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[Jim]

Just Another Kill

A Fan Fiction

By Jacques I. M. Stewart
This is a not for profit enterprise and is nothing more than a simple entertainment by way of fan fiction. All non-original characters and situations are copyright Ian Fleming Publications Limited and there is no intention asserted to the contrary. All original characters and situations are copyright the author.

5. Placate, Sedate, Eradicate

Was there time to move? Chance to avoid the…?

The guard crashed into Bond, the momentum of the man’s leap flinging both to the concrete floor, rag dolls petulantly hurled. With no possibility of twisting as he fell, Bond tucked his head into his chest to prevent his skull shattering like cheap crystal. Although he braced himself for it, when the impact came, it came with pain. Little enough time to try to absorb the sensation in his back and shoulders before the guard pressed down, into his front, the relentless force of a steamhammer blasting the air from Bond’s lungs, last lifebreath shooting from his spasmed mouth. As the harsh metallic taste and dull pain that are the inevitable overtures of suffocation rose in his throat, Bond thought it probable he would black out.

A squalid little death.

His breastplate piledriving shivering stabs of agony through his bones, such air as left inside still deflating from him in the hissing of a punctured tyre, Bond widened his eyes. Heavy eyelids fought his effort but he was determined to see the face of the man who would kill him.

Man?

No; beast, hound, something human in form but animal in spirit, the teeth dripping with burning spit, thick and greasy threads of greying saliva spanning the glistening stalactites and stalagmites that snapped their hatred and savage intent nearer, ever nearer to Bond’s eyes. The hot, wet breath bursting through the jaws betrayed months, perhaps years, of rotten meat, strong cigarettes and rough, bad alcohol. Sickened enough by the fall, Bond now felt the rise of that momentary disorientating calm and cold sweated light-headedness that always overtures vomiting.

Bond jabbed his right palm upwards, open wrist forwards, trying to achieve two outcomes; a short blow to the guard’s breastplate to instantaneously wind the man, ideally stab a rib, even more ideally two, into a lung and give Bond some leverage, both physical and tactical. The second outcome – press that face upwards, away, away, away...

Odd - surprisingly easy…

The guard, face incredulous, shot away as if snatched into the heavens, and cracked face down into the concrete to Bond’s left. Bond almost lost the edge he had gained as soon as he had acquired it, his brain’s amazement nearly robbing him of his body’s advantage. Fool! he cursed; get up, get up now damn you! – The man’s strength had been an illusion; the force of his leap rather than the power of his body had pushed you to the ground. The guard is still that scrawny, wiry little runt – should be no match, but…

As he pushed himself up on his right forearm and knee, Bond stared at the guard as he – it; whatever it was – rolled over onto its back so sharply that Bond, even though the man’s welfare weighed light on his mind, winced at the thought of the amount of skin that must have scraped off the limbs in the process. No time for further thought as the man leapt up from his prone position to stand, unsurprisingly unnaturally, arms flailing. Bond felt warm bloodspecks splash into his face. The bastard must have cut his arms open.

Bond also felt a sustained jolt of pain along the ribs of his left hand side; damn, he had to finish this and get those keys.

Now facing, each on his feet, Bond and the guard regarded one other across the waist high headlight beams. The guard shuffled side to side, rather than forwards, as if the lamplight was itself a barrier to be overcome before he could go for Bond again. For his part, Bond stayed still, his arms slightly forward, weight on his right foot to steady himself, to try to relieve the growing crease of pressure in his left side. Behind the guard, at the foot of a crate of what appeared to be tins of blue paint, the knife invited Bond. A quick glance to check its position; any more and the guard might pick up on, and then pick up, the object of Bond’s attention. And, in any event, the knife was not going to move – but the guard would. Stay alert and stay alive.

As the guard paced along the beam, tongue flicking hellishly outwards, Bond contemplated him. The man was short and Bond could see only collarbone upwards to the still goading, heavily breathing mouth and the greasily sweaty bald head, the remainder a vague shadow lost in the glow. The man had some strength, clearly, but the power of the first leap compared to the weakness of the upper body when pushing him away told Bond that the man’s strongest point was very likely in his legs rather than in his chest and arms.

So – it had to be the legs. No stealth this, no weakening of weaker spots first – this had to be swift, and swiftness dictated immediate disablement of the enemy’s main strength. Bond wondered whether the guard, perhaps surprised by the ease at which he had been pushed away, would think similarly of Bond’s upper body. If he had to be attacked, and Bond knew he was going to be attacked soon given the way the man’s pacing was becoming more animated, Bond knew he would prefer the guard to go for the throat again because he could drop, and take the bastard’s knees out.

Any other manoeuvre and Bond fancied his own chances of defeating the man were diminishing as rapidly as the pain was beginning to slick down his left side and into his pelvis.

The guard stopped pacing, and Bond braced himself for the lunge. But instead, the guard looked down to his left, and through the torchbeam Bond could see the man’s left shoulder waggling. Then, to Bond’s horror, with a sneer of victorious delight, the guard rose his left fist palm side upwards above the headlights’ glare, and opened it. The two little jags of metal, the keys, bounced beams off as if the man had held up diamonds; to Bond, becoming just as precious.

The guard stared at him, the grin spreading like a cancer. “Truck”.

So – the man had understood.

Yes, Bond wanted the truck. If he wanted the truck, he wanted the keys.

Bond looked directly into the guard’s revolting face. Sharply, he said “Yes. Truck.”

The guard closed his fist around the keys. Bond took this as a signal they would not be delivered without a fight.

On the guard’s next action, Bond took the signal that they would not be delivered at all.

Not without a death.

The guard raised his left fist to his face, and stuck out his tongue, shining black and wet above the light. Swiftly, and before Bond could move to stop him, the man gently placed the keys on his tongue and with a glare of vicious triumph glowing more brightly than the truck’s lights, withdrew it behind the sharpened teeth, closed his glistening maw and swallowed.

A tremble of inevitable discomfort covered the guard’s face, but passed quickly and the grin was reborn, yet more terrible than before and now accompanied by a short, harsh bark which Bond, immobile with shock, took to be a laugh.

James Bond felt such blood as was left in him solidifying, his limbs heavy with the weary bitterness of defeat and the inevitability that there would be a death here. He had not wanted to kill the guard. Now he knew he had to – or be killed trying. There was no other way. Swallowing the keys was the final statement – no deals, negotiation over, go back to your camps and prepare for war.

Numbed, Bond did not fight the reflex instinct his eyes now indulged themselves. Liberated from his brain’s discipline, they journeyed across the guard, who was licking his lips in an exaggerated manner and appearing to slit his tongue so that a thin red line appeared along its tip, and carrying on, Bond’s eyes rested on the knife, still there, still inviting and more now than just a tactical advantage to him – now, an absolute necessity.

Too long his gaze lingered. A movement to his left, Bond shook himself back to where the guard had been standing – had been….but…

The man shot up through the headlights’ beams, again coming straight for Bond’s face, claws outstretched, jaw jutting and teeth bared to take James Bond’s face off.

Bond dropped, his body screaming with the plunge but he knew it would have screamed more had the guard reached him. The guard’s light weight carried the man onwards as Bond, twisting himself around in a near-paralysed crouch, smashed his right fist upwards at the scarcely human projectile. Gratifyingly, timed perfectly. He felt his knuckles crunch into the man’s groin and allowed himself a smile at the satisfying yelp of pain as the guard, still airborne, balled into a protective position and then, landing, skidded along the garage floor. No time to consider the short trail of cloth, greasy blood and skin ripped from the man’s fuselage, Bond, all the time cursing the pills for wearing off as quickly as they took effect, scrambled himself to his feet, red hot pokers smashing into him from anywhere and everywhere, and in his nearest approximation to standing, stumbled over to the prone guard.

That had been another powerful leap. Time to prevent that happening again. The currency of the stabbing pains cracking into him on every half breath was that he knew he would not be able to duck another pass. Sorry friend, but it’s me or you.

It’s you.

The guard was whimpering but Bond feared a blind, a trick, and restrained himself from getting too close. Instead, with his left foot he pushed away the man’s right leg from the rest of the body and, wincing at the thought of what he was about to do, but steeled to it by the inevitability that it was the only – and right – thing to do to save himself, Bond raised his own right foot and then with the heel first, crashed it onto the side of the man’s knee. Bond bit into his lip with the force of the blow.

Whether the howl of pain or the crack of splintering bone was louder Bond could not tell; either and both were loud enough to be a signal to anyone close by. Damn it all to hell, thought Bond; careless not to have gagged the man somehow but then how sensible would have going anywhere near that mouth have been?

Furthermore, now trying to justify a poor decision even more, if the man’s mouth had been stopped up, would that have prevented him coughing up the keys in his agony? Bond limped around to the front of the guard, now taking sharp breaths and rolling his eyes in panicked fury. No – no keys. Bond let out a short expletive.

But there was a second opportunity. There was, after all, a second knee. Yes, ideally, the man should be put into enough pain to bring the keys back up but if that meant another loud scream – getting away with just the one had been lucky – then could Bond afford it? He wondered how he could persuade the man to give the keys up and stay silent.

He remembered the knife, abandoned behind him.

As he picked up the weapon, struggling to right himself and eventually accepting a stooped crouch as the best he could achieve, Bond considered the markings on the garage wall that had so fascinated the hobbled guard. The absence of any other guards – anybody or anything else saved that damned harp music, still distant – and the man’s reaction to these symbols plainly invested them with some sort of assumed power. Bond swallowed as he considered that discovering their meaning might be considerably more unpleasant than ignorance.

As he shuffled back to the guard, through the beams, Bond caught sight of his shadow against the concrete wall. Twisted and hunched, the blade protruding, he was an evil crookback, some dark horrific figure, beyond the grimmest of Grimm, a night-time killer, a deformed, distorted mass fit only for deformed, distorted work.

Enough; it was time to smash the man’s other knee.

Drool again oozed from the guard’s mouth, but now not in hunger but pain. Bond, supporting himself with his increasingly unwilling left hand, crouched down beside the face; he had decided that it was worth the risk if it meant he did not have to take this further.

“Look,” he started “I know you can’t understand me…”

The guard spluttered a thimbleful of bloodrippled saliva as a response. Bond – more generously than he had anticipated – interpreted this as a pain reflex rather than a comment.

Bringing the blade forward in his right hand, nearly overbalancing with the discomfort as he did so, Bond waved it in front of the man’s face. No – still did not get the message. In any other circumstances, Bond would have felt foolish, self-conscious – he hated parlour games, they shouted suburban mediocrity – but here, now, he put the blade to the floor, pointed at the man, smiled encouragingly and then pinched his thumb and forefinger together. He twisted the two in the air before the man’s face, then pointed again at the man, once at the truck and nodded.

The man stared at him dully.

Bond made his “keys” motion again.

The man’s eyes seemed to spark and then, although the guard had the right side of his face pressed to the ground, spreading over the left there was that unmistakeable sneer.

You stupid bastard, thought Bond. You stupid, stupid bastard. He leant back, and a paroxysm of utter hurt whacked through him as if he had just been shot. Winded, he breathed in deeply. He didn’t know how much more he could do to persuade the man politely. Neither did he know how much more he could go on without the pills.

The pills…

Of course.

Just get to the back of the truck, find the box, take three or four or five, however many he would need after making it to there, wait ten minutes, let them seep their wonders into him and then get back here and finish this cleanly. Nobody was here, and this guard wouldn’t be going anywhere. Bond could see the unmistakeable glimmer of bone protruding through the man’s right kneecap and the rancid porkfat smell of spilled bonemarrow was rising in Bond’s throat. A metronomic pulse of blood seeped from the guard’s wound – no, indeed, the guard wouldn’t be walking away from this one.

Bond pushed himself back into his crabbed, crone position. Cramped and aching, he faltered forwards to the truck. As he lurched, it dawned on him that the last thing he would need would be a flat battery; all this effort for the truck not to start. The headlights would have to go off, but only after he found what he needed.

At almost half his normal height, ape-like in frame, James Bond lurched into the front wheelarch of the truck. He knew it would hurt his side beyond any torture to reach for the open driver’s window and pull himself up with the doorframe as support.

But he also knew he had to do it.

It was a curious sensation of calm peace. Perhaps the world had just paused and let a nothingness in. Perhaps the pain was too extreme even for itself to contemplate and needed a moment to summon up the might to hit him. When it did hit, it was sudden, sharp and brutal enough to fling Bond sideways, as if pushed; but there was no-one there, just his own weakening body. Sweating, scrabbling and clambering for cooling air, Bond found himself scrambling along the tarpaulin, away from the door and towards the back of the truck. About to fall to the ground in what he anticipated would be his final movement, he clutched onto the rough tarpaulin as his legs buckled beneath him and for a pathetic moment, he swung, face pressed against the side, his feet off the ground. The truck creaked disconcertingly – surely, he thought, it couldn’t topple over onto him?

Better not to give it the chance.

To steady himself, Bond dropped the knife to the ground – there was no danger of the guard getting hold of it - and with fistfuls of scratching canvas, he gently lowered his legs back to the concrete. Yes, there was pain and yes, it pierced him like no knife had ever been able to – but he was still alive. Although safely on the ground, he mistrusted his legs so he stayed as he was, as if he were clinging to a cliff edge. If one hand let go, he knew he would fall.

This meant that the knife was beyond reach.

Damn this to hell, thought Bond. Was this the way he was going to die? How would he get to the pills from here? His energy was sapping from him, making inching along to the back or to the cabin – either way – beyond possibility. There was only one way.

He pressed his face to the tarpaulin, and bared his lips back. Taking his cue from the guard, he bit into the material, which was predictably unpleasant, and started to work at the fibres. It crossed his mind that had he been a witness to this, Bond very well might have shot himself out of pity at the indignity.

Too weak to spit them out and the roof of his mouth still too painful to have them brush by it in swallowing them, Bond let the grey-green threads dribble from his chin in an odd soup of the iced sweat dripping from his forehead, his spit and his blood. Surely he was making progress? A sudden flicker from the headlights reminded him of the need to speed up and stop priding himself in his work.

Finally, a hole, a definite hole. Bond inched his right hand along, and started to probe with his index finger, rhythmically circling it around until the material split enough for two fingers, then three, then down to the bridge of his thumb and finally, enough to take his fist. He assured himself that the tearing noise was the fabric, not his body, although his muscles were suggesting otherwise. He clutched his left hand towards the hole, and proceeded to grasp at the tear he had made, prising his hands apart, pulling the tarpaulin back until a gap large enough to take his head and shoulders tore open. Exhausted, he fell into the hole, his arms falling forwards with both forearms landing clumsily on metal canisters. He could feel the side of the truck’s flatbed digging into his abdomen wound as he balanced himself upon it, but better that than the uncertain support afforded him by his weakened legs.

Biting into his lower lip, Bond shifted in the gap so that some light leaked in. Staring around him, he saw the boxes and bags and cans he had watched being loaded in what now seemed several harsh lifetimes ago, but he knew was only just over forty-eight hours. Blessedly, as it crawled around his trembling body, the light rested on a long, low, thin and rectangular tin box, roughly the size of a golf bag, the words “Painkillers: Prescribed Use Only”, stuff that, stamped along the squared off end directly facing him. Bolted into that end, and he knew it should be within reach, was a metal handle. Bond ground his teeth, and lunged forward for it. His hand swatted past, a cat worrying a piece of string. Cursing, pushing himself up onto the balls of his feet, he dragged himself what must have only been a further inch but felt like a further mile into the hole, and grasped once more.

Contact.

As he lowered himself, the box shifted towards him. Should he just hang it all, and drop out of the hole, the box following? Quickest solution, but what when it landed on top of him; why add to the torment?

Bond chose the middle ground; just down onto feet flattened, let the thing come as close as it can. As Bond’s heels touched the ground, that slight impact sent through him steel-hard quakes of shock so far distant from his previous experience that he had been unprepared for their strike. He creased his face so powerfully that he thought he could feel and hear each tooth stretch in its gum and separate from its neighbour. The sweat was gushing off him, running into his eyes and blurring what was remaining of his vision, dark dancing blotches already smearing his view. He needed those pills. He needed them now.

One more minute and he knew he would die from the pain.

And now…

And now he knew he would die.

As the box slid towards the hole, as its lengthwards face was revealed into the reflected headlights’ glare, Bond saw with dread the lock on the front of the tin and with a sense of utter futility, he read the legend below it: “Security: Ignition key will open.”

A silent scream of pity, frustration and anger wrenched itself from him and James Bond collapsed to the ground, hitting it he cared not how hard, hoping it would swallow him, alive or dead – either better than this half life near death. Tears of desperation and fury monsooned with the hoarse screech he had to cry, the sweat he had to bleed, the blood he had to spill. The taste of imminent death in his mouth, Bond knew he could not stand, so sat cross-legged as he had fallen, wretched and broken, staring at the box which now resembled a golfing bag no more, but a coffin.

A minute passed.

A further minute passed.

He died during neither.

Unsatisfactory.

Still staring at the box, he began to wonder if he could just reach up to pull it out of the hole, let it tumble and see if that caused it to burst open. That was some sort of a plan. But what if that did not work? What if that caused the lock to bend rather than snap, so even if he got the key, it would not then fit? What sort of solution was that? And wouldn’t the sound of a large metal canister crashing to the ground finally bring someone running? What sort of state would Bond be in to fight them off, even if – and it remained if – the box did open that way?

No – despite all the effort wasted, despite the sea of frustration soaking him through, he had to get the keys. He had to go back to the guard. It was time for his brain to demand of his body, rather than the other way around. Come on, you bastard – just this once, just now – get me back to the guard, give me strength.

He rocked forward onto his forearms and knees. This would be slow, it would be painful and it would reawaken the despair of the afternoon, Fajeur standing above him, goading him. But this time, oddly – better. The opponent was in a worse state – just - and Bond knew he could take advantage of it. Further, he had yet to reach the sheer moment he had been at earlier in the day, teetering on the brink. It felt as if there was still time. Very curious – had the adrenaline of disappointment given him a second wind? Time to use it, whatever its source. He emptied his mind, all energy dripping into his slow, purposeful crawl.

From where he had dropped it, he plucked up the knife. Needing the full use of both hands, he clamped the handle between his teeth and carried on crawling towards the guard. As he got closer – and God alone knew how long it was taking him, each forward shunt a new pain – Bond saw that the man was staring at him, eyes bulging wide and white in panic. True, thought Bond, I must be a sight – poor bastard must feel like some penny dreadful heroine strapped to the tracks watching the pitiless wheels of the locomotive slice closer. Here comes death my friend, unstoppable and remorseless and inevitable death.

Bond stopped when his palms splashed into the sticky, swollen puddle of blood in which the guard now bathed. The oozing mess running over his hands, and with the dull metallic taste of – his own? – blood in his mouth, Bond pulled the knife from between his teeth. For a moment he crouched there, abjectly uncertain as to his next move. How could he get the keys back? The probable method – tearing the guard apart – bloomed nausea in his stomach; but was there any other way?

He looked down at the wound in the guard’s knee. In the light of the headlamps, the glimmering black bloodslick undulated lazily, seemingly more alive than the body it had just abandoned. How much blood had the man lost? How much more could he lose? Could Bond wait until the man died before he cut deep for the keys? How long would that take? Would he, Bond, have any strength left to do it?

As if in answer, the guard coughed, flickering Bond’s left cheek with speckles of salivated blood. Bond dragged himself up to the man’s face. Bathed warmly in the artificial light of the headlamps, the lips were now a grey-blue, the gums a paling pink and those terrible teeth had lost their sickening lustre. But it was the eyes that betrayed the man’s mind and in so doing, gave Bond new, but wretched, hope.

Instead of hatred, they spoke pain; instead of vengeance, they spoke pity; instead of attack, they spoke resignation. More disconcerting than if they had shown anger, Bond thought he saw encouragement in them. The man slowly raised his right arm; Bond started back but in the eyes, there was a beseeching not to leave, not to abandon. The man drew out his right index finger and, palm at his neck, passed the finger along his throat – once, twice, the message simple enough even had it not been accompanied by a hoarse croak of “…Knife…”

Bond wanted his grip to strengthen on the handle but as he looked once more into the tear-swollen eyes of the man begging him to kill, to end the pain, he felt the strength draining from his reserve. At this last moment, his body was failing him – or was it his mind rather than his body stopping him from this final act? Could he only kill in fury, not in mercy? He felt himself falling forwards on his forearms, energy sapped from him, falling down and down and down and as he dropped, he saw the shocked disappointment in the guard’s eyes as the knife dropped with him. A desperate, whispered screech of disbelief from the man, and Bond felt the concrete pressing against his collarbone once more.

Then…

A fevered scrabbling to his right. Bond twisted his neck as far as the pain would allow him to and watched in a paralysis of horror as the fingers of the guard’s right hand stumbled their way towards his own fingers and the knife blade beneath them. Surely, he thought, the poor bastard hasn’t got the strength to attack me? Have I got the strength to fend him off? He felt, miles distant now, the fingers dance over the back of his palm, which gave no resistance to being lifted, and watched as the guard’s hand wrapped around the handle and snatched it away.

Get away, Bond’s mind screamed at him, get out of reach or that bastard will have the last laugh!

The agony enveloping every fibre of him, Bond slid to his left, no more than three inches but painful enough and – he hoped – beyond the strike of the steel. He could feel the concrete scraping the skin from his cheek like a fishmonger scales a salmon. And yet – no strike, no pain.

The guard, staring blankly at Bond, drew the knife up to his own chest, then twisted the handle so that the tip of the blade was directly on his Adam’s Apple. Bond breathed deep. He knew what would be coming, what pitiable wretchedness the other man had succumbed to and even if he had to hear it, he had no desire to see it. Another deep breath, drinking in the night’s force, and with a dull crush of hurt across his ribs, he arched his back upwards, swung his head around as swiftly as his neck would let him and crunched into the floor, his back to the guard.

Bond lay still, his thoughts rushing chill through him, churning in his stomach in the nauseating fear that they rendered him less than he had once been. Should he save the man? Should he roll back over and snatch the knife and save this one life; would that be heroic? If he were to tell Tempest – or any woman – or any man – or any other person who would dare listen – what would she, he, they think of Bond lying silent, the power to rescue the man and yet choosing not to?

And what was not to? To secure the keys, and to secure the keys was to secure the truck, and to secure the truck was to secure the lives of others, more than this one. Noble aim, but to achieve it by waiting for one man to die?

And if he stopped the guard, what would that achieve? No keys.

Mission, not the man.

Bond, trying to squeeze from his mind what he knew would be happening behind him, ground his face to the floor; to do so was hurt, but not to was worse. His breath rasping from him, eyes shut tight, it was a full thirty seconds before he realised that what he had thought he was only thinking, he was actually whispering through bubbles of his own saliva.

“I can’t save you… won’t save you…you’re going to have to do it…you’re going to have to kill yourself, d’you see? Do. You. See? I want you to die…I need you to die…you can’t live any more…

“I need you to do it…die…do it…do it…do it…do it.”

He did not know whether he said these things to placate the man or placate himself.

He did not know whether he needed to care about the distinction.

Not here to save everyone. Some just have to go to Hell.

Well, too bad.

Time for the guard dog to be put to sleep.

Silence, save that the harp was still playing. Life would continue elsewhere.

Out of the soft, distant strums of the harpstrings, a cutting of gristle and the terrible sound of thick liquid boiling, bubbling, squeezing its way out. Bond creased his eyes together to shut out the noise but further tearing, further cutting of thick muscle; finally a wet cough of ignoble death.

Bond let the silence linger for a minute before he scratched his face across the ground to look back on the man. Sickened, he stared at the spreading grin, now three inches lower and redder, slicker and wetter than before. The eyes stared at him, expressionless. Bond refused to read blame in them. After all, if they blamed him at that point, what would be their reaction to what he was about to do?

With a sigh of disgust, he crammed his right hand into a fist and pushed himself upwards. The handle of the knife was glued into the guard’s hand by the thick, pungent syrup and it took effort to pull it free, such effort that Bond toppled forwards onto the body and, in furious accusation, a great geyser of blood shot up at him from the jagged wound in the guard’s throat, caking Bond’s eyes, the stubble on his scalp and seeping into and through his lips. Wiping the blood away, spitting it out as best he could, Bond stared into the great red sea, and with a thrill of exaltation that would later disgust him, glimpsed the treasure for which he would dive.

A glint of metal.

The keys appeared to be resting at the lower end of the man’s oesophagus – although Bond dismissed the thought that the man had been choking to death. No, in letting him die he had killed him. And now he was going to kill him again.

James Bond had killed many men in his life. A clean, simple bullet or a swift knifewound, the body would topple and, although disposal of the corpse would oftentimes prove messy, he had never been called upon to do that which he was about to.

Not the first time in his life he had killed a man.

But now, James Bond went further.

James Bond destroyed a man.

Suddenly panicked by the further flickering of the headlights and the impending anticipation that the damned truck would not be able to move after all this effort, he felt the adrenaline of pure horror wash through him as he raised the blade with both hands wrapped around the handle and cracked it down into the middle of the guard’s upper chest. A shot of scarlet covered his arms to each elbow, further ricocheting as he twisted the blade through the splintering bone to widen the hole. When two fingers wide, he dropped the knife and pushed his right thumb and forefinger into the gap. The blood was still warm, still wet, yet to harden – should he have expected anything else? Fighting back the overwhelming pressure to vomit, he teased his fingers in, working his way through spongy, cut muscle to a point he hoped would be directly under the keys.

Finally, fat dark clots of blood bursting warmly up his arms as his improvised drill continued on, he touched something that could not have been human, could not have been flesh and blood, could not have been meat. He glanced up at the savage smile in the guard’s throat – yes, the keys had trembled. Jabbing his elbow forwards, he pushed upwards three times, enough to reveal the teeth of what would be the ignition key; bounty indeed.

He withdrew his finger and thumb from their mine and dragged the keys from their cavern. Coming free smoothly, the…

Horror threw Bond aside – the guard’s mouth had sprung open and rasped one impossible whispered sigh, life’s last soft breath, soul relieved from torment.

Gathering his abused senses as he picked himself from the ground, the nausea rising in his own throat, Bond realised this must all have been trapped in the gullet by the keys – but, still…

No.

The guard was dead, had to be.

Stop being melodramatic; get pills.

Again, energised by the disgusted thrill, Bond found the crawl back to the truck’s door less painful and hateful than he had steeled himself for. The shock, the pity – call it what one would – worked. Was that how he was invigorated? The smell and sounds of death more potent than caffeine or nicotine or Benzedrine; ingesting the syrupy Turkish blends or those powerful little grains was actually hiding from himself his true dependency on blood and pain and death? Were they not the extra supplements he had believed them to be, but instead merely polite replacements for the stimulant that truly drove him?

Killing.

Mattered not, he concluded as he reached the hole he had bitten into the tarpaulin – whatever it was, whatever they did, whatever their source, they all worked to make him effective at what he had - and what he chose - to do.

Having wiped bloodclots off the ignition key, a rush of satisfaction and perverted gratitude to the other man for having killed himself sang through James Bond like the purest soprano in the deftest choir when with the smoothest of clicks the key turned in the lock of the painkiller box and the lid sprang open. For all the gold in Morgan’s haul, he would not have traded this treasure; row upon row upon row of little brown jewel bottles.

No less frenzied than the guard had been when genuflecting before the wall symbols, Bond scrabbled at the bottles. With a heavy breath, an effort against which he felt his ribcage ache, he calmed himself and picked one bottle up. Ten pills, he read on the label. Half now, half later? Good idea to take all out of the bottle though; got more than enough of that glass in me, can’t have it shattering.

Five pills in his pocket, Bond cupped the remainder in his right palm and then clamped this to his cracked lips. Swallowing the foul things was further pain, but given what they brought, it inevitably had to get worse before it would get better. Even so, each felt like swallowing a half-crown; tasted similar.

Bond climbed into the driver’s seat and sat back, breathing heavily as much in an attempt to digest the pills quickly as in tiredness and pain. Before he turned the headlights off, he instinctively glanced towards the broken bundle of bone and blood that had once been the guard, dappled unnervingly wheat-gold in the light. Give it ten minutes, he thought, then I’ll have to move him – move that. Not something to look forward to. He could smell the man on him, the burnt metallic bitterness of the blood soaking black into his bare arms. Bond tugged at his sticky shirt, still fighting the man off, and it would not give without pulling taut at his skin.

Branded.

On turning the headlight switch, the very last glimpse had been of the symbols on the wall, so distinct that when the world was plunged back into the dark, the strange circles burned out at him, printed negative on the night.

The soft music...

Had he closed his eyes? Had he been sitting in the dark, wide awake? No matter – the sound of voices approaching was unmistakeable. Damn! He cursed himself; perhaps M had been right. Perhaps he was prey to losing concentration. Perhaps he was losing his skill in a torpid fit of complacency.

The tell-tale bumblebee dance of the torchlight pricked his reverie. It skitted along the wall; soon it would sting him and then…then the guard. Bond risked a sharp movement to his pocket; no pain, thank Christ for the bravado tablets. But it was with a sinking stomach that he accepted that bravado was no substitute for brain – he had left the blessed knife by the remains. Bad news if he had intended to fight off the newcomers, the way the voices changed in pitch suggesting at least two, perhaps three. He calmed himself by accepting that this could be viewed as good news too – he knew the pills were potentially dangerous, a friend who would encourage one too far. Even at full fitness, taking two, perhaps three, men with one knife would have been stretching it to foolishness. In this state, he would only have been the street-fighting drunk, inhibitions lost, life equally mislaid.

He felt forwards, for the ignition key. This would have to be all one movement; start the truck, turn on the lights, power forwards. Any delay and whoever it was who was now approaching would be able to get a hold on either door, or the tarpaulin, and Bond had doubts about being able to fight him, or them, off. He would wait, if he could, until the newcomers were in front of him, or as near to in front of him as he could guess by the movement of the torchbeam and the direction of the voices. Then he would switch the lights on full beam to dazzle, and take that advantage to drive forwards and through the thin chain across the garage opening.

This, he knew, depended on their not making for the truck first. Evens, and now it was time to play the odds. If they went for the truck first….

He lowered himself down the seat, beneath window level. At the same time, engaging first gear, he pushed down on the clutch with his right foot. His left he jammed onto the accelerator until it felt it might break through the chassis. Then, slowly, praying that the garage was as level as he had hoped it was, he released the handbrake. No rolling. Good.

“What ifs” thundered towards him – what if the ignition failed? What if the truck didn’t move or couldn’t break through the chain? He batted them away; obviously, on Bewick’s word, the truck had been driven here so it had worked which bettered the chances of it working again. As for the chain, it would be a sorry effort if he could not build up enough momentum to break it.

The final “what if” – what if I have to run these newcomers down? – he let linger. He had no answer; the answer was its own question. So be it.

So bloody be it.

The torchlight scanned over him, although not touching. An illusion no doubt, but it seemed to burn him. Were they looking at him, or just letting the light follow a lazy course as they approached? As the beam continued its sweep, he stared in grim satisfaction at his two blackened arms. He stretched out his palms to loosen some of the drying blood and in so doing, could feel fleshfibres under his fingernails, the remains of the guard’s throat; irritating dirt, to be removed as soon as possible.

And then the beam moved on and from the sound of the voices, some dialect beyond him, he knew the men were in front of the bonnet. A dull thud and a slight motion forwards told Bond that one man – at least – was leaning against the radiator. Instinctively, Bond started to twist the ignition. Stupid bastard will get the shock of what’s left of his life, thought Bond.

Then, the rush. A catch in one of the voices, followed by a cry; Bond’s handiwork has been seen. The torchbeam swirled chaotically and the slight pressure from the front of the truck lifted as the man who had rested leapt forward to where the dead guard lay. This slight movement caused Bond’s fingers to slip on the key. Cursing, he scrabbled forward, found the key and at the very moment one of the new men started shouting in what could only be a signal to all others in the hotel, twisted it.

In the quiet of the garage, the noise cocooned and amplified by the ceiling high boxes of assorted useless loot, and with the accelerator still pressing through the floor, the engine crashed into life with the roaring of a thousand wounded lions.

Simultaneously, Bond yanked the headlights on, and released the clutch. As the vehicle burst excitedly forwards, Bond willing it not to stall, he saw for one instant in the glare of the lights the unnaturally pale and shocked faces of two scruffily dressed guards as they scrambled out of the way of the wild, charging beast. A bump, unexpected on the smooth concrete floor, shot through his seat as he ground forwards; he had run over the dead guard dog.

The stench of burnt rubber filling the cabin, Bond extended his arms to the wheel and braced himself as the truck burst towards, blessedly through and then beyond the garage chain. Needing to change up a gear, Bond found with horror that his left palm, sticky with blood, would not slide as expected from the steering wheel. A sharp pull, scarlet cobweb threads of guard lingering between wheel and hand, and it was free,

He snorted with satisfaction, the synchro grinding as he pulled the gearstick down into second, turned sharply to his left and thundered out into the dark.

Bond did not recognise the street.

Had left been the correct direction? In the energy of trivial victory, had he been unprofessionally distracted, too pleased with himself?

Idiot.

But, equally, the only time he had walked the streets of DeveronTown, there had been little to no light. He doubted he would have been able to identify any street as the proper one. And then – yes, there was his tree and the boot of the little Morris poking out from behind it. Good. He turned right, and charged forwards; in due course he had to hit Gainsborough Street. Just a question of trial and error. The harsh suspension suggested the truck would tell him when he found it, even if no sign would.

Up into third.

Christ, the night was still hot; or that garage has been unnaturally cool. Probably the latter. He watched a clear bead of sweat run its way from the back of his right wrist, like a detergent cutting through the fetid tar of blood on his arm.

Above the noise in the cabin he could not hear any shouting behind him, but he knew he could not be foolish enough to think there would be none. All he needed was to have created enough of a surprise that he had five minutes’ start on his inevitable pursuers – ideally ten before they could gather themselves. Perhaps that would be expecting too little of them. Whatever; just enough time to get to the house ahead of them and get the girl and Bewick on board, then up the mountain. Who the hell knew what was on the other side?

Fine bloody plan, he thought, as he shifted up into fourth. But it was the only one.

Staring ahead of him, Bond hoped that Bewick could see the headlights and remember that it was time to move, and move the girl. Bond remembered, disencouraged, the unconvincing manner in which Bewick tottered; so much could be war wound, so much more could be self-inflicted. If that bastard’s up there blasted out of his skull…

The tarpaulin over the back of the truck rendered the dashboard mirror useless but as he glanced into the door mirror, despite the frenzied vibrations as the Bedford bounced along the very-nearly-road, he could spot the pinpricks of yellow light behind him.

Headlights.

Cursing the inevitable, he wrenched the gearstick back into second. The engine howled to have such pain inflicted, and screamed on further as it ploughed its way up Gainsborough Street, the sickly orange glow of the fires still burning happily. When he reached the turn to the right, up the mountainside and to the house, Bond glanced back over his right shoulder; yes, at least half a dozen or so angry yellow fireflies, maybe a mile behind him; three cars, maybe even trucks? What would that mean? Ten men at least.

Odds against a social visit.

The violent rattling of the payload as he leapfrogged over the potholes of the track was not encouraging; fine bloody mess if everything gets smashed, he thought. Ahead of him, darkness – at least Bewick had been sensible enough not to light up the house like a Christmas tree. Bond knew that task would be performed gladly, if more violently, by those in the procession behind him.

And then, there, at the turn into the driveway, in the bouncing glare of the headlights, the flickering of an unmistakeable form; the bulk of Bewick.

Raising the twelve bore.

Bond’s first instinct was to curse – damn fool’s slaughtered, must be out of his mind. Then, as he drew nearer and he spotted the girl, sat dozing under the shade of a mossy yucca, her head resting against a large cardboard suitcase, Bond realised that Bewick was simply being careful.

Drawing up, putting the gearlever into neutral and yanking the handbrake up to keep the engine alive, cautious mistrust of the truck’s capabilities, Bond leant out of the window. “OK Bewick, put that down, there’s a good chap.”

Bewick lowered the gun. Bond caught a half-smile in the lamplight. “You mad bloody bastard,” Bewick said, with more admiration than anger. “Got to admit, until I saw the headlights coming, I didn’t think you’d done it. Still wasn’t sure until now.”

Bond lowered himself from the cab and paced around the truck, until he could see down the hill. Along Gainsborough Street, a serpent of headlights slithered, ever closer. As he walked over to the girl, he said “I haven’t done anything yet. We’ve got to move, bloody quick. Is she still out?”

“Yeah,” replied Bewick, “dozy, more than anything. Here,” he took Tempest by the shoulders, “give me a hand.”

With Bond trying to ignore the telltale aromas on Bewick’s breath, and his doubts as to the man’s effectiveness, or usefulness, in flight, they lifted Tempest into the back of the truck, clearing a space for her amongst the fallen boxes, the ruptured tins. As they shifted around, Bond noted seven five-gallon petrol cans. More than enough.

More in hope than anticipation.

Unwrapping an orthopaedic pillow from its plastic bag, Bond laid down Tempest’s head. Endearingly, she made a childish murmur but as he moved his hand away, his greasy bloodstained fingerprints trailed their evidence along her smooth, otherwise untroubled face, onto the pillowcase. No time to sort that out, he thought. Just have to live with it.

When Bewick eased himself arthritically down from the flatbed, Bond glanced over the man’s shoulder, down the hill. The slow creep of the furthest reach of the pursuer’s headlights was drifting closer, ebbing relentlessly on like a Canute tide. The unmistakeable sound of a gearchange. They would soon be far too close.

“Time to move,” Bond shouted, heaving Bewick’s suitcase into the back. Damned heavy. “What the hell’s in this?”

“I’ve forgotten; known this moment’s coming for about two years or so. Packed the bag so long ago, don’t even remember what’s in there. Basically, me. My little haul from all the years here. Pathetic, yeah? Cardboard ing suitcase and a ed liver.”

The air around Bond suddenly burnt more furiously, preventing his response as he smelt the inevitable. A second later, and the crack of a distant pistol shot hit the night. Instant judgment prevailed. “Bewick, give me that gun, get up front, get us going!” Bond shouted. “Move, man!”

Bewick lobbed the twelve bore up to Bond who, in one motion, caught it and cracked open the barrel. Two fresh cartridges already in the chamber. Good. Two chances anyway. Before he rolled around the vehicle’s corner, Bewick emptied his jacket pocket and rolled three cartridges along the deck towards Bond. His weak, sad and apologetic smile suggested that they represented all he had.

“Move, damn you!” spat Bond, despite his gratitude, as he pocketed the shells.

Christ, those bullets were too damned close. Then crackcrack. Bond dropped, crouching, to the floor of the truck. The taste of burning tarpaulin, sickly and oily, filled his mouth as he breathed deeply.

Why aren’t we moving? Move, Bewick, move you useless –

The truck jolted forward. Bond braced himself against the fuel canisters as they slid towards the open end of the flatbed. Horrified, Bond watched one jiggle ever closer to the edge, teetering, teetering and he stretched himself forwards and reached and reached and reached and…the truck bounced into an inevitable pothole and…

Gone.

Damn.

In the deathly red glow of the rear lights, Bond watched the tin can bounce lazily down the hill. He could still hear it journey on long after it had passed over into the darkness.

He lunged forwards and pulled up the endgate of the flatbed, feeling for and then shutting the latch on the outside. The gate was cracked, probably damage resulting from its air journey, but at least it could, should, prevent too much more sliding out.

Crackcrackcrackcrackcrack

Bond rolled himself around, and struggled to his feet just as the truck hit further turbulence. He grabbed a fistful of tarpaulin to stop himself sliding out of the back; no good to anyone out there, he thought. Perhaps if…

“Bewick! Slow it down! Take it more carefully!” he shouted towards the cab. “Give me a chance to get a couple of shots off!” The truck slowed, slightly. Patently a good idea to put a drunkard at the wheel; but marginally better than having him back here with the gun.

To steady himself, Bond knelt to the floor, right knee forward, left leg stretched behind him. The headlights would get closer now, but more chance they were in range, less chance for a wasted shot. Above the roar of the truck’s engine, he could not hear the pursuers, but now he could make out as definite three sets of headlights, three radiator grilles and maybe – he guessed – no more than thirty yards. And closing.

For protection, he reached to his left and dragged a large box of bandages in front of him. As he did so, as the truck pulled up the gradient and the flatbed lifted upwards from behind him, twenty degrees, thirty, thirty-five, he felt something slithering past him, along his right hand side, picking up speed as the deck continued to climb. It was the girl. She was headed for the end, and Bond doubted that the rotting wooden gate would take even her weight. Still fixed on the chasing vehicles, Land Rovers all, Bond reached out his bloodied arm to stop her, and his palm slapped onto her left breast, taut under her thin white linen blouse. God! he thought; if she wakes up now…But at least she had stopped moving.

Another burning bullet no more than an inch away wiped the smile from his mind. Even less amusing was the prospect of firing back with his left hand. He could not release the girl; the flatbed was relentless in its rise – forty degrees, forty five…surely they had to reach the top soon? Around him, tumbling over him, boxes and tins slid and rattled and jiggled inexorably closer to the little wooden gate. How long would that hold? And it would be his luck that an errant bullet from the other side would smash the latch and send it all, Bond and the girl included, falling out…

He had to fire. He had to get these bastards away from them. Without using the gun, what defence would he, the girl and Bewick be to themselves? An injured man, a girl and a limping drunk? Nothing. Had to use the gun. Being caught…he decided not to think of the consequences. To be in Fajeur’s power was not an appealing prospect.

Knowing full well that the force of the twelve-bore recoil would slam into his ribs, knowing full well that one gun one doesn’t fire single-handed, unless one doesn’t value one’s hands, is a twelve-bore and knowing full well that it was his only option, Bond dug his left elbow into his numb left side, gritted his teeth and, the lead car but twenty feet behind, the shadows of three heads and two raised pistols illuminated by the following lights now visible through its windscreen, James Bond squeezed the left hand of his gun’s two triggers.

At precisely the moment the truck danced drunkenly over a tangle of thick palm roots.

He had expected noise, the throaty hurling howl of any twelve bore. But he had never fired one in an enclosed space – the reader will surely know that all ballistics experts advise strongly against this, advice which Bond had always trusted – and this…this had been all the sound in the world, just there in that truck, for that moment.

He thought his head would split. Specks of light jitterbugged insanely in front of his eyes, his brain felt as if it had come loose and it seemed as if several painful decades had meandered leisurely by before he realised that he had let go of the girl, and she was beginning to slide away from him. Head still spinning, he fell forwards and at full stretch, grabbed her breast again. Shaking his skull, Bond looked at her face, and was shocked – although he could not be too surprised, he admitted – that her eyes were wide open.

He was about to say that he hadn’t meant to wake her, but he noticed that the eyes were staring, as if dazed. Clearly shocked open by the noise, but she was still sleeping. Bond stared for a moment into a sight one rarely has the privilege of seeing; the eyes of a person dreaming- lost, pure, untroubled, calm, distant from the bad world and safely wrapped in sleep. And as suddenly as they had opened, her eyelids snapped shut and he pulled her closer to him.

As he did so, he looked back through the framed arch of the tarpaulin’s end; the lead car had fallen back, very slightly. In the mix of the red of the taillight and the backlit projection from the headlights of the next car, Bond could see the windscreen wipers working frenziedly, clearing mud from the screen; I must have fired into the road when the truck hit whatever it was, he thought. Delayed them, but not by much. Needs to be better.

“Christ alive man, are you all right?” Bewick’s hoarse shout came through the front of the tarpaulin.

“Fine” lied Bond. “Just give me some warning when you see something big in the road. How far are we from the top?”

“No idea; not much of a road now – just flat bits. I’d call it “no trees”, not a road.”

Terrific, thought Bond.

ZzztZzztZzzt.

Bond ducked behind the box as the three bullets passed by his head in close formation. Crackcrackcrack. The bullets tore through the cab end of the tarpaulin, to the passenger’s side. Bond heard the telltale shattering of glass.

“ that was close…Windscreen’s ed.” Bewick sounded more panicked than before. More sober too, thought Bond. “Looks like it’s flattening out ahead. You want to speed up?”

“No, damn it; keep it as it is. I’ve got to get these bastards off our tail.”

Yes, definitely, that sudden drifting sensation had surely, surely, been a slight drop in the gradient of the bed of the truck. Bond, shifting his right palm around her body to get a better grip, pushed the girl up behind him so that she rested against his back and would have to push him out of the way first if she were to roll out. Releasing her, her blouse patterned with his bloodied palmprint, Bond let his right hand gratefully receive the gun.

The flatbed gently descending, the boxes ceasing their roll, James Bond cupped the barrel in his left palm, drew himself up onto both knees and creasing his face to its most wizened extremity, fired straight – as straight as he could in the bumping of the truck - at the first car.

If anything, noisier than the first time.

Considerably more effective.

Once the sparkled dots had cleared the dancefloor, Bond gazed upon his handiwork and the world was good. The lead Land Rover wobbled on but its threat had been stopped when the force of the shot had relieved the driver of the burden of his head. It now bumped lazily onwards, still coming but directionless; no sign of the other occupants – stunned, deafened or dead, thought Bond. Up and along the car bounced, dead meat on the accelerator, until its front right wheel hit a particularly deep crevice in the track, stopping the front dead. The rear of the car, still moving, propelled itself over, slamming the top into the ground, inevitably crushing whatever might have been left of the occupants.

One down.

Bond cracked both barrels open. He remembered something someone – who? He had forgotten, very probably someone now dead - that however painful a stench cordite is, however redolent of despair and terror, after a successful shot nothing smells sweeter. All the expensive perfumes of the world, all the blissful opiates, are no comparison. Reloading the chambers, he snorted in the white smoke, and felt it run through him. Alive!

PffZzztt. Crack.

Very nearly dead.

The burning bullet sliced across his left cheek, no more than an inch below his eye. The sting and the smell of singed flesh woke him from his bliss. His mind screamed; Come on!

Feeling the flatbed lowering, Bond snapped the barrels back into place and stared out behind him. The second Land Rover had crept around its fallen comrade, the passenger leaning from the left hand side, pistol in hand, jostling up and down as the car bumped along. Perhaps fifty yards behind, but not obviously gaining. Going slowly…was something…?

At the point of raising the gun, Bond studied at the pursuing vehicle. It was not gaining, moving almost deliberately slowly. And the passenger wasn’t aiming at him any more, but leaning out of his window and looking at something below him. Bond glanced to where the man, swatting his arms back and forth uselessly, appeared to be staring. There, hard to see but just behind the front passenger side tyre, a black box, or tin or…

Had they driven over it?

Must have done.

“Bewick!” Bond shouted back over his shoulder. “Stop the truck! Stop the bloody truck!”

“What? We’re nearly at the top.”

“I don’t care. Stop the truck! I need it still! Shove it into neutral! And for Christ’s sake, don’t get out!”

No response, but Bond felt the truck slowing. He decided not to think about how Bewick would be cursing him.

As the truck slowed, Bond decided what he had to do. First, he would have to preserve his advantage, so…

Too late did the passenger, his fingertips just sweeping the side of the fuel canister, spot the man on the now stopped – stopped? Why? – flatbed advance to the little wooden barrier at the lip, raise his gun and fire straight at him. That huge noise and…

Such of the passenger as had been leaning out of window shot backward, cut jaggedly away from the lower body by the force of the blow, and spiralled backwards into the windscreen of the last Land Rover. The last car skidded to a halt, its driver’s head punctured by the half-man’s skull crashing through the screen into his. The last car’s passenger, one Consul Fajeur, leapt out, pistol drawn.

He had no chance to fire it.

Bond had wondered whether the appearance of Fajeur had been some cruel manifestation of the aftershock of firing, but no – there the bastard was. Bond already had his aim on the fuel can under the second car’s wheel, but surely just to raise the shotgun to finish the little brute off…

But what was that Bewick had said?

More trouble than it was worth. And too far away, still. Fajeur would have – what? – six shots with a practical weapon. Bond only had one, with this damned great cannon.

Lucky Fajeur.

Through the enveloping smoke of the discharge, Bond could see Fajeur wandering around his car, edging forwards, gun lowering from beside his cheek to fire…

The truck now still, Bond had fixed his aim on the front passenger side wheel of the nearest Land Rover, braced himself once more, and fired.

As if the sun had suddenly crashed down, calm night switched instantly to roaring day and in the bright yellow glare, as the car disappeared into a typhoon of flame, Bond, falling backwards in the heatshock, saw Fajeur collapse into a clump of the prevalent sweaty ferns that edged the rough track. I damn well hope that hurt, thought Bond. I damn well hope you suffer, you bastard.

For her own good and not just because it made her even more alluring to him, having tethered the dozing Tempest to the heaviest medicine can with three bandages Bond, carrying the gun, clambered down into the heat and skirted the truck, walking clumsily towards the driver’s door. As he stumbled, sputa of greasy flame, fragments of Land Rover doused in burning fuel, shot down at him; meteorites. One hit the tarpaulin, just by the hole he had bitten – had he really done that? – and Bond slammed out the burgeoning fire with his arm, caring not in the need to get away for the pain it caused him. The smell of singed metal, flesh and fuel filled him as he wrenched open the driver’s door.

Bewick looked down at him, sadly. Bitterly, he muttered “Now that’s really done it, mad ing bastard.”

Bond stared at him, hard. Climbing up and thereby forcing Bewick to shift painfully along into the passenger’s seat, he grunted. “Shut up. Move. Need to get out of here.”

Bewick hissed what Bond thought was a comment along the lines of anybody’s chances of getting out of the DIA were now, in his words, ed, but Bond ignored him. Cracking the gun open and placing it at his feet, Bond pushed the gearstick forwards, rammed the accelerator to the floor and the truck jumped forwards. Around, and ahead, the way was lit for them by burning treetops; new streetlamps for DeveronTown.

ZzztFft.

“F---“

Bond looked into the side mirror. Clambering around the crimson shell of the destroyed car, picking his way carefully, pistol raised – Fajeur. Persistent little runt, thought Bond, consciously speeding up. Not persistent enough, as the police officer, still wearing his absurd sash, lowered his gun and faded from view in the orange smoke.

Bond looked to his left. Bewick was sitting oddly, a beatific smile on his face. Bond would have taken this to be the drunk smile of earlier, had it not been for the spreading crimson stain at the man’s right ribcage. Damn – not far enough distant from Fajeur to stop and get bandages from the back.

“Bewick?”

Bewick stared Bond in the face, said nothing. When the movement of the truck rocked him forwards, Bond saw the puncture mark in the tarpaulin just above the seat, and the corresponding hole in Bewick’s back, beginning to pour blood; no more than an inch lower and the cushion would have absorbed the blow. Lucky shot. Lucky Fajeur.

James Bond had seen enough death not to be surprised and not to feel any sorrow. Too bad. Bewick had been useful.

“Sit back,” said Bond, automatically, “it’ll stem the flow.” As the track began to plateau out, and the light of the new fires dimmed behind them, Bond put the truck into neutral and raised his knees to the lower rim of the steering wheel. He pulled his shirt over his head - the sweat of the gunfight having greased the guard’s blood, it came away with only the most minor amounts of body hair and skin – and passed it to Bewick. “Tie this around your waist. Should help too.”

Bewick, dully and quietly in the manner Bond recognised, the manner of a man prepared to accept any idea even though all will be hopeless, a man who knows full well that it is all about to end, did as he was told. Bond retook the wheel and peered forwards as the track began to descend into the forest.

The descent started in silence. Bond checked the door mirror every half minute, but there was nothing behind them save the soft red glow of the taillights against the ferns. He found himself having to concentrate hard; the track was alternatively mud-slippy then crumbly-hard under the tyres and in neither instance ideal. He prayed that the brakes would be up to it. Additionally, frequently, an errant frond whipping out of the darkness into his exposed chest would remind him that the windscreen had gone. The one mercy, he thought, was that the screen had been shot out from the inside; he had crawled through more than enough glass for one day.

Just as the first twinge of pain started up, interrupting his thoughts about how badly Bewick had been hit – it had looked serious – and if the worst were to come to the worst, what to do with the body, Bond heard Bewick’s voice, hoarser than before. Never a good sign.

“You know… Bond…you know you’re covered in blood, don’t you…?”

“Yes,” Bond said, foot feathering the brake pedal and rolling the truck down a steep incline in neutral, feeling pressure against his back from boxes, caskets, maybe even the sleeping girl, falling into the tarpaulin. “I know. Somebody died.”