The Governor swallowed. “What should I do?”
“I can see you already have extra protection around the house. That’s good for a start.”
The Governor nodded. “There are so many guards around here, I can’t keep track of them all.”
“I’ll alert Interpol and see if the letters can be traced. It’s a difficult thing, though. Tomorrow I’ll make a report to London and see what we can do about surveillance. It’s highly likely that you’re being watched. Your phones may even be tapped.”
“Good Lord.”
“The local police know nothing about this?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t involve them just yet. The Union have an uncanny ability to infiltrate law enforcement organizations. Tomorrow let’s go to Government House and file an official report. I’m glad you told me about this. We have orders to gather as much information about the Union as we can.”
“Thank you, James. I knew I could count on you.” He stood up, but the blood had drained from his face. He was clearly frightened. “I think we should rejoin the party.”
“Try not to worry,” Bond said.
They left the study and went back outside. Helena was sitting on a stone bench alone, gazing across the gardens at the house. She gave Bond a warm smile.
“Working, James? I thought we were on holiday,” she said when he joined her.
“We are. Just giving a little professional advice,” he said.
“Really, James, a Japanese woman or a flight hostess?”
Bond laughed. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
Dinner was a magnificent feast consisting of traditional conch chowder, peas ‘n’ rice, Bahamian lobster, Dover sole fillets simmered in white wine, cream, and mustard sauce and topped with shrimp, and pineapple spring rolls with rum crème anglaise for dessert. Helena was in heaven and Bond enjoyed watching her eat. She savored each bite, squeezing out the juices with her cheeks and tongue before chewing and swallowing. She had one of the most sensual mouths Bond had ever kissed.
Afterward they retired to the gardens to enjoy the star-filled night sky along with several other couples. Some of the men were smoking the cigars that one of the servants had passed around. To get away from the crowd, Bond and Helena walked along a dimly lit path that circled the garden and ran around the perimeter of the grounds.
Helena sighed heavily and said, “I don’t want to go back to London.”
“All good things come to an end,” Bond replied.
“Does that mean us, James?”
“Of course not,” he said, “unless you would prefer that. I don’t want to lose the best assistant I’ve ever had.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Look, Helena, you’re a wonderful girl, but you should know me by now. Entanglements can get messy, and I don’t like them. I think while we’re in London we need to tone it down. Being the sensible girl you are, I know that you’ll agree.”
They found themselves at the far end of the expansive lawn, some fifty yards from the house. A ten-foot-high stone fence separated the grounds from the street. They stood beside a toolshed and held each other.
“You’re right, James,” she said. “It’s just that sometimes I dream of a different sort of life. One that borders on the edge of fantasy. My sister in America seems to live a fairy tale existence. She has a husband who adores her and two lovely children, and they live in an area of southern California where the weather is always perfect. She’s always so incredibly happy when I speak to her that I get a little jealous.” She smiled and took his arm. “But you’re right, James. Let’s not get morose. I want to enjoy every last minute of our time here.”
He pulled her chin toward him so that he could kiss her, but her eyes widened and she gasped. “James!”
Bond whipped around to see what had startled her. A body was lying just off the path. The shadows would have completely hidden it had it not been for the moonlight reflecting off pale skin. Bond moved quickly to the corpse and saw that it was Frank, the security guard. He had been stripped of his shirt and white jacket; his throat had been cut, ear to ear. He was lying in a pool of fresh blood.
“Wait here!” he commanded. He turned and sprinted across the lawn toward the house. He heard her call behind him, “James! I’m coming with you!” as he took a shortcut over a set of stone benches surrounding a stone fountain. He ran through the gardens toward the back of the house, searching frantically for the Governor. He found the man’s wife standing beside some guests.
“Where’s your husband?” Bond asked.
Startled, the woman replied, “Why . . . I believe I saw him go upstairs to the office with one of those security men.”
Bond left abruptly, entered the house, bolted up the stairs three at a time, and ran to the open doorway. The former Governor was lying on the floor in a ghastly pool of red. Like the guard, his throat had been slit so fiercely that his head lopped at a grotesque angle. There was no one else in the room, but two distinct footprints in blood led from the body toward the door to another bloody patch on the carpet. The killer had wiped his shoes clean before leaving the office.
Others had made their way up the stairs by this time. Bond was unable to stop the Governor’s wife from glimpsing the horrid sight. She screamed loudly just as Bond pulled her away and slammed the door shut. He told one of the men to call the police and look after her, then he rushed down to the first floor. The bewildered head servant was at the foot of the stairs.
“Did you see a guard come down the stairs?” he barked.
“Yessuh!” Albert said. “He went through the kitchen.”
“Would that lead to the motor scooter you saw earlier?”
Albert nodded furiously. He ushered Bond into the kitchen, where several servants were cleaning up after the huge meal. He then led him into a corridor and pointed to a door at the end.
“That’s the servants’ entrance,” he said. “Go out of the gate and turn left. It was just down the street a bit.”
“Tell the girl I came with to wait for me,” Bond said as he went outside.
He found himself in a small parking area reserved for the servants. He ran to the open gate and peered carefully around to look at the street. Sure enough, a black man dressed in a guard’s white jacket was on an old Vespa motor scooter. He was just beginning to pull away.
“Stop!” Bond shouted. The man looked back at Bond before accelerating down the street. Bond drew his Walther PPK and fired at him but missed. His last chance was to give chase on foot.
The man was a quarter-mile ahead of him. He had turned onto Thompson Boulevard and was headed north through busy traffic.
Bond ran into the street in front of a bus traveling in the same direction. The bus driver slammed on his brakes, throwing several passengers to the floor. The bus still hit Bond hard enough to knock him to the pavement, stunning him slightly. He got up quickly, shook his body, and continued the pursuit.
The Vespa crossed Meadow Street and zipped into the entrance of St. Bernard’s Park, circling around St. Joseph’s Baptist Church. Bond jumped on the hood of a BMW and scrambled over it just in time to see the assassin slam into a street vendor’s kiosk that had been set up at the corner of the park. T-shirts and souvenirs went flying, and the angry proprietor shouted and shook his fist at the driver. The scooter then disappeared into the park.
It was darker off the main road. Bond kept running, panting heavily. Should he risk firing a shot? He could just see the taillight of the scooter some thirty feet ahead. He didn’t want to kill the man. If he had ties to the Union, it was imperative that he be taken alive. The Vespa rounded a turn and was traveling on relatively straight pavement. It could easily speed away if he didn’t stop it now. Carefully aiming the handgun at the scooter’s taillight, he fired once.