup. “When I say I want it so hot I can’t eat it, I mean it.”

Harvey laughed boisterously. “Aw, you not serious, Mr. Bond. Remember that time I made it so hot? You really could not eat it!”

“That was because it was burnt, not spicy. You overcooked the vegetables and they came out black!”

“Okay, next time, I make it good and spicy. I make tears in your eyes, you will like.”

Before leaving, Bond took a small pill case out of his pocket and swallowed two of the white tablets that Sir James Molony’s colleague had prescribed for him. The headache was becoming worse, and he was damned if the pills had any effect.

Bond got up and left the cozy neighborhood place tucked away in an alley off the King’s Road, just down a flight of stairs. The Ho Ho Lo Restaurant was marked on the street only by a posted menu. It mostly did a takeaway business, but Harvey provided three tables for eat-in customers. As it was a ten-minute walk from his flat, Bond had become a regular over the years when he was home alone during the week. But he had never seen a fortune like the one he had just received.

Bond got to the street and glanced at his Rolex. It was just after 1:00. Should he take a walk farther into Chelsea and browse through a sports shop he knew, or should he go back to the flat and start the day’s drinking?

Damn it all, he thought. He was bored to death. He hated being between assignments, and he especially despised medical leave. It was particularly frustrating because he hadn’t had a decent mission since the Skin 17 affair two months ago. M had ordered him off the duty list for a minimum of three months because of the injuries he had sustained in the Himalayas. Bond believed that she was actually using that as an excuse to punish him for the indiscretion with his personal assistant, Helena Marksbury.

Although he had initially suppressed his feelings for Helena, her death had begun to weigh heavily on his mind. He desperately wanted to track down the Union members who were responsible for blackmailing and terrorizing her.

Naturally, he blamed himself—mostly for not recognizing the warning signs.

M had sent him away for two weeks’ holiday, so he had gone to his winter home in Jamaica, the house he called Shamelady. There, he had gone on a binge, drinking himself into a solitary oblivion, brooding and staring at the calm, blue Caribbean. Things grew worse. By the time he got back to London, he was a mess. He felt terrible, had no energy, and was still physically sore from the ordeal in Nepal. That was when he went to see Sir James, the neurologist who acted as a consultant to SIS, to ask about the incessant headaches that he had been experiencing since the end of his last mission.

Bond began to walk up the King’s Road, thinking back to M’s admonishment after she had seen the way he looked.

“You’re in no condition to take this matter into your own hands, Double-O Seven,” she had said. “I wouldn’t allow it even if you were. You’re too emotionally involved in the case. Scotland Yard is handling it as a murder, and until they find the culprits, then there’s not a lot that SIS can do about it. Our own antiterrorist teams are working on locating the Union members and their headquarters.”

Bond had protested, arguing that he owed it to Helena to find her killers. He wanted to go after the Union himself. M wouldn’t hear any more and ordered him off duty “until further notice.”

“Besides,” she had added, almost as an afterthought, “I expect my people to be in top physical shape. And you’re nowhere near that.”

Now he was doubly anxious to get back into action. It was the only thing that could shake him out of the malaise … the depression … that he felt himself drowning in. It happened to him every once in a great while. Bond had seriously slipped off the deep end once, after the murder of his wife, Tracy. The previous M had been forced to send his top agent for psychiatric evaluation and then off to Japan on a mission in the hopes that Bond would pull himself out of the well of despair he had fallen into.

If only he felt better. The damned headache had crept up on him and was now excruciating. The events in the Himalayas had certainly taken their toll on him. Besides the fatigue, which never seemed to improve, he suffered from various aches and pains. Worst of all were the frequent headaches, which tended to begin midday and continue well into the night. His sleep patterns were disturbed, he had fitful dreams, felt bouts of inexplicable anxiety, and had taken to drinking more. He also felt unusually paranoid for the first time in his life. Ever since returning from Nepal, Bond had sensed that he was being watched, although he had used every trick in the book to determine if that was true. So far he hadn’t been able to substantiate his suspicion and he was afraid he was imagining things.

The most alarming event was the blackout incident that had occurred while he had been recuperating in Jamaica. He had been about to take a leisurely swim in the private cove behind Shamelady, when he suddenly felt disoriented. His heart had begun to pound mercilessly and a blanket of dread enveloped him. For a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He had stumbled back to the shore and had collapsed onto the sand. The next thing he knew, Ramsey, his Jamaican housekeeper and cook, was shaking him.

At that point, Bond had known there was something seriously wrong with him. He had immediately made arrangements to return to London and see Sir James.

Bond approached Royal Avenue and sat heavily on a bench, staring at the street, watching the buses, taxis, and people go by. Bond felt removed from the scene, almost as if he were floating out-of-body. It was an unfamiliar, disconcerting sensation.

Should he go back to the doctor? Sir James was still away on some kind of tour, so he would have to see Sir James’s colleague, Dr. Feare, again.

Bond remembered the appointment with the neurologist a month ago. When he had arrived at Molony’s office on Harley Street, he was surprised to find that Molony was on an extended, worldwide lecture tour as a guest neurologist. Miss Reilly, the unpleasant, middle-aged woman who served as the clinic’s nurse, informed Bond that he would have to see Molony’s relatively new assistant, who had introduced herself as Dr. Kimberley Feare. Bond was taken aback, for Dr. Feare was petite, blond, and extremely attractive.

“How long have you worked for Dr. Molony?” he had asked.

“Not long. I was lucky to get the job. Sir James is probably the best neurologist in the world. He’s in India at the moment, and he’s working his way west toward Africa,” she said in a girlish, playful voice. Bond liked her immediately. “Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Bond? I understand your file is classified. You’re with SIS, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then the only other person outside this office who shall see my report will be your chief,” she said, making a note in the folder. “As you know, we’re very careful about confidentiality with government civil servants.”

Bond went through the examination, X rays, an EEG, and returned a day later for a CAT scan. After he had described his various Himalayan injuries to Dr. Feare, she suspected that he might have some damage to his skull. At one point during the expedition up the third tallest mountain in the world, Bond had been hit on the head and knocked unconscious. Exacerbated by the oxygen deprivation at high altitude, the injury could be the cause of the headaches; there might be a blood clot, a crack in the skull, or any number of ailments associated with a blowto the head. The tests came back with somewhat alarming news. The EEC had picked up a lesion on the temporal lobe of Bond’s brain. Dr. Feare was of the opinion that it wasn’t terribly serious, but the blackout in Jamaica was probably a result of “post-traumatic epilepsy.” Although it was a rare condition, it wasn’t extraordinary. It was possible, however, that it could occur again without warning.

“With this kind of thing, we could perform a little surgery and remove the lesion with a laser,” she had said. “But that’s a last resort. I think we should first try to get rid of it with medication and rest.

Pure and simple.”

Dr. Feare gave Bond an additional diagnosis of “too much stress,” and recommended to M that he take it easy—for at least three months. She had prescribed carbamazepine and painkillers and told him to take two tablets at lunchtime and two before bedtime. Dr. Feare warned him that if things hadn’t improved in three months, surgery might be the next step. The worst thing about it was that he was forbidden to drive. He wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol, either, but Bond ignored that directive.

Unfortunately, the pills didn’t work at all. Bond had been struggling with the intense pain in the back of his head for months now, and it was driving him mad. There was only one thing to do—go back to see Dr. Feare.

Bond stood and continued the stroll toward the square lined with plane trees, where for many years he had owned a comfortable flat on the ground floor of a converted Regency house.

He was convinced that a mission was the only thing that could bring him back on track. It had always worked in the past. The only way he could put the demons to rest was to go after the Union and, if possible, destroy the entire organization. If M wouldn’t put him on the assignment, then by God he would just have to do it himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he had deliberately disobeyed orders. It would be for the good of SIS and Britain. The Union was the most evil menace to threaten international law and order since his old enemies, SPECTRE. Its members had to be smoked out and exterminated like pests.

But Bond knew that he was not in good shape, and it made him irate. He was well aware that the Union was out there, waiting for the right moment. Bond was probably the number-one man on their hit list after what he did to their organization in the Himalayas. He should be prepared for a surprise attack, and he wasn’t. It could occur at any time. Bond knew that if he didn’t do something about his vulnerability soon, he just might be spending his next holiday in the morgue.

Lost in thought, Bond ambled up the street, closer to his home, when he suddenly noticed a familiar woman walking toward him. She had shoulder-length golden hair, blue eyes, and shocking-pink lips. The woman looked past him and kept walking, but Bond was paralyzed with shock.

It was his dead wife, Tracy!

Bond closed his eyes tightly and opened them. He turned to watch her walk away from him, and then realized that it wasn’t her after all. Of course it wasn’t. How could it be?

Shaken by the experience, Bond continued his walk, but he felt his heart pounding. He was perspiring heavily, and it was not a warm day. What the hell was wrong? he asked himself.

He had imagined it. That was the only explanation. He chalked the hallucination up to his fatigue, stress, and the headaches. He had been thinking a lot about Helena, and that was probably the catalyst. Sure, that was it.

Best to get home and have a nap.

Bond increased his pace until he was a block away from his street. He was stopped at the intersection by a traffic light. He glanced at his wristwatch again: 1:33. He had taken twenty minutes to walk what normally took him five. He had better snap out of it!

While waiting for the light to change, Bond casually looked across King’s Road to the other side of the street. A man was standing on the corner, staring right at him. He was tall, had dark hair, and … NO!

Bond suddenly felt dizzy and disoriented. His heart felt as if it was going to push itself through his chest. His mouth grew dry and he had trouble swallowing.

The man across the street was himself, or at least he looked like himself. He wasn’t moving; he just stood staring right at Bond!

A bus passed by, momentarily blocking Bond’s view of the opposite side of the street. When the bus had gone, Bond saw that there was now no one on the corner. Bond ran across the street, dodging traffic, and began to look for the man, but he didn’t see anyone remotely resembling him.

His head was throbbing in pain and he felt sick.

Bond’s mind flashed briefly on the fortune cookie from the Chinese restaurant.

Meeting your double means certain death.

His eyes were playing tricks on him, he told himself.

Bond stumbled as he attempted to cross back to his side of the street. A taxi almost hit him and the horn blared loudly. A very unpleasant, suffocating feeling of anxiety rushed over him and locked around his chest cavity. He gasped for breath, felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and reached out for a phone box for support.

Instead, he crashed to the pavement.

When Bond opened his eyes, he was in his favorite armchair in the sitting room of his flat. The old-fashioned white and gold Cole wallpaper and deep red curtains gave him a feeling of serenity at first, but then he bolted upright in fright.

How the hell did I get here?

His hands were shaking now. He carefully stood and tested his balance. Nothing wrong there. The dizziness he had felt earlier was gone. He looked at his watch.

It was 2:47.

My God! He had lost over an hour!

Had he walked home and let himself in without remembering any of it? He had heard of people having these extended blackouts and not recalling anything that happened during the period of time they were “out of it.” In actuality, these people carried on mechanically, often finding themselves in a different location from where they were when the blackout first occurred.

Bond immediately went to the cupboard, removed a bottle of Scotch, dropped two ice cubes into a glass, and filled it. He took a long, burning draught, then sat back in the armchair.

Now he knew something was really wrong with him. He had just had a second blackout and didn’t have a clue what had happened in the interim.