Solo (25 page)

Blessing’s car headed into Georgetown and stopped outside a small, pretty clapboard house on O Street.

‘Drive on by,’ Bond said to the cabbie, peering out of the rear window to see Blessing run inside, not paying off the driver, keeping her cab waiting, its engine ticking over. They drove on fifty yards and Bond ordered the cabbie to park and wait.

‘We go through a lot of zones, mister,’ the cabbie said. Bond had forgotten the arcane mysteries of cab-fare calculation in DC.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll pay you well. Get ready to turn around if you have to,’ Bond said and fed the man another $20.

‘Hey, you can hire me all day, every day, mister,’ he turned in the front seat and leered at him. ‘I am like to work with you.’

After five minutes Blessing reappeared again, a suitcase in her hand. She locked the front door and hurried into her cab. It pulled away and passed them.

‘Don’t lose it, whatever you do,’ Bond said.

‘You got it.’

Blessing’s cab headed west out of DC and crossed the Key Bridge over the Potomac. About twenty minutes later it pulled into the forecourt of a large and ugly modern motel called the Blackstone Park Motor Lodge.

‘Keep going,’ Bond said. They drove on another block or so. ‘Stop.’

The cab pulled into the side of the road under a vast billboard advertising Kool cigarettes. Through the rear window Bond could see Blessing paying off her cab and a bellhop picking up her suitcase. So this was where she would be staying. She was smart: she assumed her cover was blown and so she immediately changed address, within minutes. Bond relaxed – he knew where to find her now. She’d check into her room and start making anxious phone calls, warning everyone. The ants’ nest would be in swarming disarray.

Bond spent the rest of the afternoon in his Alcazar office watching the comings and goings on Milford Plaza. None of the usual suspects appeared but he wasn’t too concerned. As it grew dark he went back to the Fairview, put a pillow and a bottle of bourbon in his suitcase and went out to his car. He drove the Mustang out west across the Potomac to the Blackstone Park Motor Lodge, found a space for his car and went into reception with his suitcase. He had deliberately not checked out of the Fairview – sometimes having rooms in two hotels in a city was better than one.

He was given a large double room in the main block. The Blackstone Park wasn’t cheap and nasty, just overused. The sheets on the bed were crisp cotton but the carpet was threadbare and the paintwork was chipped and scarred. The air conditioner worked but hummed a little too loudly. The lavatory was protected by a sheet of cellophane and the tooth-glass had a little cardboard cap on it, but the shaving mirror was cracked and the shower tray’s enamel had been scoured through. Anonymous, large, functional – perfect to hide yourself in.

Bond went down to reception and slipped the bellhop on duty $10.

‘Keep this between ourselves,’ Bond said, ‘but I think my wife’s checked into this motel under a false name.’

‘You mean . . . ?’

‘Got it in one,’ Bond said, putting on an embittered face. ‘Yeah – she doesn’t know I know.’

The bellhop’s name, according to the plastic badge above his breast pocket, was Delmont. His acne had almost gone but had left his skin dimpled like a golf ball. The wispy moustache he was trying to grow was no asset either, but he bought into the male sodality that Bond offered and they talked briefly of the perfidy of beautiful women like two men of the world.

‘She’s coloured,’ Bond said, ‘but pale-skinned, you know. Very sexy with a kind of Afro hairstyle.’

‘We got two hundred rooms here, sir,’ Delmont said. ‘But I’ll ask around. A babe like that will have been noticed by my colleagues, know what I mean?’

‘I just need her room number,’ Bond said. ‘I’ll give you five bucks for it – leave the rest to me,’ Bond smiled. ‘I’m Mr Fitzjohn, room 325.’

Bond went back to room 325 and poured himself two fingers of bourbon from his bottle and switched on the television while he waited for Delmont. He watched a game of baseball uncomprehendingly – the Senators versus the Royals – thinking that it made cricket seem exciting. Delmont’s knock on the door came ten minutes later.

‘She’s in suite 5K in the new annexe in back by the parking lot,’ Delmont said, folding away Bond’s $5 into a small pocket in his jacket. ‘She paid for two weeks in advance – so it don’t look like she’s planning on coming home soon.’ Delmont commiserated and said if there was anything else he could do then Mr Fitzjohn shouldn’t hesitate. Call the front desk and ask for Delmont.

‘A thousand thanks,’ Bond said, and he meant it. Life was becoming more intriguing by the hour.

Bond was up at dawn and drove into DC, stopping at a diner for scrambled eggs and bacon and the hot brown liquid that passed for coffee in this country. He took up his position armed with his binoculars and watched the office workers arrive for the daily round.

Just after nine o’clock, Kobus Breed stepped out of a Chevrolet Impala and strode across the plaza to 1075. Ten minutes later Denga’s car arrived and there – Bond swivelled the binoculars – there was Blessing herself, walking fast, her head turning constantly, checking to see if she was being followed. Bond smiled. A council of war? The day was young.

An hour went by, then two. Bond dashed to the restrooms at the end of the corridor, cursing the diuretic potency of American coffee, and raced back, hoping he hadn’t missed anything or anyone. When he saw Kobus Breed appear twenty minutes later, he relaxed. Kobus was swiftly followed by Blessing.

Bond picked up his rifle and adjusted the zoom on the sniper-scope. There they were – faces close in animated conversation. Bond settled the cross hairs of the sight on Kobus’s forehead, watching him dab at his weeping eye with a handkerchief. Then his car arrived and he left. Bond moved the sight to Blessing. Seeing the two of them in ardent discussion had hardened his feelings again, remembering their near-lethal double act in the Janjaville control tower.

He watched Blessing rummage in her bag and take out a pack of cigarettes. She stood there smoking as if in deep thought, pacing to and fro in small circles. Bond moved the cross hairs to her breast. Tempting. Two inches below the right collarbone, exactly where she’d shot him. Just as well he didn’t have a bullet in the chamber—

The click by his ear was unmistakeable. The hammer of a revolver being cocked. He could feel the snub muzzle cold on his jawbone.

‘No, Mr Bond. Take your hands off the gun then stand up slowly, arms raised.’ There was the hint of a Southern drawl in the voice.

Bond did exactly as he was told, standing slowly, turning and raising his arms above his head.

Two young men stood there covering him with their handguns. They both wore navy blue suits and striped ties. One was blond and one was dark, their hair cut short in military style. CIA, Bond guessed at once. What the hell was going on? How did they know his name?

‘The gun isn’t loaded,’ Bond said. ‘You can check. I wasn’t going to shoot.’

‘Good to know,’ the blond man said. ‘She’s one of us.’

Bond lowered his arms, his brain in some kind of manic overdrive. ‘One of us’ . . . ? One question at a time, he told himself.

‘I’d like to see your ID,’ he asked. ‘If I may.’

The blond man took out his wallet and showed Bond his plastic card.

‘I’m Agent Brigham Leiter,’ he said. ‘And this is Agent Luke Massinette.’

Bond smiled. ‘So you’re the famous Brig,’ he said. ‘How’s Uncle Felix?’

‘He’s well, sir. In fact I know he wants to talk to you urgently.’

‘How did you know my name? How did you know I was here?’

Brigham Leiter holstered his gun, as did his partner.

‘The lady you were aiming at is called Aleesha Belem. She told us you were in DC – she saw you in a restaurant, by chance, and gave us your name. We traced the hire of a Ford Mustang to one James Bond at Dulles airport then we lost your trail. Luckily we have this whole plaza staked out. We took your photograph. Aleesha identified it. My uncle confirmed it. James Bond, British agent. We found where you’d parked your Mustang. Followed you to these offices. Followed you back to your hotel. It wasn’t hard to make the connection to a Mr Bryce Fitzjohn.’

Bond couldn’t blame himself for sloppy procedure – it was no lapse on his part, just bad luck. How was he to know that Blessing–Aleesha was a CIA agent? He thought further.

‘So this Aleesha Belem is working for you. Since when?’

‘Over two years now, I believe.’

‘She shot me in the chest. In Africa a few weeks ago. Tried to kill me.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Brig Leiter said. ‘She’s sound – one of our most reliable people.’

‘What’s she doing in AfricaKIN?’

‘I’m not authorised to disclose that information,’ Leiter said.

‘I think I’d better talk to your uncle,’ Bond said. ‘Is he back in the CIA or is he still with Pinkerton’s?’

‘He “consults” for us from time to time. He’s still with Pinkerton’s, though.’

Bond thought fondly of Felix Leiter – one of his oldest friends and colleagues. They had endured many a tough assignment together over the years. Felix had been badly injured on one of them, back in Florida in the early 1950s, had even lost an arm and part of a leg. Bond glanced at Felix’s nephew, Brig. Felix had often talked about him, a ‘chip off the old block’. Bond thought he saw something of Felix in the set of Brig’s jaw, the thick blond hair, the grey, candid eyes. He wasn’t so keen on the other guy, though. Massinette stood back, surly, watchful.

Still, Bond’s head was loud with unanswered questions. If Blessing had been in the CIA for two years how had she managed to . . . ? He stopped himself. There would be time enough to settle these issues later.

‘I can hook you up with my uncle,’ Brig said. ‘He’s in Miami.’

Bond broke up and packed away the Frankel and followed Brig and Massinette out of the Alcazar and along the street to the temperance hotel, the Ranchester. They rode the elevator to the fifth floor and Bond walked in on a major CIA surveillance team in a room at the front overlooking the whole of Milford Plaza. There were telescopes, cameras with long lenses mounted on tripods, screens displaying covert CCTV links into the lobby of 1075 and the entrance to the AfricaKIN office itself. Everyone who came in and out of that building could be logged and conceivably identified. Bond wondered if ‘Turnbull McHarg’ had been spotted – somehow he doubted it.

He was put on the phone to Felix Leiter in Miami.

‘Felix, it’s James.’

‘Welcome to DC, my son. What’re you up to? You nearly fouled everything up. Why didn’t Transworld Consortium tell us you were on a job?’

‘Because I’m not.’

‘Uh-oh . . .’ Pause. ‘Don’t tell me – you’ve gone solo.’

‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t inform anyone that I’m here.’

There was more silence as Felix took this in.

‘James, do you know what you’re doing?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Well from now on we take over, right? Go back to London before anyone finds out. Difficult to keep a lid on this.’

Bond looked around the room at all the hardware, the agents, the money being spent on this job and thought of his own puny individual investment in his act of vengeance.

‘Felix, will you tell me what’s going on here?’

‘No.’

‘Come on, Felix, it’s me – James.’

‘Let’s just say we’re investigating AfricaKIN Inc. We don’t believe all their PR schtick.’

‘I might just buy that,’ Bond said, ‘but you already had an agent in Zanzarim weeks ago. How come she was able to intercept me? How come she tried to kill me?’

‘It’s a long story, James. Go back to London. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as possible.’

They exchanged a few more ribald pleasantries and Bond handed the phone to Brig. He watched as Felix obviously gave him a few explicit instructions. Bond had no confidence in what little Felix had told him: something else was at stake here and his own intervention had been a minor bit of grit in a well-oiled CIA machine.

Brig Leiter put the phone down and turned to Bond.

‘We can take you back to your hotel, Mr Bond. The Fairview, right?’

‘Yes,’ Bond said, a little surge of relief and excitement seizing him. They clearly didn’t know about the Blackstone Park Motor Lodge. Maybe he was still one step ahead.

He drove the Mustang back to the hotel, followed by Brig and Massinette in their Buick Skylark. Brig came with him into the lobby and saw him pick up his key.

‘Mr Bond,’ he said, apologetically, ‘believe me, this isn’t easy for me. Uncle Felix talks about you all the time. It’s a real pleasure to meet you – I just wish I hadn’t had to pull a gun on you to say hello.’

‘Not a problem at all, Brig,’ Bond said with a wide smile. ‘I’m out of your hair – now I know the truth about Blessing – about Aleesha. I’ll head for home, don’t you worry. All’s well that ends well.’

‘Great. Thank you, sir.’ They shook hands and Brig returned to his Buick. Massinette was leaning against it, smoking. They climbed in and drove off.

Bond went into the lobby bar to gather his thoughts and ordered a vodka martini, explaining to the barman the best way to achieve the effect of vermouth without diluting the vodka too much. Ice in the shaker, add a slurp of vermouth, pour out the vermouth, add the vodka, shake well, strain into a chilled glass, add a slice of lemon peel, no pith.

Bond took his drink to a dark corner and lit a cigarette, thinking hard. He had assumed that time was his ally, but now time was his enemy. Any more interference with the CIA operation and Felix would call London and they’d ship him off back home with no compunction. Bond reckoned he had forty-eight hours, at the outside.

Bond left his Mustang in the hotel parking lot and picked up a taxi in the street, telling the driver to take him to the Blackstone Park Motor Lodge. When they arrived there he told the cabbie to circle the block twice. Bond looked out of the rear window as they did so – he wasn’t being followed. All the same he made sure he was dropped a few hundred yards up the road and walked back, still checking, doubling back, waiting in doorways. There was no one on his tail.