‘Silver something . . .’
‘Silver Service.’ Chi-Chi, dressed in a robe, had entered, Frozen Stalk Pu at her elbow.
‘Lady walk about. I bring her straight to you,’ Pu said.
‘Good,’ Brokenclaw gave another of his beaming smiles. ‘Go and bring coffee and more toast for the lady, Pu. You will take breakfast, Jenny? Yes, I may call you Jenny?’
‘Of course, and of course. I guess I must be disorientated. I could have sworn I saw the Blue Ridge Mountains from the windows of the guest suite.’
‘Come on in, darling.’ Bond crossed to her, kissing her cheek. ‘I left you to sleep.’
‘And I awoke and found you gone. So I came looking.’
‘Just in time. Mr Lee has been explaining why you can see the Blue Ridge, but I still don’t understand him. He says we are in a house that does not exist.’
‘Silver Service, Inc. That was on the side of the Gulfstream,’ she said, as though contributing something of immense value. ‘Am I right?’
‘Completely.’ Brokenclaw was still smiling the sly, want-to-know-a-secret smirk. ‘Silver Service, Inc. is a company which can never, never in a hundred years be tied to me. I own it, naturally, but nobody can ever prove that, if only because my name does not appear in any of its records. Like a number of companies I own, much is done on trust. Trust, and, well, I suppose you could say, fear.’
They moved back to the table as Frozen Stalk reappeared, carrying fresh coffee and toast. Lee gave orders to have the chafing dishes checked and asked what Ms Mo would like to eat. She said that toast would be just fine. ‘Toast and some preserves.’
They all took more coffee and, when Pu had left, Brokenclaw carried on his explanation.
‘The house you caught a glimpse of in the early hours of this morning, certainly exists. Silver Service, Inc. makes compact disks – for the young market, for those who have to have loud, discordant music with unbelievable lyrics. The company manages to get through about forty new bands in a year. The run-of-the-mill bands do not last long. However, it also owns, lock, stock, barrel, electronic keyboards and drum machines, four bands who manage to keep turning out albums which please their public so much that they make millions of dollars a year – millions for themselves and millions for Silver Service. The house you saw last night belongs to that company, who rents or sells it to members of one or another of the bands in vogue. If it has been sold, then the company simply buys it back when the band ceases to be financially viable. At the moment, it belongs to a young man called Halman, an odd name and I think not his own, Marty Halman, drummer for a band called Ice Age. He lives in that house, often with several concubines, and a very expensive and serious nasal habit. I believe he’s in residence at the moment, and I fear that Ice Age, who have been chart-toppers for nearly eighteen months, will soon be no more. But, while they last, they make a great deal of money. When they are gone, the house will be bought – I use the word loosely – by another member of one of Silver Service’s top groups, or bands.
‘The house has appeared during TV interviews; it’s even been raided by the police – that was before Mr Halman moved in. It is secluded, though within easy reach of San Francisco. Why, we even moved out the unrepentant Wanda to Sausalito in the early hours of this morning.’
‘But we came in through a great iron-bound door into that magnificent hall,’ Bond protested. Already he had some inkling of what Brokenclaw was telling them, but he would play the naive, amazed member of the audience if only to humour the magician.
‘And if you went to find that door, you would merely see part of Mr Halman’s end wall, with no windows, just the gable end. Of course, the door is there, and I can make it appear at the press of a button, but it is covered by steel and brick. A great slab of steel with a brick façade. A press of the button and the slab moves outwards and upwards. Rarely do we open that entrance during the daytime. We have other exits at the end of each of the long corridors underground.’
‘But the hallway, and . . .’ Bond continued to play being baffled.
‘The hallway exists, but the stairs lead to nowhere. The hallway and my study both exist, but they are as Chinese boxes within the strongly built house where Mr Halman resides. In other words, they are surrounded by quite a large portion of the building you saw last night. The main house is a great deal larger than our false hallway and my study. In fact, by the use of great construction skills, it is almost impossible to detect that our hallway and my study are within the house at all. They are bounded by corridors of their own, even moderately sized servants quarters, and, with some cleverly placed false windows, it would take even a very experienced architect a great deal of time to discover there is “missing space”, as we call it, within the main house.
‘The rest of my building is underground. The views from the windows are achieved with great technical skill. Within the box, that is part of the house, there is a cyclorama, and our somewhat large and expensive home underground is also surrounded by a similar cyclorama. You know what a cyclorama is, Peter?’
‘Yes. A device usually found in theatres.’
‘A curved screen. A large structure. In this case a very large, long curved screen made of cement and covered with the same material used for making wide screens in movie houses.’
‘So those incredible views are somehow projected on . . . ?’ Bond began.
‘In simple, laymen’s terms, yes.’ Now Brokenclaw was smiling like an indulgent parent. ‘But there’s a great deal more to it than that. The detail and movement are recorded by what is a further step in laser technology. You know of the laserdisk principle, I presume?’
They both nodded, Bond thinking that this set-up alone must have cost millions.
‘Well, what you see when you look from the windows and the system is running is really a super, three-dimensionalised laserdisk throwing the images, in great clarity, and in three dimensions on to the cyclorama. If you bothered to stand there for a long time, possibly with a stopwatch, you would see almost the same cycle repeated – car movements, cattle and horses grazing – about once every two hours. However, there are further enhancements. The projections at dusk and dawn can be changed to conform to fifty-nine different patterns, while we can pick random sequences which will alter the weather over a twenty-four hour period. The whole is, naturally, computer controlled.’
‘Naturally,’ Bond murmured.
‘It is all very effective, and I do have some specialised tricks – like the one you saw of seventeenth-century London, Peter.’
‘Oh, I’d like to see that.’ Chi-Chi was as fascinated as Bond by the idea of a house underground, below two areas that were virtually Chinese boxes within the main structure. Brokenclaw could, of course, come and go as he pleased if this place was his central headquarters.
‘Well, I’ll show it to you, Jenny.’ Brokenclaw rose, obviously enjoying the display. But, as he stood, there was a brisk knocking at the door.
‘Come,’ he called, as pleasantly as ever.
Bone Bender Ding stood in the doorway. ‘We have the spy bitch’s father here, sir.’ His face was wreathed in the most unpleasant gold-toothed grin that Bond had seen for a long time.
Brokenclaw turned to Bond and Chi-Chi, ‘Please excuse me, this will not take long. Just eat your breakfast and I’ll show you how we discourage people from turning against us. Bring him in,’ he ordered, his voice giving no sign of anger.
Tony Man Song Hing, for they knew immediately who this man must be, was almost hurled into the room, falling in front of Brokenclaw sprawling on his knees. He was out of breath and there was a fresh, bloody bruise on the right side of his cheek. He was a small man and next to Brokenclaw he seemed even smaller.