Zero Minus Ten

SIXTEEN

AGONY AND ANGER

“REMOVE YOUR CLOTHES,” WONG COMMANDED IN CANTONESE.

My God, Bond thought. What were they going to do? He felt cold fear. He suddenly had total recall of another time long ago when he had been tortured naked. It had been hours of excruciating agony, and had damn nearly killed him.

“You heard me!” Wong shouted.

Bond did as he was told. As he undressed, Wong opened a cabinet behind the desk and removed a white sheet. He walked to the middle of the room and spread it out. The sheet floated down and settled neatly on the carpet. It wasn’t completely white. There were several suspicious stains on it.

When Bond was naked, Wong gestured for him to stand in the middle of the sheet. Bond stood to attention in front of him. Wong slowly walked around him, inspecting him, admiring the man’s body.

“You think you are fit, Mr. Englishman,” Wong said. “We shall see how fit you really are.”

A guard trained an AK-47 on Bond while General Wong returned to the cabinet and removed a long white stick with ridges on it. He held it in front of the vulnerable man. For the first time since Bond arrived, Wong smiled. In fact, he had become a completely different person. The sour face and unpleasant demeanour were completely gone.

“This is rattan cane, Mr. Pickard or whoever you are,” he said. “I have friends in Singapore who not only employ it for punishment, but swear that it is also effective persuader. Now, I ask again. Who do you work for?”

Bond said nothing. He knew he was in for a great deal of pain. In Singapore, the maximum number of strokes with the cane was usually five; ten for extreme cases. What kind of damage could it do? He knew that the lashes would leave welts on his skin, possibly permanent scars. What if he was caned many, many times? Could he force himself to pass out, as he had trained himself to do? It was one of the most difficult tests of willpower that he knew of.

“Bend over and grab ankles,” Wong said.

Bond did so. He felt humiliated and dangerously exposed.

Wong took a position on Bond’s left side, and held the cane to O07’s buttocks. He rubbed the rough stick against the skin there, indicating to Bond how the cane might feel if it struck him hard.

“Who are you and who do you work for?” Wong asked again, his voice trembling with excitement.

Bond kept his mouth shut. He closed his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth. Concentrate! Focus on something! He opened his eyes and saw a dark stain on the bedsheet a few inches from his face. It was probably dried blood. Bond stared at it, willing himself to fall deep within the confines of that dark, shapeless haven.

The cane struck him with such force that he nearly lost his balance and fell forward. There was an intense, burning pain across the middle of his buttocks. They felt as if they were on fire.

Bond gritted his teeth harder and continued to stare at the spot. He had begun to sweat profusely; a drop slid down his forehead, on to his nose, then fell on to the sheet.

“You see what it can do now?” Wong asked pleasantly. “Now will you talk?”

Bond concentrated on the spot in front of him, attempting to conjure up whatever peaceful thoughts he could manage. My God, give me something of beauty to look at. Give me something pure. Give me …

The cane struck again, slightly lower than the first blow. Christ, it hurt! He kept up his internal litany, forming a mental picture in his mind of the image he invoked. Give me my house in Jamaica … Give me my flat in Chelsea …

The third blow slashed Bond across the tops of his thighs. It was dangerously close to more vulnerable parts of his body. God, not that again! He might not be able to take that … Give me … give me … Sunni …

The fourth blow landed on the buttocks again, overlapping the first red mark.

Sunni … Bond thought of the girl with the almond eyes. The spot on the sheet became her lovely face … Those lips … those eyes …

A fifth stroke tore his skin an inch below the last one.

Sweat was now rolling off his face in a constant flow. His heart was pounding. He wanted to scream, but he dared not. He knew that the general took pleasure in the torture. The more the victim suffered, the more the sadist enjoyed it. Bond was determined to be the most disappointing whipping boy General Wong had ever had.

The sixth stroke nearly knocked Bond over again. The madman was putting his weight into it now. He was breathing heavily. “Well?” he asked. “Have you had enough?”

Bond sensed that the general was surprised and perturbed that Bond’s reaction to the torture was not what he was expecting.

Bond turned his head to the left and spat, “Please … sir. May … I have … another, you … bloody … bastard … ?”

The seventh blow knocked Bond forward and on to the sheet. He curled up in a ball on his right side and felt the blood seeping down the back of his thighs.

“Get up!” Wong shouted.

He brutally whacked Bond across his left arm, directly over the stitches of his previous wound. Oh, bloody hell! Bond screamed to himself. He didn’t want to be hit there again. Getting lashed on the backside was immeasurably preferable, mainly because he was beginning to grow numb there. He weakly pulled himself up and assumed the position again.

The ninth blow seared his thighs once more. Again, Bond wanted to yell, simply to release the anger, humiliation, and tension that enveloped his body. He remained stubbornly silent.

The tenth stroke sent Bond to the sheet again. It was the hardest, most savage yet. He didn’t know if he could manage to pull himself up off the floor.

At that moment, there was a loud knock on the door. Wong shouted something in Mandarin. The guard with the gun opened the door slightly and listened to a hurried whisper from another man in the hallway. He closed the door and whispered something to Wong.

Suddenly, Wong threw down the cane. “Bah!” he shouted. He said something in Mandarin that implied that Bond was nothing but excrement. He said something else to the guard, retrieved the cane, and put it back in the cabinet.

“I have appointment,” Wong said. “We will continue in little while.” With that, he left the room.

The guard lifted Bond from the bloodied sheet. He stood weakly, his legs shaking like mad. The guard threw Bond’s clothes at his feet and said something in Mandarin. Bond picked up the sheet and wrapped it around himself, soaking up the blood and pressing his wounds. It was going to be a while before he could sit comfortably.

The guard shouted at him, indicating with the machine gun that he should get moving. Bond swore at the man in English, dropped the sheet, and pulled on his clothes. Contact with his trousers was excruciating. Unable to sit to put on his shoes, Bond went down on the left knee. He got the right shoe on, then painfully changed positions and rested on his right knee. The guard was looking out of the door into the hallway, the gun half trained on Bond.

Bond quickly removed the pry tool from his left shoe. He snapped open the heel and removed the plastic dagger. He slipped on the shoe, snapping the heel back in place as he did so. He tucked the dagger under the Rolex flexible watchband on his left wrist, then slowly raised himself up off the floor.

The guard gestured with the AK-47 for Bond to leave the room. Another guard stood in the hall and moved towards the lift.

The lift descended to the basement level. They came out into a stark white hallway, at the end of which was a locked steel door. The lead man unlocked it and held it open for Bond and the other man to go through, into another long hallway lined with five or six other steel doors. Each of these contained a small barred window at eye level, obviously opening into cells. He wondered how many individuals entered this building and never came out.

If he was going to make a move, Bond knew it had to be now or never.

The guards turned right and led him to the end of the hall. The first man unlocked the door there and held it open. Bond reached for his left wrist and firmly grasped the small handle of the plastic dagger. He knew that his timing had to be perfect or he would be a dead man.

Bond turned to the man holding the AK-47 behind him and said in Cantonese, “Would you mind not pushing that thing into my back?” The guard relaxed, giving 007 the space he needed. He pushed the AK-47 away from his body with his left hand and simultaneously swung the dagger straight up with his right. The three-inch blade pierced the soft skin of the man’s jaw just under the chin, thrusting up and into the mouth. In the next half-second, Bond grasped the machine gun and chopped the man’s arm with a right spear-hand, causing the guard to release his grip on the weapon. By now, the other guard had begun to react by pulling a pistol out of a holster on his belt. Bond swung the AK-47 around and fired one quick burst at the second man, throwing him back into the open cell. The first guard was now clutching at the dagger in his jaw, an expression of surprise, pain, and horror on his face. Bond used the butt of the machine gun to smash the man’s nose, knocking him unconscious. He moved quickly into the cell to inspect the guard he had shot. The four bullets had caught him in the chest. He was quite dead. Bond retrieved his plastic dagger, wiped it clean on the man’s shirt, then replaced it under his wristwatch band. He prayed that there were no other guards in the basement. The burst of gunfire had been quick. He hoped that the noise had not penetrated the upper levels of the building.

Bond had to get out and find Li Xu Nan’s men, who must be watching the building. It was not going to be an easy escape. First, however, he had to accomplish the task he came to perform. He had to go back to the third floor and get that bloody document.

He was still bleeding, and the pain was nearly unbearable. He stepped into the cell and removed his trousers again. He slipped off the right shoe and once again pried open the heel. He used a sheet from a bed to wipe himself, then did his best to apply antiseptic to the wounds. He ripped the sheet into strips and layered them around his thighs and buttocks. It would have to do until he could get medical attention. Bond then swallowed a couple of pain-killers, replaced the items, and put his shoe back on.

He stepped over the bodies of the guards and went into the hallway. He looked through the barred windows of each door on his way out. A body, covered by a sheet, lay on top of a stretcher in one of the cells. Could it be … ?

Bond tried the door, but it was locked. He went back and searched the pockets of the dead guard who had held the keys. He found them and went back to the locked door, unlocked it and stepped inside. He approached the body quietly, all too sure of what he would find underneath the sheet.

It was T.Y. Woo. He was lying on his stomach with his head turned to the side. He had been shot in the back of the skull. The entire front of his face was blown away.

Bond was overcome by an immense feeling of guilt and rage. He slammed his fist down on the stretcher. The bastards actually did it. Woo had probably been tailing him, keeping an eye on him, watching his back, and Bond had betrayed him. They had executed him, and it was he who had helped to send his friend and ally to his death.

Damn it, get hold of yourself! he screamed silently. It was unavoidable. It was a matter of keeping one’s cover. Any good agent would have done the same thing. Woo would have turned his back on Bond, too, if it had been the other way round. It was part of the job. It was part of the risk.

Despite these rationalizations, Bond’s anger overcame him. Now he had not only to get that document and get out alive, but he had to avenge Woo’s death. After suffering the degrading torture Wong had inflicted upon him, and now having discovered the extent of the general’s frenzy, Bond saw red. He knew he should stay objective and keep his emotions out of it. This wasn’t a vendetta, he tried to tell himself, but all he wanted to do was wring the mad general’s neck.

Bond left the cell, holding the AK-47, prepared to blast the first obstacle that stood in his way. He used the guard’s keys to open the main door and enter the hallway leading to the lift.

Once he was back on the third floor, Bond made his way quietly towards Wong’s office. The place was unusually quiet and empty. The good general’s staff was obviously not a large one.

The office door was closed. Bond put his ear to it and heard a woman moaning with pleasure. The general was having a little afternoon delight. Good, Bond thought. Now it was his turn to catch the general with his pants down.

Bond burst into the room and trained the machine gun on the couple behind the desk. General Wong was sitting in his large leather rocking chair, and a woman in her thirties was sitting on his lap, facing him. Her skirt was pulled up above her waist, and her legs were bare. Wong’s trousers were around his ankles, and the look on his face was priceless.

The woman gasped and froze. She was dressed in a military uniform and the front of her blouse was unbuttoned, revealing small breasts in a white brassiere.

Bond closed the door behind him. “Get up,” he said to the woman. When she didn’t move, he shouted “Now!” The woman jumped up and hurriedly put herself back together. Wong sat there, exposed.

“What’s the matter, General?” Bond asked in Cantonese. “Is it the humidity that’s causing you to wilt?”

“What do you want?” Wong said through his teeth.

“Open the safe, and be quick.”

Wong stood up. “I pull trousers up?”

“Slowly. First place your pistol on the desk with your left hand.”

The general carefully took a pistol from the holster on his belt and laid it on the desk. It looked like a Russian Tokarev, but was most likely a Chinese copy. Then he bent over, pulled his trousers up and fastened them, before turning to the safe in the wall and opening it.

“The document,” Bond said. “Put it on the desk.” The general did as he was told.

Nearly a week ago in Jamaica, James Bond had taught Stephanie Lane always to expect the unexpected, but he was so intent on making General Wong pay for what he did to Woo that he made a near-fatal mistake and broke the rule. He didn’t expect the woman to come to the general’s defence.

She attacked Bond, screaming a blood-curdling warcry. The move so surprised him that he lost his balance. The woman successfully tackled him, and they fell to the carpet where only a little while ago Bond had been lying in agony. She went for the gun, obviously quite prepared not only to sleep with her general, but to die for him as well. Wong moved around the desk and kicked Bond hard in the face. The woman managed to wrestle away the AK-47 as Bond rolled away. Wong took the machine gun from her and pointed it at Bond.

In one swift, graceful manoeuvre, Bond took hold of the plastic dagger, rocked back on to his shoulders, lunged forward, and threw the knife at the general. The blade spun across the room and lodged in Wong’s throat, directly below his Adam’s apple. His eyes widened, and for a moment he stood as still as a statue. The AK-47 fell to the carpet as he reached for his neck with both hands. He made choking, gurgling noises as blood gushed out of his mouth.

Bond took no chances. He grabbed hold of Wong’s shirt to steady him, then punched the man hard in the jaw. Wong fell back across the desk and rolled over on to the floor. Bond turned to the now-terrified woman. He was so full of violence and fury that he might have killed her, too, had he not been unarmed. Instead, he backhanded her, knocking her unconscious.

The general was still writhing on the floor. He had pulled the knife out of his throat and was struggling for air. His trachea had been severed and his lungs were filling with blood. Bond stood over him and watched him die. It took three long, excruciating minutes.

Now Bond had to act fast. He grabbed the document and stuffed it into the briefcase he had brought with him from Hong Kong, which was still sitting on the floor by an armchair where he had left it earlier. He took the AK-47, then picked up the dagger and returned it to its position in his shoe.

His trousers were wet with blood. The sheet strips had not lasted long.

How the hell was he going to leave? He looked out of a window. It overlooked the front of the building. He counted four guards outside by the gate. Across the street was the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Building. Maybe he could make it over there somehow and hope that Li’s men were close by.

Bond opened the office door and looked into the hallway. It was all clear. Bond crept to the lift and pushed the button. When it opened, a guard stepped out. Bond killed him swiftly and quietly and entered the lift. At the ground floor, flattening himself against the side of the lift, he pressed the “open door” button and held it.

The ruse worked. When the lone guard got curious and decided to see why the door hadn’t closed, Bond brought the man’s head down hard on his right knee, then hit him on the back of the neck with the butt of the AK-47.

Two armed guards stood in the foyer. They saw Bond and immediately pulled their pistols. Bond acted with split-second timing, boosted by the adrenalin rushing through his body. He opened fire and the two guards slammed back against the wall leaving a bloody trail as they slid to the floor.

Bond stood there a moment, breathing heavily. He was still filled with rage, an emotion he usually tried to avoid because it could cause recklessness. This time, however, it served as a goad. Blasting away the guards had actually felt good. My God, he thought. This was what he lived for. It was no wonder that he inevitably became restless and bored when he was between assignments. Living so close to death was what invigorated him and gave him the edge that had managed to keep him alive for so many years.

Feeling invincible, Bond walked outside into the broad daylight of the courtyard. He didn’t care that his clothes were wet and bloody. He didn’t care if the entire Chinese army was waiting for him. He was quite prepared to blast his way out of Guangzhou until he had no more ammunition or he was dead, whichever came first.

There were only the four guards at the gate. They looked up and saw Bond. Their jaws dropped, so stupefied at the gweilo’s appearance that they were unsure what to do. Bond trained the machine gun on them. They slowly raised their hands above their heads.

“Open the gate,” Bond said to one of them. The guard nodded furiously, then did as he was told. Bond walked backwards out of the gate, keeping the gun trained on the soldiers.

It was mid-afternoon and traffic on Dongfeng Zhonglu was quite heavy. Bond looked in both directions and quickly calculated when he might make a mad dash across the street. When the moment came, he turned and ran. The guards immediately began to chase him. Their timing wasn’t as good, as they had to dart between vehicles to get across.

Bond ran up the steps past the statue of Sun Yat-sen and into the Memorial Hall. The interior lobby was narrow and dimly lit. He went straight into the arena-style auditorium, which had two balconies and a stage at one end. It was dilapidated with a decidedly musty smell, and was empty and dark.

He ran down the centre aisle to the stage. He jumped on to the apron and ran stage right into the wings. A staircase led down to what was some sort of green room. It was probably meant to be a dressing room for performers or speakers. He heard the guards enter the auditorium above, calling out to each other in Mandarin. Sooner or later they would find him.

Bond made his way to the other side of the auditorium basement, then slowly climbed the staircase there to the other side of the stage. The guards were still searching the aisles. He slid along a counterweight system to the back of the stage behind a faded, torn cyclorama. What he was looking for was there—a loading door for bringing scenery in and out. Bond pushed back the bolt and kicked it open. He jumped down to the pavement and ran around the side of the building to a car park. Tourists were walking from their vehicles to the front of the building. Many of them stopped and stared at the bloody figure of a Caucasian running across the pavement.

It was then that a black sedan screeched into the car park and stopped in front of him. A Chinese man in a business suit jumped out and held the back door open.

“Get in, Mr. Bond!” he said in English. “Hurry!”

Bond dived into the back seat, and the car squealed out into the busy street. There were two of them—a driver and the man who had spoken. Bond thought they looked familiar. He had seen them at the initiation ceremony in Kowloon City.

The one in the passenger seat looked back at Bond. His brow was creased.

“What happened to you?”

Bond was not sitting down. He was on his knees, facing out of the rear window.

“They gave me a beating,” Bond said. “Where are we going?”

“Back to Kowloon, of course. Try to relax. It’s a three-hour drive.”

He didn’t know how he could possibly relax in this position, but had to admit he felt a hundred times better just being out of the hellhole from which he had escaped.

Bond watched the traffic behind the sedan and saw no signs of pursuit. It was curious that there hadn’t been many soldiers at Wong’s building. He counted himself extremely lucky. If an entire regiment had been there, he would probably be dead by now.

The man in the passenger seat used a cellular phone and spoke Cantonese into it. Bond heard him say that they had picked up the gweilo. The man turned to Bond.

“Mr. Li wants to know if you got it?”

Bond said, “Tell him I’ve got what he wants.”

The car spent the next half-hour navigating the crowded roads of Guangzhou and finally made it out onto the open highway southeast towards Dongguan and Shekou.

Bond thought of his friend T.Y. The man’s death couldn’t have been prevented, and Bond had merely done his duty and played by the rules.

He thought of the ironic parallel of the situation. England, by agreeing to hand over Hong Kong to China, had also acted honourably and dutifully. By doing so, however, she had turned her back on the people of Hong Kong.