It was then that he heard the sigh. At first he thought it was the girl, but unless she had crawled out on to the balcony it was too close. Bond switched off the light and moved along the wall to the balcony. Still in shadow, he peered out. At first there seemed to be nothing - and then, a hand. Knuckles straining white as they clung desperately to the bottom of one of the railings of the balustrade. Another bloodstained hand dragged itself like a half-crushed spider towards the M14, lying like a tempting prize beneath the guard rail. Bond’s blind shot must have wounded the man. He had tried to scramble back along the balconies to the corner of the building and slipped. Now, like a good professional, he was trying to save his life and take Bond’s. An elbow found a precarious perch on the parapet and the hand clawed forward towards the butt of the gun. Bond could see the clenched teeth, the intense ruckling of the brow. There was a smell of cordite and sweat in the air - the sweat that a man gives off when he is close to death. The man’s fingers brushed against the gun and then, in a desperate flurry of movement, sought to scratch it backwards to where it could be seized. As a background to the spectacle the distant pianist offered up a medley of Rodgers and Hart numbers.
Bond could not help feeling admiration for the single- minded purpose of the man who had been sent to kill. He was trying to do his job. Bond stepped out on the balcony as the man’s hand finally closed about the gun. Their eyes met for the fraction of a second that can be an infinity and Bond fired mice. The man disappeared as if tugged from below. There was a pause and then the sound of shattering glass and a reverberating thump extending into a long, jangling discord. Then a woman screaming. Bond went to the parapet and looked down. There was an untidy hole in the conservatory roof and the body of the assassin could be seen spread-eagled across the grand piano. The screams increased in intensity and lights began to go on. Inspired by the arrival of her unexpected accompanist the woman was having hysterics.
Bond ducked back into the bedroom and switched on the light. This time, the police would be called. He had to move fast. Felicca was lying with her face in a pillow and for a moment he thought that she was dead. Her face was grey and her whole body seemed to have shrunk. It was as if the bullet had punctured her spectacular buoyancy. Now she looked like another person. Vulnerable, defeated.
Maybe I was wrong about you, thought Bond. Maybe you do love Fekkesh. Maybe that is why you got involved, and found yourself getting out of your depth. One thing is for certain: the water is closing over your head.
Bond held the girl’s' shoulder and pressed his mouth to her ear. His voice was low and urgent. ‘Felicca. Where is Fekkesh?’ No answer, but the mouth trembled. ‘I may be able to help him to stay alive. That man won’t be alone. There’ll be others. They’re probably after him now.’
A tear formed in the girl’s eye and rolled slowly down her check. Who was she crying for? Herself? Fekkcsh? The world of greed and hatred, and people like James Bond? Bond squeezed her shoulder and despised himself. The girl was dying, dammit! He should be ringing for a doctor, not prising her secrets out of her.
‘Tell me. I can save him.’
The girl’s mouth opened and closed like that of a dying fish. ‘He is meeting someone. At the pyramids. Son-et -'
Her head fell sideways and Bond felt the life rush from the body. He laid her back against the cushions and rose swiftly to wash the blood from his hands.
Death of a Salesman
‘You have come tonight to the most fabulous and celebrated place in the world ..
The male voice was cold and almost condescending. With the assistance of fourteen loudspeakers it began to swell dramatically. ‘Here, on the plateau of Gizeh, stands for ever the mightiest of human achievements. No traveller - emperor, merchant or poet - has trodden on these sands and not gasped in awe.’
Like a gas-jet being turned up, light slowly flooded the eastern face of the Pyramid of Cheops. There was an obedient and reverential murmur from the serried rows of tourists as their heads tilted back and their eyes rose four hundred and fifty-five feet into the night sky.
All the tourists except one.
Major Anya Amasova, sitting at the end of the fifth row with an empty seat beside her, took advantage of the sudden burst of light to check that the two men assigned to her by General Nikitin were in position. They were. Standing, it seemed to her, self-consciously, at either diagonal of the audience. They were both looking up at the enormous, overpowering structure, taking advantage of the unexpected history lesson. Instantly, they were snatched from view as the lighting changed, throwing the pyramid into silhouette.
‘The curtain of night is about to rise and disclose the stage on which the drama of a civilization took place ..
Anya looked at her watch. Fekkesh was late.
To the left, the Sphinx slowly appeared as if illuminated by the first rays of dawn. There was an admiring gasp from the audience in which Anya found herself joining. It was impossible not to be moved in these surroundings. Disconcertingly so. She should not have agreed to this meeting place.
‘With each new dawn I see the Sun-god rise on the banks of the Nile. His first ray is for my face, which is turned towards him.'
Bond stood in the shadows, listening to the neutered voice of the Sphinx and wondering if the Pharaoh Chephren had really talked like that. Still, the sculptors and the metteurs en scéne of the son-et-lumiére must know best. There was certainly something sexually ambiguous about the Sphinx.
When light permitted, Bond sorted through the rows of tourists looking for Fekkesh. Only the beautiful, erect girl in the fifth row did not seem to belong to a tour party. Poor devils, he thought, Cairo, Giza, Memphis, El Amarna, Abydos, Luxor, Kamak, Assuan. Five thousand years of history in three weeks, two donkey rides and a bout of gastro-enteritis.
‘... and for five thousand years I have seen all the suns men can remember come up into the sky ..The girl in the fifth row was worth concentrating on. It was impossible to see her clearly but there was a quality of luminosity about her that drew her forward from the lumpy women with clumsy cardigans draped round their sunburnt shoulders. But maybe this was not the best time to be a girl watcher. Similarly placed to himself were two men wearing lightweight suits that looked as if they had been made out of cardboard boxes. They appeared uncomfortably out of place - like Toby Mugs amongst Dresden Shepherdesses. They looked like the kind of failed Bulgarian weightlifters that Redland recruited to eliminate • enemies of the State. Maybe they were friends of the man on the concert grand who would never find anyone to play a duet with him.
Bond was concentrating on the two men when he saw something that made him draw back into the shadows. As a patch of light hit the Pyramid of Chephren, a small man with hunched shoulders appeared on the other side of the audience from Bond. His head started nodding as he counted the rows of seats. Bond could not be certain but he thought he recognized the face he had seen in the photograph at the flat.