Nobody Lives for Ever

11

HAWK’S WING AND MACABRE

James Bond was not prepared to waste time. He knew, to his cost, the dangers of keeping an enemy talking. It was a technique he had used to his own advantage before now, and Steve Quinn was quite capable of trying to play for time. Crisply, still keeping his distance, Bond ordered him to stand well away from the wall, spread his legs, stretch out his arms and lean forward, palms against the wall. Once in that position, he made Quinn shuffle his feet back even further so that he had no leverage for a quick attack.

Only then did Bond approach Quinn and frisk him with great care. There was a small Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special revolver tucked into the waistband of his trousers, at the small of his back. A tiny automatic pistol, an Austrian Steyr 6.35 mm was taped to the inside of his left calf, and a wicked little flick knife to the outside of his right ankle.

‘Haven’t seen one of these in years,’ said Bond as he tossed the Steyr on to the desk. ‘No grenades secreted up your backside, I trust.’ He did not smile. ‘You’re a damned walking arsenal, man. You should be careful. Terrorists might be tempted to break into you.’

‘In this game, I’ve always found it useful to keep a few tricks up my sleeve.’

As he spoke the last word, Steve Quinn let his body sag. He collapsed on to the floor and in the fraction of a second flip-rolled to the right, his arm reaching towards the table where the Steyr automatic lay.

‘Don’t try it!’ Bond snapped, taking aim with the ASP.

Quinn was not ready to die for the cause for which he had betrayed the Service. He froze, his hand still raised, like an overgrown child playing the old game of statues.

‘Face down! Spreadeagled!’ Bond ordered, looking around the room for something to secure his prisoner. Keeping the ASP levelled at Quinn, he sidled behind Kirchtum, and used his left hand to unbuckle the two short and two long straps obviously designed to restrain violent patients. As he moved he continued to snap orders at Quinn.

‘Face right down, eat the carpet, you bastard, and get your legs wider apart, arms in the crucifix position.’

Quinn obeyed, grunting obscenities. As the last buckle gave way, Kirchtum began to rub the circulation back into his arms and legs. His wrists were marked where the hard leather thongs had bitten into his flesh.

‘Stay seated,’ Bond whispered. ‘Don’t move. Give the circulation a chance.’

Taking the straps, he approached Quinn with his gun hand well back, knowing that a lashing foot could catch his wrist.

‘The slightest move and I’ll blow a hole in you so big that even the maggots will need maps. Understand?’

Quinn grunted and Bond kicked his legs together, viciously hitting his ankle with the steel-capped toe of his shoe so that he yelped with pain. While the agony was sweeping through him, Bond swiftly slid one of the straps around Quinn’s ankles, pulled hard and buckled the leather tightly.

‘Now the arms! Fingers laced behind your back!’

As though to make him understand, Bond knocked the right wrist with his foot. There was another cry of pain, but Quinn obeyed, and Bond secured his wrists with another strap.

‘This may be old-fashioned, but it’ll keep you quiet until we’ve made more permanent arrangements,’ Bond muttered as he buckled the two long straps together. He fastened one end of the elongated strap around Quinn’s ankles, then brought the rest up around his neck and back to the ankles. He pulled tightly, bringing the prisoner’s head up and forcing the legs towards his trunk. Indeed it was a method old and well tried. If the captive struggled he would strangle himself, for the straps were pulled so tightly that they made Quinn’s body into a bow, with the feet and neck as the outer edges. Even if he tried to relax his legs, the strap would pull hard on the neck.

Quinn let out a stream of obscene abuse, and Bond, enraged now at discovering an old friend to be a mole, kicked him hard in the ribs. He took out a handkerchief and stuffed it into Quinn’s mouth with a curt, ‘Shut up!’

For the first time Bond had a real chance to look around the room. It was furnished in solid nineteenth-century style – a heavy desk, the bookcases rising to the ceiling, the chairs with curved backs. Kirchtum still sat at the desk, his face pale, hands shaking. The big, expansive man had turned to terrified blubber.

Bond went over to the radio, stepping over the books that had been swept off the shelves. The radio operator was slumped in his chair, the blood dripping on to the carpet bright against the faded pattern. Bond pushed the body unceremoniously from the chair. He did not recognise the face, twisted in the surprised agony of death. The other corpse lay sprawled against the wall, as though he was a drunk collapsed at a party. Bond could not put a name to him, but had seen the photograph in the files – East German, a criminal with terrorist leanings. It was amazing, he thought, how many of Europe’s violent villains were turning into mercenaries for the terrorist organisations. Rent-a-Thug, he thought, as he turned to Kirchtum.

‘How did they manage it?’ he asked blandly, seemingly drained by the knowledge that Quinn had sold out.

‘Manage?’ Kirchtum appeared to be at a loss.

‘Look – ’ Bond almost shouted before realising that Kirchturn’s English was not always perfect, and could have deserted him in his present state. He walked over and laid an arm on the man’s shoulder, speaking quietly and sympathetically. ‘Look, Herr Doktor, I need information from you very quickly, especially if we are ever to see the two ladies alive again.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Kirchtum covered his face with his big, thick hands. ‘It is my fault that Miss May and her friend . . . Never should I have allowed Miss May to go out.’ He was near to tears.

‘No. No, not your fault. How were you to know? Just calm yourself and answer my questions as carefully as you can. How did these men manage to get in and hold you here?’

Kirchtum let his fingers slide down his face. His eyes were full of desolation. ‘Those . . . those two . . .’ He gestured at the bodies. ‘They came as repair men for the Antenne – what you call it? The pole? For the television . . .’

‘The television aerial.’

‘Ja, the television aerial. The duty nurse let them in, and on to the roof. She thought it good, okay. Only when she was coming to me did I smell a mouse.’

‘They asked to see you?’

‘In here. My office, they ask. Only later I find they had been putting up Antenne for their radio equipment. They lock the door. They threaten me with guns and torture. Tell me to put the next doctor in charge of the clinic. To say I would be occupied in my study on business matters for a day or two. They laughed when I had to say “tied up”. They had pistols. Guns. What could I do?’

‘You do not argue with loaded guns,’ Bond agreed, ‘as you can see.’ He nodded to the corpses. Then he turned to the grunting, straining Steve Qumn. ‘And when did this piece of scum arrive?’

‘The same night, later. Through the windows, like you.’

‘Which night was that?’

‘The day after the ladies disappeared. The two in the afternoon, the other at night. By that time they had me in this chair. All the time they had me here, except when I had to perform functions . . .’ Bond looked surprised, and Kirchturn said he meant natural functions. ‘Finally I refused to give you messages on the telephone. Until then they had only threatened me. But after that . . .’

Bond had already seen the bowl of water and the large crocodile clips wired up to a socket in the wall. He nodded, knowing only too well what Kirchtum must have suffered.

‘And the radio?’ he asked.

‘Ah, yes. They used it quite often. Twice, three times a day.’

‘Did you hear anything?’ Bond looked at the radio. There were two sets of earphones jacked into the receiver.

‘Most of it. They wear the earphones sometimes, but there are speakers there, see.’

Indeed, there were two small circular speakers set into the centre of the system. ‘Tell me what you heard.’

‘What to tell? They spoke. Another man spoke from far away . . .’

‘Who spoke first? Did the other man call them?’

Kirchtum thought for a moment. ‘Ah, yes. The voice would come with a lot of crackling.’

Bond, standing beside the sophisticated high frequency transmitter, saw that the dials were glowing and heard a faint hum from the speakers. He noted the dial settings. They had been talking to someone a long way off – anything from six hundred to six thousand kilometres away.

‘Can you remember if the messages came at any specific times?’

Kirchtum’s brow creased, and then he nodded. ‘Ja. Yes, I think so. In the mornings. Early. Six o’clock. Then at midday . . .’

‘Six in the evening and again at midnight?’

‘Something like that, yes. But not quite.’

‘Just before the hour, or just after, yes?’

‘That is right.’

‘Anything else?’

The doctor paused, thought again, and then nodded. ‘Ja. I know they have to send a message when news comes that you are leaving Salzburg. They have a man watching . . .’

‘The hotel?’

‘No. I heard the talk. He is watching the road. He is to telephone when you drive away and they have to make a signal with the radio. They must use special words . . .’

‘Can you remember them?’

‘Something like the package is posted to Paris.’

That sounded par for the course, Bond thought. Cloak and dagger. The Russians, like the Nazis before them, read too many bad espionage novels.

‘Were there any other special words?’

‘Yes, they used others. The man at the other end calls himself Hawk’s Wing – I thought it strange.’

‘And here?’

‘Here they call themselves Macabre.’

‘So, when the radio comes on, the other end says something like, “Macabre this is Hawk’s Wing . . .”’

‘Over.’

‘Over, yes. And, “Come in Hawk’s Wing.”’

‘This is just how they say it, yes.’

‘Why haven’t any of your staff come to this office, or alerted the police? There must have been noise. I have used a gun.’

Kirchtum shrugged. ‘The noise of your gun might have been heard from the windows, but the windows only. My office is soundproofed because sometimes there are disturbing noises from the clinic. This is why they opened the windows here. They opened them a few times a day for the circulation of air. It can get most heavy in here with the soundproofing. Even the windows are soundproofed with the double glaze.’

Bond nodded and glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven forty-five. Hawk’s Wing would be making his call at any time, and he had already figured that Quinn’s man would be stationed somewhere near the E11 autobahn. In fact he probably had all exit roads watched. Nice and professional. Far better than just one man at the hotel.

But he was now playing for time. Quinn had stopped twisting on the floor, and Bond was already beginning to work out a scheme that would take care of him. The man had been in the game a long time, and his experience and training would make him hard to crack, even under ideal interrogation conditions; violence would be counter-productive. There was, he knew, only one way to get at Stephen Quinn.

He went over and knelt beside the trussed figure. ‘Quinn,’ he said softly, and saw the hate in the sidelong, painful glance. ‘We need your co-operation.’

Quinn grunted through the makeshift gag. It was clear that in no way would Quinn co-operate.

‘I know the telephone is insecure, but I’m calling Vienna for a relay to London. I want you to listen very carefully.’

He went over to the desk, lifted the receiver and dialled 0222-43-16-08, the Tourist Board offices in Vienna, where he knew there would be an answering machine at this time of night. He held the receiver away from his ear so that Quinn would at least hear a muffled answer. When it came, Bond put the receiver very close to his ear, simultaneously pressing the rest button.

‘Predator,’ he said softly. Then, after a pause, ‘Yes. Priority for London to copy and action soonest. Rome’s gone off the rails.’ He paused again, as though listening. ‘Yes, working for Centre. I have him, but we need more. I want a snatch team at Flat 28, 48 Via Barberini – it’s next to the JAL offices. Lift Tabitha Quinn and hold for orders. Tell them to alert Hereford and call in one of the psychos if M doesn’t want dirty hands.’

Behind him, he heard Quinn grunting, getting agitated. A threat to his wife was the only thing that would have any effect.

‘That’s right. Will do. I’ll run it through you, but termination, or near termination may be necessary. I’ll get back within the hour. Good.’ He put down the instrument. When he knelt again beside Quinn, the look in the man’s eyes had changed; hatred was now edged with anxiety.

‘It’s okay, Steve. Nobody’s going to hurt you. But, I’m afraid it could be different with Tabby. I’m sorry.’

There was no way that Quinn could even suspect a bluff, or double bluff. He had been in the Service for a long time himself, and was well aware that calling in a psycho – the Service name for their mercenary killers – was no idle threat. He knew the many ways his wife could suffer before she died. He had worked with Bond for years and was sure 007 would show no compunction in carrying out the threat.

Bond continued, ‘I gather there will be a call coming through. I’m going to strap you into the chair in front of the radio. Make the responses fast. Get off the air quickly. Feign bad transmission if you have to. But, Steve, don’t do anything out of line – no missing out words or putting in “alert” sentences. I’ll be able to tell, as you know. Just as you’d be able to detect a dodgy response. If you do make a wrong move, you’ll wake up in Warminster to a long interrogation and a longer time in jail. You’ll also be shown photographs of what they did to Tabby before she died. That I promise you. Now . . .’

He manhandled Quinn into the radio operator’s chair, and adjusted the straps from the strangulation position, binding him tightly into the chair. He felt confident, for the fight appeared to have gone out of Steve Quinn. But you could never tell. The defector might well be so indoctrinated that he could bring himself to sacrifice his wife.

At last he asked if Quinn was willing to play it straight. The big man just nodded his head sullenly, and Bond pulled the gag from his mouth.

‘You bastard!’ Quinn said in a hoarse, breathless voice.

‘It can happen to the best of us, Steve. Just do as you’re told and there’s a chance that both of you will live.’

As he was speaking, the transmitter hummed and crackled into life. Bond’s hand went out to the receive and send switch, set to Receive. A disembodied voice recited the code:

‘Hawk’s Wing to Macabre. Hawk’s Wing to Macabre. Come in Macabre.’

Bond nodded to Quinn, clicked the switch to Send, and for the first time in years prayed.